# Cubase Instrument Track or Rack - Best practice?



## Greedo (Jul 5, 2017)

Hello!

My Cubase template is about 58GB of 64GB total. I have one DAW (Win 10) and no slaves.
I have done all Kontakt optimizations like purging all samples that i have on SSD, balanced the buffer size, cleared the database, resaved the libraries and stuff.
Most of my tracks are Instrument Tracks with single samples. I like to have full control over each instrument. But does that "eat" more of my RAM?.
I guess i have two more alternatives.
1. Make one Instrument TRACK and put different articulations of a string sample on that track and make MIDI tracks for the different samples/articulations.
2. Make a Instrument RACK with the same as above.

So, are there any ways i can save more RAM with making RACK's or more MIDI's on one Kontakt instance? 
Guess i'm not the only one with just one DAW and no VEP. How are you doing this?
I know, i'm terrible at explaining things, but i understood it. Yeeey i understood my own question!


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 5, 2017)

I'm using rack instruments for the most part (despite the really big templates where I'm using VEPro on a single machine).
Do you keep all your tracks activated? I think this would be causing such a high RAM count. My disabled track template (all instruments as single rack instruments) hosts around 400 tracks. But I pretty much never use all of these at the same time. When I load a blank project the only activated tracks are sketching tracks, like piano and Ens Str,Brs,WW so four tracks. I then activate the instruments as needed while working (I've put the command on key "T") so the needed instrument is available with the click of a button.

But even in my latest projects for my new album (with lots of layers / different articulations) I have roughly 90-130 tracks active out of the 400 in the end and my RAM sits @ 25 GB appr.

I have no performance issues whatsoever with 100 Kontakt instances active.

Using track instruments could be a way to go of course, but is way less intuitive and requires more work in setting up (like having 16 instruments per Kontakt and all of them routed to individual outputs). Track instrument is way better, if I need sth new that's not in the template I just duplicate a track and load - done.

So to answer your question, the only way do bring down the RAM count, is by deactivating.


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## ed buller (Jul 5, 2017)

the new Vienna Ensemble pro 6 let's you build a deactivated template. So on my mach one ( 64g ) i have about twenty tabs each donating about 40 instances of konatkt. But they are all disabled . The footprint is about 5g. I then turn on each instance as I need it..........so far no problems

e


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## will_m (Jul 5, 2017)

Do you mean you have one instance of Kontakt (for example) loaded for each instrument track? 

If so this is the way I now have my template set-up too. I really like the workflow, as I can mix as I go with my audio plug-ins and all the automation etc is the same when I need to then render in place, just gives me way more control.

I'm guessing there must be an extra strain put on the CPU/RAM for having so many instances of Kontakt running though I've not had chance to do a direct comparison.


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## Tfis (Jul 5, 2017)

"In Cubase 8, multi-timbral VST Instruments are running in ASIO-Guard mode, too, which enhances performance additionally. However, multi-timbral VST Instruments will be switched to real-time usage as soon as a MIDI track is selected, that is assigned to the instrument. This may increase the real-time processing load significantly and cause drop outs. The performance drop when switching from ASIO-Guard mode to real-time can be softened by using multiple mono-timbral VST Instruments instead of a single multi-timbral VST Instrument."

https://www.steinberg.net/en/suppor...ow/details-on-asio-guard-in-cubase-and-nuendo


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jul 5, 2017)

I run Track Instruments presently, with the associated MIDI tracks. As soon as I enable the multi-outputs for the instrument, I get corresponding faders in the Mix Console. They are "light green" in color. They are routed directly to the stereo out by default. This means that you can't put plugins on anything other than the "main 1&2" outputs of the instance. The main instance has a "yellow" fader by default and routes audio through the inserts. 

But what if I want to process the trumpet output differently from the French horn that is in the same instance? Group Channels! These are essentially aux busses. You create a Group channel (it has a nice yellow fader - and will route audio through the inserts). You point your light-green trumpet fader's output to the group channel. the group channel output goes to stereo out , or however you have sub-grouped things. In this way, you can access the audio from your multi-out. It is more "tracks" on screen, but they are for very different purposes, and it is easy to use track visibility to sort things out.


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 5, 2017)

Nathanael Iversen said:


> I run Track Instruments presently, with the associated MIDI tracks. As soon as I enable the multi-outputs for the instrument, I get corresponding faders in the Mix Console. They are "light green" in color. They are routed directly to the stereo out by default. This means that you can't put plugins on anything other than the "main 1&2" outputs of the instance. The main instance has a "yellow" fader by default and routes audio through the inserts.
> 
> But what if I want to process the trumpet output differently from the French horn that is in the same instance? Group Channels! These are essentially aux busses. You create a Group channel (it has a nice yellow fader - and will route audio through the inserts). You point your light-green trumpet fader's output to the group channel. the group channel output goes to stereo out , or however you have sub-grouped things. In this way, you can access the audio from your multi-out. It is more "tracks" on screen, but they are for very different purposes, and it is easy to use track visibility to sort things out.



the easier way would even be to just use multiple outputs of this one Kontakt instance and route the trumpet from midichannel 2 to Kontakt output 2 (3&4) so there's no need to send it to groups. That way you could theoritically setup one Kontakt instance with 16 instruments and 16 output channels.


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jul 5, 2017)

de_signs said:


> the easier way would even be to just use multiple outputs of this one Kontakt instance and route the trumpet from midichannel 2 to Kontakt output 2 (3&4) so there's no need to send it to groups. That way you could theoritically setup one Kontakt instance with 16 instruments and 16 output channels.


