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  4. How to get VE Pro7 to route properly with REAPER (Set up more than 16 MIDI channels per instance)

  • How to get VE Pro7 to route properly with REAPER (Set up more than 16 MIDI channels per instance)

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    Hey all!

    To all REAPER users struggling to get VEPro7 to route properly, here's an obscure bit of information that eluded me for an irritating amount of time. Hopefully this helps someone.

    To get an instance of VE Pro 7 to route to more than 16 MIDI channels, do the following:

    1) Load up the VE Pro 7 plug-in to a track. You must load up the VST3 version! (NOTE: Don't load up the Event Input plug-in; you don't need it and it's kind of buggy in REAPER as far as I could tell.)

    2) Once you do, click on the obscure little button at the top of plugin window that says "2/32 Out"

    3) Then, click on the even more obscure button that says "I/O"

    4) Then in the menu that pops up, navigate to "MIDI Input" and check the "Map Reaper MIDI Buses to VST3 MIDI Buses

    5) Do the same thing for MIDI Output; navigate to that and check the "Map VST3 Buses to Reaper Midi Buses"

    NOTE: As far as I'm aware, you'll have to do this with each individual VE Pro 7 plug-in. I recommend just doing this once, making a track template in REAPER, and then loading that up each time you need a VE Pro 7 plug-in.

    Voila! Now, any tracks that route MIDI using a send to the track containing the VE Pro 7 plug in will correspond to the tracks in the connected VE Pro 7 instance provided that the Port and Channels match. Let me further illustrate how to make sure they match correctly:

    If, in VEPro7, you have a channel set to MIDI Port 4, Channel 7, it will correspond to the REAPER track that has a MIDI send set to Bus 4, Channel 7.

    The send in REAPER would look like this. The channel settings in VEPro7 would look like this.

    Some more tips for efficient set-up:

    Setting up all these sends and channel settings can be a PITA, but both VEPro7 and REAPER have ways of making it faster.

    - In REAPER, once you load up the VE Pro 7 plug-in into a track, open the track's FX chain and right click on the plug-in and select "Build 16 Channels of MIDI Routing to this track". REAPER will automatically create 16 child tracks with MIDI sends for all 16 channels. You can do this more than once, of course, but you'll have to manually set each additional set of 16 track's sends to the proper MIDI bus.

    - In VE Pro, if you hold down ALT while selecting a MIDI Port # or Channel #, it will apply an incremented amount from that number to however many tracks you have selected. For example, if you select 16 tracks, hold down ALT and then set the first of those 16 tracks to Channel #1, it will automatically set the remaining fifteen to channel 2, 3, 4, etc. Also, if you hold SHIFT while selecting a channel or port, it will apply your selection to the entirety of tracks you have selected.

    I hope this info helps someone! Have a good one.
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    AHHH thank you! I've only been working with Reaper for a month, so I haven't got to some of the deep I/O details yet...would never have figured this out!

    The main take-away is that once you do the VST3 mapping, a "bus" in Reaper = a port in VEP. That means we now have 256 channels per instance  👍

    Thanks again.
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    Since we're in a sharing/caring mode (lol), I just discovered that you can send MIDI to the VEP plugin, and return audio to the same track. I.e., you don't need separate tracks for audio and MIDI! I've literally wanted to do this for a decade...where you are using VEP, but have just a single track on which to do both your MIDI and mixing. Here's how to set it up:

    1) Set up the desired number of MIDI tracks, each which send MIDI to the VEP plugin track (for example go to the VEP instance and use Reaper's shortcut "Build 16 channels of MIDI routing"). Then on each of the MIDI tracks' Routing dialog, enable the check box "Master send."

    2) On the track on which the VEP plugin is hosted, create Send routings that bus the VEP instance's various outputs to the corresponding MIDI tracks. Example: if a MIDI track sends on MIDI channel 3 to the VEP plugin, and the corresponding instrument in VEP sends its audio output on channels 5/6, route channels 5/6 back to that MIDI track. Also make sure the "Master send" checkbox for the VEP track is unchecked - we only want to hear the audio out of the MIDI tracks.

