# Question regarding Vienna Ensemble Pro and Gigabit Switch



## GrapeBotherhood (Dec 11, 2018)

Hi guys,

I want to work with 1 master and 2 slaves computers in Vienna Ensemble Pro.

I've read I need a Gigabit Switch to connect the three together. 

Since I have two lan ports on each computer, I can have internet on a separate port of the master, so I don't actually need internet signal on the two slaves. 

My questions are:

- Do I have to connect the Gigabit Switch to the home internet router, to make it work? Or can I just plug in its ports the three computers to create a network? 

- If I DO have to connect the Gigabit Switch to home router, will the router speed affect the audio transfer speed between master and slave? (I ask since my home router is an old one, at 100Mbps, not a gigabit).

Ideally, I would prefer to connect master and two slaves to the Gigabit Switch, without having it connected to the internet router, but will it work? 

Thanks a lot in advance!


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## stigc56 (Dec 12, 2018)

If you need to be able to "see" your two slaves, and I do, then - on Mac - it has proven difficult - for me - to be able to have the audio communication and using the screen sharing at the same time. 
So I have connected my to slave macs to a switch - static IP - which let's them go on internet - ideal for updating - and connect to the master in my studio at the same time.
On PC it could be different though.


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## Bender-offender (Dec 12, 2018)

You don’t need the gigabit switch connected to your internet at all for it to work. The only reason to have the switch connected is, like Stig said, if you want to be able to do updates and/or downloads on your slaves.


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## BGvanRens (Dec 12, 2018)

It would be preferred to have it connected to just the gigabit switch without connecting it to your router which will bottleneck the entire network to 100Mbps.
Watch out for 'green ethernet' ports on the switch, I've learned about this too late, they can and most likely will cause issues with VEP. (dropouts)

Since you mentioned each computer has 2 ethernet ports, you could separate the internet and VEP by just connecting each to their own network. So you disable the 'internet' port and leave the 'VEP' port enabled, you'd only enable the 'internet' port on the slaves when needed. (not sure how this would work on Mac OS)
So assuming port 1 is internet and port 2 is VEP. You'd connect port 1 to your router for internet, port 2 to the gigabit switch for your VEP network (and manually configure the IP's on each system for that port so they can communicate)


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## EgM (Jun 24, 2020)

I stay away from those "green" things when it comes to me composing music. That goes for everything, including settings in MacOS or Windows.

Trying to save power and streaming 1Tb in libraries doesn't work that well...


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## Selfinflicted (Jun 25, 2020)

Make sure to put the network with internet on the first port and closed VEP network on port 2. Especially the Mac will look for Internet on the first port for Native Access and other apps.

As mentioned above, use static ip addresses so VEP can consistently find what it's looking for over the network.

No experience using green routers, but generally you want as few limitations and hurdles as possible, so I'd go for a regular gigabit switch instead. VEP sends a lot of data.


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## mscp (Aug 28, 2020)

Is it ok to stream 2 slaves through a switch? I wonder if I can use one ethernet cable going into the Macbook Pro without issues.


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## EgM (Aug 28, 2020)

Phil81 said:


> Is it ok to stream 2 slaves through a switch? I wonder if I can use one ethernet cable going into the Macbook Pro without issues.



You can slave even more through your switch, it's quite light on a gigabit switch.


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## vitocorleone123 (Aug 28, 2020)

Better to have computers that talk to each other on the same switch than out the switch to another switch or router and then to another computer. But even that won’t stress things unless you’re copying files to/from m2 SSDs across a 1 gigabit network. But, if there’s a choice, it’s better to get a 24 port switch vs 3x 8 port ones if possible. For example.

switches: tp link makes the best inexpensive switches. Don’t get green as that turns ports off, unless you’re certain it won’t even slow down any port with a cable plugged into it. Get quality hardware that’ll perform. Doesn’t take much money - usually under $30 or so for a good 5 port unmanaged switch.

Side note: Audiogridder seems to be working quite well to have plugins on another computer and stream them - and it’s free. Still in beta though.


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