If you do this, the audio ONLY goes to the main stereo buss. Try it. You'll have "light green faders" on all but the first channel if you use Track Instruments. (Or at least that is what I get). 

All my Kontakt instances are 16 stereo outs. All are activated. All have faders in the Mixer. My comment is only related to the audio routing and whether or not audio plugins can be inserted and work. On any "light green" track from a Track Instrument, I can add plugins, but they don't get any audio - the signal goes straight to the Stereo buss. 

To use audio plugins on these channels, I'm using Channel Groups. There may be other ways, but this works. I want the trumpet audio and FH audio to go to separate instances of VSS for spatialization, even though they come from the same Kontakt instance. I can't seem to do this with the light-green fader output channels that are created when I just activate multi-outputs. Cubase 9.0.20 here - Win10. If I'm missing something, I'd happily be wrong.


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## Johann F. (Jul 5, 2017)

Any particular reason you don't use vepro?

I had a slave setup almost exclusively for Play, but I just bought a new "monster" computer (7900X, 128GB ram) and decided to go full OT-Spitfire, so the slaves are gone. I thought I could throw anything at it and tried something similar to your setup (Kontakt straight into Cubase) but my system became very unstable, even after disabling most instruments. I had some back and forth with Steinberg but we couldn't figure out what was wrong so I eventually gave up on the idea because I was about to start working on a new feature and couldn't risk a system meltdown in front of producers.

Vepro simply works. My template currently runs around 1500 tracks - growing in size as I tweak things - dozens of instances disabled and not a single hiccup whenever I need to call a new sound. Memory footprint is around 8GB. So far so good, knock on wood.

I truly think you should give vepro a try, it's a beast at resource management.


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jul 5, 2017)

I do use VEP. It is the best hosting software I've ever used. I use it on my DAW and two slave machines. RAM is cheap, and I like having everything there. I have it set up so that if I'm not using the orchestral samples, my whole studio and synth setup is accessible from the DAW alone, and then I just leave the other machines off.


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 5, 2017)

Nathanael Iversen said:


> If you do this, the audio ONLY goes to the main stereo buss. Try it. You'll have "light green faders" on all but the first channel if you use Track Instruments. (Or at least that is what I get).
> 
> All my Kontakt instances are 16 stereo outs. All are activated. All have faders in the Mixer. My comment is only related to the audio routing and whether or not audio plugins can be inserted and work. On any "light green" track from a Track Instrument, I can add plugins, but they don't get any audio - the signal goes straight to the Stereo buss.
> 
> To use audio plugins on these channels, I'm using Channel Groups. There may be other ways, but this works. I want the trumpet audio and FH audio to go to separate instances of VSS for spatialization, even though they come from the same Kontakt instance. I can't seem to do this with the light-green fader output channels that are created when I just activate multi-outputs. Cubase 9.0.20 here - Win10. If I'm missing something, I'd happily be wrong.



Hey @Nathanael Iversen, sometimes a video can say more than a text  here's how I set up things if I use multiple instruments. Insert FX are available for each individual Kontakt Output. Unless I misunderstood what you meant I hope this helps to be more clear with what I mean.

Cheers
Dirk


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## benatural (Jul 5, 2017)

Johann F. said:


> Any particular reason you don't use vepro?
> 
> I had a slave setup almost exclusively for Play, but I just bought a new "monster" computer (7900X, 128GB ram) and decided to go full OT-Spitfire, so the slaves are gone. I thought I could throw anything at it and tried something similar to your setup (Kontakt straight into Cubase) but my system became very unstable, even after disabling most instruments. I had some back and forth with Steinberg but we couldn't figure out what was wrong so I eventually gave up on the idea because I was about to start working on a new feature and couldn't risk a system meltdown in front of producers.
> 
> ...


I work with a similar template. About 24 VEP instances connected to a slave with more about 2000 MIDI tracks. If I leave all of the instances connected, Nuendo won't even play. But disconnected unused instances then it's fine. Wish I understood what causes it to choke just by having a connection open.


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## Piano Pete (Jul 6, 2017)

Nathanael Iversen said:


> If you do this, the audio ONLY goes to the main stereo buss. Try it. You'll have "light green faders" on all but the first channel if you use Track Instruments. (Or at least that is what I get).
> 
> All my Kontakt instances are 16 stereo outs. All are activated. All have faders in the Mixer. My comment is only related to the audio routing and whether or not audio plugins can be inserted and work. On any "light green" track from a Track Instrument, I can add plugins, but they don't get any audio - the signal goes straight to the Stereo buss.
> 
> To use audio plugins on these channels, I'm using Channel Groups. There may be other ways, but this works. I want the trumpet audio and FH audio to go to separate instances of VSS for spatialization, even though they come from the same Kontakt instance. I can't seem to do this with the light-green fader output channels that are created when I just activate multi-outputs. Cubase 9.0.20 here - Win10. If I'm missing something, I'd happily be wrong.



Sounds like something is set up a little weird. You should be able to treat each audio output, within your DAW, no differently than a single instance with a single patch when you are working with Multitimbral vsts. Without seeing it, I wouldn't know how to help. Just follow what de_signs posted, and if you are using VEP, it is the same thing except with having VEP as a middle man.

