# Help with my new Cubase 10+VEPro template



## J-M (Mar 3, 2019)

So I've been designing my new template and I've run into a wall-that wall being VEPro getting incredible sluggish in Cubase to the point of being unusable. Since I only have one machine (i7-6850k with 64GB of RAM) my initial plan was to throw all of HWO inside VEPro to save loading times every time I switch projects. The problem is, now that I've done that VEPro gets incredible sluggish once I connect the instances (I have 4) inside Cubase. Am I doing something wrong or isn't my PC just powerful enough? My CPU usage is around 40% and I still got plenty of RAM left...I remember reading that having lots of audio outs in VEPro increases GUI lag, so I limited those to 100 outs (for the percussion) but it didn't really help.


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## Giscard Rasquin (Mar 3, 2019)

Not sure why that could be.
I was reading the manual just yesterday and realized they suggest switching off asio guard for your Vienna ensemble pro plugins in Cubase (in the plugin manager)
Maybe worth a try?


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## J-M (Mar 3, 2019)

GuitarG said:


> Not sure why that could be.
> I was reading the manual just yesterday and realized they suggest switching off asio guard for you Vienna ensemble pro plugins in Cubase (in the plugin manager)
> Maybe worth a try?



Yes! That seems to be the culprit. Why do I remember that they fixed it? It's still laggy, but very much usable, thank you. My other goal was to try to minimize the saving times with larger disabled templates by hosting most of it inside VEPro. That isn't obviously happening, but could I achieve a similar effect with disabled tracks inside VEPro?


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2019)

For fabulous save time improvements, work decoupled.

FWIW, on my rig ASIOguard is fine set to Low, but it gets bad on Medium or High. The general feeling is that this will never be fixed, with both VSL and Steinberg viewing the problem as the other company's. Set to low though, its general performance is pretty much the same as Low was back in the days before AG, so nothing really lost imo.


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## shomynik (Mar 3, 2019)

Definitely try changing AG settings. I get long interrupts on mid but find the low settings bearable and of course beneficial for asio load. 

But yesterday I indeed encountered for the first time a very odd VEP behavior on one of my slaves which could be described as sluggish - long hangs, process-times, pauses... And I noticed some discrepancies in RAM usage reports - total RAM used was 70%, but VEP usage was around 56GB which is less than half of my total of 128GB. Turns out that VEP RAM usage was wrong (too low), there was some corruption happening, and simple reset set the things straight. 

My point is, maybe you should check your RAM if it's working properly by using some memory diagnostics. If you haven't already, you should disable win defender or just disable scanning of the sample drives. Also, reinstalling your software might help.

Otherwise, that really should not be happening, your system is powerful enough. I'm having hundreds of audio channels streaming between vep and cubase (limit set to 300), and the only thing that is influencing is Cubase asio load. VEP is behaving great on all systems, master and 2 slaves regardless of the number of audio streams.


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## shomynik (Mar 3, 2019)

MrLinssi said:


> Yes! That seems to be the culprit. Why do I remember that they fixed it? It's still laggy, but very much usable, thank you. My other goal was to try to minimize the saving times with larger disabled templates by hosting most of it inside VEPro. That isn't obviously happening, but could I achieve a similar effect with disabled tracks inside VEPro?


Oh... great to hear that it was simple as that! 

I'm really hoping for the VEP 7 to wortk better with AG.

Regarding the disabled tracks, I'm suspecting that such a hi track count template/project would be hell in terms of saving times. I'm barely tolerating my 5-8sec saving time in decoupled mode every 20mins.


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## J-M (Mar 3, 2019)

shomynik said:


> Oh... great to hear that it was simple as that!



...It wasn't actually...I'm an idiot and forgot to connect the perc instance. And as soon as I did it was a total lag festival. Dunno, something feels a bit off with this. Definitely trying to reinstall and play around with ASIO Guard. I've already excluded my sample drives from Defender.


