# HELP with Template Configuration on one Mac Pro



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 14, 2015)

Hi Everyone

I've read multiple threads on this but still can't find a solution to my particular problem. The CPU usage in my VEPro instances is considerably high and I'm getting audio fall outs when playing back dense cues. I've seen videos of people running large templates on rigs simular to mine so I'm sure there are configuration tweaks that I'm missing. Here is my setup:

I've got a Mac Pro (2010) 12 core @ 2.66 Ghz with 64 GB RAM running OSX 10.10.3. I've got an orchestral template with 5 instances of VEPro 5 (WW, Brass, Strings, Perc, Synth). I run a combination of Orchestral tools, Spitfire, and Cinesamples libraries and the track count is not outlandish but I'm still having problems. I messed with the Cubase buffer, the VEPro CPU thread assignment and Kontakt patch save functions, but I'm not convinsed I did all of that right. Can someone point me to Kontakt, VEPro, and Cubase optimizations to make this template work?

Thanks in advance.

G


----------



## samphony (Jun 14, 2015)

Have you played around with the midi ports and audio ports?


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 14, 2015)

samphony @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Have you played around with the midi ports and audio ports?




I'll try that right now. Any specific setting recommendations?


----------



## Markus Kohlprath (Jun 14, 2015)

*Re: vEPro and Cubase CPU Usage on same Mac Pro*

I switched 6 month ago from a pc which I use as slave now to a macpro 2012 similar to yours ( quad core) which is my master now. The oddest thing regarding vepro I noticed compared to the pc was that it performs much better if I have fewer instruments per instance and more instances. Especially with kontakt. E.g. I used to have all Sample modelling Brass in one vepro instance on the pc without a problem. This is impossible on the mac. But if I have one instance with the horns, one with trumpets, tuba and basstrombone and one with tenor trombomes (these seem most demanding- dont know why) it runs smoothly without problems- latency at 256samples, could even be less. 
So maybe worth a try to reduce the instruments per vepro instance.
Cheers
Markus


----------



## samphony (Jun 14, 2015)

What Markus describes is the way I'm working in Logic Pro. 

I've also noticed if I lower the audio ports to 2 or 4 and he midiports to less than 8 everything connects quicker.

My guess less audio ports per instance at least on a mac when working with multiple instances in a meta frame not only connects quicker (vst3) but will give better performance.

This all if hosted on the same mac. 
Taking one or multiple slaves into account changes your situation again.

Also if kontakts multi processor handling is activated it performs better in my setup even if hosted in VEP. I have set it to 3.


----------



## samphony (Jun 14, 2015)

Did you know hat you can adjust the multi thread assignment per project in a VEP meta frame?

Even if your main VEP thread assignment is set to 3 you can set the strings instance to 6 if you need to.


----------



## scarred bunny (Jun 14, 2015)

*Re: vEPro and Cubase CPU Usage on same Mac Pro*

+1 to trying more instances of VEP. That's what I did recently when I rebuilt my template, trying to optimize resource use. Apparently Asio Guard can work some serious magic as far as CPU use goes - assuming you have Cubase 8 (previous versions of Asio Guard don't support multitimbral or disk streaming instruments if I recall). I used to have three giant instances of VEP, one for each orchestral section, each loaded with a ton of Kontakts. The problem is when using Asio Guard, when any one midi track is record-enabled the associated VEP instance and *all* the Kontakts therein are put in 'live mode'. I figured that by spreading it out across more individual VEP instances I could limit the amount instruments in live mode at any given time. My new template has something like 25-30 VEP instances, each with a single Kontakt and nothing else. Asio Guard enabled and set to high, typically running at a buffer size of 96-128 samples (occasionally higher if it's a busy arrangement). Works fine. 

As I recall, Jay Asher recommends the same kind of setup within Logic. I haven't done any testing myself, but I would suspect this would be the best way in any DAW that uses any kind of anticipative processing to optimize CPU use.

A lot of people have found Asio Guard to be glitchy as hell with VEP. As have I, but all problems seem to go away if I set VEP's added latency to 0 buffers (from the VST interface within Cubase). Smooth sailing from there. At least on my system. 

I've tried screwing around with the number of threads and ports and all of that, but I didn't see much difference in CPU use. Cubase seems to connect to VEP faster if I have fewer midi ports enabled though. 

I should also note that I'm on Windows, so I'm not sure if any of this works differently on Mac OS.


