Ok, I found out that with feedback routing enabled if I send tracks to another track and not directly to the mixer, one of the tracks doesn't sound and doesn't send midi signal to VEP7. With feedback routing disabled everything works, but obviously you don't hear any sound.

@DANIELE-ES said:

Ok, I found out that with feedback routing enabled if I send tracks to another track and not directly to the mixer, one of the tracks doesn't sound and doesn't send midi signal to VEP7. With feedback routing disabled everything works, but obviously you don't hear any sound.

If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're saying is that feedback routing is not working when the individual tracks are routed to BOTH the VEP plugin track AND other tracks (reverb buses, submixes, etc.)

I created a test project where I routed three tracks' MIDI output to a submix track, then routed everything from the submix track to the VEP instance track.  Then, I routed the audio from the VEP instance track back to the three individual tracks using the feedback routing procedure.  Finally, I routed the audio output of those individual tracks to both the master track AND a reverb bus (which then routed to the master as well).  Everything worked fine - I tried muting different things, freezing tracks, etc.  No problems.

I've attached screenshots of the exact settings, ports, sends etc. that I used to create this set-up.  Hopefully this can help you sort out whatever's bugging out on you.  I do apologize if I've misunderstood your set-up in any way.

Overall Project Layout

Routing for Track 1: VEP Instance

Routing for Track 2: SUB-MASTER

Routing for Track 3: MIDI 1

Routing for Track 4: MIDI 2

Routing for Track 5: MIDI 3

Routing for Track 6: VERB BUS

Peace,

- Sam

@DANIELE-ES said:

Ok, I found out that with feedback routing enabled if I send tracks to another track and not directly to the mixer, one of the tracks doesn't sound and doesn't send midi signal to VEP7. With feedback routing disabled everything works, but obviously you don't hear any sound.

If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're saying is that feedback routing is not working when the individual tracks are routed to BOTH the VEP plugin track AND other tracks (reverb buses, submixes, etc.)

I created a test project where I routed three tracks' MIDI output to a submix track, then routed everything from the submix track to the VEP instance track.  Then, I routed the audio from the VEP instance track back to the three individual tracks using the feedback routing procedure.  Finally, I routed the audio output of those individual tracks to both the master track AND a reverb bus (which then routed to the master as well).  Everything worked fine - I tried muting different things, freezing tracks, etc.  No problems.

I've attached screenshots of the exact settings, ports, sends etc. that I used to create this set-up.  Hopefully this can help you sort out whatever's bugging out on you.  I do apologize if I've misunderstood your set-up in any way.

Overall Project Layout

Routing for Track 1: VEP Instance

Routing for Track 2: SUB-MASTER

Routing for Track 3: MIDI 1

Routing for Track 4: MIDI 2

Routing for Track 5: MIDI 3

Routing for Track 6: VERB BUS

Peace,

- Sam

This is not a VEP fault, it has the behavior I talked about with every multitimbral plugin, VSTi and VST3i. This is also confirmed by another user on the Reaper forum and I already warned developers about it.

Look at this: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=222308

The routing you did it is a bit more complicated than mine I think and from what I understand it is not exactly what I did.

I routed MIDI from single tracks to VEP track, then I routed audio from VEP to single tracks using feedback routing, in the end I routed the audio from single tracks to a bus track and if you'll do the same you will experience the same issue.

The BUS in my template are meant for mixing purposes so they should group instrument sections to control them at once, you are routing midi to BUS, I'm routing audio. My tracks doesn't route directly to master...

The strange thing is that is a matter of track position in the TCP, if I put the BUS track after the VEP main track everything works fine, if I put BUS track before it I have this issue.

Look at the thread to better understand what I mean.

@DANIELE-ES said:

I routed MIDI from single tracks to VEP track, then I routed audio from VEP to single tracks using feedback routing, in the end I routed the audio from single tracks to a bus track and if you'll do the same you will experience the same issue.

Okay, I did the same set up:

• Individual instrument tracks routing MIDI to a track containing VEP instance.
• VEP track routing audio back to individual instrument tracks.
• Individual instrument tracks routing that audio to different BUS tracks, depending on instrument group.
• Only the BUS tracks routing to master, every other track has "Master send" disabled.

Worked perfectly, no problems.  However, taking a look at your post on the Reaper forum, I think I see what's going wrong: you're using the Event Input plugin!  That plugin is buggy as f*ck and isn't necessary for work with VEP7 in REAPER at all to achieve what you want.  Try setting up the routing without that plug-in and, crossing fingers, it should work!

