Thanks a ton for taking the time to go through this. I've been asking around for 15 years how to set up multitimbral setups with Kontakt and Vienna Ensemble being accessible from Cubase. That trick of setting the midi channel in VE to all is what gave the light switch a tug. Thank God I lived this long.😍😅
This is by far the clearest and most comprehensive explanation of this complicated setup. Thank you! You addressed every question I had before I had a chance to ask them.
Thanks Patrick, and glad the video helped you! I'm thinking about making another VEP7 video soon, since it's been about a year, and I do things slightly differently now
s anyone using Halion 7 with VEP? In its standalone version there is no issue, but using it with VEP it is always claiming missing samples even if they are located where they should be, and over 42 instances of Halion in VEP, the Steinberg plug in starts to loose its saved configurations. Is it because we work on Apple M2 machines?
So, is it really that common to use multiple tracks to break out the articulations? Yes of course, it depends on one's preferences and always YMMV. And admittedly tracking key switches can be a real time consuming PITA... But your reasoning seems beyond the norm. Not a bad thing and I'm sure the results bear out your work flow. Anyway... just curious. It'd be great to hear from others, too. TIA
Thank you Alex. but what if You ran out of RACK instruments in cubase ( limit is 66) using 16 channels per Rack instrument.. how will you connect the rest of your VEPRO7 instances to Your Cubase template?. (each VEPRO Instance has 16 instruments/channels).
Each rack instrument of VEP connects to a single instance within VEP. A single instance of VEP defaults to 8 ports and 16 channels per port. And you can increase the number of ports in the settings menu. So if you're limited to 66 rack instruments like you say, then you have the potential for 8*16*66 = over 8k channels (which I'm sure would be impossible on most computers). Unless I'm misunderstanding your question? I've never used more than 5 instances within VEP, so the 66 limit thing hasn't been an issue.
@@AlexHeppelmann Thank you for explaining it clearly, I was routing it :Single Instance 1 Port and 16 channels, everything has been working great till I wanted to update my template and add more instruments. Thank you for explaining so easily. I appreciate your Channel/You. Thank You Alex!
This is a very good tutorial, but if I wanted a unique stereo output pair for each VE Pro-hosted Kontakt instrument I would be restricted to 16 Kontakt-instruments for the entire VE Pro instance correct? In others 8 violin articulations and 8 viola articulations for a total of 16 instruments each assigned a stereo output pair would exhaust the VE Pro available outputs for the instance wouldn’t it? Thanks
Yeah, unless you changed the default VEP settings by adding more than 16 stereo channels per instance. I haven't tried doing that, but it would probably be fine!
@@AlexHeppelmann Thanks Alex. I plan to leave it that way for now too. Maybe if VE Pro eventually adopts vst3, perhaps that would provide more options.
I'm trying to get set up with Vienna Ensemble and am having trouble getting it to detect Kontakt. Which version of Kontakt are you using? I read in some forums that VE Pro doesn't support VST3 plugins, but he latest version of Kontakt doesn't include VST2... Are Kontakt 7 users SOL?
Interesting, I hadn't heard about that issue. I'm actually still on Kontakt 5, which runs perfectly in VEP. You might look into VST3 to VST2 converters, at least until VSL updates to support VST3
@@AlexHeppelmann Thanks for the response, it looks like the VEP is coming out with an update soon to support VST3. Btw, I notice in this video that you were having an issue with not enough MIDI slots available in a Kontakt instance. In Kontakt you can make an instrument bank which will support up to 128 articulations per patch. Technically you could have 2,048 articulations in a single Kontakt instance (128x16). This is what I use for my Berlin Series template. You can put all articulations + expansions for each instrument on a single patch. Pretty cool! you just need to adjust your workflow to send program changes instead of key switches, but this is easy enough. Preferrable even, so that you don't have to worry about overlapping playable notes with key switches. It should simplify your audio routing too.
Is it also possible to put cpu hungry synthesizers and effects on the slave machine and use it in the master machine (cubase) with this software? Or its just the librarys?
@@sammythebull116 Depends on how you want to set things up. If you want your instruments and plugins on a separate machine, you need to have VEP and all the instruments and plugins on that machine, but you don't need Cubase installed there. On your main machine you'll need another license of VEP, and obviously Cubase, but you wont need your instruments or plugins. I think you can purchase another license of VEP at a discount. The important thing is that you have a fast connection between the two machines
Hi Alex, I have a question. Does the CPU power gets eaten up if we use VE Pro on the slave PC, for an example if I have 8 kontakt instruments especially the heavy ones in cubase my computer will start to choked if the midi tracks plays together unless I increase the buffer size, will I have the same problem by having all these heavy vsti loaded into VE Pro in a slave computer and run the midi on tye master computer?
