# Vep cpu



## Robert S Parker (Jan 24, 2022)

Hi all 

I have my slave machine all setup and I’m wondering if having one instant of Kontakt with multiple patches or multiple instances of Kontakt per patch is best. 

Im currently running one Kontakt instance with multiple patches and my server seems to be struggling. 

Toms (junkie xl) has shown his servers many times and tho I don’t have 3, according to him one can run 1200 instances of Kontakt easily. And my machine has a better cpu and more ram then the ones he has and just can’t do it. 

If anyone has any tips on optimizing servers for vep please help me out, I greatly appreciate it. Thanks! 


Server specs: intel Xeon x5670 @ 2.93 x2 
128 gb ram
Windows 10 pro


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## José Herring (Jan 24, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> Hi all
> 
> I have my slave machine all setup and I’m wondering if having one instant of Kontakt with multiple patches or multiple instances of Kontakt per patch is best.
> 
> ...


Somebody did a video a few years ago and proved that running one instances of Kontakt in VEPro per patch was better than running it multi-timbrally. I always did multi-timbral from the begging due to my long association with hardware prior to that and honestly I never really liked working in VEPro. Recently I dropped VEPro entirely. If (probably more like when) I go back to VEPro, I'll run it one instances per patch. I'm forced to do that with other players and it just works out better imo.

edit: I think this is the video


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## mscp (Jan 24, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> Hi all
> 
> I have my slave machine all setup and I’m wondering if having one instant of Kontakt with multiple patches or multiple instances of Kontakt per patch is best.
> 
> ...


Can you give us more information about what you need to accomplish with your template? 

All I can say right now is you're right...you cannot run 1200 kontakt instances with what you have because you don't have enough cpu and more importantly, RAM.


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## Robert S Parker (Jan 24, 2022)

mscp said:


> Can you give us more information about what you need to accomplish with your template?
> 
> All I can say right now is you're right...you cannot run 1200 kontakt instances with what you have because you don't have enough cpu and more importantly, RAM.


I’m just trying to get more out of the machine. If Tom can run 1200 instances with 96gb of ram and a similar cpu why is mine struggling, unless he misspoke. 

I want to get at least 300.


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## mscp (Jan 24, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> I’m just trying to get more out of the machine. If Tom can run 1200 instances with 96gb of ram and a similar cpu why is mine struggling, unless he misspoke.
> 
> I want to get at least 300.


Maybe the libraries in this particular machine of his are light and do not have complex scripting? There are many factors involved. One thing is for sure...you cannot run 1200 instances of bespoke kontakt-based orchestral libraries on a 96gb of ram machine unless you're only using one mic position and/or light patches. That's for sure.


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## Robert S Parker (Jan 24, 2022)

mscp said:


> Maybe the libraries in this particular machine of his are light and do not have complex scripting? There are many factors involved. One thing is for sure...you cannot run 1200 instances of bespoke kontakt-based orchestral libraries on a 96gb of ram machine unless you're only using one mic position and/or light patches. That's for sure.


You may be right about that, but why would a composer of that caliber not be using the best libraries available? From my understanding he owns just about everything there is. I can’t help but to think I’m missing something about his setup, that helps get more out of the machines.


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## Robert S Parker (Jan 24, 2022)

At 5:45


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## mscp (Jan 24, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> You may be right about that, but why would a composer of that caliber not be using the best libraries available? From my understanding he owns just about everything there is. I can’t help but to think I’m missing something about his setup, that helps get more out of the machines.


In his video, did you notice how many servers he has? 10. He prefers to buy a ton of servers and split the workload across them.


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## Robert S Parker (Jan 24, 2022)

Yes, He has 9 Maschines running but it’s the same setup repeated 3 times for 3 separate studios. So one studio is running a pc for Cubase and 3 vep server computer’s , this is the hazy areas.. is “one” one system with the 3 servers and a pc, or is it one server computer. 

From the way he said it, it leads me to believe one server can run 1200 from the way he refers to them throughout the segment.


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## mscp (Jan 24, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> Yes, He has 9 Maschines running but it’s the same setup repeated 3 times for 3 separate studios. So one studio is running a pc for Cubase and 3 vep server computer’s , this is the hazy areas.. is “one” one system with the 3 servers and a pc, or is it one server computer.
> 
> From the way he said it, it leads me to believe one server can run 1200 from the way he refers to them throughout the segment.


Yes, he mentions at the end that "each of those machines can run from 1000 to 1400 kontakt instruments easily". I highly doubt he has 1000 to 1400 SF/OT or any other bespoke orchestral library that has a lot of complex scripting and multiple mic positions. Since he doesn't mention what libraries he has 1000-1400 instances of, I'm not sure how I can help you. All I can say is that the amount of RAM and CPU is not enough in this scenario depending on which libraries are being used.