From what you are stating, with the audio only going to your main stereo out, I would assume that you may have some combination of the following:

a) You need to make sure you have set up your stereo tracks correctly, see video above or a quick youtube search of "How to use Kontakt as a Multitimbral Instrument."

b) Make sure that your kontakt instruments are routed to the correct outputs and each patch is using a unique midi channel. (I still will forget to do this at times. Part of me feels it is due to the color of Kontakt's layout and their font selection).

Regarding your question about plugins, I have a question. Are you stating that you are looking to use plugins within Kontakt, or are you asking whether you can apply plugins to their corresponding channels withing your DAW? If it is that latter, the outputs generated within your DAW function no differently than any audio track, so plug away.


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## Oliver (Jul 6, 2017)

@dirk


de_signs said:


> Hey @Nathanael Iversen, sometimes a video can say more than a text  here's how I set up things if I use multiple instruments. Insert FX are available for each individual Kontakt Output. Unless I misunderstood what you meant I hope this helps to be more clear with what I mean.
> 
> Cheers
> Dirk




Hi Dirk,
thx for showing the Video.

I am working like Greedo with my template filling up now 54GB out of 64GB. But all perfectly routed. The problem is we cant disable instruments, because if you do, you loose all midi connections / options you did before. I dont know why Steinberg hasnt reseolved this problem. 
If this would work, my template would be maybe also 10Gb on start, and then reactivating the instruments with connected midi tracks.
but not now...


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 6, 2017)

The only thing that (occasionally gets lost) is the midi input on a deactivated trackwhen I reactivate it. I am still not 100% sure why that is, but it seems over time working in my template it happens less and less. I assume when you reactivate a track that then is not connected via midi in and you setup the midi input and then later deactivate again it seems to memorize the midi input then. I haven't prooved it to the core though, but my experience is that most of my tracks are now connected when I reactivate them. Other than this you shouldn't lose anything when deactivating... reactivating comes back with all group routings, insert plugins and send fx as setup before deactivating. Talking about single instances here, but that should even apply for multitimbral instruments although I'm not sure how this behaves with midichannels routed to a deactivated track instruments. Might easily be, that these will lose the connection even after reactivating the initial track instrument.
Hence I'd recommend working with 1 Kontakt per instrument in a track-disable environment


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## jononotbono (Jul 6, 2017)

Oliver said:


> @dirk
> 
> 
> Hi Dirk,
> ...



This is exactly why I abandoned using Instrument tracks (with Midi tracks) when using VEPro. The idea is fantastic. Disable the instrument and Midi tracks and then everything vanishes in mixconsole and reappears as you enable things. However, the Midi routing always forgets it's connection when enabling a disabled Instrument track. Really annoying and I even sent a video of it to Steinberg. Goodness knows why this hasn't been fixed yet. 

However, I decided on using Rack Instruments for anything connected to VEPro and all stuff I don't use that often is all on Instrument tracks and disabled inside Cubase with no VEPro. Works really well and My template is currently over 2300 tracks and no problems yet.


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## novaburst (Jul 6, 2017)

Greedo said:


> SSD, balanced



What is the rest of you machine, what power are you pushing a 6 core or 12 core how much ram, what size CPU.


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## Greedo (Jul 6, 2017)

Thanks all for your inputs and thanks for the video Dirk! 
I think disabling instruments is my way to go. I've omtimized my template for writing music fast. Disasbled all tracks that are in my Sound Design, Vintage Keys and Funny Farts folders and so on. Now my template uses 48GB RAM and 40% CPU. Thats ok with me for now 
My rest of my machine is:
i7-4930K @ 4,35 GHz
64GB RAM
Windows 10 Enterprise (Yeah pro is better. Less recources, but i got it free from work )
Cubase Pro 9.0.20
OS/System: 128GB Samsung 840 Pro
Program: 256GB 840 Pro
Samples: 3TB WD 7200rpm
Media/Misc: 3TB WD 7200rpm
Samples: 1TB 850 Pro SSD. (For my most important purged samples)

I think i have to expand my budget for next year. Get VEP and slave computers


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## novaburst (Jul 6, 2017)

Greedo said:


> i7-4930K @ 4,35 GHz
> 64GB RAM



Well you can't go wrong with a server.

But you should be good with what you have on single machine, 6 cores is plenty and 64 gig of ram plus VEpro is plenty good and that in my view needs no optimization for better performance, 

The power you have is plenty.


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## Johann F. (Jul 6, 2017)

de_signs said:


> Using track instruments could be a way to go of course, but is way less intuitive and requires more work in setting up (like having 16 instruments per Kontakt and all of them routed to individual outputs). Track instrument is way better, if I need sth new that's not in the template I just duplicate a track and load - done.



Dirk, I'm a bit confused  Did you mean "Using RACK instruments could be..." and then "TRACK instruments is way better" ? Or the other way around?



Greedo said:


> I guess i have two more alternatives.
> 1. Make one Instrument TRACK and put different articulations of a string sample on that track and make MIDI tracks for the different samples/articulations.



You could instead use expression maps for keyswitchable libraries:



And for articulation-per-patch libraries, you can create custom keyswitches with MIND CONTROL and then use expression maps for those too. Pretty neat tool.


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## Johann F. (Jul 6, 2017)

de_signs said:


> But even in my latest projects for my new album (with lots of layers / different articulations) I have roughly 90-130 tracks active out of the 400 in the end and my RAM sits @ 25 GB appr.
> 
> I have no performance issues whatsoever with 100 Kontakt instances active.



How long are your save times with this sort of project?