    3) Now here's the trick: go into the Project Settings (Alt+Enter is the default on PC), and go to the Advanced tab. Check the box that says "Allow feedback in routing." This is important, because otherwise Reaper supresses the audio, because technically you have a feedback loop (MIDI track goes to VEP, VEP audio comes back to the same track). But, there's no risk because it's not an audio loop - we're sending MIDI out, but getting audio back. Still, you have to check the above option.

    I attached a pic of how my routing is setup. A little legwork for the first instance, but then you should be able to just duplicate it for further instances (or save it as a track template). 

    Reaper is pretty insane in its routing capabilities 👍
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    @Kicked said:

    Since we're in a sharing/caring mode (lol), I just discovered that you can send MIDI to the VEP plugin, and return audio to the same track. I.e., you don't need separate tracks for audio and MIDI! I've literally wanted to do this for a decade...where you are using VEP, but have just a single track on which to do both your MIDI and mixing. Here's how to set it up:

    1) Set up the desired number of MIDI tracks, each which send MIDI to the VEP plugin track (for example go to the VEP instance and use Reaper's shortcut "Build 16 channels of MIDI routing"). Then on each of the MIDI tracks' Routing dialog, enable the check box "Master send."

    2) On the track on which the VEP plugin is hosted, create Send routings that bus the VEP instance's various outputs to the corresponding MIDI tracks. Example: if a MIDI track sends on MIDI channel 3 to the VEP plugin, and the corresponding instrument in VEP sends its audio output on channels 5/6, route channels 5/6 back to that MIDI track. Also make sure the "Master send" checkbox for the VEP track is unchecked - we only want to hear the audio out of the MIDI tracks.

    3) Now here's the trick: go into the Project Settings (Alt+Enter is the default on PC), and go to the Advanced tab. Check the box that says "Allow feedback in routing." This is important, because otherwise Reaper supresses the audio, because technically you have a feedback loop (MIDI track goes to VEP, VEP audio comes back to the same track). But, there's no risk because it's not an audio loop - we're sending MIDI out, but getting audio back. Still, you have to check the above option.

    I attached a pic of how my routing is setup. A little legwork for the first instance, but then you should be able to just duplicate it for further instances (or save it as a track template). 

    Reaper is pretty insane in its routing capabilities 👍

    Incredible!  This is really valuable information, so thank you for sharing!  I'll be experimenting with it soon.  This is a great find, because it means (among other things) that individual channels of a VEPro instance can be frozen individually (since you can only freeze tracks that output audio).  Excellent for stem mixing/exporting.  One thing I was bummed about was that you have to export stems using VE Pro on a per-instance basis, but this fixes that problem handily!  Thanks again!
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    Yup, I just batch froze all 6 of the channels in my example, and ended up with usable stems 😊
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    Reaper DEVS should have recently fixed the slowness of VST3 plugin in a beta version of Reaper as I told in the other thread.

     

    To recap, I was already building a template with Event Input Plugin but since it has some problems I went for MIDI routing for VST3, I already knew about feedback routing but...

    ...for some reason some tracks works and some other not, I mean that some MIDI tracks is sending midi to VEP and some other is not. This is with the actual version of Reaper, I didn't try with the beta one.

    Once it will be in the final stage I'll try it again. Maybe is linked to the VST3 problem I'm already experienced.

    So are you guys telling me that for you VST3 main plugin load instantly in the actual release of Reaper?
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    @DANIELE-ES said:

    Reaper DEVS should have recently fixed the slowness of VST3 plugin in a beta version of Reaper as I told in the other thread.

     

    To recap, I was already building a template with Event Input Plugin but since it has some problems I went for MIDI routing for VST3, I already knew about feedback routing but...

    ...for some reason some tracks works and some other not, I mean that some MIDI tracks is sending midi to VEP and some other is not. This is with the actual version of Reaper, I didn't try with the beta one.

    Once it will be in the final stage I'll try it again. Maybe is linked to the VST3 problem I'm already experienced.

    So are you guys telling me that for you VST3 main plugin load instantly in the actual release of Reaper?

    Yeah, I have the current release of REAPER (5.978) and the VST3i plugin loads almost immediately.  I wish I knew more so I could help with what you're experiencing 😞
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    @DANIELE-ES said:

    Reaper DEVS should have recently fixed the slowness of VST3 plugin in a beta version of Reaper as I told in the other thread.

