# Logic, VEP6 Multi, single Kontakt with multiple instruments



## Soundhound (Mar 4, 2019)

A question for template gurus maybe? For a few different purposes (string sections sometimes, layering percussion, etc.) I find myself using a VEP multi with a single Kontakt instance in the first channel with several instruments in it, then adding as many buses in the VEP multi as needed, and bringing them back on their own channels in Logic. 

Seems to work well and saves ram from loading all those kontakt instances, but it goes against the one instrument per kontakt instance in VEP that many people swear to. 

Anyone familiar with the difference in cpu hit/managemnt etc. between the two approaches, know of any pitfalls to look out for? Give the instance more threads... etc.?

Thanks.


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## A.G (Mar 8, 2019)

Soundhound said:


> A question for template gurus maybe?



I am not a guru, but I want to inform you that I have developed a special product which will offer up to 1024 MIDI channels access per a single VEP instance via a Logic Channel Strip without using AU3 or any Environment CC99. My new development is super optimized and will allow you to access all Kontakt ports ABCD (64 Ch.) via a Logic instrument track, and load up to 16 Kontakt instances (64 Ch.) per VEP Instance. No VEP multi ports are needed.
The new AG system will open new doors... Stay tuned, I hope that we will release AG *VEPro Multi Instance* in too weeks.


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## animatione (Mar 8, 2019)

This is very interesting and necessary because up to this day VEP supports only AU2 Plugin making it impossible to use all multichannel when you use Logic and VEP. It would be good to have more than 16 MIDI channels. How will it be done?


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 8, 2019)

Logic itself will still choke if you try to send too many simultaneous midi events through a single logic channel in order to get to the single vep instance. I will be curious to see what Ivan came up with though


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## A.G (Mar 8, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> I will be curious to see what Ivan came up with though


I developed that back in 2017 and provided the Beta to several worldwide composers to test. They confirm that my system is rock so I will be happy to make it public knowledge.
I am in contact with VSL team who help me a lot, so this will be a good product I guess. Do not worry Steve, I do not make mistakes...


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 8, 2019)

I was not implying that you made any mistakes. But logic is still constrained to how many simultaneous midi events it can handle through a single channel. Still interested to see what you did.


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## A.G (Mar 9, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> But logic is still constrained to how many simultaneous midi events it can handle through a single channel.


Could you outline your concept, researches, tests, results etc about your theory?
I'm very interested.


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## Mason (Mar 9, 2019)

A.G said:


> I developed that back in 2017 and provided the Beta to several worldwide composers to test. They confirm that my system is rock so I will be happy to make it public knowledge.
> I am in contact with VSL team who help me a lot, so this will be a good product I guess. Do not worry Steve, I do not make mistakes...



Very interesting indeed. So it means they don't have any intentions of supporting AU3 themselves?


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## animatione (Mar 10, 2019)

Mason said:


> Very interesting indeed. So it means they don't have any intentions of supporting AU3 themselves?


They are not saying anything, but I hope they will. Although if not I am sure the best solution for now comes from the Audiogrocery. If there is no AU3 update from Vienna, I at least hope to have more MIDI Channels...


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## Mason (Mar 10, 2019)

animatione said:


> They are not saying anything, but I hope they will. Although if not I am sure the best solution for now comes from the Audiogrocery. If there is no AU3 update from Vienna, I at least hope to have more MIDI Channels...



Since Audiogrocery gets help from Vienna to create this plugin to use multi ports in Logic, it means they have no plans for AU3, or?


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## Soundhound (Mar 10, 2019)

Thanks all! Anyone with current experience/pov regarding running (in Logic) single kontakt instances with multiple channels out of VEP multis vs a kontakt instance/instrument per channel in VEP multichannel instance? I'm doing both at the moment, and wondering if anyone has any words to the wise?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 10, 2019)

Soundhound said:


> Anyone with current experience/pov



I do whatever's convenient and worry later. My system isn't gagging.


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## garyhiebner (Mar 10, 2019)

Yeah I use single instruments. My machine got all choked up with multitimbral instruments. And also you can freeze a multitimbral instruments. Which I find quite handy to freeze the instruments tracks to save up on resources when needed.


