Hello to everyone. I´m glad to join this forum.
Please correct me if I´m wrong, but as it was said earlier, VE loaded as plugin works just in one instance. More instances and logic crashes at startup. So it´s useless for full orchestra works. So is someone really using VE in Mac?
It seems to me that is better to keep working with VI inside Logic than routing the standalone instances of VE. Any light on this issue would be very helpfull.
Thanks
Max Zegers
-
VE and Logic
-
Max:
It is true (in my experience, apparently confirmed by the reports of others on this forum) that, in the present iteration (11/8/07) of the OSX version of VE, instantiating more than one instance of VE as a plugin in Logic makes it impossible to reopen the file - - unless one unistalls VE first. However this still allows one to have 16 channels each with a different matrix - - or set of matrices - - in that one instance.
One can, in addition, simultaneously run standalone instances of VE, each with its own set of 16 channels - - since each standalone inhabits a a separate memory partition from every other and all of these memory partitions are separate from that inhabited by the VE plugin. Theoretically - - although I have not tested this -- one could simultaneously instantiate multiple instances of VI as a plugin within Logic, since VI inhabits still another separate memory partition.
The only limitation here would be the amount of RAM and available computing power - as well as having a way to route audio back into Logic from the standalones. With RME interfaces this possible by routing of the appropriate outputs to the appropriate inputs in software, with MOTU interfaces this is possible by physically routing (via an ADAT cable) the output of one ADAT bank into the input bank of another ADAT bank. In either case, one would designate the the hardware input channels as the inputs to an AUX channel within Logic. (I am currently using a MOTU 2408 in the manner described with no problems.)
Some users have reported success using the freeware application JackOSX in place of the hardware solutions I've described. However, I attempted to use similar software, Cycling 74's SoundFlower, for this purpose, but abandoned its use because of frequent digital artifacts (clicks and pops).
The bottom line here would seem to be that since one can use the VE plugin and VE standlone(s) simultaneously - - and, most likely, multiple instantiations of VI (simultaneously with the instantiation of one VE instance and mutiple standalones) one could load a vast number of instruments - - as long as one has sufficient RAM and processing power. VE standalones also have the advantage of being completely separate from Logic, so that one can keep one's templates open while opening and closing Logic files without the necessity of reloading samples common to multiple files.
One last point: it appears, according to my tests, that OS 10.5.1 is superior in its memory management capabilities to OS 10.4.11: Activity Monitor reports that opening a VE template containing multiple matrices under OS 10.5.1 leaves significantly more free RAM than loading the same template under OS 10.4.11. Conversely, OS 10.5.1 seems to consume somewhat more processing power than does OS 10.4.11.
I hope this is helpful.
-
Well summarized, Stephen.
I lost VE four times in about a month. Each go-round required a dodgy revalidation of VE (though Logic continued to report VE as "successfully validated" after each crash). Perhaps uninstalling VE is less necessary than a revalidating within Logic, but I can't prove that. I had to cut my losses and redistribute the VE templates to individual plug-in VI's in Logic.
I'm sure VSL will solve it.
-
VE whether set as a plugin in Logic 8 or running as a standalone has not crashed or caused a crash on my computer - - except when I instantiated more than one instance of VE in a file. As noted in my earlier postings, when I instantiated more than one instance of VE in a file it became impossible to reopen the file. The workaround for this is to uninstall VE from the startup drive, then open the file and use VI instances to replace the missing VE instances and save the file. Then one can reinstall VE.
It is possible that, because, after installing VE, I immediately rebuilt the startup drive's directory with Alsoft's Diskwarrior (always starting from the DiskWarrior CD), I avoided some of other problems have been reported here. (As I keep saying on these forums, DiskWarrior is THE essential Mac Utility and seems able to fix otherwise inexplicable problems that are not detected by any other utilities. As I also keep saying, I am not an Alsoft employee, just a very satisfied customer.)
Another point, at least on my dual 2.5GHz G5, VE appears (according to Activity Monitor) to consume more processing power than Logic when the same set of matrices are loaded. Loading 13 matrices that include 4 legato performance instruments in VE + one instance of Altiverb produced some processor overloads during playback (since I have 7GB of RAM, I had plenty of free RAM).
Loading the same matrices as VI instances within Logic 8 + one instance of Altiverb and one instance of Ozone 3 produced no similar problems. However, it is not trivial that these results were conditioned by the fact that Finale 2008 was running simultaneously - - in both cases, I was using Finale 2008 as the MIDI source for VE and for Logic 8.
The reason this is important is that Finale 2008 is a processor hog - - using 80-90% of one processor (according to Activity Monitor) during MIDI playback. It is also true that Finale 2008, like all previous versions of Finale, is not multi-processor aware. Thus it would appear that the fact that I was running Finale 2008 simultaneously with VE was a significant factor in producing processor overload on my machine. It seems highly likely that if I were running Logic 8 as the MIDI source and Finale 2008 was not running at all, I would not have encountered this problem. It seems equally probable that if one were using a 4 or 8 processor machine there would not be any processor overload problems even when Finale 2008 was running as the MIDI source.
-
Hello Maya,
I hope you don't mind my asking but are you also investigating the problems with Logic crashing when trying to load VE as a plug-in?
In my case this crash is not avoidable despite everything I tried so far. So I can't use VE as a plug-in.
I work in Logic 7.2.3 and my Mac is a Quad PPC with OSX 10.4.10.
Greetings,
Gerard
-
Steve, I´m very gratefull for your help. I´m working with and apogee rossetta 800 with x-symphony card in a 2.6 + 8 GB intel mac. Still not made the upgrade to Logic 8 and 10.5. I'll try to figure out the possibilities of routing of my rossetta. Thanks again and the best for you. Max