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  • VEP7, BBCSO and Sibelius

    I
    I

    Hi everyone,

    After spending the past two weeks fiddling and trying, I may have arrived at the point where I've gone insane. In which case, huzzah.

    I recently bought a new studio PC, an AMD Threadripper 3960X processor with 128GB DDR4-3000 RAM, running Windows 10. All disks in the machine are M2, Samsung Evo Plus disks. I use an MOTU Ultralite-MK4 audio interface.
    All drivers are up to date, all software is up to date.

    I also purchased Spitfire's BBCO Symphony Orchestra, and love its sound. I originally tried to get all the plugins loaded directly into Sibelius, but that was hardly a success; as BBCSO requires a plugin per instrument, I ended up with about 55 different VST2 plugins in Sibelius (Sibelius does not support VST3). So, I decided to get myself VEP7 to handle all the VST loading and configuration, and I must say I am very happy with it! 
    VEP software and Sibelius run on the same machine.

    However, even with all this, I still run into audio glitches in Sibelius. I'm reworking a Beethoven score with about 15-16 instruments, all BBCSO instruments used through VEP. I have one VEP instance loaded into Sibelius, and about 9-10 VEP Event Plugins to address the virtual instruments. In VEP Server, I have one instance with a total of 55 plugins. Multithreading in VEP is presently at 16 threads per instance, though I have already changed this from 1 to 48 and everything in between, without avail.

    When playing back the score, there is a point where the instruments come to a crescendo, and after this, regular as clockwork, there is a glitch. The same sort of glitching occurs later in the score as well. It's not the samples, I've listened to everything separately. As my machine should be able to handle this setup quite easily, I've tried a variety of sample rates, buffer settings, et cetera. Adding loads of buffer makes it go away, but that hardly seems like a solution (also because it introduces quite some latency in Sibelius).

    I've been in touch with Spitfire on this, but not fix yet there. It seems to me that my machine should have no problem whatsoever working like this. I downloaded ProcessExplorer to have a look at CPU usage in more detail, and noticed that one or two CPUs were pushed to the max during that specific crescendo, while the rest seems to be picking their noses.. I've added a picture of this. 

    Am I going insane, or is there an issue going on here? Is there some multithreading issue I am missing? Is this the Spitfire plugin perhaps? Anyone else out there who might have similar experiences?

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  • S
    S

    Hello, IDontHaveOne. Wondering how this setup played out for you? I'm in the middle of building a pc and the the only real difference is that I bought the 32 core Threadripper.

    Any feedback is greatly appreciated,

     

     

    -S
  • K
    K

    I run Macs, but I have one suggestion you may want to try as an experiment.  Perhaps it would be helpful to go the other way with VEP and create 55 instances with one plugin in each.  I work that way and it's been rock solid.  My main VEP server has well over 200 instances and runs great with Logic or Cubase.  There have been discussions on this forum about that approach and there certainly are a number of users who do this.  Worth a try, perhaps.

    FWIW, I also have BBCSO as well as other SF libraries and lots of VSL libraries living side by side along with Keyscape, Pianoteq, and a number of other Kontakt and UVI based instruments in that VEP server.   I mix and match them at will and all perform great. 

    Anyway, worth a try maybe.  Just a suggestion to consider.  Good luck!
  • P
    P

    Hi IDontHaveOne

    I'm on Mac too, I use a 2017 21.5 inch iMac with i7 and 32gb ram and ssd so my machines appears to be much, much less powerful than yours.

    I'm able to run VEP7 perfectly with 1 instance of VEPro hosting 17-18 event input instances, so perhaps this is not an issue with your computer per se.

    I notice that you're using Sibelius, and this may be where the issue lies.

    How are you changing the midi CC data for your Crescendos? The reason I ask is that Spitfire currently don't have (and after repeated requests still haven't) developed sound sets for their sample libraries, and this is where perhaps your issue lies.

    How have you set up your playback configuration?..as there is no sound set available, can I assume you've activated the Spitfire plugin within the playback devices dialogue box, and chosen 'General Midi' for your sound set?

    If I use a kontakt player with a library (that doesn't use a sound set) I used to use the lines feature to input midi cc data in a different voice to change dynamics. This is ok with small scores, but it would go horribly wrong with anything larger than perhaps a string quartet, and add that with key switch staves to change articulations my computer would experience the same sort of thing as yours...and would also crash...a lot...too!

    I now use a plugin, called Graphical Midi Tools to change cc data directly in the score, and since I've used it, its works perfectly...so perhaps something to check out.

    You don't say if this happens in a DAW, so I've assumed its all good in other software, and I don't know what version of Sibelius...so can I assume its Ultimate 2020.6?

    On a side note, once its all sorted for you, i'd be really interested in hearing your mockup mate.

    I hope this helps mate

    Kindest regards

    Paul
  • O
    O

    Hi. I am also interested in using Sibelius and BBC SO Core together. I saw there is an attempt at a tutorial  on https://www.everythingsibelius.com/ It is run by a lovely chap called Paul.