     

    To recap, I was already building a template with Event Input Plugin but since it has some problems I went for MIDI routing for VST3, I already knew about feedback routing but...

    ...for some reason some tracks works and some other not, I mean that some MIDI tracks is sending midi to VEP and some other is not. This is with the actual version of Reaper, I didn't try with the beta one.

    Once it will be in the final stage I'll try it again. Maybe is linked to the VST3 problem I'm already experienced.

    So are you guys telling me that for you VST3 main plugin load instantly in the actual release of Reaper?

    Yeah, I have the current release of REAPER (5.978) and the VST3i plugin loads almost immediately.  I wish I knew more so I could help with what you're experiencing 😞

     

    Well, this is pretty strange because they actually found an issue and fixed it. Maybe it's a matter of configuration but there something effectively missing in VST3 implemetation.

    I even tried with a 5.978 clean portable version and had the same issue.

    I'm not the only one facing this issue, very very strange. I tried the beta anyway and there it will loads immediately so there shouldn't be a issue on my side...

     

    Anyway until they release the new version with the fix I cannot use VST3i plugin.
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    @DANIELE-ES said:

    Reaper DEVS should have recently fixed the slowness of VST3 plugin in a beta version of Reaper as I told in the other thread.

     

    To recap, I was already building a template with Event Input Plugin but since it has some problems I went for MIDI routing for VST3, I already knew about feedback routing but...

    ...for some reason some tracks works and some other not, I mean that some MIDI tracks is sending midi to VEP and some other is not. This is with the actual version of Reaper, I didn't try with the beta one.

    Once it will be in the final stage I'll try it again. Maybe is linked to the VST3 problem I'm already experienced.

    So are you guys telling me that for you VST3 main plugin load instantly in the actual release of Reaper?

    Yeah, I have the current release of REAPER (5.978) and the VST3i plugin loads almost immediately.  I wish I knew more so I could help with what you're experiencing 😞

     

    Well, this is pretty strange because they actually found an issue and fixed it. Maybe it's a matter of configuration but there something effectively missing in VST3 implemetation.

    I even tried with a 5.978 clean portable version and had the same issue.

    I'm not the only one facing this issue, very very strange. I tried the beta anyway and there it will loads immediately so there shouldn't be a issue on my side...

     

    Anyway until they release the new version with the fix I cannot use VST3i plugin.

    I don't know if this will help, but here are some screencaps of what I think are relevant configurations.  Maybe there's something different about yours that causes issues?  Hope this helps.

    Settings 1

    Settings 2
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    @DANIELE-ES said:

    Reaper DEVS should have recently fixed the slowness of VST3 plugin in a beta version of Reaper as I told in the other thread.

     

    To recap, I was already building a template with Event Input Plugin but since it has some problems I went for MIDI routing for VST3, I already knew about feedback routing but...

    ...for some reason some tracks works and some other not, I mean that some MIDI tracks is sending midi to VEP and some other is not. This is with the actual version of Reaper, I didn't try with the beta one.

    Once it will be in the final stage I'll try it again. Maybe is linked to the VST3 problem I'm already experienced.

    So are you guys telling me that for you VST3 main plugin load instantly in the actual release of Reaper?

    Yeah, I have the current release of REAPER (5.978) and the VST3i plugin loads almost immediately.  I wish I knew more so I could help with what you're experiencing 😞

     

    Well, this is pretty strange because they actually found an issue and fixed it. Maybe it's a matter of configuration but there something effectively missing in VST3 implemetation.

    I even tried with a 5.978 clean portable version and had the same issue.

    I'm not the only one facing this issue, very very strange. I tried the beta anyway and there it will loads immediately so there shouldn't be a issue on my side...

     

    Anyway until they release the new version with the fix I cannot use VST3i plugin.

    I don't know if this will help, but here are some screencaps of what I think are relevant configurations.  Maybe there's something different about yours that causes issues?  Hope this helps.

    Settings 1

    Settings 2

     

    I have the same configuration, so is not this. I talked with VSL devs and they said there was a problem with how Reaper is handling VST3. Now. in the beta, it is solved.