----------



## samphony (Jun 14, 2015)

Any host that does dual buffer processing should benefit from single instance relation. If you do that for Cubase enabled asio guard I would recommend an audio port setting of 2 per instance when working in stereo and a midi port setting of 1 midi port per instance.


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 15, 2015)

*Re: vEPro and Cubase CPU Usage on same Mac Pro*



scarred bunny @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> +1 to trying more instances of VEP. That's what I did recently when I rebuilt my template, trying to optimize resource use. Apparently Asio Guard can work some serious magic as far as CPU use goes - assuming you have Cubase 8 (previous versions of Asio Guard don't support multitimbral or disk streaming instruments if I recall). I used to have three giant instances of VEP, one for each orchestral section, each loaded with a ton of Kontakts. The problem is when using Asio Guard, when any one midi track is record-enabled the associated VEP instance and *all* the Kontakts therein are put in 'live mode'. I figured that by spreading it out across more individual VEP instances I could limit the amount instruments in live mode at any given time. My new template has something like 25-30 VEP instances, each with a single Kontakt and nothing else. Asio Guard enabled and set to high, typically running at a buffer size of 96-128 samples (occasionally higher if it's a busy arrangement). Works fine.
> 
> As I recall, Jay Asher recommends the same kind of setup within Logic. I haven't done any testing myself, but I would suspect this would be the best way in any DAW that uses any kind of anticipative processing to optimize CPU use.
> 
> ...



Samphony - Markus 

Thanks for the advice. I starting rebuilding my template last night with one Kontakt per VEPro instance and so far so goog. Built all of my woodwind instruments and the CPU usage on one of the instances idles at 2%. The interesting note is that the CPU persentage (lower right hand corner) on my other VEPro instances was replaced by the word "MIXDOWN". Not sure what that means or if it is significant but I will contune my Template reconstruction tonight.

I'll update when finished.

G


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 17, 2015)

*Re: vEPro and Cubase CPU Usage on same Mac Pro*

OK Guys

Rebuilt my template:
87 Midi tracks
23 Instances of VEPro each with one Kontakt loaded.
Each instance set to one thread with a few set to 4 
Kontakt Memory manager is set to off 
Cubase ASIO-Guard is on with level set to high. 

A modest composition send the audio processing load meter through the roof and I get significant audio drop out. CPU usage seems OK but I'm not sure I'm checking it right. Either way, looks there is still something that I am missing. 

Any advice?


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 18, 2015)

*Re: vEPro and Cubase CPU Usage on same Mac Pro*

Getting guidance in another thread:

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3877055&highlight=#3877055


G


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 19, 2015)

*Re: vEPro and Cubase CPU Usage on same Mac Pro*

Update
Tried everything and still no solution. Even rolled back to Cubase 7 to see if that worked with no success. For the time being, I'm going to load Kontakt directly into Cubase 8 just get back up and running.


----------



## studioj (Jun 19, 2015)

samphony @ Sun Jun 14 said:


> Did you know hat you can adjust the multi thread assignment per project in a VEP meta frame?
> 
> Even if your main VEP thread assignment is set to 3 you can set the strings instance to 6 if you need to.



ah good tip thx!! Didn't realize that.


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 20, 2015)

*Re: vEPro and Cubase CPU Usage on same Mac Pro*

After tweaking I'm getting pops and crackles now. 

I am certain my machine can run this template, I've seen machines with this build handle it. Between the Cubase / Kontakt / VEPRO configuration, there is something I am missing.

If there is anyone out there running an orchestral template (I've got 87 tracks in mine) on one Mac Pro machine, please chime in and break down how you do. I'm specifically looking for Cubase / Kontakt / VEPro settings. 

Here are my specs one more time:

Mac Pro (2010) 12 core @ 2.66 Ghz 
64 GB RAM
OSX 10.10.3
Samples on SSDs

Woodwinds = Berlin Woodwinds
Brass = Spitfire Brass
Strings = Albion and Mural
Perc = Albion, HZ, and Spitfire Perc

G


----------



## gsilbers (Jun 20, 2015)

if you use cubase, can you have less VEP instances and each with more instruments?


----------



## audiophobic (Jun 21, 2015)

Hi there - with your system specs you should absolutely not be having the issues you describe! But saying that doesn't help you much... I have run Cubase and VEPro on a mac, although I'm W8/i7 quad at the moment so some of what follows may not apply directly, however...

