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  • (RESOLVED) VE Pro missing CC changes with Cubase 5.5 VST3

    Description:
    When there are numerous CC messages that occur at the same or similar times, VE Pro is missing some of them.

    How to recreate (REVISED 8/5/2012):
    1)Open VE Pro Server
    2)Create an instance
    3)Create 4 Kontakt VSTi's (I've used Kontakt 3.5 and Kontakt 5) with each one on a different port
    4)Load 16 blank instruments into each Kontakt instance (one per channel)
    5)In a sequencer (I used Cubase 5.5.2), copy and paste a midi part that defines CC1 onto a track for each instrument (4 ports x 16 instruments)
    6)Enable the midi monitor script on one of the first instruments (click the wrench icon, then script editor, then Preset->Factory->Utilities->Midi Monitor)

    7)Enable the midi monitor script on one of the last instruments (e.g., port 4 channel 16)

    8)Play the part in the sequencer
    9)The early channels will receive the CC1 message, but the later ones will not. Upon further analysis, approximately the first 40 instruments will receive the CC1 message, but the others won't.

    Fortunately, this problem only occurs when you have around 40 simultaneous CC messages, which is rare. However, it is a problem because in my projects, I initialize all tracks with copied and pasted CC messages, which means not all the parts are getting initialized with VE Pro. Also, for sequencers that backtrack to the previous CC setting (e.g. midi chase in Cubase), they send numerous simultaneous CC messages, which means these chase feastures won't work with a large VE Pro template.

    Workaround:
    Breakup a large template in a single instance into multiple instances. The limit on simultaneous CC's appears related to individual instances, not to the entire server. However, this of course requires additional audio channels, and is less efficient. This still doesn't work perfectly because I am still getting lost messages, but it is much less.

    Can someone please confirm this bug? I have tested it quite thoroughly on 2 different machines, so I'm hoping it can get fixed.

    SOLUTION UPDATE: For others with this problem, the solution is to use Cubase 6.5 instead of 5.5.


  • By the way, this is for VE Pro 4.0.6150 64-bit.

  • Actually, this is worse than I thought. Even with a single part, Kontakt is missing quite a few CC1 messages. I'm going to try rolling back to an older version.

  • Ignore the second bug post, I'm not sure about its cause yet. However, I rolled back to 5346, and the original bug (the first post) still occurs. It appears that if more than some threshold of midi events occur at the same time, all additional events are dropped.

  • Bump

  • Hi gs_vsl,

    sorry for the delay, there´s a lot going on these days. To accelerate this, please send a Cubase Project to , so that we can reproduce this quickly.

    Thanks, 

    Paul


    Paul Kopf Product Manager VSL
  • Thanks for the reply. I'm out of town, but I'll send the project this weekend.

  • I am still having this problem with the latest version of VE Pro. I also tested it with Kontakt 5 instead of 3.5 and the problem still occurs. Even worse, the problem doesn't seem to just be related to numerous messages at the exact same time. If I draw a bunch of CC changes over a short time, some of them will not show up in my midi monitor within VE Pro. This suggests that messages are in fact being lost between Cubase and VE Pro. If I load Kontakt directly in Cubase, the messages are not lost. Has anyone else experienced this problem? I communicated with support previously but they were not able to recreate the problem and it is causing me major problems because I get non-deterministic playback due to various messages getting lost. When I get a chance, I will post Kontakt multis and a Cubase file for others to test.

  • i have the same problem with samplemodelling instruments (running in kontakt 4 or 5 in ve pro). i play this instrumentms via windcontroller which means there are a really lot of cc data (cc2). playing four monophonic instruments over ve pro (on the same macpro) is all what is possible. inside logic there's no missing cc-data problem, but there are cpu spikes (which isn't the case inside ve pro). nothing is perfect ;-)

  • I downloaded VE Pro 5 and confirmed that the same thing is occuring. In fact, VE Pro 5 is losing more data than VE Pro 4. With VE Pro 4, I would lose data after 40 instruments. With VE Pro 5, only the first 32 instruments receive anything.

    As a further test, I soloed all the instruments after the first 32, and then the CC were received for those tracks (likely because there was less CC data being sent). This strongly suggests that VE Pro has a problem with numerous CC messages that occur at the same or similar times.


  • last edited
    last edited

    @Saxer said:

    i have the same problem with samplemodelling instruments (running in kontakt 4 or 5 in ve pro). i play this instrumentms via windcontroller which means there are a really lot of cc data (cc2). playing four monophonic instruments over ve pro (on the same macpro) is all what is possible. inside logic there's no missing cc-data problem, but there are cpu spikes (which isn't the case inside ve pro). nothing is perfect ;-)
     

    This sounds like a different problem. My CPU usage on these tests is around 4% and CC data is being lost. In some cases, it is losing sustain pedal messages when they occur close to other CC changes. I'm ok with imperfection, but this makes it nearly impossible to work. I have to play things back and hope nothing important is lost.


  • Could you drop an e-mail to  with a link to this forum thread? That way I can handle it as a proper support case. I'm really not sure what could cause it at this point, since VE Pro simply passes on MIDI messages without alterations.


  • I reported the problem. I hate to speculate, but is it possible there is a buffer that overflows when receiving too much midi data in a short time? If the data isn't showing up in Kontakt, that suggests it is being lost between Cubase and Kontak (i.e. Ve Pro). I initially thought it was Cubase, but if I load Kontakt directly, there are no lost messages.

    Also, I have tried all buffer sizes in addition to various combinations of midi ports and audio ports amounts. Thanks for the help.


  • A buffer overrun is quite unlikely, as VE Pro can take a ridiculously high amount of MIDI messages per processing block. What could be happening is some sort of buffer limitation in the VST3 implementation on the Cubase side.


  •  If anyone else wants to test it, here are some project files:

    (removed)

    Here are the instructions I sent to support:

    "I attached a Cubase project with identical clips on 16 tracks across 4 different ports (you might want to check that the channel and port setting were preserved). Each clip sets 4 different CCs at the same time. There is one VST3 VE Pro instance in the project that will likely be disconnected. Next, create an instance on the VE Pro Server and load 4 Kontakt instances across 4 ports. Load the attached Kontakt multi (monitor.nkm) in each Kontakt instance, which contains 16 empty instruments with the midi monitor script enabled. Connect the instance in Cubase and everything should be ready to go.

    In each instrument in Kontakt, you can monitor the received CC messages as described in the thread (I suggest enabling verbose mode so you can see the entire log). If you check the instruments on the first two ports, they will receive all the messages. If you check the instruments on the last port, they will not receive the messages. On VE Pro 5, I received the messages on the first 2 ports, but not the last 2. On VE Pro 4, I received the messages on some of the instruments on port 3, but not port 4."


  • I downloaded the Cubase 6.5 demo, and I am not having the problem. I extended the test to include 8 ports with 16 instruments each, with 4 separate CC changes at the exact same time in each track. I haven't verified all 8x16 Kontakt monitor scripts, but the ones in the 8th port are receiving the data! This strongly suggests the problem was in fact with Cubase. It is strange that nobody every noticed this with Cubase 5.5, but at least it works now.