    I can't really explain this...
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    @TabbyCat said:

    2) On the track on which the VEP plugin is hosted, create Send routings that bus the VEP instance's various outputs to the corresponding MIDI tracks. Example: if a MIDI track sends on MIDI channel 3 to the VEP plugin, and the corresponding instrument in VEP sends its audio output on channels 5/6, route channels 5/6 back to that MIDI track. Also make sure the "Master send" checkbox for the VEP track is unchecked - we only want to hear the audio out of the MIDI tracks.

    So I've been experimenting with this and I think I'm missing something.  Can you explain exactly how you set up the kind of Send back to the MIDI channel that you are talking about?  

    Specifically, what should I be setting these parameters to?  And are there any other settings I should be aware of.  I feel like there's something I missed when I read the REAPER manual way back...
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    After messing about with the feedback routing, I found it to be really inconsistent and buggy.  That, or I'm missing something.

    Either way, there's another method to route individual MIDI tracks from Ensemble instances to their separate audio tracks (and thus be able to freeze them as stems).  Right click on the Ensemble plugin in the FX chain window and select "Create multichannel stereo outs" (or something like that).  It will automatically create as many properly routed stereo out tracks as the VEP instance has set in its configuration window.  Then, route each channel in VEP7 to the proper out (1/2, 3/4, etc) and the midi will send audio to *that* track.  It increases track count but it seems more reliable to me than the feedback routing method.
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    @samsonite789 said:

    After messing about with the feedback routing, I found it to be really inconsistent and buggy.  That, or I'm missing something.

    Either way, there's another method to route individual MIDI tracks from Ensemble instances to their separate audio tracks (and thus be able to freeze them as stems).  Right click on the Ensemble plugin in the FX chain window and select "Create multichannel stereo outs" (or something like that).  It will automatically create as many properly routed stereo out tracks as the VEP instance has set in its configuration window.  Then, route each channel in VEP7 to the proper out (1/2, 3/4, etc) and the midi will send audio to *that* track.  It increases track count but it seems more reliable to me than the feedback routing method.

    And here we are, I knew that Feedback Routing has some problems. What's happening to you in details? What issues are you facing?

     

    I simply don't want to double my tracks, I used to work like this in the beginning of my Reaper user experience when I used Kontakt with multiple patches and routed midi channels to it.

    Then I started using it with a 1 instrument for 1 instance method to have everything on the same track, now I don't want to revert back to my old usage method, to many things to manage. I have more than 800 tracks, doubling them will result in a total mess.
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    @samsonite789 said:

    After messing about with the feedback routing, I found it to be really inconsistent and buggy. That, or I'm missing something. Either way, there's another method to route individual MIDI tracks from Ensemble instances to their separate audio tracks (and thus be able to freeze them as stems). Right click on the Ensemble plugin in the FX chain window and select "Create multichannel stereo outs" (or something like that). It will automatically create as many properly routed stereo out tracks as the VEP instance has set in its configuration window. Then, route each channel in VEP7 to the proper out (1/2, 3/4, etc) and the midi will send audio to *that* track. It increases track count but it seems more reliable to me than the feedback routing method.
    And here we are, I knew that Feedback Routing has some problems. What's happening to you in details? What issues are you facing? I simply don't want to double my tracks, I used to work like this in the beginning of my Reaper user experience when I used Kontakt with multiple patches and routed midi channels to it. Then I started using it with a 1 instrument for 1 instance method to have everything on the same track, now I don't want to revert back to my old usage method, to many things to manage. I have more than 800 tracks, doubling them will result in a total mess. I hear you. Don't write feedback routing off just because I'm having issues with it. It's most likely that I just don't quite get how to make it work yet. It works in general, but there's something I'm not getting about routing audio outs that keeps giving me issues. I'm going to keep experimenting with it and see if I can pinpoint what I'm doing wrong. Once I do, I'll share the specifics here asap.
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    DANIELE-ES,

    I figured out what the problem was.  Feedback routing works perfectly.  I was just messing something obvious up; I can be real dense some times.  I'll post a detailed step-by-step guide shortly.

    - Sam
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    Here's how to set up VEP7 with REAPER to do the following:

    - Have up to 256 channels of MIDI per instance

    - Route the audio so that each track feeding MIDI to the instance is *also* outputting its specific audio. This allows each track to be individually frozen for stem-related purposes.