If you use a slave PC, then there's no burden on your main computer. So you'll need the slave PC to have enough RAM and CPU power to run your samples, and then you'll need your main computer to be able to run your DAW.
@@abrahamraj3172 I'm not entirely sure, because I don't currently do this method. I don't believe that you need a second license, but I could be wrong. I would definitely contact support at VSL, they're really helpful!
I use rack instruments because the midi and audio routing is more intuitive for multi-timbral instances within VEP. And I vaguely remember the last time I attempted using track instruments to connect to VEP, I was more limited in MIDI ports per instance of VEP... Not sure if that's still the case or not. But you could definitely make track instruments work -- the routing process is just slightly different.
Hi, I have a question because I also do orchestration, and I have almost the same type of template as you (I use my instrument via midi tracks in cubase 11 and vienna instrument ensemble pro on my serveur), I have a big problem exporting my audio midi files, my cubase template works like this: I have a server with all my sound banks in it, I have vienna instrument which makes the connection between the server and my computer where there is cubase, in my template I have my instrument tracks which are then split into a midi track with all the articulations of my instruments (legato, stacc, sustain etc.) so I have several tracks in my projects with my stacc or legato etc. on MIDI tracks and not instrument tracks, the big problem is that when I export cuabse I export the instrument tracks with all the midi sub-tracks in one, so I end up with an audio or inside there is the stacc, legato, sustain etc. I want to export each midi track , I tried a lot of options, audio export, "render in place", impossible to have something viable because when exporting the name of the tracks is not the same as the one I chose, it's crazy.. if anyone has an idea or has a template similar to mine, (sorry for my bad english), thank you very much
Hi Zaphkiel, I'm not sure I understand your question completely, but if you're trying to export audio from Cubase, you'll only be able to export the audio tracks that come from VEP, not the audio from individual midi tracks in Cubase. So it entirely depends on how you've routed audio back from VEP to Cubase. If you have instruments joined together into staccato or legato busses, then when you export audio, that's what you'll get. If you'd rather have all of the midi tracks separated, you need separate audio channels assigned from VEP going into Cubase for each midi track.
I hope that makes sense and answers your question. If not, I suggest posting your question on a forum like VI Control to get others' opinions and answers!
@@AlexHeppelmann Hi, you have understood my problem, but given the number of instruments and articulation in my template, I do not see how I can assign 1 audio for 1 midi channel, it may be complicated, especially at the level resources, anyway thank you very much for your answer
I actually use a combination of the two! For instance I like having all of my short articulations on one track, and i use expression mappings to then switch between staccato and staccatissimo. Since I sometimes layer different articulations on top of one another, it makes sense to separate other types of articulations, like sfz or tremolo into separate tracks. Hopefully I'm explaining that OK!
I think so, although this really depends on what DAW you would normally use and how that DAW and software utilize CPU threads. I find that the biggest advantage with VEP is in template building, memory usage, and eliminating the autosave wait time for Cubase.
@@AlexHeppelmann what are specs of you system? And in many videos I see that people first shows DAW cpu meter without VEP Then while working with VEP of course it takes off the load from DAW and VEP is gonna take up that cpu load. So with VEP daw cpu gonna show very good performance but what about VEP cpu load? And eventually its gonna take up resources of same system right so my question is Does it really help with performance just using vep on same machine?? My specs - i7 8700 , 32gm ram , MSI pro series motherboard and Big sur. (Hackintosh) and everything is running on multiple ssd . I have so many big big libraries running through ssd. So how it will work for me if I purchase vep . Im logic user btw.
@@akshaygurav9855 I can't say for certain VEP7 will handle the large CPU load better than Logic, since I don't use Logic. Some pieces of software seem to be better than others at using multiple CPU threads, and I've personally found that VEP7 is better at it than Cubase. But if that's your main concern, I would say don't bother getting VEP7. Depending on how large a template you're using, you may be better off just upgrading memory instead. I just upgraded to 128 gb ram and that's helped me out a lot. My processor is an AMD R7 3700X, and I have no trouble at all running everything these days.
Thanks a ton for taking the time to go through this. I've been asking around for 15 years how to set up multitimbral setups with Kontakt and Vienna Ensemble being accessible from Cubase. That trick of setting the midi channel in VE to all is what gave the light switch a tug.
Thank God I lived this long.😍😅
This is by far the clearest and most comprehensive explanation of this complicated setup. Thank you! You addressed every question I had before I had a chance to ask them.
Thanks Patrick, and glad the video helped you! I'm thinking about making another VEP7 video soon, since it's been about a year, and I do things slightly differently now
@@AlexHeppelmann I would love to watch another tutorials of yours on VEP7! And any other for that matter! 😀
@@RobertWildling I actually did make a more recent VEP7 video! czcams.com/video/8w7ExulTHxA/video.html
@@AlexHeppelmann Thank you for informing me! Much appreciated!