* Basic advice from VSL is to keep number of VEPro instances low and load up each instance with as much as possible - I have 130+ orchestral tracks running from 1 instance of VEPro5 running 20+ Kontakt multis each running up ton 16 instruments including LASS and Spitfire stuff as well as running through QL Spaces. Cpu idles at 7%, loaded template gets up to about 60% but no pops or clicks

* Cubase Multi-processing and ASIO Guard are set to "OFF" - **VEPro and Kontakt are the only bits that are making use of all 8 cores**

* In addition the actual VEPro plugin within Cubase (ie the "Connection" dialogue box you get when you click on "edit instrument" within Cubase) is set to three buffers (rather than the standard two)

Of course this may be completely different to how you need to have your rig set up. The other key thing to look at is what else may be running on your system that may be causing audio dropouts etc:

*what kind of graphics does your Mac run? I had major pops and glitches when running through the built in HD4600 graphics

*what kind of system drive are you running? Your samples are on SSDs, but if your OS drive is chugging this may cause a bottleneck

*what kind of audio interface? a dodgy firewire cable can cause havoc


Hope this helps

Andy


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jun 21, 2015)

Andy / Gslibers

Thanks. I read somewhere that guys were using one instance of VEPro per instance of Kontakt. My brain said "That sounds weird but OK" So I went from four instance of VEPro to 23. After some scientific calculation with a crayon and a sticky I'm going to try and get it down to three instances of VEPro, and see how it goes.

Thanks again.


----------



## samphony (Jun 21, 2015)

The one instance per kontakt makes sense if you copy the Logic Pro x workflow and have Asio Guard enabled. As logics dual buffer / hybrid engine better balances single tracks so does cubase probably as well at its current state. 

If you disable Asio guard for VEP you might have better luck to use less instances as possible.

I tend to use only 1-3 instances when working with studio one and 20+ instances when working with logic. 

I found when using less instances, less audio ports the connection and reconnection times between DAW and VEP decrease enormously.

When I was working for a project in NYC last year I traveled only with my trashcan and 1 Black Magic Multidock. During that time I've observed a similar issue of CPU hogging VEP and I had to redo my template as kontakt hosted directly in Logic. I couldn't work with VEP because as soon as I hit play VEP stalled all 12 threads. 

The only downside when hosting Kontakt inside Logic is higher CPU usage compared to hosting in VEP.

But then it's also so convenient recalling patches and what not.


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jul 3, 2015)

OK, Guys. I'm still stuck. I've tried everything. Turned Multi-processor support in Kontakt on and off. Messed with the number of threads per VEPro Instance. Took the core audio buffer size up to 2048. Messed with the number of audio outputs per VEPro (running 4 outputs per instance now). I even traded in my Mac.

That's right! The nice guy at PowerMax (Thanks Joe) let me return my 2010 12 Core 2.66 Ghz machine for a 2013 Darth Vader helmet quad core 3.7 Ghz I put 64 Gigs of Ram. Amazingly, the whole deal only cost a few hundred dollars extra. I'm still getting the same problem.....dropped audio tracks. CPU usagr in all instances of VEPro never tops 40%. VST perfomance meters in Cubase barely move.

I'm thinking the problem may be my Apogee Duet Firewire interface but the I have the updated drivers for OSX10.10 so I should be all good. What in the world could I be doing wrong?

Thanks for sticking with me guys.

G


----------



## jemu999 (Jul 3, 2015)

Have you decoupled all instances of VEpro? I know you moved on to a pc, but I had somewhat similar issues on my mac and slave pcs, and once I decoupled VEpro, audio fall outs disappeared.


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jul 27, 2015)

Just an update for anyone still following. I caved and went with Logic Pro X. I've used Logic before so the workflow isn't completely alien. So far Logic just handle the audio better. No problems on modest compositions. I'm going to transpose something busy to really push it and see what happens. If Cubase get's it's act together I'll go back (I really miss the expression maps) but in the mean time I gotta do what I gotta do.


----------



## ag75 (Jul 27, 2015)

Let us know how Logic holds up under pressure.


----------



## Dave Connor (Jul 27, 2015)

Have you turned off 'Ext' (sync) in Kontakt? That's a killer. I have a very similar setup to yours and that turned out to be a big problem, especially if you have a tempo map going.


----------



## samphony (Jul 28, 2015)

In Logic there is no need to turn off ex sync!

Also regarding expression maps I highly recommend the bind midi note channel to articulations. The AG Toolkit and the Ski Switcher 2 offer that method. 