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## Soundhound (Mar 10, 2019)

I can get by with a fair amount, but need to run a lot in VEP these days to keep cpu hungry instruments under control. Would love to not have to run VEP, I find it kind of a pita. But I'll be needing the Elon Musk model of the new mac pro to keep that dream alive at this point.




Nick Batzdorf said:


> I do whatever's convenient and worry later. My system isn't gagging.


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## A.G (Mar 10, 2019)

Mason said:


> Since Audiogrocery gets help from Vienna to create this plugin to use multi ports in Logic, it means they have no plans for AU3, or?


Audio Grocery gets only VSL technical info about a given product development. We prefer to stay away of the major VSL developments. We can do our best regarding the Articulation systems cooperation and wish to VSL a Good luck in their own developments!


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## Shad0wLandsUK (Mar 11, 2019)

I still use the Multi-Intrument track with the Event Plugin personally. Then again I have not been able to make huge templates and don't really work on projects as work takes all my time up. Spend more time learning IT and being good at my job than composing anuything at all these days, but hey maybe the future will change. So just a hobbyist for now. I tend to spend time on the multi-port scenarios and other questions relating to technical usage of DAWs since it fits into the same headspace as my Applications Support and Infrastructure Role for work


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 11, 2019)

animatione said:


> It would be good to have more than 16 MIDI channels



You will never get more than 16 from a single instance of a VI. What we need is the ability to route each instrument back to Logic on its own audio channel, like you can with the VST3 version.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 11, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> You will never get more than 16 from a single instance of a VI. What we need is the ability to route each instrument back to Logic on its own audio channel, like you can with the VST3 version.



I don't understand. Multitimbral VE Pros have 16 of them.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 11, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I don't understand. Multitimbral VE Pros have 16 of them.



Unfortunately in Logic you can only come back as a stereo pair, in VST3 you can assign each MIDI channel it's own audio channel.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 11, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Unfortunately in Logic you can only come back as a stereo pair, in VST3 you can assign each MIDI channel it's own audio channel.



1. Use the multi-output VE Pro plug-in (on the first of a multi-timbral Instrument track).


2. VE Pro has separate outputs. I'm showing the Master Bus, but each instrument track is the same.


3. Each time you click the + you get another fader for an additional output pair coming back from VE Pro.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 12, 2019)

Thanks Nick, I've tried that method. It works but I'm not a fan. You end up with a big mess of aux channels, and they start bogging down the system resources. And I'm not 100% sure, but there's a limit to how many aux tracks you can have (256?).


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## Ashermusic (Mar 12, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Thanks Nick, I've tried that method. It works but I'm not a fan. You end up with a big mess of aux channels, and they start bogging down the system resources. And I'm not 100% sure, but there's a limit to how many aux tracks you can have (256?).




You are right, that is not a good way to go.


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## Soundhound (Mar 12, 2019)

Jay do you find it's the problem with the way Logic manages (or doesn't manage) cpu resources to deal with multiple instruments in a single Kontakt instance in VEP which makes that approach unadvisable? Or it is another issue/issues? I've got the routing and tracks for this approach figured out to the point I'm happy with it, but wondering if I'm asking for trouble with cpu/other resources.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 12, 2019)

Soundhound said:


> Jay do you find it's the problem with the way Logic manages (or doesn't manage) cpu resources to deal with multiple instruments in a single Kontakt instance in VEP which makes that approach unadvisable? Or it is another issue/issues? I've got the routing and tracks for this approach figured out to the point I'm happy with it, but wondering if I'm asking for trouble with cpu/other resources.



All the auxes go to one core for the Kontakt multi-output instance.


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## Soundhound (Mar 12, 2019)

Succinct and very helpful. Thanks Jay as always. 



Ashermusic said:


> All the auxes go to one core for the Kontakt multi-output instance.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 12, 2019)

Soundhound said:


> Succinct and very helpful. Thanks Jay as always.



