DP - VIENNA ENSEMBLE PRO - MAC PRO - SL

[willheim]

Hi -

I have read thru some info here and on the VSL board on using Vienna Ensemble pro in the DP environment on a mac pro with other host computers. The ability to run MIDI and audio thru LAN on up to three other host computers is great.

I have also read that PLAY (I have the plat plus lib) is completely incompatible and crashes DP when used with Vienna Ensemble Pro

I am thinking of dropping some serious coin on VSL products and would love to know a little more about what MOTU DP users are experiencing before diving in.

Thanks in advance.

[Frodo]

So far, so good on this end.

Any specifics?

[willheim]

Well,

Do you run it alongside of PLAY?

As a standalone or inside of DP?

Is the LAN thing easy to set up?

Do the MIDI assignments just appear in the instrument menu thingy?

[Frodo]

Well,

Do you run it alongside of PLAY?

PLAY is currently listed as being incompatible with VE Pro. VSL is working on this. But one may still use PLAY normally as a plugin while using VE Pro for other instruments and plugins.

As a standalone or inside of DP?

VE Pro uses a combo. You start a standalone server before you start DP. After you boot your project, you load VE Pro just like any other instrument.

I should also say that on your other machine(s), you only need to run the server and VE Pro, but not DP.

Is the LAN thing easy to set up?

Yes.

Do the MIDI assignments just appear in the instrument menu thingy?

Yes. Once you instantiate VE Pro in DP, you will see the MIDI channels like any other plugin, but like other VIs you will have to name the MIDI tracks themselves since all of the channel numbers point to VE Pro channel numbers and not to specific instrument names of the plugins or VIs loaded into VE Pro.

[willheim]

Frodo,

Thanks!

[jroadrage]

So far with some help from VSL and a lot of tweaking I've had some really encouraging results. I'm in the final stages of fine tuning my DP7/10.6/VE PRO/Bidule/i7/Mac pro rig. I'm going to create a new post detailing exactly how everything works/performs once my new template is set up.

As far as PLAY support goes I'm not holding my breath. The stance that Eastwest has taken smells more adversarial than cooperative. With Eastwest working on their own networking solution it may be a while before PLAY is actually supported with VE PRO.

It's also worth mentioning that VE PRO really is an ambitious software solution and while there have been some early release jitters I expect that VSL will continue to improve the functionality and stability of the software with each release.

[Shooshie]

It's also worth mentioning that VE PRO really is an ambitious software solution and while there have been some early release jitters I expect that VSL will continue to improve the functionality and stability of the software with each release.

I agree completely. One thing about Vienna is that they've got some first-rate coders over there. I don't always agree with their designs, but they code them near-flawlessly. VE Pro will continue to improve.

Shooshie

[willheim]

thanks. yeh, i have been interested since my buddy told me he streams his string section and hits it thru MIDI over wireless. he had the lan set up and somehow the ethernet cable got undone and one way or another it stared working over his 802.11 set up for the house. it streams from his media computer in the living room. i talked to the guys at VSL about it and they said they had done the same...

[mhschmieder]

I read through more VE PRO materials last night to decide if I want to go to a multi-computer setup, and decided to wait until I know I need to, based on the new uber-powered i7 iMac (assuming I can actually get my hands on one soon, as they are scarce).

I remain nervous about the whole MIDI-and-audio-over-LAN approach, having been bitten so bad by earlier efforts from other vendors who shall remain nameless. But as Shooshie said, VSL has some ace programmers and can be counted on to work things out, so I have high faith in them.

A few other people here have taken a different approach that avoids Ethernet. There doesn't seem to be any way to combine that approach with the model that VE PRO (and VE 3) sets out, but it's also important to remember that one can virtualize the use of VE PRO to where it is essentially irrelevant whether master and slave are on the same host or not.

I hope to be able to post some helpful feedback on VE PRO usage when I get my new iMac, as I know that will be of interest to people who don't have the budget for Mac Mini farms or multiple Mac towers. Unfortunately, I can't do much with it on my current Mac, but do occasionally toy with it to try out some of the ideas posted here.

[Frodo]

I remain nervous about the whole MIDI-and-audio-over-LAN approach, having been bitten so bad by earlier efforts from other vendors who shall remain nameless. But as Shooshie said, VSL has some ace programmers and can be counted on to work things out, so I have high faith in them.

I spent about a week dinking around with the Network settings in OSX Audio-MIDI to no avail. I feared buying MOL and started out with hardware connections. I got in on the VE3 deal at the end of the summer and got VE Pro for free.

It really works beautifully.... and that statement comes from a genuine skeptic.

[mhschmieder]

Well, Frodo, you da man, so I trust your judgment.

Mr. Polich and Shooshie have come to slightly different ways of using networked audio, and of course all of these approaches are valid, and I think with any of them, it's mostly a matter of having the right instinct and/or the right guiding hand.

FWIW, the LAN approach has been pushed by SOS and in particular Robin Bigwood in his DP column for almost eight years now.

[jroadrage]

I'm still knee deep getting my template updated for VE PRO and I don't know if trying to use PLAY with 10.6 is accounting for the crashes but I can't run PLAY inside of DP with VE PRO running, even if it's just running on my slave. As soon as I take VE PRO out of the equation PLAY works fine inside of DP7. I know others have reported the same issue. Running PLAY inside of Bidule in rewire mode however seems to work fine.

[Frodo]

FWIW, the LAN approach has been pushed by SOS and in particular Robin Bigwood in his DP column for almost eight years now.

8 years may be pushing it just a little in terms of reliability-- but if Robin has been blowing the LAN horn for that long, then it goes to show ya just how long I've been a skeptic-- not that what Robin said made me a a skeptic. I'd read the reports and still held off, thanks to my Audio-MIDI Network crash and burn. For all the third-party solutions, it took VE Pro for me to get back on the bike I fell off of a few years back. (Man, did I scrape the mess out of my knee back then!!) But considering that VE Pro is only weeks old, it further underscores the depth of my previous reluctance and my current surrender to it.

The one thing that is playing with my head is the idea of making my current MacPro my principle slave machine and getting a new 8/16 Core as a front end by this time next year..... all because of VE Pro. "Look Ma, no need to buy any more interfaces!!"

[jroadrage]

With VSL's track record I expect VE PRO to be just about as close to bug free as can be expected in the next few months. It feels like each successive public beta release leads to fewer "why this, why that" postings over at their forum (a few of which have my signature on them and have since been solved). VE PRO is definitely an ambitious undertaking but what few problems VSL has had with any of their releases don't seem to linger for very long.

[mhschmieder]

I don't know how big VSL's team is, but it must be quite large, considering all the mega-projects they have going on (including the new Full Choirs library that they are desperate to have ready for release by the holiday season).

As Vienna Instruments is quite stable and doesn't seem to require any of their attention these days, it seems they can focus more on Vienna Ensemble (also as MIR seems to be finished -- the Vienna Imperial product appears to need more work, and the last Vienna Suite update had to be backed out at my end due to PPC-related quirks).

At any rate, my guess is that they have adequate resources to work out any issues. I don't have that same confidence with certain other vendors -- especially in this economy, and from the evidence I see that many smaller vendors are folding, merging, getting bought out, or farming their name out to a larger vendor to re-brand and deal with marketing (Scarbee for one).