I've just added a 500 GB external SSD drive to my setup. Now I have my VSL instruments split between this and a 4TB RAID hard drive (7500 rpm). I elected to put my Dimension libraries on the SSD, the rest of my instruments are on the RAID. Both drives are connected by THUNDERBOLT to a MacBook Pro that has 16 GB of RAM and a 2.2 Ghz Intel core i7 processor. I thought I had enough speed and memory to work trouble free, and yet... Oh, and yes I have lowered the preload settings in the directory manager and updated the location of my files. As a test case, I have tried loading up Jay Bacal's rendering of Alan Silvestri's Cast Away music from the film Cast Away final credits. All goes well with opening Jay's vesp. file in VEP 6. The, things start to get slow and eventually stop. VEP shows the project file as 37% loaded and stalls. There is no discernible difference in speed since adding the SSD by the way. So, I'm stuck. Does this stall or crash happen in VEP because of my computer setup? Surely my drives are rast enough. I am using Digital Performe 9 and my operating system is SIERRA on this laptop. Any advice? Is there some setting or configuration preference I've missed? All help will be appreciated greatly. Paul R

Thanks, Paul

I'm doing tests re Preload settings as you suggest.

The Directory Manager does not preserve the Preload Settings however. I have tried repeatedly and every time I launch the Directory Manager, the Preload column is blank for all libraries. Can you suggest something else to try?

Thanks

@Paul said:

Hi Paul,

I´d try loading a big preset like the Violin Solo Preset Level 2, with different Preload Settings, and then see how low you can go with your setup (play a few notes). 

The Directory Manager shouldn´t lose the Preload Settings, though. Can you find out in which cases this happens?

Best,
Paul

I moved some more libraries over to the SSD drive and updated their location in the DM. But the Directory Manager has me stumped, but maybe it is working in a way I don't expect. I set the PRELOAD for libraries on my SSD drive at a low number (2048) and then I set the preload size for the libraries on my thunderbolt fast hard drive - a higher number (4096). I'm just using guess work. I think the default size is 16384. I read that in one of my manuals. I have saved my preset and then I close the Directory Manager. If I reopen it, the preload values are not displayed. MAybe this is normal? I can load my preload settings preset and the correct numbers are displayed in the right hand column. If I quit and reopen the DM the numbers are gone. Maybe they are saved in the background? So I tested the VEP by loading in the Cast Away rendering I used before, that Jay Bacal programmed. Lots of Dimension strings and a couple of solo instruments. Load time was vastly improved (about 5 minutes) and VEP didn't hang like it did before. This makes me think that the preload settings were working, even though not visible in the directory manager. All this to say that I'm really happy to see the sped up load time, but would love to know about my DM situation. FINALLY, the preload numbers seem to be fine. The only problem noted is that the solo oboe doesn't play immediately after a few bars of rests. It pops in late and then plays normally. I wonder if this is because I have the preload number too low, or if the buffer setting (512) in Digital Performer is the culprit. More experimentation continues...but things have improved significantly!!! Any comments or suggestions or clarifications will be gratefully received.

Hi,

We checked on all our computers, no trouble with the Preload time on any system. The value should be displayed in the Directory Manager. 

Please stick to the default value 16384 for all non-SSD drives. 

Will do more tests tomorrow. 

Best, 
Paul

As a fellow DP user, I thought I should mention something I have found. I am running DP's buffer at 256 and not experiencing any issues. My experiments with various DP buffer sizes and VSL preload sizes with Vienna Instrument Pro lead me to believe that there is little if any correlation. I believe that the reason your oboe did not play immediately was because the remainder of the samples still needed to be streamed. Once they loaded you were set. A slightly larger preload size may solve that specific issue. In any event, I do not think that DP's buffer setting was related to that in any way. I hope that is of some help/use to you.

Very helpful info. Thanks. I agree with your comment about streaming. I'm going to set the preload size higher for the oboe Thanks again.

Hello Cyril, 

The latest Directory Manager is always installed with the latest Vienna Instruments / PRO. 

Additional software is not planned, but thanks for the input. 

Best, 
Paul

To be sure, I re-downloaded VEP6 to be sure I was using the most recent Directory Manager. No change at my end. I am wondering if there might be some .plist preference I need to delete. Sometimes that can be an issue I think on a Mac. I'm travelling today so won't be able to try things out until later tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks for sleuthing this at your end. I'm sure this will get figured out.

Paul R

Hello Paul, 

The Directory Manager is NOT installed with Vienna Ensemble PRO 6. 

It is installed with Vienna INSTRUMENTS and Vienna Instruments PRO. 

Best,
Paul

Hi Paul That was a typo on my part. I did re-download the VIP software, not VEP6. sorry for any confusion. Paul R

Hi, 

Try to delete "com.vsl.vsldirs1.plist" in /Library/Preferences. Does that help?

Best, 
Paul

Hi Paul

No. Unfortunately it didn't change anything. And....I'm now on my main computer, not on my laptop (which I've been using for the past 5 weeks). I was hoping that I would get a different result by changing computers. I'm now on an iMac with 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 processor. And I have 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 memory. Not sure that's pertinent, but I thought I'd pass it along.

Interesting that running the Directory Manager after deleting the preferences did not create a new .plist file. Does that surprise you at all?

I also have a com.vsl.vsldirs1.plist.lockfile in my preferences but it seems to be unimportant. It was last modified in 2012. I think I'd be safe to remove it, don't you?

Further, after running the Directory Manager I ran VEP6 and then Digital Performer 9 and tried to load up the big file I've been using. VEP hung at 89% loaded and I had to force it to quit. Just not sure what to do next.

 

 

@Paul said:

Hi, 

Try to delete "com.vsl.vsldirs1.plist" in /Library/Preferences. Does that help?

Best, 
Paul

 

Hello Daerp

It is good to know that I am not the only one to have this problem

I am downloading Xcode to analyse the Plist

I will report back when I have finish (download is 1 hour)

@Paul said:

Hi, 

Try to delete "com.vsl.vsldirs1.plist" in /Library/Preferences. Does that help?

Best, 
Paul

@daerp said:

 

Further to this, I tried again this morning and VEP6 hung at 87% loading the file. I've attached a screenshot in case you see anything untoward.

Thanks for this Paul. I feel awkward writing with all these problems. I love VSL. But I'm spending a lot of time troubleshooting.

Il you look in the activity monitor you will see the VM increasing 

My MAC PRO hang after 90 % of loading and 4 GB of VM

I could not even force quit the task. I had to force switch off

It is quite normal as there is 108 VI in my orchestral template  

All VI are loaded with levell II preset ; so if I do not reduce the preload buffer size ; it is going to use much more than all my 32 GB.

I had been working with the preload buffer size set at 2048 because my VSL LIB is on a raid of 3 x SSD connected to a SATA III interface

Update.

Just tried running everything on my laptop. The Directory Manager issue is still there but VEP does not hang when I load the big file.

But....on my iMac VEP hangs. Attached are a couple of files I saved from my Activity Monitor. Maybe that will help you help me figure this out.

Cheers,

PaulR

SampleU0020ofU0020ViennaU0020EnsembleU0020Pro.txt-1696283011891-tou4h.txt SampleU0020ofU0020ViennaU0020EnsembleU0020ProU00202.txt-1696283011891-5dvxd.txt