You're welcome.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

Soundhound said:


> I find myself using a VEP multi with a single Kontakt instance in the first channel with several instruments in it, then adding as many buses in the VEP multi as needed, and bringing them back on their own channels in Logic.
> 
> Seems to work well and saves ram from loading all those kontakt instances, but it goes against the one instrument per kontakt instance in VEP that many people swear to.



Some people swear by the one instrument per track approach in Logic, not all. Some people swear by one instrument per kontakt instance, perhaps for the same reason...but not all.

I see nothing wrong with using some multi instruments sometimes...whether in kontakt or other instruments...with or without VEP...makes no difference to me. There are pros and cons. personally I do not think it will make a significant difference to CPU either way, but each instance of kontakt does use a little bit of ram, so you might reduce your ram usage a little bit by using multi's. It used to be that the argument was made the LogicPro did not spread the load across cores very well if a single instance of Kontakt was used vs 16 separate kontakt instances. But VEP is much smarter about core usage and the above issue may or may not be relevant in recent versions of LogicPro. Mostly I think this is a workflow choice with pros and cons either way, has been discussed a lot on this forum already, search around some more.

Wolfie is correct you are limited to ~256 aux channels in Logic...so if you need to break out the audio from kontakt to separate mixable channels in Logic...then you can have up to 256 of them, and if that isn't enough, then you need a new solution, maybe a new DAW.

I do not, however, think that AUX channels are any more resource hungry then software instrument channels, as he implied in his post. Its just channels. Logic, unfortunately, does limit you to 256 of them, and if you intend to use any busses in your mix, then you have to reserve some for that too.

Another potential factor related to AUX channels is that PDC is probably not handled the same way as normal software instrument channels, which could be a PITA, depending on what you're doing. Not really sure about that, Logic might be doing smart stuff under the covers to handle AUX PDC in this specific case differently, just thinking out loud about it, but its something to be aware of.

Also in Logic you are limited to 255 software instrument channels, so if you want to mix more than 255 instrument tracks in the LogicPro mixer, then you will need to use some multi-instruments, pure and simple, in order to add some more AUX channels...for a total of around 511 mixable instrument tracks in Logic.

There is also something to be said for sub-mixing sections in VEP rather then bringing every single channel back into Logic's mixer. That could include multi-instruments inside of VEP..or not..as you wish. If you specifically need to bring a couple of specific instruments back into the Logic Mixer for some reason, then fine, fork off a couple AUX channels for that. Mix the rest in VEP. Not a big deal. Then you can have way more than 511 mixable instrument channels if that's your thing.

There are some practical reasons why using multi instruments in Logic can lead to complexity and confusion, which is why I think some people have a rule not to use them. Which is fine too! There are advantages to not using them, such as the ability to freeze tracks. But there are also advantages to using them sooner or later.

With regards to VEP and midi....and also Kontakt...inside Logic...you are currently limited to 16 channels of midi per VI (in this case the VI is the VEP plugin). Which means by default, you can have 16 instruments per VEP instance....even if that VEP instance is a single kontakt instance with multi instruments inside it. Or not, as you wish.

While the AU3 spec does provide for the possibility to have more than 16 midi channels per VI, LogicPro itself is going to require some changes to the GUI and probably internally, in order to support more than 16 channels of midi being routed around the app, well before it actually hits any AU3 plugins. So just to set expectations, LogicPro is really not ready for the same kind of multi-channel operation that Cubase provides with VST3, for example. Not yet. Apple has some work to do to make that possible...in addition to VSL upgrading their VEP plugin to AU3.

Currently the only way to get around that is to use VSL's multi-port macro hack..which does kind of work. However my experience with that after signficant testing is that Logic itself will choke on too many multi-port macro channels feeding simultaneous events into the VEP plugin. You can safely use more than 16 channels, maybe double that amount is ok, but it does start to choke on the midi if you send too many events at a time through the channel. Hard to say for sure whether this is Logic that is choking or the VEP plugin; and the macro itself is also doubling the number of events, so there is that too. But based on historical discussions about LogicPro and similar midi bandwidth problems reported in the past, my vote is that Logic is unable to handle too many simultaneous midi events in any one instrument channel at a time..which if true means Apple has to architect LogicPro in a way to avoid that limitation before multi-port AU3 operation can really be supported also. We shall see about all of that.

