VEP dropouts, clicking...

[Felix L W]

I just installed VEP on both my main MacPro and on my slave MacPro.  The connections seem to work but I experience audio dropouts and clicking/stuttering as if the CPU is maxed out.   Even when I play the Epic Orchestra demo song (logic midi file plays on Master Mac and Epic Orchestra is on the slave where the Epic Orchestra library is installed) it has dropouts and crackling/stuttering.

Since I am totally new to VEP and audio/midi distributing I suppose I haven't set up my MAC's properly?  Or what can be wrong here?

Thanks!

[Paul]

Hi Felix,

Did you check the multiprocessing settings in the VE PRO preferences? You should set them to all available threads per instance, to start with. There ´s more information in the VE PRO manual!

Would also be interesting to know which OS you are working with, which sequencer, which soundcard and settings....

Best,

Paul

[Felix L W]

Thank you for your advice!

I sat down yesterday and changed the threads on my Slave Mac from 2 to 4.  I played around with different settings (virtual instruments) and it seemed to work fine.  Although I noticed three audio drop outs during my three hours of checking out VEP.

This morning I turned my system on again to start working and there was the same 'Problem': dropouts and crackling noises. My setting from yesterday (4 threads on the slave Mac) was still the same.

I tested again with different Virtual Instruments and it seemed that when I had an instance of VEP loaded with several Omnisphere tracks the Problem was still there but it wasn't that strong.

When I set up a VEP instance with the Epic Orchestra Demo (without the Vienna Suite installed) and converted it to Vienna Instruments Pro and turned the individual reverbs on, dropouts and crackling noises where constant.

It seemed to get worse when I used several tracks of Kontakt 4 player in a VEP instance.

@Paul said:

Would also be interesting to know which OS you are working with, which sequencer, which soundcard and settings....

-Both master and Slave are Mac Pro's.  The Master has OS 10.6.6. with 12GB of Ram  and the Slave has OS 10.6.8. with 8 GB of Ram

-My Sequencer is Logic Pro 9.1.5.

-Soundcard which is on the Master Mac is Apogee Rosetta 800 (part of the Apogee Symphony System)

-What settings are you referring too?

Thank you!

[Paul]

Hi Felix, 

The latency settings in your soundcard would be interesting. Did you try to change these to higher settings already?

Best, 

Paul

[Felix L W]

Hi Paul,

are you referring to the I/O buffer settings in Logic?  I changed those from 64 to 128 but the problem still exists.  I didn't experience any latency issues on the slave (note delays etc.) to begin with.  It all looks/sounds like as if the CPU is maxed out but the CPU meter on the VEP instance fluctuates only between 20% and 70%.  The fewer tracks in an instance of VEP the less the dropouts/stuttering it seems.  Could I have a wrong network setting between master and slave?

Thank you!

[Paul]

Hello Felix, 

Did you try with a higher latency setting like 256 or 512?

Best, 

Paul

[civilization 3]

@Felix L W said:

Could I have a wrong network setting between master and slave?

You could, you could have dynamic IP.

[Felix L W]

Thank you! 

It looks like that setting the Macs to a static IP has helped!

[J111111]

Besides setting the IP manually on the Mac, is there anything else you need to set for it to be a Static IP? Because I set this on my Mac and I still get dropouts. I have 2 Mac's going through a Linksys Gigabit switcher (5 port) is there something in the switcher that needs to be set? Thanks for any help!

[Paul]

Hello J111111, 

Did you try to connect the computers directly, simply with a LAN cable?

Just to rule out that the Linksys switch has something to do with this. 

Best, 

Paul

[DG]

Just to add to what Paul; asked, does your switch come under the heading of a "Green" switch? If so this can also cause problems, so it might be worth trying a different switch, if you absolutely need to have a switch, rather than connecting the computers directly to one another.

Just to be absolutely sure:

1. Have you disabled any other networks on either computer?
2. Have you disabled any wireless connections?

DG

[J111111]

Thank you for your help! It's the Linksys EG005W v.3 (5 port) giga bit switcher. It doesn't say anything about it being green.. Do you know? A friend of mine uses the same one and doesn't experience drop outs... I have to use the switcher because I also use MoL Cp3 to connect to my PC's that host giga studio etc. Question: My 2 Mac Pro's have 2 ethernet ports. Is it okay (or would it be problematic) to use Port 1 for switcher/MoL and Port 2 to connect my 2 macs together? **only my Macs have VEP server on them. I've gone through every combination of settings possible software wise and still i've had drop outs for over a year. I'm really thinking its a hardware issue... any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!! (btw - VE-Pro is AMAZING :) )

[DG]

Well you should test without MOL and only one Ethernet port active to make sure that things work well. Then gradually add in the other stuff. That way you will find out where the problem really is.

DG

[J111111]

@DG said:

Well you should test without MOL and only one Ethernet port active to make sure that things work well. Then gradually add in the other stuff. That way you will find out where the problem really is.

I remember doing this test last year, and the drop out still happened. I recall I just had 1 instrument loaded with 1 instance of VEP going to an empty template of DP7. And it still dropped out...

I'll do the test again and see, but what could it be if the drop outs continue even with this bare bone setup?

Thanks for any help!! ~J