Congratulations! for the very detailed and comprehensive explanation of VEPro
Many thanks!
This is a fantastic video! Thank you for the clarity in this rather complicated subject! Much appreciated!
Glad it was helpful!
This is a huge help Alex. I have had VEPro for a while but never got around to setting it up. You have encouraged me to jump in! Thanks.
That's great to hear! Let me know if you have questions!
Wow, extremely helpful video - thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks!! Alex!!
You're welcome!
s anyone using Halion 7 with VEP? In its standalone version there is no issue, but using it with VEP it is always claiming missing samples even if they are located where they should be, and over 42 instances of Halion in VEP, the Steinberg plug in starts to loose its saved configurations. Is it because we work on Apple M2 machines?
So, is it really that common to use multiple tracks to break out the articulations? Yes of course, it depends on one's preferences and always YMMV. And admittedly tracking key switches can be a real time consuming PITA... But your reasoning seems beyond the norm. Not a bad thing and I'm sure the results bear out your work flow. Anyway... just curious. It'd be great to hear from others, too. TIA
Thank you Alex. but what if You ran out of RACK instruments in cubase ( limit is 66) using 16 channels per Rack instrument.. how will you connect the rest of your VEPRO7 instances to Your Cubase template?. (each VEPRO Instance has 16 instruments/channels).
Each rack instrument of VEP connects to a single instance within VEP. A single instance of VEP defaults to 8 ports and 16 channels per port. And you can increase the number of ports in the settings menu. So if you're limited to 66 rack instruments like you say, then you have the potential for 8*16*66 = over 8k channels (which I'm sure would be impossible on most computers). Unless I'm misunderstanding your question? I've never used more than 5 instances within VEP, so the 66 limit thing hasn't been an issue.
@@AlexHeppelmann Thank you for explaining it clearly, I was routing it :Single Instance 1 Port and 16 channels, everything has been working great till I wanted to update my template and add more instruments. Thank you for explaining so easily. I appreciate your Channel/You. Thank You Alex!
This is a very good tutorial, but if I wanted a unique stereo output pair for each VE Pro-hosted Kontakt instrument I would be restricted to 16 Kontakt-instruments for the entire VE Pro instance correct? In others 8 violin articulations and 8 viola articulations for a total of 16 instruments each assigned a stereo output pair would exhaust the VE Pro available outputs for the instance wouldn’t it? Thanks
Yeah, unless you changed the default VEP settings by adding more than 16 stereo channels per instance. I haven't tried doing that, but it would probably be fine!
@@AlexHeppelmann Thanks Alex. I plan to leave it that way for now too. Maybe if VE Pro eventually adopts vst3, perhaps that would provide more options.
I'm trying to get set up with Vienna Ensemble and am having trouble getting it to detect Kontakt. Which version of Kontakt are you using? I read in some forums that VE Pro doesn't support VST3 plugins, but he latest version of Kontakt doesn't include VST2... Are Kontakt 7 users SOL?
Interesting, I hadn't heard about that issue. I'm actually still on Kontakt 5, which runs perfectly in VEP. You might look into VST3 to VST2 converters, at least until VSL updates to support VST3
@@AlexHeppelmann Thanks for the response, it looks like the VEP is coming out with an update soon to support VST3. Btw, I notice in this video that you were having an issue with not enough MIDI slots available in a Kontakt instance. In Kontakt you can make an instrument bank which will support up to 128 articulations per patch. Technically you could have 2,048 articulations in a single Kontakt instance (128x16). This is what I use for my Berlin Series template. You can put all articulations + expansions for each instrument on a single patch. Pretty cool! you just need to adjust your workflow to send program changes instead of key switches, but this is easy enough. Preferrable even, so that you don't have to worry about overlapping playable notes with key switches.
It should simplify your audio routing too.
@@tylerpedraja6049 Thanks, Tyler. Most of my template runs in SINE now, so a whole different set of issues!
Is it also possible to put cpu hungry synthesizers and effects on the slave machine and use it in the master machine (cubase) with this software?
Or its just the librarys?
Yes, definitely!
@@AlexHeppelmann thanks for answering
So do you need to instal cubase, vienna and the plugins on 2 windows ore 2 apple systems right?
@@sammythebull116 Depends on how you want to set things up. If you want your instruments and plugins on a separate machine, you need to have VEP and all the instruments and plugins on that machine, but you don't need Cubase installed there. On your main machine you'll need another license of VEP, and obviously Cubase, but you wont need your instruments or plugins. I think you can purchase another license of VEP at a discount. The important thing is that you have a fast connection between the two machines
Hi Alex, I have a question. Does the CPU power gets eaten up if we use VE Pro on the slave PC, for an example if I have 8 kontakt instruments especially the heavy ones in cubase my computer will start to choked if the midi tracks plays together unless I increase the buffer size, will I have the same problem by having all these heavy vsti loaded into VE Pro in a slave computer and run the midi on tye master computer?