Meanwhile Ivan is making big claims that he has come up with a solution around all of that in AudioGrocery, so let's wait and see what he has come up with, I am very curious about that, but remain skeptical due to current limitations in LogicPro.


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## Ashermusic (Mar 12, 2019)

They aren't more resource hungry, but as I say, they go to one core.


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## Soundhound (Mar 12, 2019)

In a recent project I used a few vep multis with a single Kontakt multi with multiple instruments, routed to vpt buses and brought back into logic on auxes, created tracks out of those. So each can be stacked/managed/mixed in logic. They were for a string section, percussion, and a couple of other things. I was doing it to conserve ram by having fewer Kontakt instances which seem to take about 50 or 60 megs apiece empty, so it can add up.

I did see some choking from these I have to say. At first I thought it might be a streaming issue but that wasn't it, the cpu% in some of the pep multis went quite high, so I think it's the choking there. It didn't drive cpu too high in Logic. It was alleviated by rebooting the iMac, sometimes. So there does seem to be a limit there I'll need to keep an eye on and manage.

Life in the slow lane.



Dewdman42 said:


> Some people swear by the one instrument per track approach in Logic, not all. Some people swear by one instrument per kontakt instance, perhaps for the same reason...but not all.
> 
> I see nothing wrong with using some multi instruments sometimes...whether in kontakt or other instruments...with or without VEP...makes no difference to me. There are pros and cons. personally I do not think it will make a significant difference to CPU either way, but each instance of kontakt does use a little bit of ram, so you might reduce your ram usage a little bit by using multi's. It used to be that the argument was made the LogicPro did not spread the load across cores very well if a single instance of Kontakt was used vs 16 separate kontakt instances. But VEP is much smarter about core usage and the above issue may or may not be relevant in recent versions of LogicPro. Mostly I think this is a workflow choice with pros and cons either way, has been discussed a lot on this forum already, search around some more.
> 
> ...


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

Just to be clear, when I used the word "choke" in my earlier post, what I meant is that LogicPro will drop some midi events if too many of them hit one single channel at the same time, and this is completely independently of whether the Cpu is maxing out or not. This will be manifested as missing notes and hung notes... Spread the same midi data across multiple VI channels, and it handles it all fine. 

Lots of different things could have effected your CPU problem...including as Jay mentioned, not spreading across cores perhaps. If you fixed your problem by rebooting then I'd be suspicious of something entirely outside of your DAW being the culprit...like a spotlight scan was running or something like that.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> All the auxes go to one core for the Kontakt multi-output instance.



The VE Pro multi-output instance is on one core, but it looks like the heavy lifting is being spread around by VE Pro?

I don't set it up this way as a rule, but it seems to be okay as long as you do it in moderation.

(See the Logic CPU meter and the system-wide Activity Monitor one in the second screen shot.)


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2019)

Wait - Jay, are you talking about using multi-output single instances of Kontakt (not a great idea), or about using multiple audio streams from VE Pro?

I'm just talking about Dewdman42's comment that you need VST3 to send multiple audio streams to Logic, which I still don't understand. Clicking on a + to access more outputs from VE Pro seems like a perfectly reasonable implementation to me - although I just discovered that the - isn't removing them again properly, and I wonder whether that's a bug.



Dewdman42 said:


> LogicPro will drop some midi events if too many of them hit one single channel at the same time



Maybe turn on MIDI data thinning? I use an EWI (which sends tons of CC data), and I've never had that happen - which doesn't mean I'm more handsome than you, it just means I'm surprised you're having that problem. What computer are you using?


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

Dewdman didn't say anything about needing VST3 to send multiple audio streams, someone else maybe...

Unless you are using the multi port macro then you are not experiencing what I have been talking about with Logic's limitations. Please read my posts more carefully...


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> Dewdman



Wolfie. Sorry.

