# VEPro Disabled Template Question



## InLight-Tone (Nov 29, 2018)

So in Cubase 9.5 I had a 1000+ instrument track disabled template consisting of mostly individual Kontakt instances. It worked fine for me, save times were under 5 seconds and file sizes for an average project were around 300MB.

I recently upgraded to Cubase 10 and rebuilt the whole template with some improvements including replacing Kontakt 5 with 6. Unfortunately file sizes now top 1+ GB and save times are over 15 seconds or more. Unusable!

That brings me to Vienna Ensemble Pro. I would like to setup initially a big 1000+ template using the disabled channel feature. How does one automate the enabled/disabled tracks so that I can load up VEPro and reopen my Cubase project and have it re-enable the tracks I'm working on?

I will probably add additional slaves in the future since I'm going this route, but for now one machine it is...


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## Grizzlymv (Nov 29, 2018)

Hmm. I don't know how you managed to have a 300Mb project with that quantity of Kontakt tracks, but on my side it was close to 1Gb in 9.5, with 15-20 seconds save. That's the reason why I moved away from that setup. You could technically move everything in VEPro, but personally I think it would be too much. What I did was to move in VEPro all "orchestra" instruments (strings, brass, woods, and percs). Anything that I needed quick access to the VST to tweak the instrument on a project basis, I kept it in Cubase as disabled track (Hybrid percs, synths, guitars, basses, keys, etc). That allowed me to reduce the file size back to around 200-300 Mb. Everything runs on the same machine, and since I've got a lot of RAM (96 Gb), my VEPro Project is all enabled (takes about 45 Gb). I could disable /enable some instances depending of the project need. But in that case, I'd have to adjust that everytime I'd load a project. The fact they are all enabled, I never have to worry about the VEPro tracks, just the Cubase ones. 

I considered automating the VEPro, but it wouldn't make sense in the way I build my VEPro. I have 4 VEPro Instance (Strings, Brass, Woods, Percs) and each instance have up to 12-14 "channels" (VST, so in my case, Kontakt). Each Kontakt would contain the same library, so for instance, Strings - Channel 1 - would have CSS - Violin 1, from Legato to Bartok (so I believe around 14 tracks) within that instance as I don't like to have multiple articulation on the same instrument. I prefer to have 1 art per track. 

I'm not at home right now, but can share some screenshots when I get back home.


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## Bender-offender (Nov 29, 2018)

It’s very tedious, but I did this in VE Pro by using the automation panel and assigning enable/disable to a button on my midi controller which toggles this. The biggest issue is — if you write in the cc automation to the corresponding midi track in cubase — things can get messy depending on the state you left VE Pro when you saved the template. For example, when I insert the cc at 127 to enable the VE Pro channel, save and quit, then come back later, once cubase sends that cc at 127 again, it then disables that VE Pro channel instead on enabling it. So it’s not as simple as the cc sending 127 = enabled and 0 = disabled. I found it easier to leave the basic instruments ON constantly, and the channels I want to disable I’d enable them with the cc, play in the midi, bounce in place, then disable the channel again. 

I know a friend of mine has requested to VSL for years that they have an option to have VE Pro channels automatically disable themselves if no midi is being received, and then to turn on once midi is received — similar to kontakt’s purge function. Not sure this will ever happen though.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 1, 2018)

Grizzlymv said:


> Hmm. I don't know how you managed to have a 300Mb project with that quantity of Kontakt tracks, but on my side it was close to 1Gb in 9.5, with 15-20 seconds save. That's the reason why I moved away from that setup. You could technically move everything in VEPro, but personally I think it would be too much. What I did was to move in VEPro all "orchestra" instruments (strings, brass, woods, and percs). Anything that I needed quick access to the VST to tweak the instrument on a project basis, I kept it in Cubase as disabled track (Hybrid percs, synths, guitars, basses, keys, etc). That allowed me to reduce the file size back to around 200-300 Mb. Everything runs on the same machine, and since I've got a lot of RAM (96 Gb), my VEPro Project is all enabled (takes about 45 Gb). I could disable /enable some instances depending of the project need. But in that case, I'd have to adjust that everytime I'd load a project. The fact they are all enabled, I never have to worry about the VEPro tracks, just the Cubase ones.
> 
> I considered automating the VEPro, but it wouldn't make sense in the way I build my VEPro. I have 4 VEPro Instance (Strings, Brass, Woods, Percs) and each instance have up to 12-14 "channels" (VST, so in my case, Kontakt). Each Kontakt would contain the same library, so for instance, Strings - Channel 1 - would have CSS - Violin 1, from Legato to Bartok (so I believe around 14 tracks) within that instance as I don't like to have multiple articulation on the same instrument. I prefer to have 1 art per track.
> 
> I'm not at home right now, but can share some screenshots when I get back home.


