# Ditching Vienna Ensemble to consolidate to 2019 Mac Pro--Questions!



## Rtomproductions (Jul 15, 2020)

Ok, so a couple questions here...

I've been on the Mac + network of PC's connected via Vienna Ensemble setup for years now (as many of us have been), but with the 2019 Mac Pro specs, it would seem that we finally have a chance to go back to a single machine workflow.

My question is this: in theory, it would make sense that a 12 core machine would at least = a 6-core 2013 Mac Pro + 6-core PC. In my case, I also use a laptop PC for some additional juice, but I don't need it often so let's ignore that for now.

The 2019 Mac has the added benefit of newer core architecture; my PC is a 6-core Coffee Lake, and the 2013 Mac Pro is, well, 7 years old. So should I expect at least equal performance out of the one 12 core machine vs. the two older/much older 6-core machines?

If so, can I just go ahead and ditch/sell the PC? Also, for the purposes of loading old sessions, is it possible to just open up an instance (or whatever) of Vienna Ensemble within the 2019 Mac, open up my session, and have all the tracks that would, in my old setup, sync with the PC, sync with the instance of VE within the Mac? I just want to make sure I won't have to rebuild my template every time I want to open an old project.

I've never done the whole "host virtual instruments within VE on the same machine" thing before as it seemed to just add an unnecessary step in the workflow.

Also the new Mac will be the 12 core with 5TB of PCIe SSD's for sample streaming and 196GB of RAM. So...can I go ahead and sell the PC? That Mac was expensive


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## gsilbers (Jul 15, 2020)

Rtomproductions said:


> Ok, so a couple questions here...
> 
> I've been on the Mac + network of PC's connected via Vienna Ensemble setup for years now (as many of us have been), but with the 2019 Mac Pro specs, it would seem that we finally have a chance to go back to a single machine workflow.
> 
> ...



Wow, yeah... u will be able to have an all in one system. Not deal w windows and networks and work faster.
Have u tried it yet?


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## Kent (Jul 15, 2020)

Rtomproductions said:


> I've never done the whole "host virtual instruments within VE on the same machine" thing before as it seemed to just add an unnecessary step in the workflow.



I find it's still effective for at least two things:

1. Provides the many benefits of running preserved & decoupled

2. Adds additional processing buffer without impacting live track response


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## Rtomproductions (Jul 15, 2020)

gsilbers said:


> Wow, yeah... u will be able to have an all in one system. Not deal w windows and networks and work faster.
> Have u tried it yet?



Nope; the new machine is coming in tomorrow.


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## Wunderhorn (Jul 15, 2020)

Definitely keep VEP7 and run it on the new Mac Pro.
Even without the PC this is highly beneficial.


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## Rtomproductions (Jul 16, 2020)

Wunderhorn said:


> Definitely keep VEP7 and run it on the new Mac Pro.
> Even without the PC this is highly beneficial.



So...stupid question; I never really properly learned how to use VEP. I figured out just enough to make it work, but I literally haven't had a break in projects in years so I just didn't have time to really optimize the workflow/learn VEP.

Right now, I just turn on my PC, open up VEP, and when I load the session in my Mac, it just automagically populates all the instances I need on the PC and it just...works.

So let's say I ditch the PC's but have VEP on the Mac. If I open up VEP and open up one of my old sessions, will it do the same thing within the Mac that it was doing on the PC? I know, I know, it's a silly question but like I said, I (thankfully) just don't really get breaks between projects so I don't have time to properly learn this stuff.

My Mac actually just came in a few minutes ago and it's frikken huge! I had no idea it'd be such a large machine.


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## marclawsonmusic (Jul 16, 2020)

Rtomproductions said:


> So let's say I ditch the PC's but have VEP on the Mac. If I open up VEP and open up one of my old sessions, will it do the same thing within the Mac that it was doing on the PC? I know, I know, it's a silly question but like I said, I (thankfully) just don't really get breaks between projects so I don't have time to properly learn this stuff.



If you move VEP to your Mac and open an old project, nothing will work. Your VEPro plugins will be looking for the PC, which is no longer there.

However, at that point you can reconnect those plugins to the VEP server on your Mac and things should play back fine.

The advantage of running VEP on the Mac Pro is you offload some CPU processing into VEPro. Also, you load your samples once per day, and can very quickly switch between projects. Otherwise, you will be reloading samples each time you load a project.

Single machine - yes. Ditch VEPro? I don't think you have to... there are still advantages.


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## Rtomproductions (Jul 17, 2020)

marclawsonmusic said:


> If you move VEP to your Mac and open an old project, nothing will work. Your VEPro plugins will be looking for the PC, which is no longer there.
> 
> However, at that point you can reconnect those plugins to the VEP server on your Mac and things should play back fine.
> 
> ...



Sorry, I'm still a bit unclear; right now, when I open up the application on the PC ("Vienna Ensemble Pro Server") and then open my logic session, it automatically populates all the instances in my template (and there's ALOT).

If I instead had that application open on my Mac (VEP Server) and opened the same Logic session, would all the Vienna Ensemble plugins in Logic then tell the VEP Server application open on the Mac what to load? Or would they still be looking for the PC and fail to load?

If not, then I won't sell the PC; I would probably just opt to keep it in case I need to quickly get into any old sessions. It's a ~400 track template and I just don't have the time to rebuild it every time I need to open an old session.


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## marclawsonmusic (Jul 17, 2020)

No problem, Ryan.

It sounds like you are not using the decoupled feature of VE Pro. It sounds like all the plugin information is stored in the Logic session, and when you open that session, it populates the VE Pro Server on the PC.

You are correct that if the PC goes away, you won't be able to open the old sessions. The VE Pro plugins in Logic will try to connect to the PC and won't be able to find it.

You might be able to get around this by using some network trickery - e.g. updating the hosts file on the Mac with an alias of the old PC pointed to the Mac's IP address. In fact, that just might work. But you would need to understand a bit about networking to do that.

I am using the decoupled feature... which means I start VE Pro Server first and load it with all my instances. Then, in Logic, the VE Pro plugins connect to those existing instances. When I close the Logic session, the VE Pro Server stays up - with all the instances still loaded - and when I load the next Logic session, it loads very quickly - because it is just connecting, rather than reloading all the samples.

It's a different way of working, but definitely a time saver to run decoupled - particularly if you switch between projects a lot. Logic file sizes are also much smaller.

I hope this helps,
Marc


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## Jack Weaver (Jul 17, 2020)

Mac Pro 2019 here. Logic Pro X.
PC slave now gone. 
Happy here.

.


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