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## quickbrownf0x (Jan 24, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> Yes, He has 9 Maschines running but it’s the same setup repeated 3 times for 3 separate studios. So one studio is running a pc for Cubase and 3 vep server computer’s , this is the hazy areas.. is “one” one system with the 3 servers and a pc, or is it one server computer.
> 
> From the way he said it, it leads me to believe one server can run 1200 from the way he refers to them throughout the segment.


Yeah, this sounds about right. I've got a similar setup (3 slaves, 1 main), but the thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a limit on how many slaves (read: rack instruments) you can connect in Cubase before it seriously starts to affect the overall ASIO latency (at least in Windows, it does), even with an optimized template with disabled tracks, purged samples and so on.

I'm sure this is also down to how beefy your DAW system is, but mine's brand new and stuff starts to go south after about 8, 9 rack instruments. Mind you, like Tom, I have everything in Quad.1, so I bet that doesn't help.

But yeah, this still is somewhat of a mystery to me how he can run things that smoothly, with so many tracks armed and ready to go. The rack servers he shows aren't that special, right? Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with a 10gBit network, 4 systems sauced to the gills and a 2048 buffer size with audio dropouts, looking like a right idiot.


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## mscp (Jan 24, 2022)

quickbrownf0x said:


> Yeah, this sounds about right. I've got a similar setup (3 slaves, 1 main), but the thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a limit on how many slaves (read: rack instruments) you can connect in Cubase before it seriously starts to affect the overall ASIO latency (at least in Windows, it does), even with an optimized template with disabled tracks, purged samples and so on.
> 
> I'm sure this is also down to how beefy your DAW system is, but mine's brand new and stuff starts to go south after about 8, 9 rack instruments. Mind you, like Tom, I have everything in Quad.1, so I bet that doesn't help.
> 
> But yeah, this still is somewhat of a mystery to me how he can run things that smoothly, with so many tracks armed and ready to go. The rack servers he shows aren't that special, right? Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with a 10gBit network, 4 systems sauced to the gills and a 2048 buffer size with audio dropouts, looking like a right idiot.


VEP with several slaves are more efficient with ADAT Pipeline or MADI instead of Ethernet.


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## quickbrownf0x (Jan 24, 2022)

mscp said:


> VEP with several slaves are more efficient with ADAT Pipeline or MADI instead of Ethernet.


Damn it, here I was thinking I was all set, but nah. Plus no MADI on my Apollo, although it does have ADAT, I think. Pfff....


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## Robert S Parker (Jan 24, 2022)

mscp said:


> Yes, he mentions at the end that "each of those machines can run from 1000 to 1400 kontakt instruments easily". I highly doubt he has 1000 to 1400 SF/OT or any other bespoke orchestral library that has a lot of complex scripting and multiple mic positions. Since he doesn't mention what libraries he has 1000-1400 instances of, I'm not sure how I can help you. All I can say is that the amount of RAM and CPU is not enough in this scenario depending on which libraries are being used.


Yeah this is really frustrating. I wish I knew Tom or one of his assistants on here so maybe they could chime in, or even Hans.


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## storyteller (Jan 24, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> Yeah this is really frustrating. I wish I knew Tom or one of his assistants on here so maybe they could chime in, or even Hans.


One of his assistants is on VI-C for sure. He’s responded in numerous threads. That said, you can’t approach VEP as “I want 1200 instances of Kontakt.” Can a modern Mac or pc run 1200 tracks with Kontakt? Yes. But you are severely limited in numerous areas… CPU bottlenecks, ram, latency, hard drive bandwidth, streaming voice counts, number of active connections to VEPro, etc.

I am going to post a video here soon about my studio conversion to VEPro I began in mid 2021 and am just finishing. I now have 4 servers (one sharing the DAW machine). I have 428gb of ram between them and I have somewhere between 150-300+ active instances per server loaded as preserved, decoupled. That is approximately 1000 instances…. Setup is one track per instrument per instance… all articulations loaded, all mic positions loaded. I’m running Reaper with my OTR2 workflow template.

Ram is maxed out to just before it hits the swap file. I run at 384 Samples for latency.

Here is the important part… it runs smooth as butter when composing. But, you can’t have this setup without understanding every nuance of how the servers must function. If I just connect to all of the instances, it will crush the daw and each and every vepro server. No composing required. I’d have to bump the latency up to an unusable amount to record anything. So instead, all 1200-ish tracks in my template with VEPro loaded on them are disabled. I just enable the template as I go. Super quick since nothing is being loaded into ram. When I enable a track, it automatically Connects to the VEPro instance.

