this more or less confirms what has been reported with first tests from our VI RTAS version - the performance is simply unsatisfying and it looks like also in future only intel-macs can pull the load
christian

Cm, can you elaborate on what exactly is the problem with the RTAS implementation of the VI - is it some sort of ressource prioritizing in PT?

Why is the VI different from other manufacturers plugins that use streaming technology like native's Kontakt, MOTU's symphonic and Ethno and Synthogy's Ivory? [:)]

vagn, i didn't discuss it with our devolopers in depth, but from what i can tell: whichever way you look at it, it simply lacks performance.
one reason might to be found highly probable in the fact that protools is a recording application at first and not a sequencer, another one is the huge amount of samples to be loaded and the short preload.
additionally the nature of RTAS is to process everything in the CPU and not in the PT hardware and the system load for the GUI (a general problem with OS X PPC) does it's own ...
i'd like to add this is not a technically 100% accurate statement but basically hits the nail. several aproaches to avoid at least some of these limitations are under investigation.
christian

Uh-oh... I just bought Chamber Strings and Solo Strings specifically to use in Pro Tools on my dual 2.7G G5. (HD3 Accel, PT 7.1, OS 10.4.5) As soon as my ViennaKey arrives tomorrow I will be installing it. And I just bought and installed the FXpansion VST to RTAS adaptor... The research I did seemed to indicate that the adaptor would run VST plugs very smoothly in PT, so I thought the Vienna Instruments would be OK. Wish I had seen this thread before I took the leap! So CM, you're really saying this isn't going to work?

It seems we PT users do have options and workarounds without abandoning PT for DP or Logic, which is my preferrence at this point since the hardware "compatibility" issues are never gonna work out so I am being forced to stay within PT. Now, it would be nice to know before shelling out some money for whatever is needed (either slaving another mac or buying the VST to RTAS wrapper, buying RAX or Plogue Bidule as Paul suggested) that we can get additional feedbacks on users that are currently utilizing these options and are successful, for the benefit of people like me who really want to make this work. I was happy to use VSL's library using Gigasampler but since Appassionata and my other VI collections only work as a VI, then this move is essential and a must to us. Thanks again for all your tips!

Really sucks though that RTAS is not looking too good at this point for us PT users!

FWIW, Here's my experience using Vienna Instruments with Pro Tools so far. The Fxpansion vst to rtas adaptor (which works great with other VST instruments) sees the Vienna Instrument, but is unable to convert it. So at this point I am forced to use the Vienna Instrument in standalone mode. I downloaded the Plogue Bidule, and was able to use it to send midi from PT to the standalone Vienna Instrument. However, for some reason, I cannot get audio into PT via Bidule's rewire. It shows up on my PT aux channel, but when I select it, no sound. At this point I am only able to get Vienna Instrument's audio into PT via my Mac G5's optical output into my PT 192 interface. By running another optical cable from the interface's output back to the Mac I was able to digitally sync the audio. This is done by opening the audio/midi setting in the Mac, matching the sample rate and bit depth to my Pro Tools session, and selecting "external" for the mac audio sync.

Any suggestions for getting Bidule's rewire working properly would be greatly appreciated. It appears to be working, but makes no sound.

To the makers of Vienna Instruments: PLEASE devote some attention to us Pro Tools users. We are a big market.


Pro Tools 7.1
HD3accel
192 I/O
Mac G5 dual 2.7G
OS 10.4.5

@charlzj said:

FWIW, Here's my experience using Vienna Instruments with Pro Tools so far. The Fxpansion vst to rtas adaptor (which works great with other VST instruments) sees the Vienna Instrument, but is unable to convert it. So at this point I am forced to use the Vienna Instrument in standalone mode. I downloaded the Plogue Bidule, and was able to use it to send midi from PT to the standalone Vienna Instrument. However, for some reason, I cannot get audio into PT via Bidule's rewire. It shows up on my PT aux channel, but when I select it, no sound. At this point I am only able to get Vienna Instrument's audio into PT via my Mac G5's optical output into my PT 192 interface. By running another optical cable from the interface's output back to the Mac I was able to digitally sync the audio. This is done by opening the audio/midi setting in the Mac, matching the sample rate and bit depth to my Pro Tools session, and selecting "external" for the mac audio sync.