But what is the multi port macro?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2019)

Oh, VSL's thing so you can have multiple MIDI ports.

Yeah, I have no use for that anyway.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

I haven't tried to stress test single midi port with 16 channels (without multi port macro) through a single VI channel to see if it runs into that problem under dense midi, but basically the input channel of Logic seems to start dropping notes and events if too much is happening at a time...including just too many simultaneous notes. The multi-port macro of course makes that more likely to happen if you try, for example, to funnel 100 midi tracks through a single VEP plugin to a single VEP instance. That will seem to work ok for a bit until a lot of those 100 tracks are playing at the same time, then notes start dropping. I have been ok with 20-30 tracks feeding through a channel that way, I don't have more specific numbers then that. If you google around you can find discussions about LogicPro having some midi internal buffer limitations, and I think that might be the culprit on that. It might happen without multi-port under stress also, but I haven't experienced that or stress tested for it.

In any case, the only reason i mentioned it is because everyone keeps talking about AU3 and multi midi ports and so forth..and I'm just trying to say... LogicPro has some internal limitations that have to be rectified before full AU3 multi-port tracking to a big singular multi-instrument can be realized.

The audio channels produced by multi-instruments are the other problem. Right now we can basically create up to 16 stereo returns from a multi-instrument, which show up as AUX channels when you hit the "+" button. I've never seen more than 16 available, I'm not sure if AU2 is limited to 16 or what, but anyway, I think that's a limit. So...in order to have really big AU3 multi-instrument, such as VEP to a single VEP instance, you need to have something more or better then what LogicPro offers right now in terms of either being able to hit the "+" a hundred times (or more) to create all the returning audio channels you need...or else something entirely better where multi-instruments always have as many audio channels as they need to accommodate the multi ports and channels of midi they are responding to. LogicPro is simply not up to any of this right now beyond basically 16 channel multi's if you want...no midi ports...just 16 channels.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Maybe turn on MIDI data thinning? I use an EWI (which sends tons of CC data), and I've never had that happen - which doesn't mean I'm more handsome than you, it just means I'm surprised you're having that problem. What computer are you using?



Certainly can't hurt. I'm on macPro 5,1 with 12cores x 3.33ghz. The CPU is not stressed at all. The notes are getting dropped for some other reason. Also, if the same 100 track orch cue is spread across 4 VEP instances(which means the notes go through 4 LPX inst channels), then it plays perfectly without any dropped notes. You only start getting dropped notes when you try to funnel 100 tracks of orchestra through a single VEP instance (which basically requires them all to funnel through a single Logic instrument channel and through a single environment pipeline also, which actually might be the bottleneck).

In practice it is not that bad to just spread to at least a few VEP instances..I like half a dozen as a rule. But anyway, AU3 on its own is not going to make Logic suddenly handle midi throughput better. Apple has to improve the software.


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## Soundhound (Mar 12, 2019)

I do get cpu spikes now and then and restarting does seem to quiet things down—sometimes, not always.

I'm also streaming back and forth over Thunderbolt in a way that may not be a great idea. I have both the slave and master macs reading the same series of ssds (in blackmagic multidocks) through thunderbolt (the ssds mounted on both macs), and VEP is not using ethernet, but rather the thunderbolt connection. That same thunderbolt connection is also driving a second monitor off the host mac. I try not to light matches near any of this, it could blow at any time. 

Seriously though, it does work smoothly most of the time...




Dewdman42 said:


> Just to be clear, when I used the word "choke" in my earlier post, what I meant is that LogicPro will drop some midi events if too many of them hit one single channel at the same time, and this is completely independently of whether the Cpu is maxing out or not. This will be manifested as missing notes and hung notes... Spread the same midi data across multiple VI channels, and it handles it all fine.
> 
> Lots of different things could have effected your CPU problem...including as Jay mentioned, not spreading across cores perhaps. If you fixed your problem by rebooting then I'd be suspicious of something entirely outside of your DAW being the culprit...like a spotlight scan was running or something like that.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

You might find this video relevant: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/cpu-performance-vs-realtime-performance.80280/


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 12, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Wolfie. Sorry.
> 
> But what is the multi port macro?



