The template building thread - VE Pro

[Johannet]

I'd like this thread to be a collection of tips & tricks and a discussion for building orchestral templates in VE Pro.

How do you spread the load among instances?

Where do you put in the reverb?

How do you setup levels?

Here is a description of my setup in Logic 9.

In Logic i use Multitimbral instruments to connect to a Multi-Output VE Pro instance. Each channel handles one instrument.

I put VSL - Woodwinds and Brass in one 64-Bit Instance each.

Other instruments go into 32-Bit instances, which are grouped by sections.

Two percussion instances. One Brass instance. One Woodwind instance. One instance for miscellaneous instruments.

I use two instances for handling LASS Strings. Each Section: A, B, C, First Chair and Full Ensemble get their own track, with articulations switched by keyswitches. Because of the 16-Channel limitation, i put Violins in one instance and the other strings in another.

Kontakt has the memory server enabled, so i don't have to worry about memory.

All "dry" instruments have two sends, "Early Reflections" and "Tail" which go to their own output unprocessed except for volume changes. In Logic i then send these Outputs to appropriate Depth Busses and apply Altiverb reverb.

All in all i have 6 Altiverb instances. All the three depths in my setup have one instance for early reflections and one for the reverb tail.

Unfortunately, Logic doesn't spread the Altiverb instances over my 8-cores, but seems to do all their processing on one core, which reults in crackles and dropouts when instruments from all three depths are playing. I could put Altiverb into the 32-Bit instances of VE Pro but i wouldn't be able to handle all my instruments and would need more than the 6 instances i use currently. Any suggestions?

I'd love hear about your setups.

[jammusique]

Sounds like your setup is something that I'd like to soon have. How many different computers are you using?

[christophertin]

This is impressive.  So you're running everything on one machine, right?

And also, forgive my noob question, but does each instance just have 16 instruments on it?  Or is there a way to have more than just 16 MIDI channels per instance?

I'm about to dive into creating a VE Pro template, and just looking for some guidelines about limitations before I do.

[Johannet]

The template is running on a single Mac Pro 8-Core 2,83 Ghz, 14GB ram. I am thinking about adding more ram, though, i am very close to using it all.

Each instance has a maximum of 16 channels / instruments. I think it is a limitation of the AU plugin format. Although one could add more instruments by keyswitching (or something similar). For example, i have 3 oboes and 1 english horn in my setup. I could use one track for the third oboe and the english horn and switch when one or the other is used.

But i like to have all instruments available immediately.

[christophertin]

Fascinating!  Yes, that's how I like to have it set up too.  A massive template with all my instruments preloaded onto separate tracks, so everything's easily recallable without load times.

So how many instruments altogether are you able to get in your template then?  I counted 10 instances... maxed out, does that mean 160 loaded instruments?

I'm about to reconfigure my studio, and am trying to decide whether there's some strategic advantage in going with a farm of Minis, as opposed to a few Octocore towers.

[Johannet]

There are 9 instances of VE Pro which host all instruments except a Garritan Steinway Piano, which doesn't work in VE Pro.

Not all instances have 16 instruments.

All in all, i have 104 tracks. A few percussion patches have more than one instrument per patch, so it isn't really 104 instruments, but a little bit more.

Keep in mind that load times are extreme. When you have dedicated computers for your template, you are fine. But for me, i use the computer for everything and have to load the template every time i want to use it. The load time right now is about 25 minutes.

[christophertin]

Ah, good point.  So then the advantage of say, having 4 Minis with 4 GBs of RAM each, as opposed to one Octocore with 16 Gigs, would be that the 4 Minis would load up in the quarter of the time.  Interesting point.

It also sounds like you're using a lot of keyswitched instruments and such too.  I personally like having every articulation on a different track.  Right now I've got 8 Gigas, each with a 64 track template--that equates to 512 instruments loaded.  So for example, I have 4 different Espressivo Strings tracks, 4 different Staccato Strings, etc, 2 pizzicatos, etc.

However, since each instance of VE Pro is limited to just 16 channels, unless I want to have 32 audio instruments in Logic corresponding to 32 instances of VE Pro on farm computers, I need to find a better way to route all my audio.

[Beat Kaufmann]

@christophertin said:

... I personally like having every articulation on a different track...

Hi Christophertin

Why do you this "splitting up"? I often have up to 10-12 different articulations per instrument. For  15 Instruments (Chamber Orchestra) it means around 150 tracks?

How to keep the overview?

Best

Beat Kaufmann

[christophertin]

@christophertin said:

... I personally like having every articulation on a different track...

Hi Christophertin

Why do you this "splitting up"? I often have up to 10-12 different articulations per instrument. For  15 Instruments (Chamber Orchestra) it means around 150 tracks?

How to keep the overview?

Best

Beat Kaufmann

It's just the way I'm used to working.  I started doing this back in the days of Roland and E-Mu samplers, before keyswitches came about.  It makes life easier for orchestrators, too.

And besides, in any given piece, I rarely have more than 5 or 6 articulations for each instrument, and I don't always use every instrument.  It's really not all that messy.

[G.R. Baumann]

Hi, just a thought. Did you consider to send the Mac into sleep mode instead of shutting down, of course with your template loaded that is. I would give that a try rather than dealing with such mega boot cycle every day.