# Designing a big template : Does Cubase 8.5 really need Vepro 6?



## ZeroZero (Oct 29, 2016)

Designing a big orchestral template : Does Cubase 8.5 need Vienna Ensemble Pro 6?

Hi all,

I am just about to commence design on a template to organise and keep all my sounds, including orchestral orchestras, for a big project. These will be drawn from custom instrument GUI’s like Play 5, Spectrasonics, BDF3, VSL, TruePianos, and those that load into Kontakt 5 like Albions.

I have only had Vienna Ensemble Pro 6(Vepro) a few days, but I have spent time with it, and completed Eli Krantzberg's course _“Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 Explained”._ I have also completed Peter Shwartz's course on template design and did design some of the first orchestral templates for Halion Orchestra and East West Symphonic Orchestas to include expression maps, back in the days of Cubase 5. I have not touched the daw for a few years though.

After immersing myself in design issues for a few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that I don’t need VEPro to build a large pro template in Cubase 8.5. But my trouble is that with _so _many virtual variables, I can’t be sure of this conclusion, until the template is built, so I would like to hear other peoples opinions prior to starting the build.

*My design*

In brief, broad brush strokes,


To use the conventional layout of the orchestral score as a starting folder layout.
To add below it other folders as are required for example for ‘synths’ or ‘guitars’ .
To create a start up view of the score, with perhaps 60/100 staves, which is visually uncluttered and loaded with goto instruments.
Further, any goto instrument, should be easily hot-swappable with a custom selection of same instrument alternatives from the same folder (often derived from other sample houses).
To ensure that all these other alternative instruments are both hidden from view at start up, and with little footprints.
To create sensible routings, group tracks, mixer views thoroughout the project.
To work in Surround with stereo instruments in surround channels.

Much of this can be accomplished in Cubase 8.5 using the following tools:

Disabling tracks, freezing tracks, using the invisibility inspector, using folder views/hidden folders/nested folders.

VEPro 6 also provides an ability to save instrument collections (sections) with their routing, independently from the project. Cubase can export and import track archives and if you select it in the mixer, your routing too.

Lastly, Vepro 6 can use slaves. In Cubase there is an old tech system using sound cards called system link, this may be used, but I have heard it may be unreliable and not as effective as an Ethernet connection. Therefore if at a later stage your Cubase template becomes too large for one machine, if it were designed without the use of Vepro 6, then it would require a redesign in order to use Vepro 6 - which seems a better technology.


All these view above are based on tentative, speculative ideas, and quite a few small project tests. I have also been away from DAWS for about five years too, and am aware that many things do change.

I shall start the build this week

Is this a viable sensible approach?

I could definitely benefit from the opinion of those that have gone before me.

thank you all for your support so far.


Zero


----------



## mac88104 (Oct 29, 2016)

The template I work on loads 64 racks and about 40 tracks instruments (it uses about 50 GB of Ram on a total of 128 GB on my single pc). Everything works perfectly (no drops, no cracks, with 6ms latency) but I have to use tracks instruments to load all the Kontakt instances I need because Cubase 8.5 is limited to 64 racks and I guess 64 tracks also. My template is still unfinished and it will increase to reach 100-110 GB so I am thinking to migrate on VEPro.

Moreover, with this template each project size is already over 100 megabytes. It is very heavy, it spends some time to save instead of having indenpendent VEPro sessions loaded.

So maybe I am wrong but mainly for this reasons I am going to migrate on VEPro.


----------



## d.healey (Oct 29, 2016)

Always use an instrument host regardless of the DAW you're using, the two main reasons I have for this is you can switch projects without having to reload the template and if you're project crashes you don't have to reload your template.


----------



## rpaillot (Oct 29, 2016)

I would never do a huge template in Cubase , at least on OSX version (which's known to be less stable and efficient as windows version ) 

The more instruments, FX, audio tracks you add to Cubase, the more unreliable it becomes ( start to slow down, crashes, etc.. ) 
It's my personal experience though.


----------



## Jetzer (Oct 29, 2016)

My point of view in another thread:



> I bypass VEP and load everything straight into Cubase, as instrument tracks. Much easier imo.
> 
> I would only use VEP again if:
> - Cubase crashes often (it doesn't)
> ...



Note about the 2nd point, to me, having it all available with disabled tracks is almost the same, since the load time per instrument is almost zero with ssd's. only large legato samples load a bit longer.