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## Greedo (Jul 6, 2017)

Johann F. said:


> You could instead use expression maps for keyswitchable libraries



Yeah offcourse! That was a good tip! Sounds like a fun thing to dig in to. I've thought about using Lemur allso, and i guess Lemur could be great for this?


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## Johann F. (Jul 6, 2017)

benatural said:


> I work with a similar template. About 24 VEP instances connected to a slave with more about 2000 MIDI tracks. If I leave all of the instances connected, Nuendo won't even play. But disconnected unused instances then it's fine. Wish I understood what causes it to choke just by having a connection open.



Maybe you have done this already, but it doesn't hurt to ask: did you try to enable your instances one by one, while watching the CPU meter, to see when/what is the choke point? And I mean one by one in all sorts of different combinations... maybe you have one particular library draining all your resources, or a specific combination of libraries that you could then spread across different instances and SSDs. For example, if I have a bunch of string libraries, I try to put each in their own SSD, so when I have them layered, they aren't all streaming from the same SSD drive. Same principle applies to other sections. 



ed buller said:


> the new Vienna Ensemble pro 6 let's you build a deactivated template. So on my mach one ( 64g ) i have about twenty tabs each donating about 40 instances of konatkt. But they are all disabled . The footprint is about 5g. I then turn on each instance as I need it..........so far no problems
> 
> e



Do you have your instances sorted by section, vendor or library title? How do you manage 40 instances with tons of channels (I guess) on each? Curious to learn how I can streamline my workflow, I get lost sometimes, still trying to figure out the best way of doing the instance mumbo-jumbo.


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## JaikumarS (Jul 6, 2017)

benatural said:


> I work with a similar template. About 24 VEP instances connected to a slave with more about 2000 MIDI tracks. If I leave all of the instances connected, Nuendo won't even play. But disconnected unused instances then it's fine. Wish I understood what causes it to choke just by having a connection open.



Hello @benatural .. I am planning to have a slave machine for VEP6, wondering whether to go with Sierra (on Hackintosh) or Windows10 (on a PC)?

Is there any advantage in using VEP6 in an Hackintosh?

Thanks


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## Johann F. (Jul 6, 2017)

Greedo said:


> Yeah offcourse! That was a good tip! Sounds like a fun thing to dig in to. I've thought about using Lemur allso, and i guess Lemur could be great for this?



Yes, Lemur is fantastic in the right hands. Check this out:



This guy is a freaking genius. 

@jononotbono also does wonders with Metagrid, an iOS (I think?) app that seems more user friendly than Lemur.


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 6, 2017)

Johann F. said:


> How long are your save times with this sort of project?


Sth between 8 to 10 secs whe a bunch of stuff is active. I've increased my autosave to every 20 mins instead of 5 mins and developed a habit to hit ctrl+s with the left hand when the right is hand is on the way to grab the coffee mug


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## Piano Pete (Jul 6, 2017)

Lemur could make it more intuitive, but it can all be done within Cubase with a keyboard. If you opt to go with expression maps, know that you will have to constantly fidget with your cc values when you are switching back and forth between articulations, most notably staccatos and legatos. This is why I have just opted to go with using separate midi channels per articulation and just selecting them all to be viewed in the midi editor. If I need to decrease the volume of staccato notes or change expression data, I do not have to worry about bumping into what I have carved for my legato's cc data. 

Personally, my setup is as follows: 

I use multitimbral instances of VEP each with up to 16 articulations per instance, this way I can decrease the total number of instances; however, for EW products, I have to have 2 PLAY engines, so the first instance is 1-8, and second is 9-16 (Purely due to the maximum outputs not matching the maximum amount of midi channels >.<). Once it goes through VEP it functions as one instance anyways. In cubase, I have two separate folders: Instrument Tracks and Midi tracks. For my instruments folder, I then have further subdivisions/groupings. At the first level are the raw individual tracks coming in from VEP, all based on publisher. I never look at these as some of individual VEP instances have an overlap between two instruments' articulations. From there, I have the individual articulation busses going to vendor instrument busses. After that, all of the library groups are routed to their respective instrument groups, which is what I have visible in my mixer. In my midi folder, which is where I do all my work, I have everything organized by section>library>articulations. This method, although it took some time to setup, has enabled me to individually control a lot of parameters, and based on my layout, it is always easy to find problem spots later in mixing. I also am hardly ever looking at all my tracks at once, thanks to folders and visibility agents. 

Although I do not have a need to do this, due to using slave computers, I am able to disable the instrument racks and re-enable them without losing any of my routing. When I was testing it, to figure out how to efficiently streamline my resources if ever needed, this method worked well: I kept the instances in Cubase set up, so none of my channels or internal routing ever vanished. I just wouldn't load/connect to the corresponding VEP instance. This way, nothing has changed within cubase, but the instruments have not been loaded. This was the most modular setup I could figure out, and from this, I set up blank instruments/routing to quickly add new things to a project whenever needed, specialty instruments, tripling articulations, you name it. Cubase does not know any different, as all of my channels are pre-routed, the only thing missing are the sounds.

My quick attempt at outlining it:

Instruments:
> Vendor Folders
-Raw VEP Instances (Each channel is named by articulation)
- Vendor Instrument Groups in score order: Vendor A Pic, Vendor A FL, Vendor A Ob...
> Instrument Groups (Vendor groups are then routed to their respective instruments).
- Main Instrument Groups in score order: Pic, FL, Ob
- Blank instances for quick additions

Midi (This follows score order, so everything is in the exact same place whether I am looking at vendor/instrument groups or midi)

> Flutes
-Vendor A
> Individual Articulations
-Vendor B etc.
> Individual Articulations
> Oboe
- Vendor A...