VST3 (in Cubase, anyways) allows you to send each instrument (within and instance of a VI) to is own audio channel...no need for aux channels. The routing possibilities with Cubase/VEPro are awesome.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

That has more to do with the way cubase is architected then vst3.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> VST3 (in Cubase, anyways) allows you to send each instrument (within and instance of a VI) to is own audio channel...no need for aux channels. The routing possibilities with Cubase/VEPro are awesome.



It doesn't really matter whether they're called aux channels. They're channel strips for outputs from an instrument. You can route anything anywhere in the Logic mixer too. Same with the Pro Tools mixer for that matter.

In Logic a Macro is just a combination of MIDI Environment objects (things like transformers, delay lines, arpeggiators...) that you combine into one object for convenience.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 12, 2019)

Nick, of course, and it's Logic's architecture. I'd just rather not have to create an extra channel strip for every track, I'd rather use have full control right inside the actual instrument track itself. For example, if I route a multi-timbral Kontakt instrument via VEPro, and move a volume slider for one of the tracks, they all move; and the meters are all based on whatever is happening in channel 1.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> I'd just rather not have to create an extra channel strip for every track



You don't have to. It's automatic (or you can hide/show each extra pair). And each channel strip has its own meter - or you can group them all. Look at 3.png in post #20 in this thread.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

Logic has some flukey behavior related to multi-instruments, no question. If you are still wanting to use Logic due to other advantages it may have, then consider that the behavior you are talking about above is only related to the mixer fader of the instrument, not to all the various things you can automate. It also effects the meter, pan and mute/solo... the track header is attached to the primary instrument channel, not the aux channels. its a bit annoying, but its not the end of the world to use the mixer to adjust levels rather then the track header, and you won't have any extra channels created.

There are also other ways to setup multi-instruments in LogicPro that do not have that quirk. For example, as SoundHound described earlier, you can use the Aux track trick to create your tracks, rather then the new tracks wizard.. then you will end up with the sliders on the track header effecting the aux channel faders in a way that is perhaps more intuitive.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 12, 2019)

I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

There is nothing quirky or unintuitive about it whatsoever. Unless they're on the same MIDI channel, each channel strip is totally independent. If you want them to act together, you simply group them - or don't use separate outputs, in which case they all go to the same channel strip.

Again, whether they're called Auxes or not makes absolutely no difference.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 12, 2019)

I'm an LPX fan for many other reasons, but compared to Cubase and other daw's, its handling of multi-instruments leaves a lot to be desired. It is what it is.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 13, 2019)

Except that it isn't what it is, at least you haven't articulated a reason it is.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

I have numerous times on this and other threads Nick, I don't feel compelled to spell it out again. As they say, ignorance is bliss...


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 13, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I
> Again, whether they're called Auxes or not makes absolutely no difference.



Agreed, but it's still an extra step, and and extra piece of clutter. If I could just assign a regular track to it's own audio channel, problem solved (ie; Cubase).


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 13, 2019)

Dewdman42 said:


> As they say, ignorance is bliss...


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Agreed, but it's still an extra step, and and extra piece of clutter. If I could just assign a regular track to it's own audio channel, problem solved (ie; Cubase).



Its actually more than just an extra step. AUX channels are subject to different PDC handling compared to instrument channels, which will result in longer latency lag throughout a project.


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## Soundhound (Mar 13, 2019)

Gentlemen, gentlemen please! Who wants pizza?


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## Ashermusic (Mar 13, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Wait - Jay, are you talking about using multi-output single instances of Kontakt (not a great idea), or about using multiple audio streams from VE Pro?
> 
> I'm just talking about Dewdman42's comment that you need VST3 to send multiple audio streams to Logic, which I still don't understand. Clicking on a + to access more outputs from VE Pro seems like a perfectly reasonable implementation to me - although I just discovered that the - isn't removing them again properly, and I wonder whether that's a bug.
> 
> ...