Here's a screenshot of the set-up for what I detailed above:

Routing Set-up

I hope that helps!

- Sam

@DANIELE-ES said:

I routed MIDI from single tracks to VEP track, then I routed audio from VEP to single tracks using feedback routing, in the end I routed the audio from single tracks to a bus track and if you'll do the same you will experience the same issue.

Okay, I did the same set up:

• Individual instrument tracks routing MIDI to a track containing VEP instance.
• VEP track routing audio back to individual instrument tracks.
• Individual instrument tracks routing that audio to different BUS tracks, depending on instrument group.
• Only the BUS tracks routing to master, every other track has "Master send" disabled.

Worked perfectly, no problems.  However, taking a look at your post on the Reaper forum, I think I see what's going wrong: you're using the Event Input plugin!  That plugin is buggy as f*ck and isn't necessary for work with VEP7 in REAPER at all to achieve what you want.  Try setting up the routing without that plug-in and, crossing fingers, it should work!

Here's a screenshot of the set-up for what I detailed above:

Routing Set-up

I hope that helps!

- Sam

In this test I'm not using Event Input Plugin, only midi routing.

Take tracks 8 and 9 in your setup and put them at position 1 and 2. If I put my BUS track as last track it works, put them before VEP plugin track and you will see magic happens.

@DANIELE-ES said:

Take tracks 8 and 9 in your setup and put them at position 1 and 2. If I put my BUS track as last track it works, put them before VEP plugin track and you will see magic happens.

Aha.  Now the magic is happening.

I played around with it some, and got some interesting results:

• If the instrument tracks were routed via sends to the instrument bus track, then the bus track would not work if it was placed above/before the VEP track.
• However, if the instrument tracks were children and the bus track was a folder instead, all of them except the first track in the folder would work, even if the folder was placed before/above the VEP instance.

....?????....

Have you reported this bug to the REAPER devs?

Even with this strange behavior, it seems to me your problem working with VEP7 is solved!  Just put all the VEP instance tracks at the top of your project and hide them if they're cluttering up your workflow.  😊

I'm glad you brought this to everyone's attention; now I know to put my VEP tracks at the top to avoid this strange behavior.

- Sam

@DANIELE-ES said:

Take tracks 8 and 9 in your setup and put them at position 1 and 2. If I put my BUS track as last track it works, put them before VEP plugin track and you will see magic happens.

Aha.  Now the magic is happening.

I played around with it some, and got some interesting results:

• If the instrument tracks were routed via sends to the instrument bus track, then the bus track would not work if it was placed above/before the VEP track.
• However, if the instrument tracks were children and the bus track was a folder instead, all of them except the first track in the folder would work, even if the folder was placed before/above the VEP instance.

....?????....

Have you reported this bug to the REAPER devs?

Even with this strange behavior, it seems to me your problem working with VEP7 is solved!  Just put all the VEP instance tracks at the top of your project and hide them if they're cluttering up your workflow.  😊

I'm glad you brought this to everyone's attention; now I know to put my VEP tracks at the top to avoid this strange behavior.

- Sam

Lastly I'm spending more time solving problems and finding bugs than composing music. 😄

The developers know about the issue, you could see one of them answering in the thread I linked here. I think they'll manage to solve it in the next updates.

I didn't play with folders but the bug is real so I think it is enough for now, I'll wait to see what they do.

Yeah it is solved but I have to rethink my template and actually I think I'll wait for this to be solved.

Ehi Sam, one of the Devs helped me to find a simple solution until the fix this. They could do it for Reaper V6, so in the mean time without moving any track it is enough to send from the main plugin track to the bus track, you could send nothing by putting audio and midi to "none". This little trick does the job.

I tried yesterday.

I'd like to ask you a question, do you have bad performances using feedback routing?

Because in general devs say that using it could result in heavier cpu load.

@Seventh Sam said:

So by sending nothing, you end up sending everything? Lol what a strange fix, but hey, if it works 😊 I stress tested using feedback routing on my single machine setup using 40 vipro instances all running through mir, several CPU hungry guitar vsts double tracked to separate amp sims, 5 instances of massive on ultra settings, 20 kontakt instruments (mainly chris hein horns, session horns pro and discovery series) and the garritan cfx on full settings playing something like 50 notes at a time with the sustain pedal. All of them were routed (in vipro) to illusion, a fusion ir that takes a fair amount of CPU. I loaded each midi track with as many notes and keyswitches as I could fit in. On a single machine, 4.5ghz quad core processor, at 128 buffer I got a few clicks here and there but nothing ultra distracting. At 512 buffer the clicks disappeared completely. I should also mention I have a very entry level audio interface. I don't know how this compares to your template and hardware, but I hope it helps. VEP is just amazing, even on a single machine setup. EDIT: It also occurs to me that if feedback routing does indeed increase CPU load, then the very thing it enables you to do - freeze individual tracks - can be done to decrease CPU load! Win win :)

It is not a fix, it is a trick to use while we are waiting for a real fix, but I think that doing an empty routing it shouldn't cost so much to apply.