For my quick load setup:

Channel/VEP instance in cubase ever present, but empty.
1) Load desired instruments into VEP instance (Also loaded in metaframe but empty).
2) Connect empty instance in cubase to now populated VEP instance: off to the races.

Hopefully this stimulates some ideas.


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 6, 2017)

Since some people asked me about it, I also did a little fumble through vid with VEPro and Cubase. Hope this is of help if you're not sure how to setup multiple outputs for Kontakt with VEPro.


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## David Chappell (Jul 6, 2017)

I recently did a complete overhaul of my template, switching to using one instrument track per patch instead of multitimbral rack instruments. Absolutely worth it. Here's a few reasons I switched:

- Disabled tracks. I now have all instruments disabled and just load them as and when I need them. This has cut my template load time to less than 10 seconds rather than 10 minutes. Save times are much quicker too.

- Much easier to add new tracks and setup routing. Now I just duplicate a similar track and change the patch, the routing is all there. Racks were a bit of a faff, had to add the patch, link up a midi track, enable the output, rename/reorganise the new output track... so much easier with instrument tracks.

- Easier to work with plugins automation. Now the automation is just on the same track as where the midi is. Racks were much more confusing to organise.

These are just a few reasons off the top of my head, but yeah, totally worth spending a day redoing my template from scratch. The main thing I was concerned with if having a separate kontakt instance per patch would use more cpu. But tbh the only track if done since was pretty big on track count and didn't strain the cpu at all, but some of my rack based projects did. So having a separate instance might actually be better for cpu, but I'm not an expert on that.

Hope this can help!


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## Johann F. (Jul 6, 2017)

David Chappell said:


> I recently did a complete overhaul of my template, switching to using one instrument track per patch instead of multitimbral rack instruments. Absolutely worth it. Here's a few reasons I switched:
> 
> - Disabled tracks. I now have all instruments disabled and just load them as and when I need them. This has cut my template load time to less than 10 seconds rather than 10 minutes. Save times are much quicker too.
> 
> ...



Reading this makes me want to try instrument tracks again. Even though I like vepro, I'd like even better to remove the middle man and work directly on Cubase, without aditional tracks or routings. A couple of quick questions:

1) what number you have on the "Multiprocessor support" option? Having that many separate Kontakt instances per patch makes me wonder if it's best to go full core or less? Or maybe OFF at all?

2) ASIO Guard enabled or disabled for Kontakt?

3) what happens when you work on similar cues and need to switch to a new project, you have to reload the samples or do they stay in memory?


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## Anders Bru (Jul 6, 2017)

I've spent the day making a new version of my template with Racks instead of Instrument Tracks, to test the waters. I was working on a song and tried to freeze / bounce / export a piano part from a rack-instrument, and it was a huge workaround. I just moved from Ableton, though, where you're a lot more free in terms of routing and recording on audio-tracks, but it was such a hazzle. Just let me make a new audio track, route to that and record!! Apparently, the input on an audio track can only be from a group...

My previous template was about 30 instances of Kontakt, with 10-15 instruments per instance, all purged, which worked great. But I'm very curious as to this new way of doing it, with disabling / enabling tracks, is gonna be better


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## Nathanael Iversen (Jul 6, 2017)

de_signs said:


> Hey @Nathanael Iversen, sometimes a video can say more than a text  here's how I set up things if I use multiple instruments. Insert FX are available for each individual Kontakt Output. Unless I misunderstood what you meant I hope this helps to be more clear with what I mean.
> 
> Cheers
> Dirk


Dirk,

Thanks for taking the time to make the video. I've got a bit of troubleshooting to do. I normally set things up exactly as you show in the video. I opened my non-orchestral template and it worked exactly as your video. Now I have to re-open my orchestral template and sort what is different. Thanks for letting me know!

UPDATE: I checked my main template and I must have done something wrong. It is working correctly, as you demonstrate and I changed nothing. I bet I did something while tired and inserted the plugin on a neighboring channel with no audio.... <slaps forehead and removes Group Channel> Thankfully I didn't modify the whole template....


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 7, 2017)

Hey guys. Quick question for those of you who go mainly/strictly Instruments tracks. How do you keep the project size (file size) reasonable, and most importantly, how do you keep the VST Performance meter low? I have a template that contains around 1000 tracks, all disabled. But when working on a project I can quickly go up to 300 tracks enabled. VST performances are bad as I get lags, delays, clicks, etc. Asio guard is On. I'm currently tweaking the template to remove some groups, in hope it will help. Right now I have the following: Instrument Track -> Library group track -> Stem group Track -> Orchestra bus -> Main Stereo Out. Did it like that to get greater control, so I can tweak sound for a specific library or group. But I think the more group you have going to a group, with effects in between, the greater is the impact on the VST Perfs. What's your approach on that level?


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

Are you getting it from the use of a ton of plugins or when you are still working with your samples, no plugins added?


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 7, 2017)

well, I have VallalaRoom reverb set on its own track, and is referenced as a Send in each Library group (or instrument track if no group for it). Then I have some limiters and EQ on the Stems groups, as well as a limiter on my main out, and some tracks could get some plugins as well (EQ, Chopper, Delays, etc). They are On all the time, but I wouldn't consider it "tons of plugins". Beside the VallalaRoom reverb which is used in the Send of each stems group, and each stem groups that use an EQ, the rest is just for very specific tracks here and there.


