Hopefully VSL will offer a fix via a VE-Pro 5 update. 

Thanks for the link.  Yes, my interpretation of that is that is exactly as my previous post.  Unless you're pushing things to the absolute limit or if you are very stretched on resources, you should be fine with multi-timbral.  I see no reason for those who have templates and workflows using multitibral to change things.

We're kinda off topic at this point - VE Pro falls over on standard settings with just two instances containing one instrument.each.

Would be very curious to hear reports of anyone using VE Pro 4 - I understand that works much better.

I have disabled ASIOguard on my system at home. I have duplicate setups at my studio and at home: each location has a host PC (HP 810) running a VEP server + Cubase Pro 8 and a slave PC (Dell 7500) running another VEP server. There is only differences between the 2 locations are the audio interfaces: my studio setup has the Fireface UC RME (USB), and at home I have the Yamaha MR816CSX (firewire).

Every week I work some in the studio and some at home (I sync my projects through Google Drive & Dropbox). My work is all MIDI, and I have around 500 MIDI tracks in my template (organizational folders and group/fx tracks push the track count to 900+).

At my studio, I left ASIOguard running - default after Cubase 8 upgrade. Everything ran just fine there, but when opening the same project at home, I experienced dropouts and crackles. As soon as ASIOguard was disabled at home, everything was perfect.

As a side note, I found a utility for the MR816CSX that increased the firewire buffer of the unit. The factory setting buffer size is set to "small!"

Hopefully, that helps someone or provides another thing to look at when troubleshooting.

A couple of additional thoughts.....

It has been reported by several users that VE PRO 4 does not have this ASIO Guard 2 problem.  

I can say in my giant template when I switch from various non-VE PRO 5 instrument tracks I do not have any delayed sound issues at all.....only when switching to or from various VE PRO 5 instruments.   Switching to different midi tracks on the same VE PRO 5 instrument is fine, the problem happens when you switch do a different VE PRO 5 instantiation.

Another major issue when I have ASIO Guard 2 on is that I get huge 100% ASIO spikes often when a tempo change happens.  I still think this is related to something in VE PRO 5 as many of us have discussed tempo change problems that cause CPU spikes when using Cubase/VE PRO 5/and usually Kontakt.

Hopefully they can get this sorted out soon.

Hello everybody, 

Just a quick update that we are looking at Cubase 8 and the interaction with VE PRO.
We also hope that we can offer a solution there, it´s not a trivial task. 

Will keep you up to date!

Best, 
Paul

@Paul said:

Hello everybody, 

Just a quick update that we are looking at Cubase 8 and the interaction with VE PRO.
We also hope that we can offer a solution there, it´s not a trivial task. 

Will keep you up to date!

Best, 
Paul

Thanks Paul, I know many of us will be greatly appreciative.

Might VE Pro 4 a temporary solution for us, btw?

We have had a look into the situation with C8 and VEP, and currently there is nothing we can do about it, more than report our findings to Steinberg. When switching tracks in Cubase, the plugin can receive a new buffer size, and since VEPro has an inherent latency which is buffer-dependent, VEPro will have to report its new latency to Cubase. Cubase immediately responds to this by reconfiguring its audio engine - causing a pause in audio.

Logic Pro (and other software which is using variable-sized buffers) do not immediately reconfigure the engine when switching tracks during playback, which allows for uninterrupted playback. We will recommend Steinberg to implement a similar scheme.

I am looking into this together with a Steinberg developer right now, and hopefully we can find a solution.

Until then, I can offer a workaround to disable ASIO Guard for VEPro manually. You can do this by going to:

[Menu] > Devices > Plug-in Manager > VST Instruments > Vienna Ensemble Pro > Click "i" for Plug-in information > Click to set ASIO Guard to Inactive. 

Please perform this operation on ALL VEPro Instrument and Fx plugins. Then also Audio Input plugins will work properly.

@MS said:

I am looking into this together with a Steinberg developer right now, and hopefully we can find a solution.