I have an 8 core CPU (16 threads) with 64 GB of ram so this sounds great. I use a lot of automations so I'm keeping buffer size at 512 and I was starting to have some UI lags with big projects, this is why I'm trying to move the CPU load from Reaper to VEP.

Well, it seems that it works great, so I think I shouldn't have performance problems using feedback routing with my configuration. I don't like to freeze tracks because while I'm composing I keep editing tracks many times so for me it would be a continuous freeze/unfreeze process.

Yeah, with 8 core you should be sailing.  Both REAPER and VEP are good multi-threaders.  Then again, I have no idea how big your projects are, what your OS is and how it's optimized, etc.  So, no way to tell for sure unless you test yourself I guess...

That said, feedback routing increases CPU load in REAPER, yes, but the great thing about VEP is that it's offloading the CPU load of the actual sample processing from REAPER to VEP.  Whatever CPU hit REAPER is taking from feedback routing is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what it would be if you were doing everything in REAPER.

I did a stress test before I knew about feedback routing as well.  It wasn't exactly the same set up, but it was very close.  I noticed the exact same behavior - a few clicks at 128, and nothing at 512.  In short, I don't think feedback routing changed much of anything, or even at all. 

@Seventh Sam said:

Yeah, with 8 core you should be sailing.  Both REAPER and VEP are good multi-threaders.  Then again, I have no idea how big your projects are, what your OS is and how it's optimized, etc.  So, no way to tell for sure unless you test yourself I guess...

That said, feedback routing increases CPU load in REAPER, yes, but the great thing about VEP is that it's offloading the CPU load of the actual sample processing from REAPER to VEP.  Whatever CPU hit REAPER is taking from feedback routing is going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what it would be if you were doing everything in REAPER.

I did a stress test before I knew about feedback routing as well.  It wasn't exactly the same set up, but it was very close.  I noticed the exact same behavior - a few clicks at 128, and nothing at 512.  In short, I don't think feedback routing changed much of anything, or even at all. 

I did some test some time ago and I didn't notice any differences in playing some tracks at once with kontakt instances tracks and with midi routing tracks with feedback routing enabled.

I'm on Windows 10, not really optimized but it is a pretty fast computer and I'm planning on upgrading the CPU for a 12 or 14 core.

About the project you could think of a pretty standard big orchestra enviroment, with single instruments for brass and woodwinds and solos and sections for strings. Then I could add some percussions and/or synths.

Since I'm going to use more and more libraries with a modeling approach I have to use many automations for every instrument (dynamics, vibrato, breath noise, bow position, bow pressure and so on...) and this is where the project is going to be heavier.

I think feedback routing could start to ask a lot of CPU when used in combination with many FXs and complex routing. The configuration where we are going to use it is pretty linear and simple.

Ok I did further testing and I found out that RT CPU is a lot higher in VEP template vs Kontakt old template.

1. Kontakt Old Template idle 12%
2. VEP template idle 58-60%

I'm starting to believe that for me VEP it is not a good choice, I used buffer option in VEP main plugin UI but there's to much differences. I think that when I'll start to write a lot of lines for different instruments my CPU will cracks, pops and hangs.

I think I should stay the old way and put VEP aside, so far VEP is been only a huge amount of work/bug hunting and nothing about music.

Do you have any advice on something maybe I missed. I have anticipative FX on (with this off it would be worst, already tried) with 6 core dedicated to it in Reaper. VEP seems to behave the same with every thread number set for instance.

I cannot start an empty project with an RT CPU at 60%...

I tried an old project and RT CPU is always under 10%, always with many tracks playing.

Damn, man, I'm sorry this is giving you so much trouble! I wish I could be of more help...

I did a test run. I loaded up 40 instances of a variety of kontakt instruments in VEP (no MIR enabled) all routed and playing a bunch of random midi notes. I then made another project where I had the exact same midi, exact same kontakt instruments, exact same order, except that I had them all loaded on each individual track, no VEP.