I think I built that template with Cubase 9, but file sizes have since exploded in newer versions. Too bad as I liked working that way, pretty simple.

I'm probably going to follow your lead on setup except that I want to use expression maps to keep track count down. Also I'm using Composer Tools Pro and having all the articulation on a touch screen is pretty cool. Setting up Cubase, VEPro and Composer Tools, not cool, major time suck...

So you run everything on your Xeon computer and don't use the slave at all? That sounds like a good setup. As I look into VEPro, I thought about just investing in one beat machine instead of slaves but not sure if it would work...


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## Grizzlymv (Dec 1, 2018)

InLight-Tone said:


> So you run everything on your Xeon computer and don't use the slave at all? That sounds like a good setup. As I look into VEPro, I thought about just investing in one beat machine instead of slaves but not sure if it would work...



You might be right for the file, but can't really say as back in the days I was all on VE Pro and slaves (my computer back then wasn't good enough to allow me to run on a single machine) so my cpr file size were more between 5 and 10 Mb. I briefly went on Mac as well, but that didn't turn out great, so I went back on PC and bought a used HP Z800 (Dual Xeon 6 cores) with 96 Gb of RAM, and 2x 512 Gb ssd drives for the samples, 1x500 ssd for the OS and 1 tb drive for the projects files. 

Right now for instance, I wrote a 68 tracks cue, that about half are Cubase disabled tracks (the rest are MIDI Instrument tracks linked to VEPro) and VEPro uses about 36 Gb and Cubase 7gb, with the system and such I'm using 53% of memory, and the CPU (with all effects on) is about 30% with 18 used by cubase alone, and 9-10% by VEPro. The CPR file is about 265 Mb so it takes about 5 seconds to save. It happened only once that I maxed the resources with a track with all effects on. So for sure, having a master/slave setup would be much better, but for 80-85% of the time, I can manage to run everything from a single machine. The other 15%, either I Freeze tracks or I disable effects until I get to the final rendering. 

I've attached a few screen grab of my VEPro setup/cubase. It just gives an overview, but it may help. Keep in mind that the cubase one, you only see the track I made visible. Everything is hidden by default and I'm using the search icon to quickly find the track I want and then it become visible. Then I can enable it as needed. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/BUmj9xa8FkJzp1rg8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JQu7rKmeGbTqoGxW6

https://photos.app.goo.gl/j7uCSjouGNwdov5FA

Finding what work best might be a long journey, but it's a worth one. Good luck.


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## Dirk Ehlert (Dec 1, 2018)

Bender-offender said:


> The biggest issue is — if you write in the cc automation to the corresponding midi track in cubase — things can get messy depending on the state you left VE Pro when you saved the template. For example, when I insert the cc at 127 to enable the VE Pro channel, save and quit, then come back later, once cubase sends that cc at 127 again, it then disables that VE Pro channel instead on enabling it. So it’s not as simple as the cc sending 127 = enabled and 0 = disabled.


That's strange, on my end I have a control setup on my touchpad which essentially does exactly that, I can switch off and on the VEPro channel. I mean, it still can get messy when you've been working with such a template for a while (more often than not I find when opening projects that some channels are not playing because I actually forgot to put the "enable" midi CC into the track etc.) But I definitely have CC127 disabling at 0 and enabling at 127.


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## Guy Rowland (Dec 1, 2018)

Bender-offender said:


> I know a friend of mine has requested to VSL for years that they have an option to have VE Pro channels automatically disable themselves if no midi is being received, and then to turn on once midi is received — similar to kontakt’s purge function. Not sure this will ever happen though.