 

Until then, I can offer a workaround to disable ASIO Guard for VEPro manually. You can do this by going to:

[Menu] > Devices > Plug-in Manager > VST Instruments > Vienna Ensemble Pro > Click "i" for Plug-in information > Click to set ASIO Guard to Inactive. 

Please perform this operation on ALL VEPro Instrument and Fx plugins. Then also Audio Input plugins will work properly.

I have tried your suggestion and it does improve the dropped out audio when switching tracks but the processor drop was so minimal because most of my template involves intances of VE PRO 5. The bigger issue for me is that even with your suggestion with ASIO Guard 2 on with VE PRO 5 I can not export audio with out a serious error and a crash from Cubase.

So I guess there is no benefit if your projects run 90% VE PRO and ASIO guard 2 is turned of for this instruments?

I also guess that Steinberg isn't going to change their audio engine any soon.....

Are their any updates about this issue?

Regards,

Martijn 

Steinberg apparently think they fixed their end in 8.0.20, though its not in the versions history and lots of people seem to think its still an issue.  I can't check for a while - what are others finding, and what do you think at VSL?

Bump for this - what's the word from you, VSL?  Should the latest VE Pro build work ok, or is there another to come?

I'm very curious about this as well. Unfortunately, it's a fairly major bug for those of us on Cubase 8 at the moment.

Hello everybody, 

No changes there, and unfortunately nothing that can be done on our side, as it seems. 

Best, 
Paul

Thanks Paul.  I've asked Steinberg if they'll talk to you direct as they've closed the case and said (effectively) their end is fixed and now it's up to you guys.  It's one of those situations where we end users are caught in the middle, would be grateful if you can both figure out a better solution for us all.

I hope this is not the case since Steinberg is now saying the problem is most likely on Vienna's end as they say they have fixed the issue on their end.

Can you please explain why this only happens with VE PRO 5 and why this can not be fixed?  I get that Cubase has to adjust the additional buffer settings for VE PRO 5 that are not in other plugins, but is that really the issue here?

@Paul said:

Hello everybody, 

No changes there, and unfortunately nothing that can be done on our side, as it seems. 

Best, 
Paul

Posted on Steinberg's forum today...

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Hi, 

Thanks for that info, I wasn´t aware of that at all. 

To speed up the research I can do to prepare this for a deeper investigation by our developers, could you please send some short Cubase 8 songs (as zip files) to support@vsl.co.at and include a description on how to reproduce the problems you are having, with a description of the settings you are using (screenshots will also be fine). 

I´ll work through those with the latest versions of Cubase 8 and VE PRO asap. 

Thanks, 
Paul

Grateful for your attention, Paul - this was first reported back in January and it's pretty debiliating to pro composers.  I'm away from base for specific files, but here's the steps to reproduce I posted in the original Steinberg thread:

SYSTEM

Win 7 64 bit SP1 Aero on, i7 4930, RME Babyface, 64gb RAM, Cubase 8.0.0 64 bit, VEP 5.3.13407

PROBLEM 

VE Pro tracks audio muting when switching between channels in Cubase if asioguard is set to normal or high.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. In Device Settings, enable asioguard, set to nornal or high.
2. Open VE Pro server and create two instances. Insert VIs on first channel of each (I'm using Kontakt 5 and Play for a test, but think the VIs used are irrelevant).
3. Create two VEP rack instruments, and connect to the two VEP instances.
4. Switch between the two VEP tracks in the Cubase project window (or switch monitor enabling between them)
5. Result is that the audio output mutes as they are switched.

Note 1 - length of time that the mute occurs varies according to the general complexity of project, whether or not playing back at the same time, and the asioguard setting. I've experienced up to approx 3 seconds.

Note 2 - problem does not exist when asioguard is set to low. Audio is uninterrupted.

Note 3 - these results on my system at a buffer of 256. Specifics will vary depending on your soundcard and buffers, processor, platform etc.