Using VEP, my idling RT CPU was 5%

Without VEP, my idling RT CPU was 18%

So...I have no idea wtf is going on on your end, I'm afraid to say. All I can really offer are screencaps of my REAPER settings and a link to the guide I followed for optimizing Windows 10 for audio.

60% idling makes me think there's some bug or compatability issue or weird under-the-hood thing going on. Hopefully something in my settings will present a solution. If I think of anything, I'll let you know ASAP.

Other than that...best of luck 😕 I'm sorry it's not working out for you.

I agree, the tool (VEP) is supposed to help and make things go more smoothly. If - for whatever reason - it's not doing that, then it's not the right tool. You've certainly been giving it more than a fair shot with all the work you've put into it!

- Sam

@Seventh Sam said:

Damn, man, I'm sorry this is giving you so much trouble!  I wish I could be of more help...

I did a test run.  I loaded up 40 instances of a variety of kontakt instruments in VEP (no MIR enabled) all routed and playing a bunch of random midi notes.  I then made another project where I had the exact same midi, exact same kontakt instruments, exact same order, except that I had them all loaded on each individual track, no VEP.

Using VEP, my idling RT CPU was 5%

Without VEP, my idling RT CPU was 18%

So...I have no idea wtf is going on on your end, I'm afraid to say.  All I can really offer are screencaps of my REAPER settings and a link to the guide I followed for optimizing Windows 10 for audio.

60% idling makes me think there's some bug or compatability issue or weird under-the-hood thing going on.  Hopefully something in my settings will present a solution.  If I think of anything, I'll let you know ASAP.

Other than that...best of luck 😕  I'm sorry it's not working out for you.

I agree, the tool (VEP) is supposed to help and make things go more smoothly.  If - for whatever reason - it's not doing that, then it's not the right tool.  You've certainly been giving it more than a fair shot with all the work you've put into it!

- Sam

Well, we have almost the same settings (I have 6 CPUs for anticipative FX, I will try with 8 but I don't think it will change something), how the hell is it possible?

Maybe it is the bus routing that is causing the issue.

I tried to disable feedback routing and the RT CPU went down drastically. Then I tried to re-enable it putting all the tracks offline, in idle it was at 19%, still to much for having everything disabled.

There's something wrong I don't catch. Did you have some busses in the test you did?

Maybe is the routing the cause. With VEP still opened I loaded the old project and I had always less then 10% of RT CPU while playing and in idle. So the cause is not outside Reaper, there should be something inside the project.

Do you think you could share the test project with me so I could give it a try an see if I have the same results as you?

The problem is only the RT CPU, the overall CPU stay under 20%. I have a good system and I have many of the optimization you linked enalbed.

Now I can test it out because I'm at work, let me know, I will do some other tests this evening. If you have these results I cannot believe I haven't, it is not possible.

What buffer settings you use inside VEP plugin? 0 - 1 - 2 - 3 or 4 buffers?

Thank you Sam for your help.

@DANIELE-ES said:

There's something wrong I don't catch. Did you have some busses in the test you did?

I fired up a new test project.  Set up a VEP instance of 16 kontakts all playing a bunch of MIDI nonsense, feedback routed, etc. and this time splitting their output into two separate buses.  Tracks 1-8 went to BUS 1, while 9-16 went to BUS 2.  The RT CPU was consistently idling around 2-3% and at 7% during playback.

Then I set up 16 tracks of individual kontakt instances playing the exact same MIDI, but no VEP, feedback routing, etc.  Same bussing set-up.  With this, the RT CPU idled around 5% and went to 10% during playback.

I'm stumped, dude.  I tried moving the BUSES around, disabling feedback routing, etc.  All my results were consistent - the VEP set-up, even with feedback routing, was more CPU efficient, RT and non-RT, than the non-VEP set-up.

I don't know if it's going to be any help, but I've attached the project file.

At this point, I'm pretty convinced there's something in your project itself that's causing an issue.  I know it's a huge PITA, but have you tried just setting up a big (or semi-big) template using VEP and feedback routing the way you normally would for a project?  Have you seen if this RT CPU strangeness is happening with other projects of yours?  It could just be that you're mixing older settings with newer technology and there are compatability issues.  I could, of course, have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's worth a shot.

I do hope this works out...

- Sam

EDIT:  My VEP buffer is set at 2, fwiw and latency is 128 on my audio interface

@DANIELE-ES said:

There's something wrong I don't catch. Did you have some busses in the test you did?