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## Giscard Rasquin (Mar 3, 2019)

Just to make it clear, you can set the audio guard to off, low/mid/high in the vst preferences but you can also turn it off on a plugin-by-plugin basis in the plugin manager in the lower info pane.
Was chatting to somebody at Vienna two days ago and he confirmed that with C10 they still recommend switching it off for Vienna Ensemble Pro Plugins.
Suppose every system is different and what works for me might not be the same for you. 
Also chatting with somebody at Steinberg last week as I had some performance problems with my template in C10 which is a C9 template imported into C10.
He said C10 got some changes to the internal structure so I don’t know if you’re using anything to do with C9 in C10 (templates/preferences/etc) but that might also cause a problem.


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## shomynik (Mar 3, 2019)

MrLinssi said:


> ...It wasn't actually...I'm an idiot and forgot to connect the perc instance. And as soon as I did it was a total lag festival. Dunno, something feels a bit off with this. Definitely trying to reinstall and play around with ASIO Guard. I've already excluded my sample drives from Defender.


And until you connect it, VEP is working properly on it's own?

Could you explain lag behaviour moire in detail?


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## J-M (Mar 3, 2019)

@GuitarG Yeah, I did that. And I actually started working on the template when I was still on 9 and then imported into 10...maybe I should start a fresh template in 10?

@shomynik On it's own VEPro is just fine and dandy. When connected (especially when connecting the fourth instance) the whole thing is very unresponsive, if I select a track inside VEPro it takes +10 seconds, or even more. It might now even raise the instance.

Anyways, thanks for the help so far guys, I'll try again in a few hours with your suggestions in mind. Will report back!


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## Giscard Rasquin (Mar 3, 2019)

MrLinssi said:


> @GuitarG Yeah, I did that. And I actually started working on the template when I was still on 9 and then imported into 10...maybe I should start a fresh template in 10?
> 
> @shomynik On it's own VEPro is just fine and dandy. When connected (especially when connecting the fourth instance) the whole thing is very unresponsive, if I select a track inside VEPro it takes +10 seconds, or even more. It might now even raise the instance.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for the help so far guys, I'll try again in a few hours with your suggestions in mind. Will report back!



Just for your info, I didn’t want to redo my 1100-track C9 template so I tried importing it in C10, delete all plugins, load the plugins again, saved it as a template within C10 and now it seems much more stable. Initially also copied my C9 preferences to C10 folder but they told me that’s also not a good idea.
Good luck!


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## shomynik (Mar 3, 2019)

MrLinssi said:


> @GuitarG Yeah, I did that. And I actually started working on the template when I was still on 9 and then imported into 10...maybe I should start a fresh template in 10?
> 
> @shomynik On it's own VEPro is just fine and dandy. When connected (especially when connecting the fourth instance) the whole thing is very unresponsive, if I select a track inside VEPro it takes +10 seconds, or even more. It might now even raise the instance.
> 
> Anyways, thanks for the help so far guys, I'll try again in a few hours with your suggestions in mind. Will report back!


Yeah, that is exactly a behavior I was experiencing yesterday but along with the Cubase being unresponsive at the same time with VEP looked like being the culprit.

I would try loading the same samples in Cubase only (load Kontakt multis). In my case a reset took care of it, but it seems you gonna have to do more troubleshooting.

Btw, I'm using a C9.5 template in C10, and I'm getting the same performance now.


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## InLight-Tone (Mar 3, 2019)

Get rid of VEP in lieu of a disabled track template and save yourself boatloads of stress and unnecessary confusion...


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## J-M (Mar 3, 2019)

InLight-Tone said:


> Get rid of VEP in lieu of a disabled track template and save yourself boatloads of stress and unnecessary confusion...



Not an option if I can help it. I've used a disabled template for years and in the end the painfully long save times and loading up HWO every time I switched a project are the reasons why I'm now setting up VEPro template.


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## jneebz (Mar 3, 2019)

InLight-Tone said:


> Get rid of VEP in lieu of a disabled track template and save yourself boatloads of stress and unnecessary confusion...


...IF you have an SSD system drive to cover those save times...

I think I’m headed toward losing VEP myself...did my last couple projects without it and it was actually really smooth. Only 200-250 tracks though.


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## InLight-Tone (Mar 3, 2019)

jneebz said:


> ...IF you have an SSD system drive to cover those save times...
> 
> I think I’m headed toward losing VEP myself...did my last couple projects without it and it was actually really smooth. Only 200-250 tracks though.