Any suggestions for getting Bidule's rewire working properly would be greatly appreciated. It appears to be working, but makes no sound.

To the makers of Vienna Instruments: PLEASE devote some attention to us Pro Tools users. We are a big market.


Pro Tools 7.1
HD3accel
192 I/O
Mac G5 dual 2.7G
OS 10.4.5

Hi charlzj , I am contemplating purchasing Vienna Instruments and had hoped to get started using it in PT. I have had problems recently with other VI's that surprised me. This might have happened since installing PT 7.3. I was not getting sound on an aux channel with, say Ivory, even though I could see it was receiving MIDI. After a while I somehow figured it out. The aux chan input was on 'no input'. As soon as I selected an input, like 1-2, Ivory made sound. This was not very intuitive to me since I did not expect there would be a need to select an input since Ivory was in the Insert path and was supplying the sound, not the 1-2 input. But, I guess PT requires something other than 'no input' to be selected. Anyway, I wondered if you might be having the same issue.

Thank you Mystr Tiger. Yes, I have run into that before, so I definitely made sure to try assigning something to the input. I remain baffled.

Running Vienna Instruments as standalone is better than nothing, but a PITA, since I can only run one instance at a time. Building arrangements by sequencing one part at a time, then printing audio before going to the next part is making me crazy!

I received notice that Ilio is having a sale til Feb 15 - I'm wondering if I should invest further in these products. They sound so good, but I'm stuck trying to get this to work effectively in Pro Tools.

Is there a moderator in the house who could shed some light?

Hello charlzj,

there is no RTAS version available yet, although I´d love to tell you something different.

Honestly, the best way to use the Vienna Instruments in your setup is to get a slave computer for your samples. This way you will establish a reliable workflow that also allows you to use orchestral templates that you can load on a seperate computer.

Hope that helps.

Best regards,

Paul

@charlzj said:

FWIW, Here's my experience using Vienna Instruments with Pro Tools so far. The Fxpansion vst to rtas adaptor (which works great with other VST instruments) sees the Vienna Instrument, but is unable to convert it. So at this point I am forced to use the Vienna Instrument in standalone mode.

I was able to use VSI with Fxpansion VST to RTAS with no problem. It wrapped the plug with no problems. This was with Fx VST to RTAS version 1.6 (for DAE 6.9) I would asume that it should work the same with Fx VST to RTAS version 2.0 for DAE 7.X.

Hi,

it´s true that you can open the Vienna Instruments in a wrapper, and depending on your machine you can open up to 3-5 instances, which is simply not enough in our opinion....

Best,

Paul

Thanks to all who have responded!

I finally managed to get the VST wrapper to convert VSI to RTAS, and it works... sort of. Some annoying stuck note and dropped note bugginess, weird velocity response anomolies, erroneous release sample triggering, crashing,etc. And that's with only 2 or 3 instatiations.

I know, I should buy a second computer, run VSI on a different platform than Pro Tools... I wasn't counting on the additional expense, hassle, and complexity of another computer, interface, rewiring and re-configuring my rack, adding and learning a second software platform program, etc, etc. Yikes!! '[[:|]]' I'm not doing big film cues here, just string parts on pop records.

Additional non-RTAS-related problems (I will also post these to another, more relevant thread):

REPEATED disappearance of licenses. I've repaired disk permissions, re-installed licenses, dragged the plug-in out of and back into my VST plug-in folder, shutdown and restarted more times than I can count.

Save button is grayed out, so I can't save anything. And repairing disk permissions did not fix the problem.