I've been saying for years that if VE Pro 7 has a feature like this it will be a game changer. Right now this is the functionality that is missing from VE Pro to stop it being the all conquering hero. It has disabled instances, but there big, clumsy and there's no seamless way to deal with it. It needs to work in the background on a per-channel basis.

I don't know about the auto disable thing, but wake on midi is pretty much all I'd need. Start with a gazillion tracks all disabled, should load like lightning. Then on that per-channel basis, it wakes on midi note info. Perhaps have a CC to disable, but in practice I doubt I'd need it. Then - this is a cute bit - in your DAW you have muted clips of a note on bar one of everything, and you just unmute the folders you need right at the start so you can load up just the core things you're likely to use - chamber strings, big band whatever.

Project sizes would be small, load times tiny and you'd have virtually instant access to absolutely everything.


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## Pablocrespo (Dec 1, 2018)

Guy Rowland said:


> I've been saying for years that if VE Pro 7 has a feature like this it will be a game changer. Right now this is the functionality that is missing from VE Pro to stop it being the all conquering hero. It has disabled instances, but there big, clumsy and there's no seamless way to deal with it. It needs to work in the background on a per-channel basis.
> 
> I don't know about the auto disable thing, but wake on midi is pretty much all I'd need. Start with a gazillion tracks all disabled, should load like lightning. Then on that per-channel basis, it wakes on midi note info. Perhaps have a CC to disable, but in practice I doubt I'd need it. Then - this is a cute bit - in your DAW you have muted clips of a note on bar one of everything, and you just unmute the folders you need right at the start so you can load up just the core things you're likely to use - chamber strings, big band whatever.
> 
> Project sizes would be small, load times tiny and you'd have virtually instant access to absolutely everything.


Have you ever talked with the Vep guys about this? It would be a very nice addition!

(I think one of the developers hang around here)


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 1, 2018)

Dirk Ehlert said:


> That's strange, on my end I have a control setup on my touchpad which essentially does exactly that, I can switch off and on the VEPro channel. I mean, it still can get messy when you've been working with such a template for a while (more often than not I find when opening projects that some channels are not playing because I actually forgot to put the "enable" midi CC into the track etc.) But I definitely have CC127 disabling at 0 and enabling at 127.


Hey Dirk, I watched your whole 2 hour nerdy video on this. Are you still using the big kitchen sink template approach so you can write whatever kind of music you want from on template?


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 1, 2018)

Grizzlymv said:


> You might be right for the file, but can't really say as back in the days I was all on VE Pro and slaves (my computer back then wasn't good enough to allow me to run on a single machine) so my cpr file size were more between 5 and 10 Mb. I briefly went on Mac as well, but that didn't turn out great, so I went back on PC and bought a used HP Z800 (Dual Xeon 6 cores) with 96 Gb of RAM, and 2x 512 Gb ssd drives for the samples, 1x500 ssd for the OS and 1 tb drive for the projects files.
> 
> Right now for instance, I wrote a 68 tracks cue, that about half are Cubase disabled tracks (the rest are MIDI Instrument tracks linked to VEPro) and VEPro uses about 36 Gb and Cubase 7gb, with the system and such I'm using 53% of memory, and the CPU (with all effects on) is about 30% with 18 used by cubase alone, and 9-10% by VEPro. The CPR file is about 265 Mb so it takes about 5 seconds to save. It happened only once that I maxed the resources with a track with all effects on. So for sure, having a master/slave setup would be much better, but for 80-85% of the time, I can manage to run everything from a single machine. The other 15%, either I Freeze tracks or I disable effects until I get to the final rendering.
> 
> ...


Thanks for posting all this, that was very helpful!


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## Bender-offender (Dec 2, 2018)

Dirk Ehlert said:


> That's strange, on my end I have a control setup on my touchpad which essentially does exactly that, I can switch off and on the VEPro channel. I mean, it still can get messy when you've been working with such a template for a while (more often than not I find when opening projects that some channels are not playing because I actually forgot to put the "enable" midi CC into the track etc.) But I definitely have CC127 disabling at 0 and enabling at 127.