----------



## ZeroZero (Oct 29, 2016)

Mac, Thank you, Interesting, that's quite a heavy load. It's beginning to dawn that I shall have to build a slave.

It sounds like your _not _using all the multitrack features of Kontakt to minimize the number of instances you load? Do you purge your samples?

I _think _in Kontakt 5 this is automated? In previous Kontakts there was a global purge feature. There is also a feature to reduce the size of all headers (the first bit of a sample auto loaded into RAM) . Are you using this feature?
The biggest thing I have on my system here (spec below), is my old EastWest Platinum Orchestra full template, empty & undisabled this takes four minutes to load , and task manager shows CPU at 8% and RAM at 13.5. With all tracks disabled this same template loads in 1 minute and shows CPU 6% in use RAM 9.6 gb. That's a 25% reduction in CPU and 3.9 gig or roughly 36% Ram savings - these figures might not scale of course.

I am not yet convinced that simply disabling tracks actually brings anywhere near 100% erasure of the footprint of the instrument. I wonder if freezing instrument tracks (both) might bring further reductions, even when the track is empty?

Mac: I don't know your experience with Vepro 6, I understand it's very different to Vepro 5, but these are some basic things I have learnt that make it seem a bit 'oddly behaved' in Cubase.
Vepro 6 runs independently from the DAW, but liaises with it through a VST app.

In Vepro 6 server, there seems to be two types of Vepro 'projects' . "Server projects" and "projects". I confess I still dont understand the difference. It seems that for both types you can only load one project into the interface. Within these projects are things called Instances. These are similar to instrument racks. You can load in a variety of different instruments and set them up in different ways - using different ports/ MIDI channels etc. You can load many instances into a project, for each instrument you get a power button that turns it off. I am not sure if that just unloads the samples from RAM or if it does more. There is no mention of the term purge in the manual.
What seems odd to me, is that every time you use a Vepro Instant in Cubase, the whole of that instance becomes unavailable elsewhere. So, say you created an instance with your favourite violin patches, as soon as you used one patch the rest become unavailable both on that track and on others.
It is of course possible to have only one instrument per instant, but this seems to not employ the benefits that instance instrument collections bring.
I also found that when I set up Vepro for Surround, the Surround Panner in Cubase disappeared, forcing use of the inferior Vepro panner. Odd, but not a show stopper. I must end by saying that I still am not sure I understand how to use this app effectively.


----------



## ZeroZero (Oct 29, 2016)

JH said:


> My point of view in another thread:
> 
> 
> 
> Note about the 2nd point, to me, having it all available with disabled tracks is almost the same, since the load time per instrument is almost zero with ssd's. only large legato samples load a bit longer.



Yes JH and thank you, but it's not just the load time its the amount of CPU and RAM still used after disabling - this to me is the mission critical question... is disabling a track in Cubase on par with switching off an instant in Vepro, footprint wise?

Interesting thread and great replies, learning lots!

thank you!


----------



## ZeroZero (Oct 29, 2016)

d.healey said:


> Always use an instrument host regardless of the DAW you're using, the two main reasons I have for this is you can switch projects without having to reload the template and if you're project crashes you don't have to reload your template.



Thank you David for the reply but..

Here: loading times are not important to me (it's time to play the piano) If Cubase crashes (which it doesn't here much) I don't really mind reloading the template.


----------



## Jetzer (Oct 29, 2016)

For me, cpu usage is way lower with a Cubase disabled tracks template than with VEP, possibly different for every user/setup though.


----------



## mac88104 (Oct 29, 2016)

Thanks for all this information ZeroZero. Effectively I don't use the multitrack possibilities of Kontakt, I load only 16 channels instances but no full kontakt instances. I am not sure but I believe I know that 16 channels instances are a good setting in term of power saving (but hey it's very unclear to me). Maybe I should try to load full kontakt instances but I still would have this problem of having very big projects to manage.

Indeed my preload buffer size is at the minimum (6kB) and it works well because I stream my libraries from NMVE M.2 Samsung 950 PRO SSD's.

My kontakt samples are partially purged (yes, some samples are loaded, my template is not a virgin, I will fix that as I load new libraries). It will increase the loading speed but on a advanced project I have to let them loaded though ? I mean I can't purge my kontakt instances one by one everyday, no ? Or is there a function to purge them all instantly ?