If you use a slave PC, then there's no burden on your main computer. So you'll need the slave PC to have enough RAM and CPU power to run your samples, and then you'll need your main computer to be able to run your DAW.
@@AlexHeppelmann thank you Alex. How does the licensing works. Do I have to buy each licence for the Master and Slave?
@@abrahamraj3172 I'm not entirely sure, because I don't currently do this method. I don't believe that you need a second license, but I could be wrong. I would definitely contact support at VSL, they're really helpful!
@@AlexHeppelmann thank you Alex. Will reach out to them
Is there any reason you use VEPro as a rack instrument rather than an instrument track?
I use rack instruments because the midi and audio routing is more intuitive for multi-timbral instances within VEP. And I vaguely remember the last time I attempted using track instruments to connect to VEP, I was more limited in MIDI ports per instance of VEP... Not sure if that's still the case or not. But you could definitely make track instruments work -- the routing process is just slightly different.
Hi, I have a question because I also do orchestration, and I have almost the same type of template as you (I use my instrument via midi tracks in cubase 11 and vienna instrument ensemble pro on my serveur), I have a big problem exporting my audio midi files, my cubase template works like this: I have a server with all my sound banks in it, I have vienna instrument which makes the connection between the server and my computer where there is cubase, in my template I have my instrument tracks which are then split into a midi track with all the articulations of my instruments (legato, stacc, sustain etc.) so I have several tracks in my projects with my stacc or legato etc. on MIDI tracks and not instrument tracks, the big problem is that when I export cuabse I export the instrument tracks with all the midi sub-tracks in one, so I end up with an audio or inside there is the stacc, legato, sustain etc. I want to export each midi track , I tried a lot of options, audio export, "render in place", impossible to have something viable because when exporting the name of the tracks is not the same as the one I chose, it's crazy.. if anyone has an idea or has a template similar to mine, (sorry for my bad english), thank you very much
Hi Zaphkiel, I'm not sure I understand your question completely, but if you're trying to export audio from Cubase, you'll only be able to export the audio tracks that come from VEP, not the audio from individual midi tracks in Cubase. So it entirely depends on how you've routed audio back from VEP to Cubase. If you have instruments joined together into staccato or legato busses, then when you export audio, that's what you'll get. If you'd rather have all of the midi tracks separated, you need separate audio channels assigned from VEP going into Cubase for each midi track.
I hope that makes sense and answers your question. If not, I suggest posting your question on a forum like VI Control to get others' opinions and answers!
@@AlexHeppelmann Hi, you have understood my problem, but given the number of instruments and articulation in my template, I do not see how I can assign 1 audio for 1 midi channel, it may be complicated, especially at the level resources, anyway thank you very much for your answer
Hi Alex, I see that you have individual articulations as tracks. Do you not prefer expression maps?
I actually use a combination of the two! For instance I like having all of my short articulations on one track, and i use expression mappings to then switch between staccato and staccatissimo. Since I sometimes layer different articulations on top of one another, it makes sense to separate other types of articulations, like sfz or tremolo into separate tracks. Hopefully I'm explaining that OK!
is it really reducing cpu usage?
I think so, although this really depends on what DAW you would normally use and how that DAW and software utilize CPU threads. I find that the biggest advantage with VEP is in template building, memory usage, and eliminating the autosave wait time for Cubase.
@@AlexHeppelmann what are specs of you system? And in many videos I see that people first shows DAW cpu meter without VEP
Then while working with VEP of course it takes off the load from DAW and VEP is gonna take up that cpu load. So with VEP daw cpu gonna show very good performance but what about VEP cpu load?
And eventually its gonna take up resources of same system right so my question is
Does it really help with performance just using vep on same machine??
My specs - i7 8700 , 32gm ram , MSI pro series motherboard and Big sur. (Hackintosh) and everything is running on multiple ssd .
I have so many big big libraries running through ssd. So how it will work for me if I purchase vep .
Im logic user btw.
@@akshaygurav9855 I can't say for certain VEP7 will handle the large CPU load better than Logic, since I don't use Logic. Some pieces of software seem to be better than others at using multiple CPU threads, and I've personally found that VEP7 is better at it than Cubase. But if that's your main concern, I would say don't bother getting VEP7. Depending on how large a template you're using, you may be better off just upgrading memory instead. I just upgraded to 128 gb ram and that's helped me out a lot. My processor is an AMD R7 3700X, and I have no trouble at all running everything these days.