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

Well, from reading your system, I am assuming your are hosting everything on your slave. Some issues that I had to weed through to make my system click-less:

1- I had to replace my audio interface

2- I had to test different GPU drivers. (After chatting with Cubase support awhile back, NVIDIA drivers caused issues, so I went to Radeon and I still had to find the right one. I think they fixed that bug, but I havent switched back to NVIDIA since I am currently stable).

3- (The biggy) I had to test different network drivers and found that there were some DPC problems with specific intel drivers, windows 10, and VEP. I have no clue which ones I ended up keeping etc. I accidentally threw out that bunch of papers that I was using to keep track of all of those changes and decisions :( From what I could tell, this is something that is more of a system per system basis due to the parts used.

4- Went through Windows Processes, although I hardly changed anything.

For you, I would go through and use DPC latency checker (I think that is still the name?) or LatencyMon and see what processes are gimping your setup. One of them is better than the other for windows 10. These can be extremely helpful when trying to troubleshoot. There is a great sticky regarding DPC latency and what timings are considered stable or not. My pro tip, if you have a bunch of stuff locking up for a medium amount of time, this can be worse than one process locking hard.


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 7, 2017)

Thanks Piano Pete. Actually, everything is hosted on the host (using Instrument tracks). At some point, I have to use the slave to unload the host (mainly for Albions and Cinematic Studio Strings) which then use Rack tracks for those. But all the rest is remain on the host. I only activate the tracks I need though. And most of the time I avoid using the Slave. 

The issue I have with the VST perfs are when I'm not using the slave in fact, meaning all in Cubase (no VEP involved). So that removes the Network issue, although I also tried with disabling the Wifi and Ethernet, but no clear gain there. 

The audio interface is a Steinberg UR22mkII that I bought to replace my old EchoMIA. Latency is quite good on it, but I'll definitely check with DPC latency. Haven't heard of it before. I'm thinking maybe a setting in Kontakt (95% of my VSTs are Kontakt). Multi processor is Off in Kontakt, and the memory is at its default 60k. But since everything is on SSD and with the amount of RAM I have, maybe I should check there. 

Thanks for the tips. Will report back if I find anything, in case it helps other.


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## Johann F. (Jul 7, 2017)

So I'm giving another shot at instrument tracks. I've came across a really weird behavior with Kontakt, could someone try to reproduce it?

* Empty project.
* Add ONE Kontakt instrument track.
* Disable the track. Issue: Cubase hangs and takes around 10 seconds to disable it!!! 
* Add a second Kontakt instrument and have BOTH tracks enabled.
* Now disable ONE track. It works as expected, Cubase disables the track instantly.

What I observed is that you need to have at least ONE active Kontakt track (even empty) in order to disable the other tracks instantly. This only happens with Kontakt, I've tried a single Omnisphere track and disabled it normally.

What a weird thing! I'm curious to know if it's on my side only. Kontakt 5.6.6. and Cubase 9.0.20. Appreciate any help.


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## C-Wave (Jul 7, 2017)

jononotbono said:


> This is exactly why I abandoned using Instrument tracks (with Midi tracks) when using VEPro. The idea is fantastic. Disable the instrument and Midi tracks and then everything vanishes in mixconsole and reappears as you enable things. However, the Midi routing always forgets it's connection when enabling a disabled Instrument track. Really annoying and I even sent a video of it to Steinberg. Goodness knows why this hasn't been fixed yet.
> 
> However, I decided on using Rack Instruments for anything connected to VEPro and all stuff I don't use that often is all on Instrument tracks and disabled inside Cubase with no VEPro. Works really well and My template is currently over 2300 tracks and no problems yet.


I don't understand, deactivating a VEP instrument does not do that here since I upgraded to Cubase 9 (currently Cubase 9.020 on Windows 10 Creators update). I just tested it here, with my 500 track template, only 12 of which are instrument tracks.


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

@ Grizzly, are you using VEP even if you are only using your host? That should help with stability as well.

@Johann, I have not had this issue happen. I just tried it with several different VSTs.


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

C-Wave said:


> I don't understand, deactivating a VEP instrument does not do that here since I upgraded to Cubase 9 (currently Cubase 9.020 on Windows 10 Creators update). I just tested it here, with my 500 track template, only 12 of which are instrument tracks.



I also tried replicating this on 8.0 and 8.5. I have not had this behavior occur. All of the tracks can be enabled or disabled without losing routing.


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## Johann F. (Jul 7, 2017)

Piano Pete said:


> @ Grizzly, are you using VEP even if you are only using your host? That should help with stability as well.
> 
> @Johann, I have not had this issue happen. I just tried it with several different VSTs.



Thank you! Just to be crystal clear: empty project with one Kontakt instrument track -- track disable working as intended? 

May I ask what version of Kontakt you are running?


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

5.6.8


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## jononotbono (Jul 7, 2017)

C-Wave said:


> I don't understand, deactivating a VEP instrument does not do that here since I upgraded to Cubase 9 (currently Cubase 9.020 on Windows 10 Creators update). I just tested it here, with my 500 track template, only 12 of which are instrument tracks.



Well here's the kicker. It works for some and not for others. It is a known reported bug. I wish it worked for me but I'm quite happy with how I have my template now. If I wasn't 2300 tracks in I'd give it ago again on the next version but things work well for me as I have it at the minute.