I’m sure you’re correct.  I wasn’t at my desk when writing my previous response. 

Either way, I just remember controlling “enable/disable” with a CC message wasn’t worth it to me. I think the only way it would be accurate is if there is a way to trigger enable with one CC and disable with a different CC. I should try playing around with it again.


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Dec 2, 2018)

InLight-Tone said:


> So in Cubase 9.5 I had a 1000+ instrument track disabled template consisting of mostly individual Kontakt instances. It worked fine for me, save times were under 5 seconds and file sizes for an average project were around 300MB.
> 
> I recently upgraded to Cubase 10 and rebuilt the whole template with some improvements including replacing Kontakt 5 with 6. Unfortunately file sizes now top 1+ GB and save times are over 15 seconds or more. Unusable!
> 
> ...


I haven't got time to read everything so forgive if this has already been suggested.

I have a (VEP) master template. When I start new project I load up my master template and create a new save (renamed as my project name) in my project folder. Anything I do from there only happens on the project version of the master template.

Pretty ez.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, everything on the template is disabled, then I just select what I want to use for the project and enable it.


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## Guy Rowland (Dec 3, 2018)

Pablocrespo said:


> Have you ever talked with the Vep guys about this? It would be a very nice addition!
> 
> (I think one of the developers hang around here)



I’m pretty sure I made the request on the VSL forum a couple of years ago.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 3, 2018)

Bender-offender said:


> I’m sure you’re correct.  I wasn’t at my desk when writing my previous response.
> 
> Either way, I just remember controlling “enable/disable” with a CC message wasn’t worth it to me. I think the only way it would be accurate is if there is a way to trigger enable with one CC and disable with a different CC. I should try playing around with it again.


Actually after playing around with it, it's CC#Whatever 000 Enables, and CC# 127 Disables. Both CC's are the same...


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## Bender-offender (Dec 3, 2018)

InLight-Tone said:


> Actually after playing around with it, it's CC#Whatever 000 Enables, and CC# 127 Disables. Both CC's are the same...


That’s good to hear 

I’ll need to test this out again. Like I said, when I was doing this, it often got confusing and unreliable, so maybe it’s worth another try.


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 3, 2018)

Bender-offender said:


> That’s good to hear
> 
> I’ll need to test this out again. Like I said, when I was doing this, it often got confusing and unreliable, so maybe it’s worth another try.


I'm pretty impressed with it so far but haven't really exercised it properly yet. I've got a long way to go setup wise as I'm dis-assembling my disabled Cubase template bit by bit and setting it up in VEPro along with a corresponding setup for each instrument in Composer Tools by MidiKinetics. Lot's of work but great control long term, all the little details at your fingertips...


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## J-M (Dec 3, 2018)

I remember reading sometime ago that one shouldn't mix Play and Kontakt inside one VEPro instance. Does anyone have experience with this? I'm looking to throw in Engine 2 as well...I'm on Cubase 9 and PC.


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## Grizzlymv (Dec 3, 2018)

MrLinssi said:


> I remember reading sometime ago that one shouldn't mix Play and Kontakt inside one VEPro instance. Does anyone have experience with this? I'm looking to throw in Engine 2 as well...I'm on Cubase 9 and PC.


Where did you got that? I'm running kontakt and play in my perc instance for a few months now (decided to bring back my old SD2 into use). What problems you might look into?


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## J-M (Dec 3, 2018)

Grizzlymv said:


> Where did you got that? I'm running kontakt and play in my perc instance for a few months now (decided to bring back my old SD2 into use). What problems you might look into?



Well that's the thing: I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure it was here on VI-C. Anyways, I remember someone posting that mixing Play and Kontakt caused instabilities in VEPro and that it should be avoided. But I'm glad to see that this doesn't seem to be the case anymore (if it ever really was)...I'd hate to make a separate instance just for Play.


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## Grizzlymv (Dec 3, 2018)

MrLinssi said:


> Well that's the thing: I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure it was here on VI-C. Anyways, I remember someone posting that mixing Play and Kontakt caused instabilities in VEPro and that it should be avoided. But I'm glad to see that this doesn't seem to be the case anymore (if it ever really was)...I'd hate to make a separate instance just for Play.