    Thanks to Tabby Cat for the valuable information on how to feedback route.

    Step-by-step:

    1. Create a track. Place the VST3i plugin of Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 on the track FX rack (MUST be VST3, otherwise it will be limited to 16 channels).
    2. Open the plugin interface.
    3. Click on this button.
    4. Click on this obscure little bastard.
    5. Set the following menu opens in the menu that follows: Midi Output, Midi Input (This is to allow REAPER to recognize port settings in VEP7 beyond the first one)
    6. Now, build some MIDI tracks by opening the FX Chain window for the track that contains the VEP7 plugin. Right click on the plugin and select the following option. This will create a folder of 16 tracks automatically routing to the instance parent track sequentially from port 1, channel 1 to port 1, channel 16. Repeat this option for as many iterations of 16 tracks as you want to build for this instance. Note that you will have to manually set the port per track send for each track that goes beyond port 1. If there is a faster way to do this, please share!
    7. VERY IMPORTANT - Immediately "un-folder" the tracks. If you don't do this, the feedback routing we'll be getting to will get messed up by how REAPER handles folders and signal flow.
    8. Set up feedback routing for the project. Normally, that's not a good idea but since we're working with MIDI in, Audio out, it won't result in cataclysmic ear destruction. Go to project settings and check this option on the advanced tab.
    9. Be sure to disable "Master track send" on the track with the VEP7 plugin, as we don't want *that* track outputting audio.
    10. Now, create a send for each track you're routing back to from the "master track" (the one with the VEP7 plugin on it). Set the audio output of this send so that it matches the audio output set in VEP7. This is starting to get seemingly convoluted, so let's use an example:

    You have to do this individually with each track, but luckily you can save it all as a track template so you only have to do this legwork once.

    What you have now is a bunch of tracks that send MIDI data to a "master track" with the VEP7 plugin, which then routes the audio data back to the MIDI track itself. Therefore, if you freeze any of these MIDI tracks, it will only freeze the audio of that specific track and leave the rest of the system untouched. What's more is that you can drag the frozen WAV file out of the track, unfreeze the track, and repeat this process as many times as you want, thus creating different "takes" of stems. Batch freezing works perfectly as well.

    I haven't experimented with things like bussing MIR or other FX outputs to different tracks so that you can mix a frozen "dry" track post MIDI, but I'm almost positive this would work without a hitch.

    Hopefully, this step-by-step clarifies this process and helps any REAPER users on here get the most out of VEP7! Let me know if I missed anything.

    Peace and bunny rabbits,

    - Sam
  • laurofL
    laurofL

    Thank you !!!!!!

    It seems to work.
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    Do you mind sharing what buffer size and soundcard you are using? I have not be able to get my latency down to a rate I'm comfortable using. I run a 2012 maxed out Mac Pro as my sample computer and a 6 core 2013 mac pro as the sequencer with an UAD Apollo quad as my interface. I am away from my 2nd computer for the week but I have had zero luck getting Reaper to play nicely with VEPro. Are you all cutting off the anticipate FX feature?

    Thanks for sharing your settings!!
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    @crd said:

    Do you mind sharing what buffer size and soundcard you are using? I have not be able to get my latency down to a rate I'm comfortable using. I run a 2012 maxed out Mac Pro as my sample computer and a 6 core 2013 mac pro as the sequencer with an UAD Apollo quad as my interface. I am away from my 2nd computer for the week but I have had zero luck getting Reaper to play nicely with VEPro. Are you all cutting off the anticipate FX feature?

    Thanks for sharing your settings!!

    Sure!

    Presonus AudioBox USB interface w/ current drivers.  Buffer size is set to 128, and then a setting of "2" in the VEPro plugin.  I do not have Anticipative FX turned off.  VEPro 7 settings are at factory default.  I'm on Windows 10, optimized for audio, quad-core 4.5ghz (OC'ed), 64gb ddr3 ram, single machine.

    Hope that helps.  Let me know if there's any more info you need.

    - Sam
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    You are getting much better performance than I am. I will have to take a day to try and trouble shoot what is making my system choke at any buffer less than 1024. Are you able to run large sessions (full orchestra) at 128?