If you prefer the extensive use of articulation switching via the region or track based automation again the AG Toolkit or Ski Switcher are the way to go. 

I'm using the AG Toolkit and am totally happy.


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Jul 30, 2015)

Dave Connor said:


> Have you turned off 'Ext' (sync) in Kontakt? That's a killer. I have a very similar setup to yours and that turned out to be a big problem, especially if you have a tempo map going.



Dave - I have not done that. I just broke down my rig for an international move. I won't have everything up and running again for about a month. I will check the EXT Sync setting first thing. 



samphony said:


> In Logic there is no need to turn off ex sync!
> 
> Also regarding expression maps I highly recommend the bind midi note channel to articulations. The AG Toolkit and the Ski Switcher 2 offer that method.
> 
> ...


Yep. I purchased the AG Toolkit and spent a few days inputting my articulation information. I hated every minute of all of that data input (I hated doing it for Cubase expressions maps as well). Makes me feel like a computer programmer instead of a composer.



ag75 said:


> Let us know how Logic holds up under pressure.


 Will be a while but I will.


----------



## samphony (Jul 30, 2015)

I don't use the scripter. I use the midi remote environment tool to switch midi note channels on the fly and key commands to switch midi note channels while editing. All kontakt instruments carry single articulations up to 16 midi channels. That way note and articulation stay in sync and I also can use 1 articulation per track if I prefer. (Or as studio one forces me to do) (I hate keyswitches!!!)
I unified my articulations layout a cross libraries as much as possible. Legato is always on channel 1 and so on. I found editing the scripter is not so much my cup of tea although for some libs it can be useful.


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Sep 6, 2015)

Dave Connor said:


> Have you turned off 'Ext' (sync) in Kontakt? That's a killer. I have a very similar setup to yours and that turned out to be a big problem, especially if you have a tempo map going.


Finally got my rig up and running after the move. Dave I went through every Kontakt instance and turned "EXT"of in the master BPM section. Still having the same problem of dropping voices and this is a super modest compositions with only 11 tracks playing simultaneously. The VST meter barley moves.



ag75 said:


> Let us know how Logic holds up under pressure.


Logic seems to be holding up just fine on the same composition using the same VEPro metaframe...but. The more I try to use Logic the more I realize how efficient I am with the Cubase workflow (strictly personal preference). 

I've got to get his thing going for Cubase. Any other pointers, guys?


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Sep 8, 2015)

jemu999 said:


> Have you decoupled all instances of VEpro? I know you moved on to a pc, but I had somewhat similar issues on my mac and slave pcs, and once I decoupled VEpro, audio fall outs disappeared.


Hi Jemu
I'm running everything on one new Mac Pro and I have decoupled all four the VEpro instances. Just as an update here is my current tempate stats:

- Four instances of VEPro Decoupled (each with two or three instances of Kontakt)
- Each instance is assigned 2 threads of CPU processing
-"EXT" disabled in master BPM section of all Kontakt instances
- Kontakt Memory Managment is disabled for all instances
- I've toggles ASIO guard on and off in Cubase but have seen no difference

Any new ideas.


----------



## Dave Connor (Sep 8, 2015)

There's a culprit somewhere and it's probably a simple one. Pardon if this is redundant but have you tried a single instance of Kontakt and then added instruments one at a time until the clicks etc., begin? I would try this with Kontakt outside of your DAW hosted in VE Pro and inside your DAW as a plugin. Compare the results of when clicks and pops begin.

You are positive that the samples you are streaming are from a separate drive and not found on any other drive? If you do have the samples you wish to stream on drives other than your dedicated sample/streaming drive(s) delete them so the samples are only on the drive they belong on. 

It sounds like a basic streaming issue or a basic setting issue.

Again apologies for redundancy if you've done all this.


----------



## samphony (Sep 8, 2015)

Black Light Recordings said:


> Hi Jemu
> I'm running everything on one new Mac Pro and I have decoupled all four the VEpro instances. Just as an update here is my current tempate stats:
> 
> - Four instances of VEPro Decoupled (each with two or three instances of Kontakt)
> ...



What is your kontakt multi processor support set to?