Love the sounds, but the software is making me lose what little hair I have left... '[*-)]'

Thanks to user Simon Ravn, I can save now. Deleting the "Vienna Instruments Custom Data" folder and creating a new one fixed that problem.

You know, this is finally just irresponsible of VSL. I jumped in as some of you apparently did also, and bought the full VSL Instruments Strings I and II before the price-hike because there was a reference somewhere (Ilio?) that you could run it with PT. And as it turns out you can either run it as a VST instrument with a wrapper--and the performance is inadequate--or you can run it as a stand-alone and you can then use 1 instance of it at a time. This takes me back to the 1970's and the first Synclavier with mono sampling.

Ridiculous. I think there needs to be more than a moderator simply contributing a helpless shrug. Either VSL needs to say clearly in their promotional literature that the VSL Instruments don't work within ProTools and therefore you can only use a single instance of the plug as a stand-alone or they need to fix the problem. I will also grouse, while I'm at it, that for several years now this has been a problem with most of the the German companies--NI notoriously--the Mac versions are add-ons and the implementation is shaky. Years after Reaktor was first introduced it's still performs badly in ProTools. I hope VSL intends to do better than that.

Aren't some people running several instances of standalone by running copies of the standalone version?

You can also pick up Plogue Bidule cheaply (plug-in host program), instantiate as many VST VIs as you like, connect Bidule to PT via rewire, and voilà. Haven't done this extensively, but I've tried it, and it appears to work very well.

PL

If multiple Vienna Instrument instances can be run in stand-alone mode, I would like to know how... I could only open one.

I have managed to run multiple instances in ReWire via Plogue Bidule. But it's a bit complicated, and somewhat buggy. If anyone is interested, I can post the exact procedure. Someone else had previously posted a how-to, but I found that I had to do it a little differently in order to make it work.

drpgleeson, I'm with you. And I too have experienced problems with poor Mac versions of other instruments. An especially egregious example for me: EastWest Symphonic Gold Orch library, bundled with Kompakt. The Mac version is obviously a bastard stepchild, extremely buggy and crashy. And before I bought it, I actually called and specifically asked them if there were any Mac/PT issues and was assured that it was fine. Let me assure you it is not...

Sorry, I digress; this thread is about Vienna...

So how about it, Vienna - You've said you ran into problems making an RTAS vesion. So does that mean you're throwing in the RTAS towel, or are you still trying to make it happen?

welcome drpgleeson,

@Another User said:

Either VSL needs to say clearly in their promotional literature that the VSL Instruments don't work within ProTools

it says clearly on each product page *AU, VST, stand-alone*, RTAS is not mentioned there and if PT does not support AU or VST clearly some kind of other solution is needed - which one depends also on your specific setup.

on the other hand our devopers worked long and hard on a _usable_ RTAS version, which turned up to be more tricky than initially thought. i'd ask you to lurk around in several forums if and how reliable and performant various RTAS implementations run, always please considering the ratio of content/amount needed to be streamed.

as you know RTAS is not an open implementation like VST or AU and - simplified speaking - works in two modes: hardware and software. both are proprietary and since it looks like digidesign likes to push their own sampler, further conclusions should be obvious.

christian

ps: if you like to betatest RTAS versions you're welcome, let us know ...

CM - you should have been a politician! Nicely dodged!! '[[;)]]'

To quote myself,
"You've said you ran into problems making an RTAS vesion. So does that mean you're throwing in the RTAS towel, or are you still trying to make it happen?"

@Another User said:

"if you like to beta test RTAS versions you're welcome, let us know ..."

That would imply that the quest is ongoing after all.

yes/no '[*-)]:'


...Well, OK, I'll bite... I will beta test.

One more question - If I were to buy a slave computer to run VIs, can you please tell me the recommended platform (Mac or PC, and host program) that is best? Most efficient, bug-free, etc?

I'll beta test as well.