To be honest I don't really know VEPro, I have seen youtube's videos on it and have read some parts of the manual but no more. So I don't exactly know in what VEPro 6 is different from VEPro 5 (or I don't realize clearly because I never used VEPro 5).

I just totally agree with d.healey in that with VEPro I would be able to quickly switch projects without having to reload my template. Regarding the stability of Cubase, I am not really concerned because Cubase never crashed on my new pc (until now). And moreover, regarding the fact I will certainly setup slaves in the future, I think it would be a good investment for me to migrate now... But I am not sure of anything actually.


----------



## ed buller (Oct 29, 2016)

yes

e


----------



## Blakus (Oct 29, 2016)

JH said:


> For me, cpu usage is way lower with a Cubase disabled tracks template than with VEP, possibly different for every user/setup though.


Agreed. I abandoned VEpro for my templates 18 months ago and haven't looked back. No problems here.


----------



## ZeroZero (Oct 29, 2016)

Blake is your current set up like your signature? How large are yout templates? What is your set up?


----------



## Blakus (Oct 29, 2016)

ZeroZero said:


> Blakus would like to know your setup - one PC or more? Mac? Singing goldfish and a man with cymbals tied to his knees? pray tell... put it in your signature too  How heavy duty is your template? Are you networked?


Haha, my template fills up about 85% of my 32gb of RAM. I have *215 instances* of Kontakt running and I run the buffer size at 18k

My PC is about 4 years old now - i7 3770k, but I run 4x1TB SSD drives, which I think makes all the difference. My template takes about 60-90 seconds to load. If you've watched any of my recent videos you'll see that I do have quite a lot going on simultaneously in my templates, and my computer handles it fine. (That's with hundreds of plugins running as well) Not looking to upgrade anytime soon here.

I'm pretty fussy with which plugins I use these days too. If I deem them to use way more cpu than they deserve to, I delete them. :D There's enough options out there these days to find plugins that both sound great, and use resources efficiently.

Edit: In case you're wondering, in my last YT vid, I hid all tracks that didn't have any midi data for ease.


----------



## ZeroZero (Oct 29, 2016)

Blakus I am checking you out!


----------



## tack (Oct 29, 2016)

If Blakus can do all he does on a 3770k with 32GB RAM and no VE Pro, I'll never need to upgrade in my life.


----------



## InLight-Tone (Oct 29, 2016)

With the disabled track feature, and the Track Visibility agents no VEPro is needed. I built one with over a 1000 tracks, tons of expression maps, mostly single Kontakt instances. 

The main drawback is that saves take some 5-8 seconds or so and that you can't hide folders which can look a little confusing when they are nested...


----------



## mac88104 (Oct 29, 2016)

This thread is so much helpfull, thank you. I understand my system is more than sufficient, regarding the multiple SSD's strategy I have also adopted. I didn't know its limit but I understand I still have a good margin if I purge correctly all my samples.

Just one question, Blakus, I don't understand how you can load so many kontakt instances (i.e racks tracks instruments) because I may be wrong but Cubase has limitations, no ? 
I personnaly have an alert message when I go beyond 64 racks instruments loaded, so I load tracks instruments but I don't know the limit of tracks instruments.


----------



## mac88104 (Oct 29, 2016)

Ok I checked a Cubase comparison chart. It seems Cubase has VST/racks slots limitations but unlimited tracks slots. I'll check tomorrow.


----------



## ZeroZero (Oct 30, 2016)

Mac:


----------



## mac88104 (Oct 30, 2016)

@ZeroZero great video, learning effectively many things to optimize Kontakt. Thanks


----------



## molemac (Dec 13, 2016)

ZeroZero said:


> Mac:



Great video . Have you found a way of batch processing all the kontakt purge all etc commands. Doing this individually is prohibitive on large templates.


----------



## Mishabou (Dec 13, 2016)

Jesse Heslinga said:


> My point of view in another thread:
> 
> 
> 
> Note about the 2nd point, to me, having it all available with disabled tracks is almost the same, since the load time per instrument is almost zero with ssd's. only large legato samples load a bit longer.



The biggest drawback about disabled tracks is you never know when your system will crap out as you start to enable various tracks. The ultimate workflow for me is to have everything loaded and ready to go, obviously this would require (depending on the number of libraries one has) VEP or Bidule and several slaves.


----------