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Sep 10, 2015)

Dave Connor said:


> There's a culprit somewhere and it's probably a simple one. Pardon if this is redundant but have you tried a single instance of Kontakt and then added instruments one at a time until the clicks etc., begin? I would try this with Kontakt outside of your DAW hosted in VE Pro and inside your DAW as a plugin. Compare the results of when clicks and pops begin.
> 
> You are positive that the samples you are streaming are from a separate drive and not found on any other drive? If you do have the samples you wish to stream on drives other than your dedicated sample/streaming drive(s) delete them so the samples are only on the drive they belong on.
> 
> ...



Dave
It's funny you mentioned the solution is probably a simple one. I think I've found it. I think it may be a particular set of samples in my Mural instruments. My Logic template was running just fine but the actual composition I used was different. Same instruments, same track counts just a different improvised composition. 

Last night I sat down with a nice cup of tea, calmed my mind and looked it scientifically. The tracks that dropped seemed to be the same tracks every time...my Spitfire violins, violas, and horns (all libraries streaming from the same dedicated SSD). So I swapped out the Mural string patches for Cinematic Strings patches which take up about the same amount of memory and the composition played just fine. Content with the little victory, I immediately went to bed to let my brain work on this new information.

My working hypothesis is that there may be a set of "damaged" samples in my Mural Library. Today I will experiment with the same composition using different mic positions (thus different sample sets) from Mural. If this works. If this works, I'll simply write a new composition to see how that works. If that works, I'll simply re-download my Mural sample set from Spitfire and hopefully that will solve the issue. I'm excited that this may work. I'll update later.

G


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Sep 10, 2015)

Dave Connor said:


> There's a culprit somewhere and it's probably a simple one. Pardon if this is redundant but have you tried a single instance of Kontakt and then added instruments one at a time until the clicks etc., begin? I would try this with Kontakt outside of your DAW hosted in VE Pro and inside your DAW as a plugin. Compare the results of when clicks and pops begin.
> 
> You are positive that the samples you are streaming are from a separate drive and not found on any other drive? If you do have the samples you wish to stream on drives other than your dedicated sample/streaming drive(s) delete them so the samples are only on the drive they belong on.
> 
> ...



Dave
It's funny you mentioned the solution is probably a simple one. I think I've found it. I think it may be a particular set of samples in my Mural instruments. My Logic template was running just fine but the actual composition I used was different. Same instruments, same track counts just a different improvised composition. 

Last night I sat down with a nice cup of tea, calmed my mind and looked it scientifically. The tracks that dropped seemed to be the same tracks every time...my Spitfire violins, violas, and horns (all libraries streaming from the same dedicated SSD). So I swapped out the Mural string patches for Cinematic Strings patches which take up about the same amount of memory and the composition played just fine. Content with the little victory, I immediately went to bed to let my brain work on this new information.

My working hypothesis is that there may be a set of "damaged" samples in my Mural Library. Today I will experiment with the same composition using different mic positions (thus different sample sets) from Mural. If this works. If this works, I'll simply write a new composition to see how that works. If that works, I'll simply re-download my Mural sample set from Spitfire and hopefully that will solve the issue. I'm excited that this may work. I'll update later.

G


----------



## scarred bunny (Sep 10, 2015)

One thought that occurs to me is that it may be the SSD itself, if all the problematic libraries are hosted on the same drive (it wouldn't happen to be an EVO840, would it? ). 

If you have other libraries hosted on the same drive, do they stream fine with a similar voice count? Have you tried putting your Mural on another drive to see what happens?


----------



## samphony (Sep 10, 2015)

Nice find. I had the same issue. I then redownloaded mural and sable and put them on a different SSD. Also I had a lot of issues with kontakt between 5.2-5.4 but since 5.5 all is back to normal.


----------



## Dave Connor (Sep 10, 2015)

Black Light Recordings said:


> Dave, It's funny you mentioned the solution is probably a simple one. I think I've found it. I think it may be a particular set of samples in my Mural instruments.



Spitfire libraries are very cpu intensive. Sable certainly is. I bought a screaming PCI ssd just for them and I can get it cracklin if things get busy with samples and controller info going. If you aren't having problems with other libraries then you just need to be careful on how hard you are hitting things with Spitfire.


----------



## Black Light Recordings (Sep 19, 2015)

SUCCESS! Re-Downloaded Mural and everything is right with world.


----------



## samphony (Sep 20, 2015)

Black Light Recordings said:


> SUCCESS! Re-Downloaded Mural and everything is right with world.


It did that with sable. And any kontakt version between 5.3 and 5.5 caused issues at least for me. Since 5.5 everything is back to normal on the spitfire side.


----------