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

jononotbono said:


> Well here's the kicker. It works for some and not for others. It is a known reported bug. I wish it worked for me but I'm quite happy with how I have my template now. If I wasn't 2300 tracks in I'd give it ago again on the next version but things work well for me as I have it at the minute.


If technology, especially DAWs, has taught me anything: If it works, dont screw with it!


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## jononotbono (Jul 7, 2017)

Piano Pete said:


> If technology, especially DAWs, has taught me anything: If it works, dont screw with it!



Never a truer word spoken... but we just love those update buttons don't we haha!


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 7, 2017)

@Piano Pete, well, yes and no. i used to for the orchestra (strings, ww and brass) but I discovered that Cubase freeze after 24 hours (I rarely reboot). This doesn't happen if only using Cubase, so whenever I can, I'm only using Cubase. I know that VEP is supposed to be much better than Cubase in handling resources though, it's just that using VEP forces me to use Rack tracks instead and I haven't noticed such a big improvement of stability using VEP on the host. Can't load all my template in VEP, and wouldn't find it functional to do so either. Been there before, and that's why I'm using Instrument tracks today.


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

go through and check your dpc. There is also a sticky somewhere that lists all non essential windows processes if you need to. Messing with those is most beneficial in a situation where you have no other choice.


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 7, 2017)

Will look at it. DPC Latency is not for Win10, but I found another one called LatencyMon which is for Win10. So we'll see what I can find with this.


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## Johann F. (Jul 7, 2017)

Updated to 5.6.8 and still the same weird behavior when I have one single track with Kontakt. 10 seconds to disable. It also happens with vepro. I probably didn't notice before because I never have one single Kontakt track on a project. Still it's an odd thing to happen.


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## Johann F. (Jul 7, 2017)

Anyone using Windows 10 Pro can reproduce this issue?

* Empty project.
* Add ONE Kontakt instrument track.
* Disable the track. Issue: Cubase hangs and takes around 10 seconds to disable it!!! 
* Add a second Kontakt instrument and have BOTH tracks enabled.
* Now disable ONE track. It works as expected, Cubase disables the track instantly.

What I observed is that you need to have at least ONE active Kontakt track (even empty) in order to disable the other tracks instantly. This only happens with Kontakt, I've tried a single Omnisphere track and disabled it normally.


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

Ya, just tried it out again. I cannot replicate it.


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## Johann F. (Jul 7, 2017)

Well, off to Native Instruments' support I go.


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 7, 2017)

Alright. so LatencyMon says that my system is suitable for handling real-time audio and other tasks. but VST perfs in Cubase are peaking at max regularly. I have to increase the Asio Buffer from 256 to 1024 to get something stable during the playback. CPU reach 37% max. RAM is at 34% of usage. Highest measured interrupt to process latency is around 310 which is low in the green. Wierd...


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## Piano Pete (Jul 7, 2017)

Did you also run it when you have cubase open?


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 7, 2017)

yup. actually it was only Cubase open. and I played back a cue that use 89 tracks.


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## PhJ (Jul 8, 2017)

Johann F. said:


> Anyone using Windows 10 Pro can reproduce this issue?
> * Empty project.
> * Add ONE Kontakt instrument track.


Can't replicate the issue here. It's disabled without delay.

Do you have this issue every time or was it just once ?
(bc if once it could have been auto-save at work or something..?)


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## jononotbono (Jul 8, 2017)

This may or may not help but I have a template that i used for a recent album and as I wrote each track, the template grew a little (obviously) but in one particular track/project session render in place would crash Cubase. It drove me mad and I still don't know what the problem was but Render in Place works fine in all the other tracks. Open cubase and start a new Project. Then see if Render in Place works. Mine did which led Me to believe the template in the problem track was corrupt in some way. Not sure how but RIP works fine in a blank project and in my main template. Definitely Trash prefs as this usually helps most situations. I actually hate how random this stuff can be.


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 8, 2017)

I have same with kontakt (5.6.8). Not only on disable but also when I just close the kontakt window. Turns white and bo response for 8-10 secs. Does not happen when any other kontakt window is open, so i pretty much always have one instance open put somewhere on the side on a screen


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## Amadeus (Jul 9, 2017)

David Chappell said:


> I recently did a complete overhaul of my template, switching to using one instrument track per patch instead of multitimbral rack instruments. Absolutely worth it. Here's a few reasons I switched:
> 
> - Disabled tracks. I now have all instruments disabled and just load them as and when I need them. This has cut my template load time to less than 10 seconds rather than 10 minutes. Save times are much quicker too.
> 
> ...



I just started recently with my whole template building process. And I am fairly new to this endeavor. I have read through many posts on VI-C and the web regarding this topic and everyone is doing it differently. So without any prior experience it is quite difficult to decide which way to go. However, so far I think I want to do it the way how you described it. With all those fairly new keywords thrown at me I just wanted to quickly check that I understood it correctly:

Say you have a sample library XYZ that contains different instruments and many articulations for each instrument. You are not only using one Kontakt instance per instrument but one Kontakt instance per articulation? That means you have each articulation on a separate instrument track, is that correct?

I see the advantage of this that you are not only able to enable/disable entire instruments (including all associated articulations) but that you can also enable/disable individual articulations that you do not need. Does this makes sense?

Sorry for the basic questions. But I just bought Cubase and I am trying to figure out how to do what works for me .