I'm using an m2 drive for project saving and with no tracks enabled + 12 sends and 1300+ tracks my save times are around 3 seconds. I first just start sketching with a few instruments to get the meat of the track down. Later I do the layering and orchestrating, most of my cues come in around 30-40 tracks. Save times near the end are around 10 seconds, but I can live with that for the simplicity of the whole rig...YMMV.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2019)

InLight-Tone said:


> Get rid of VEP in lieu of a disabled track template and save yourself boatloads of stress and unnecessary confusion...



Wow - for Cubase users, I'd strongly advise the opposite. Cubase Disabled Tracks have been a nightmare with bugs. Also performance is about 50% worse than VE Pro. I think Reaper users have a it much better though.


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## J-M (Mar 3, 2019)

Ok...did some more testing. If I lower the thread count from 3 to 2, or even better, to 1, the interface is really smooth. The problem is, for some reason one of my CPU cores has a total fit and the usage is slammed to 100%=My instance with Hollywood Brass crackles like there's no tomorrow. If I increase the thread count, then the CPU usage gets a bit lower, but the interface becomes totally unresponsive. Damn.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2019)

Worth updating Play perhaps?


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## J-M (Mar 3, 2019)

Guy Rowland said:


> Worth updating Play perhaps?



I did when 6.0.9 came out...except it didn't update the plugin version (don't ask me why, I have no idea). It turns out that almost every articulation had a convolution reverb on despite me saving a multi WITHOUT any reverb (that annoying bug). So I think those numerous reverbs were a part of the problem. One of my cores is STILL doing much more work compared to the others, but the GUI in VEPro is stable and there is no crackling, so I got that going for me at least.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2019)

Ah good to hear - sounds like things are heading in the right direction at least.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 3, 2019)

InLight-Tone said:


> Get rid of VEP in lieu of a disabled track template and save yourself boatloads of stress and unnecessary confusion...


Why does it have to be one or the other? I'm building a Cubase template that has both VE Pro tracks and Cubase disabled tracks. If I had a slave or multiple slaves I would go all VE Pro.


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## InLight-Tone (Mar 3, 2019)

TigerTheFrog said:


> Why does it have to be one or the other? I'm building a Cubase template that has both VE Pro tracks and Cubase disabled tracks. If I had a slave or multiple slaves I would go all VE Pro.


Well for me it means not having to mess around with midi tracks whatsoever and having separate audio and midi tracks for every single instrument. Having a clean mixer without millions of sends coming back from VEP. Being able to automate my instrument track instead of finding the audio return and automating that. Too much complexity for my blood, I'm a simple man...


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## Reid Rosefelt (Mar 3, 2019)

InLight-Tone said:


> Well for me it means not having to mess around with midi tracks whatsoever and having separate audio and midi tracks for every single instrument. Having a clean mixer without millions of sends coming back from VEP. Being able to automate my instrument track instead of finding the audio return and automating that. Too much complexity for my blood, I'm a simple man...



To each his own. But it doesn't have to be so complicated once you get it set up.

I just click off the visibility of the MIDI tracks and then it's one audio track per instrument.


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## InLight-Tone (Mar 3, 2019)

TigerTheFrog said:


> To each his own. But it doesn't have to be so complicated once you get it set up.
> 
> I just click off the visibility of the MIDI tracks and then it's one audio track per instrument.


But for me I don't even see any midi nor audio tracks until I enable the tracks I want and then it's only a single audio track per instrument and dirt simple automation. With VEP you still have to stare at and deal with untold number of midi and/or audio tracks as they are always active. I only see what I've enabled period plus my groups and sends which are separated with visibility agents.


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## shomynik (Mar 3, 2019)

MrLinssi said:


> I did when 6 One of my cores is STILL doing much more work compared to the others, but the GUI in VEPro is stable and there is no crackling, so I got that going for me at least.


Do you have any plugins in Cubase? If you have some heavy plugin chain in any of your tracks/buses, that could be the reason.


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## Guy Rowland (Mar 3, 2019)

With apologies to the OP for drifiting off topic - I think yours is a perfectly valid and sensible approach, InLight-Tone. The simplicity is very appealing.