I fired up a new test project.  Set up a VEP instance of 16 kontakts all playing a bunch of MIDI nonsense, feedback routed, etc. and this time splitting their output into two separate buses.  Tracks 1-8 went to BUS 1, while 9-16 went to BUS 2.  The RT CPU was consistently idling around 2-3% and at 7% during playback.

Then I set up 16 tracks of individual kontakt instances playing the exact same MIDI, but no VEP, feedback routing, etc.  Same bussing set-up.  With this, the RT CPU idled around 5% and went to 10% during playback.

I'm stumped, dude.  I tried moving the BUSES around, disabling feedback routing, etc.  All my results were consistent - the VEP set-up, even with feedback routing, was more CPU efficient, RT and non-RT, than the non-VEP set-up.

I don't know if it's going to be any help, but I've attached the project file.

At this point, I'm pretty convinced there's something in your project itself that's causing an issue.  I know it's a huge PITA, but have you tried just setting up a big (or semi-big) template using VEP and feedback routing the way you normally would for a project?  Have you seen if this RT CPU strangeness is happening with other projects of yours?  It could just be that you're mixing older settings with newer technology and there are compatability issues.  I could, of course, have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's worth a shot.

I do hope this works out...

- Sam

EDIT:  My VEP buffer is set at 2, fwiw and latency is 128 on my audio interface

Ok, I used your project to test it out and I have max 3% of RT CPU exactly as you, now try your project with a little update and let me know how much your RT goes up.

In your project, the updated version (but the same would be with the original one) if I disable feedback routing I get a RT at 0%, if I enable it I get a RT at 12-13%. Not too much in general but too much if you think about bigger templates.

I used three instances now and I expanded the audio channels from 12 to 64 (the maximum allowed by Reaper) and the RT cpu goes UP, I use always 64 channels because I don't want to create to much instances. With all the tracks disabled I have the same problem, this is because even if I put offline my FXs sends remain active and there is where the problem is. If I mute my tracks I see a big improvement.

There's really nothing I can do, it is the feedback routing itself that is causing the issue, a massive performance drop, if I disable it or if I delete all sends RT drop down from 50-60% to 10% (there is still something going on in my template but I think is not so important at this point).

Conclusion:

1. I cannot use Event Input;
2. I cannot use Midi;
3. I don't want to double my tracks.

I cannot use VEP, I think that Reaper users should be informed of this. This is not a VSL fault obviously but untill the Reaper Devs will go to work on this (and who knows when) VEP is useless in these conditions.

I hope I will find VEP useful in the future, until that it is a waste of money for me unfortunately. Well I think I had to try to find all this.

EDIT

With a buffer at 128 on my ASIO interface I get a RT at 5% with the original project and at 17% with the updated one. I did the previous test with a buffer at 512. It is a pretty strange behavior since my CPU is faster than yours but here it seems slower. Anyway it could depend on a huge amount of factors (I already have AV disabled and so on...). The conclusion doesn't change then, even if my results are sligthly different from yours disable FR solves the issue but kills VEP for me.

Okay, did a bunch of testing using the modified project you uploaded (helping_daniele1.rar).  I included a bunch of screenshots just to make absolutely sure that we're testing the same thing.  I've circled and highlighted all relevant data.  I also added a bunch of nonsense MIDI to all the tracks to give the CPU something to crunch on.

@Another User said:

This is not a VSL fault obviously but untill the Reaper Devs will go to work on this (and who knows when) VEP is useless in these conditions.

Except, for whatever head-scratching reason, it's not useless on my machine.  Using the exact project you uploaded, I get completely different RT CPU readouts (as you can see in the screenshots), none of which even get to the 12-13% you're getting while idling even during playback, despite you having a faster CPU (and all these tests were done with a bunch of other apps running in the background).  For you, disabling the sends dramatically increases performance, but for me, it's the opposite.  For you, disabling the FX doesn't do much of anything, but for me, that (logically) reduces the CPU overhead.

WTF?!?!?!??!

This absolutely convinces me that there is something specific to your set-up/hardware/whatever that's making feedback routing buggy and CPU intensive.  You're right, the REAPER devs should know about this; thank you for alerting them.  

I did think of one thing that might help:

Did you test to see if youre CPU is actually multi-threading?  Using Screenshot I monitored the idling CPU usage to make sure all threads were being utilized.  Screenshot  If only one core is actually being utilized, the issues you're experiencing would make a lot more sense.  Worth a check, I think...

I'm afraid that's the best I can offer...if I think of anything else I'll let you know.

- Sam