Best,
Amadeus


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## David Chappell (Jul 9, 2017)

Amadeus said:


> I just started recently with my whole template building process. And I am fairly new to this endeavor. I have read through many posts on VI-C and the web regarding this topic and everyone is doing it differently. So without any prior experience it is quite difficult to decide which way to go. However, so far I think I want to do it the way how you described it. With all those fairly new keywords thrown at me I just wanted to quickly check that I understood it correctly:
> 
> Say you have a sample library XYZ that contains different instruments and many articulations for each instrument. You are not only using one Kontakt instance per instrument but one Kontakt instance per articulation? That means you have each articulation on a separate instrument track, is that correct?
> 
> ...


Yes, I use separate articulations per track. But the instrument track based approach would work just as well with keyswitch/ expression map patches. It's just a personal preference thing I guess.

I also use purge all within kontakt a lot so that only samples that are in use get loaded into RAM, which would make the two approaches pretty much the same in terms of RAM footprint.


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## zolhof (Jul 10, 2017)

de_signs said:


> I have same with kontakt (5.6.8). Not only on disable but also when I just close the kontakt window. Turns white and bo response for 8-10 secs. Does not happen when any other kontakt window is open, so i pretty much always have one instance open put somewhere on the side on a screen



I had the exact same issue and fixed by going to Options -> Usage Data -> No, I don't want to contribute.

I guess your DAW is also blocked from the Internet? Kontakt is probably trying to send data to NI server whenever you disable or close the last Kontakt instance, resulting in a temporary hang. Bad design imho.

Hope it helps!


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## Johann F. (Jul 11, 2017)

zolhof said:


> I had the exact same issue and fixed by going to Options -> Usage Data -> No, I don't want to contribute.



Thank you, that worked for me! I can't believe the solution was so simple. I was about to delete all traces of Kontakt from my system, as suggested by Native Instruments' support, and basically redo a big chunk of my template. What a waste of time that would be.


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## Grizzlymv (Jul 11, 2017)

Just as a quick update, I spent some time tweaking the template. Basically, in my original one I had an instrument track -> going to a Library group -> going to a Stem group -> going to the Master Out. Effects were applied at different levels depending of the need (ex, a chopper effect might be on a track while an EQ or limiter could be on the library or the Stem group for instance. In the new version, I got rid the library group, meaning each Instrument tracks goes straight to a Stem group, and then to the Master Out. The reverb (refered on an FX track) is refered as Send on each instrument track, and a Limiter and other effects are set on the Stem groups. Some tracks could have Delays or Chopper effects for instance too. 

With that new template, all in Instrument tracks, I went from VST Performance (Average Audio Processing Load) from being 80-90% with clipping and ASIO to 1024, to VST Performance between 10-15% (max 40% during playback of the same track) and ASIO buffer reduced to 512. 

So definitely, chaining too many group tracks could cause issues on that level. 

Now, the downside of having only instrument tracks (as opposed to instrument tracks for most, but rack tracks for orchestra using VEP), is that my file size went from 280 Mb to 420 Mb. Not the end of the world, but take more time to save (4-5 seconds) and with the auto-backup files of Cubase, free space gets eaten quite quickly. But it's a little downside in order to be able to have all the tracks available at hand (Enabling/Disabling with a hotkey) and have full control over the track/instrument right on that track. 

Thanks all for the tips and hints expressed in this thread. Hope this will help others trying to do a similar template. 

And for the record, it have currently 237 tracks enabled. I don't have an exact count of all the disabled one, but I should be close to 1000 if not over that. Running on a single machine.  It's now a dream and a real pleasure to work with!  

Cheers


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## JaikumarS (Jul 11, 2017)

de_signs said:


> Hey @Nathanael Iversen, sometimes a video can say more than a text  here's how I set up things if I use multiple instruments. Insert FX are available for each individual Kontakt Output. Unless I misunderstood what you meant I hope this helps to be more clear with what I mean.
> 
> Cheers
> Dirk




Thank you for the Video Dirk. I'd setup my Template as you'd mentioned in the video. I'd disabled the tracks and saved the project. Everytime I load Cubase, I get a message Remove Tracks that could not be connected. Is this common?








Cheers
-Jaikumar


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## Dirk Ehlert (Jul 12, 2017)

JaikumarS said:


> Thank you for the Video Dirk. I'd setup my Template as you'd mentioned in the video. I'd disabled the tracks and saved the project. Everytime I load Cubase, I get a message Remove Tracks that could not be connected. Is this common?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah thats normal when you use instruments with multiple outputs and deactivate them. Just hit cancel. The tracks will be restored when you reactivate.


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## JaikumarS (Jul 12, 2017)

de_signs said:


> Yeah thats normal when you use instruments with multiple outputs and deactivate them. Just hit cancel. The tracks will be restored when you reactivate.



Thanks.


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## germancomponist (Jul 13, 2017)

A great thread here! After reading all the posts I started to re-think and startet my new project by using only instrument-tracks. WOW! What a great workflow!!!
Thank you all for posting!


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## Jim Martin (Mar 8, 2018)

Sorry guys, I'm still really confused and have read through all of this. I don't understand the pros/cons of setting up a VEP plug as an instrument track (and then having lots of MIDI channels and multiple outputs now that ports can be selected from instrument tracks) VS setting up VEP as an instrument rack (and then having lots of MIDI channels and multiple outputs). What am I missing? I'm about a quarter of the way through re-building my template so I want to make sure I get this "right". Tracks with lots of midi or Racks with lots of midi, that is the question


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