But… you need to distribute the workload across servers for numerous reasons. Take Spitfire’s latest Appassionata. If you run four to five mic positions, a fast run will kill the beefiest cpu. This is because it hits a voice count limit on what can be processed in real-time. So… if you want to use this library and don’t want to freeze and disable as you go, you best keep this library on a string server to remove any cpu burden from your daw.

Another library you might use in the same session is Evolution Series World Percussion. It has 4 mics per instrument. Most parts are not very cpu hungry… but they are voice hungry. However, if you play something like a Dun Ensemble patch (fortress of the gods is what I think it is called), a flam will max out voice counts in Kontakt and most SSDs. You might hit 1500-2000 voices on just that flam/roll. You can assume most SSDs will reach their saturation point with Kontakt at 24/48k around this many voices. So now a single percussion patch has maxed out an SSD… used up a large portion of TB3 bandwidth, and has maxed out another cpu. This is why it needs a separate server.

Now those are extreme examples, but this should give you a good idea on why multiple servers are best. I am sure a lot of people run smaller setups, less mic positions, less severs, etc. But you really have to plan this out with the libraries you have and your writing style.


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## Robert S Parker (Jan 24, 2022)

storyteller said:


> One of his assistants is on VI-C for sure. He’s responded in numerous threads. That said, you can’t approach VEP as “I want 1200 instances of Kontakt.” Can a modern Mac or pc run 1200 tracks with Kontakt? Yes. But you are severely limited in numerous areas… CPU bottlenecks, latency, hard drive bandwidth, streaming voice counts, number of active connections to VEPro, etc.
> 
> I am going to post a video here soon about my studio conversion to VEPro I began in mid 2020 and am just finishing. I now have 4 servers (one sharing the DAW machine). I have 428gb of ram between them and I have somewhere between 150-300+ active instances per server loaded as preserved, decoupled. That is approximately 1000 instances…. Setup is one track per instrument per instance… all articulations loaded, all mic positions loaded. I’m running Reaper with my OTR2 workflow template.
> 
> ...


Annnnd this is why they have assistances, haha 

I might take more of a Daniel James approach with the server then and just have empty Kontakts and load them as I need. Maybe keep a few sketching patches loaded to get the gears going but without the know how I’m not sure I can make this work on my own the way I want. 

The video would be much appreciated! Thank you for your insight, I’m looking forward to learning more.


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## Manaberry (Jan 25, 2022)

mscp said:


> VEP with several slaves are more efficient with ADAT Pipeline or MADI instead of Ethernet.


Agreed. I use both Ethernet and ADAT now, and it's stunningly powerful (but kind of expensive as you need multiple AI). My template is modular, and everything is already activated but properly "on idle" so there is no loading time, ever. (but it act like it's disabled on both the DAW machine and Slaves)
The buffer is set to 128 in my DAW. The rest follows.

Regarding VEP and Kontakt, I've spotted Kontakt having a huge footprint on project file size and tends to not "idle" properly when not used in VEP. So the more I can "put" in one instance of Kontakt, the better. But that's just my personal experience with that bad boy.


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## wickedw (Jan 25, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> Hi all
> 
> I have my slave machine all setup and I’m wondering if having one instant of Kontakt with multiple patches or multiple instances of Kontakt per patch is best.
> 
> ...


I think you might be taking it a bit too literal when he says that. From how I see Tom (and this is purely based on his youtube channel), he is a natural story teller. Embellishing is part of telling a good tale  I think we're all guilty of that 

Though without a doubt his setup performs very well, you're not able to actually run 1200 of instances of kontakt (that actually also have a significant library loaded) on a machine like that. The RAM usage alone would already be too much. I don't know what the underlying network to connect these instances is like either. I also want to point out that in a later template video he points out that they've done changes to his template, vepro routing, etc for performance reasons.


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## mscp (Jan 25, 2022)

My studio used to have VEP servers hooked via ADAT/MADI I/O and my template used to be ginormous. I stripped it down to 1 main (no servers). Why? Large templates bothered me a lot. I realized that a large template with thousands of tracks was a massive waste of resources. Now I work with premixed track presets. It's wonderful.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jan 25, 2022)

Robert S Parker said:


> I might take more of a Daniel James approach with the server then and just have empty Kontakts and load them as I need. Maybe keep a few sketching patches loaded to get the gears going but without the know how I’m not sure I can make this work on my own the way I want.


You could also set up a key command to load VEPro instances as needed (there's a few good videos on this), or use a disabled Cubase template; you can literally populate it with thousands of tracks that are ready to load as needed.


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## KEM (Jan 25, 2022)

For what it’s worth my VEP template is setup with multiple instruments inside of one Kontakt instance (16 max, I can’t seem to get sound if I try to add more outputs) and I haven’t had any cpu issues


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## szczaw (Feb 6, 2022)

Dual x5690 is a good bang for the buck.


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