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## Ashermusic (Mar 13, 2019)

When you open a multi-output instance of the VE Pro plugin software instrument it is no different than Kontakt, Play or any other software instrument. Plus sign clicks add auxes and they all go to one core.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

Are you sure all of the AUX's (with all the plugins that are on them) go to one core? I don't think so, but would be good to know that if so.

For sure the entire VEP plugin would go to one core, but one advantage of using VEP in general is that all the plugins being hosted inside VEP are being spread around cores, allegedly better then LPX does on its own. Right?


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

I found this article, which may be of interest here. The images in the article are using LP9, but the article is dated 2017. So not sure whether every detail of it is still relevant in LPX 10.4, but anyway...interesting about core use across channels...

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201838

and another one:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205975


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

Based on the above, just did some testing. What I find is that, as Jay mentioned, if you use a multi-timbral instrument that outputs audio to multiple AUX channels...the instrument itself is being handled entirely on a single core. All the multitimbral sounds of that instrument..entirely on a single core...and based on the above documents I surmised and tested and observed, that if you put any additional plugins on the main instrument channel, those are also being processed on that same core, particularly during live playing. 

However, one observation is that when you use a multi-timbral instrument with AUX channels for different audio output..while the instrument itself is all entirely on one core, if you put any additional plugins on those extra AUX channels...then those AUX channels each get their own core for that extra plugin processing....notwithstanding the fact that the actual multi-timbral instrument itself is all on the first core.

*I was not aware that LPX basically divides the core usage up by channel. The articles above have some interesting tips about how to spread load around once you are aware of this fact. *

Some of the above may be different while playing tracks vs live input mode, I am going to test for that later. And once you have a lot of tracks playing back...then a lot of stuff is being spread around to different cores anyway....somewhat a moot point...but it can certainly make a big difference while you're tracking and if you have any track header selected, than the instrument and plugins of that corresponding instrument channel are all going to live input mode on one single core....

And all of that being said, one of the huge advantages of VEP would be that:


The VEP plugin itself would be the selected live input instrument and it itself is not too CPU intensive.
Inside VEP server, the core usage is spread around by VEP in a different manner that seems to do a better job of spreading it around to cores. So they say, I haven't tested.
Then if the audio coming back from VEP is forked off to AUX channels, each of those AUX channels will get their own core for whatever further plugins you put on them.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

And supposedly some plugins, such as kontakt, have the ability to turn on or off multi-core processing...which may or may not be beneficial....sounds like it probably would be beneficial when used inside LPX directly, but moot point when inside VEP.. maybe...

EDIT: do not use this. Kontakt says it should not be on when the host is doing it.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

After some more testing I can conclude with certainty that LPX handles cores differently for playing back tracks vs how the currently selected record-enabled track is handled. 

When a track header is selected, that track is enabled for live input mode and it is put entirely on a single core..including all the plugins on that same channel. Other playback tracks are distributed across the remaining cores in a different manner that is not entirely clear to me at the moment, but may not be the one-core-per-channel rule as is the case for the live input channels.

If the live input channel feeds to some AUX channels, then each AUX channel will get its own core (_excluding the original multi-timbral instrument which is not on the AUX channels but is on the instrument channel being used by the first core for that live input_)...so this is one way to handle live input a little better across more then one core, by putting additional plugins on other AUX channels via sends or even daisy chaining a few AUX channels to spread the plugin load for that live input across more then one core.

But during mix down, so long as no track header with plugins is selected and record enabled, the live input mode will not be active and playback tracks seem to distribute load across Cores in an entirely different manner.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 13, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> When you open a multi-output instance of the VE Pro plugin software instrument it is no different than Kontakt, Play or any other software instrument. Plus sign clicks add auxes and they all go to one core.



Okay, I talked to Jay earlier today about this.

VE Pro does get processed on a single core, as with any other instrument. But it takes a lot less horsepower than a Kontakt or Play instance, because all it's doing is streaming in 16 (or fewer) channels of audio.

That's what I was trying to show earlier in I think post #20: the heavy lifting is spread across all your cores in VE Pro.