The most important thing for anyone making a decision on which way to get themselves organised is to have a good and realistic overview of what the compromises are in the different methods. For a large monotimbral Cubase disabled template, it’s primarily the poor CPU performance in Cubase, a wait for each instrument to load, massive project sizes (which multiply in autosaves and cue versions) and long save times. None of these are deal breakers for everyone necessarily, and if you can live with those it’s a great option.

All these drawbacks (except the wait for each instrument to load) disappear with a disabled VE Pro template, but then you get other drawbacks - complexity of initial setup and separate midi and audio tracks. For some, waiting any time for an instrument to load is too annoying to contemplate, and they might go for a conventional VE Pro template which offers instant access to all instruments but also huge RAM consumption and long load times at the start of a project, along with those separate audio and midi tracks.

None of these approaches is right or wrong, it’s just choosing your poison really.


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## Giscard Rasquin (Mar 4, 2019)

Guy Rowland said:


> With apologies to the OP for drifiting off topic - I think yours is a perfectly valid and sensible approach, InLight-Tone. The simplicity is very appealing.
> 
> The most important thing for anyone making a decision on which way to get themselves organised is to have a good and realistic overview of what the compromises are in the different methods. For a large monotimbral Cubase disabled template, it’s primarily the poor CPU performance in Cubase, a wait for each instrument to load, massive project sizes (which multiply in autosaves and cue versions) and long save times. None of these are deal breakers for everyone necessarily, and if you can live with those it’s a great option.
> 
> ...



Like your approach Guy with disabled instruments in VEPRO and sending keyswitches at the third bar 
Think I´m going to copy that approach as I´m running out of RAM on my slave


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## J-M (Mar 4, 2019)

shomynik said:


> Do you have any plugins in Cubase? If you have some heavy plugin chain in any of your tracks/buses, that could be the reason.



None. My uneducated guess that maybe it has something to do with the multiprocessor support inside Kontakt? Maybe I mess with that next...I have lots of work this week+need to deliver some music, will report back again when I have the time. Thanks for the help so far fellas!


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## J-M (Jun 4, 2019)

Sorry guys, I know it's been a while but I got back into making that template. Guess I'll be trying to add as much into VEPro (most if it is going to be disabled though) as possible to get rid of the long save times. I'm thinking I'm hitting the limits on my PC, when I get to my fourth instance I really need to start adding buffers or VEPro starts to behave sluggishly...I'm at 1024 which is still playable. Think fifth is the last I can do and still leave two cores for Cubase to use. Currently in talks with Vienna support as well...


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## Pablocrespo (Jun 4, 2019)

Hi! I have the same problem, and can´t figure it out. It is definetely a Play problem as I see it. It happens in my main computer and when I tested the same instance in my slave so it is not hardware related. 

I can get it to happen when loading several Play (fully loaded) tracks in VEP instances, as if it reached a tipping point and gets sluggish to the point of hanging if you open the save as window for example. I got it happening even without connecting them to cubase in both computers. 

I have been in touch with vienna support also but no luck.


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## J-M (Jun 4, 2019)

Pablocrespo said:


> Hi! I have the same problem, and can´t figure it out. It is definetely a Play problem as I see it. It happens in my main computer and when I tested the same instance in my slave so it is not hardware related.
> 
> I have been in touch with vienna support also but no luck.



Sounds much like my problems...except that when the instances aren't connected to Cubase everything works splendidly on here. Do you have the latest version of Play installed? Make sure the plugin version especially is up to date...I made that mistake once already. I will report back as things progress, since I really need to get a new template up and running.


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## Pablocrespo (Jun 4, 2019)

I have the latest play, installed by the EW app. It is very strange indeed


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## J-M (Jun 6, 2019)

Update: So I exchanged some emails with Vienna support, and basically we concluded that I need to figure out the best way to set up VEPro for my system. They said that they don't recommend having more than 8 midi ports per instance, but for me that (probably?) wouldn't work, since I'd have to double my instances for strings,WWs and brass. I know @Mihkel Zilmer is doing just that, but his setup is quite different from mine. I will be experimenting more in the upcoming days...will report back as always.


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