Interesting. Well I might remove the play instance from the template anyway and convert it as disabled track on Cubase . I can't find a way to purge the samples in play so it's kind of ridiculous to use about 1gb of memory for nothing. So on Cubase as disabled, should be better although I never tried a disabled track with play. Hopefully it will work as smooth as other vst.


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## novaburst (Dec 3, 2018)

MrLinssi said:


> I remember reading sometime ago that one shouldn't mix Play and Kontakt inside one VEPro instance. Does anyone have experience with this? I'm looking to throw in Engine 2 as well...I'm on Cubase 9 and PC.



I have experienced this, and also with UVI, when a certain instrument was played in play it would crash, or I would have none response, when play was on its own or with say VSL it would be ok
the same as UVI, VEpro 5, Play 5, kontackt 5. what ever



MrLinssi said:


> I'd hate to make a separate instance just for Play.



I find nothing wrong with this approach especially if you are using tons of instruments from that engine,


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## InLight-Tone (Dec 4, 2018)

UPDATE:
Wanted to add a footnote that I had found out what inflated my Cubase disabled template size. I use NI Action Strikes a lot and decided to put all 70+ instruments in the template as separate tracks. I noticed that Media Bay always choked on those as track presets, so I pulled them out and viola, template size is 450mb with over 1200 tracks...


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## Guy Rowland (Dec 4, 2018)

Ah yes, I mentioned Action Strikes on a different thread earlier - it's notorious on disabled tracks.


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## J-M (Dec 4, 2018)

novaburst said:


> I have experienced this, and also with UVI, when a certain instrument was played in play it would crash, or I would have none response, when play was on its own or with say VSL it would be ok
> the same as UVI, VEpro 5, Play 5, kontackt 5. what ever
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks mate. I guess I should play it safe and separate Kontakt and Play, wouldn't want to make an instance of dozens of tracks only to find that it doesn't really work...


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## Breaker (Dec 4, 2018)

MrLinssi said:


> Thanks mate. I guess I should play it safe and separate Kontakt and Play, wouldn't want to make an instance of dozens of tracks only to find that it doesn't really work...



I think the whole thing was originally due to memory management of Kontakt and it was also recommended to load all Play instances and patches before Kontakt. I haven't seen anyone mentioning this since the times of Play 3 (2011?) and I guess even then it was unclear if it was a Mac thing only.

That said I still have the habit of keeping my Play and Kontakt instances in separate VEP instances as it is just clearer to me.


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## jneebz (Dec 4, 2018)

Breaker said:


> I think the whole thing was originally due to memory management of Kontakt and it was also recommended to load all Play instances and patches before Kontakt. I haven't seen anyone mentioning this since the times of Play 3 (2011?) and I guess even then it was unclear if it was a Mac thing only.


FWIW, I recently (maybe July?) talked to Vienna support and they recommended I separate PLAY 5.X and my Kontakt instances...and like you mentioned, load PLAY before Kontakt. Seemed to reduce my crashes...


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## J-M (Dec 4, 2018)

Tell you what guys, I have all the time in the world, so I'll try loading up Play 6 and Kontakt 5 (and Engine 2) in the same instance and we'll see what happens.


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## Breaker (Dec 5, 2018)

jneebz said:


> FWIW, I recently (maybe July?) talked to Vienna support and they recommended I separate PLAY 5.X and my Kontakt instances...and like you mentioned, load PLAY before Kontakt. Seemed to reduce my crashes...



Interesting. I use lot of disabled Kontakt and Play instances in VEP, enabling them as needed, so loading stuff in certain order is basically impossible. I haven't had any crashes in VEP in few years though.



MrLinssi said:


> Tell you what guys, I have all the time in the world, so I'll try loading up Play 6 and Kontakt 5 (and Engine 2) in the same instance and we'll see what happens.



Please do tell us of your findings.


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## J-M (Dec 7, 2018)

Well, I made an instance of Engine 2, Kontakt 5 and Play 6. Worked fine for me, no crashes or any abnormal behavior, even when disabling tracks inside VEPro. Don't know how it goes once I load up way more instruments, though...


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