Now, Jay's other point is also true, at least I assume it still is - that you're better off using individual Kontakts than multitimbral ones as much as possible.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> VE Pro does get processed on a single core, as with any other instrument. But it takes a lot less horsepower than a Kontakt or Play instance, because all it's doing is streaming in 16 (or fewer) channels of audio.



yep. The plugin itself is relatively light on CPU.



> That's what I was trying to show earlier in I think post #20: the heavy lifting is spread across all your cores in VE Pro.


Stated another way, in the VE Pro Server, which is a separate process.



> Now, Jay's other point is also true, at least I assume it still is - that you're better off using individual Kontakts than multitimbral ones as much as possible.




The other thing is that its only relevant for the currently selected track...not all the other playback tracks. During playback, LPX is doing a lot of other smart stuff to spread the load around differently. But if you have your single kontakt instance selected while recording tracks...then all of the instruments inside that instance will all be played by a single core, that is true.... 

Also, what happens inside VEP when kontakt is being used inside there, may be different then directly inside LPX. So the rule about avoiding multi-timbral instruments may or may not apply if that multi-timbral instrument is being hosted inside VEP.


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

further to the first apple article mentioned above, I want to say that I just tried the suggestion in the first Apple article about daisy chaining AUX channels to spread the load...and it does NOT work. If you have an instrument channel feeding an AUX, feeding another AUX....with plugins on them all...just one core is getting it all, in live input mode. whether or not it helps to spread the load during playback is hard to know. But during live input mode, which is when it really matters..it does not do as they suggested in that article. One core gets all of it. That includes when using a send, I might add.

However, when using a multi-timbral instrument with multiple "+" AUX channels... the instrument itself is all on the first core, but any channel processing on each of those AUX's will be on separate core.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 13, 2019)

This setting made a difference on my system (but don't ask me the details, because I forget what the problem was... maybe that Logic's CPU meter was only showing 12 cores instead of 24?):


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

yea so that second Apple article I posted above explains that one. Basically, that effects when you have multiple tracks selected for record or are using track stacks and when possible it gives separate cores for each of the channels involved rather then putting all of the selected-record-enabled tracks onto one core. 

Otherwise, the default to only use multi-threading for playback tracks, normally puts all record enabled tracks onto a single core!


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## Dewdman42 (Mar 13, 2019)

whoa it just keeps getting thicker... So I noticed a comment in that Apple article:



> The Playback & Live Tracks option might place slightly more overall load on the system, so if you don’t have any high demand live tracks, Playback Tracks might be the better choice.



I was curious so I ran a little test with some various instruments and chroma verb...playback only...no live tracks...with that option set to one way and the other...and wow what a difference in core use...

Here is showing that a silent track is selected to avoid live input mode:






Here is the first option, playback only (_which is how older versions of LPX always worked_):






Here is with the new option, playback+Live... as described in the document, it handles the cores completely differently, actually uses less cores and perhaps more overall CPU.. Remember this is during playback only...no live input mode. I think this mode should only be used if you really have a case for it as described in the Article.


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## Srikant K (Jan 29, 2021)

A.G said:


> I am not a guru, but I want to inform you that I have developed a special product which will offer up to 1024 MIDI channels access per a single VEP instance via a Logic Channel Strip without using AU3 or any Environment CC99. My new development is super optimized and will allow you to access all Kontakt ports ABCD (64 Ch.) via a Logic instrument track, and load up to 16 Kontakt instances (64 Ch.) per VEP Instance. No VEP multi ports are needed.
> The new AG system will open new doors... Stay tuned, I hope that we will release AG *VEPro Multi Instance* in too weeks.


Is it available now ?


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## A.G (Jan 30, 2021)

Srikant K said:


> Is it available now ?


Yes, here is the VEP Multi Instance product link:





Load numerous Kontakt instruments per VEP instance and use all Kontakt ABCD ports (64 MIDI Channels) via a single track in your DAW.


Advanced composer system for Vienna Ensemble PRO. Use a large Vienna Ensemble PRO instance with Kontakt ABCD Ports directly from a single track in your DAW.




www.audiogrocery.com


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