MIDI options for Digital Performer and VE Pro

[simon5413]

Hey, I'm running VE Pro standalone alongside DP, with all my audio going to a different computer for the mix. Initially I was going to send my MIDI to VE Pro using MOL pipes, but this resulted in feedback. Am I to understand that you can't select or deselect which MIDI inputs DP receives? It seems to just take everything.

So, if that is the case, I seem to be left with only one choice, DP's interapplication MIDI. Can anyone else confirm this? Or have any other tips regarding this kind of configuration?

[simon5413]

well then...

[wrathy]

Hey. Not sure why you would use MIDI over LAN with VE Pro. Sort of defeats the purpose, since it's designed to send everything over an ethernet cable. Only reason I can think that this is the case here is that you are splitting audio/MIDI between two machines? Why are you sending the audio to another computer? Why not record the audio in DP, then move the files to the other computer?
Just a thought....
You might get more responses if you let us know more details and specs of your machines/software.
best.

[simon5413]

thanks for the suggestion, lets give it a try:

For those not familiar with the concept of a printing machine, it's a secondary machine that you send all your audio to to be mixed, bussed into stems, and recorded. Also you can run your video off the print machine. The advantages of which are primarily taking the burden of heavy audio bussing and plugin usage (namely, reverbs) off of your sequencer.

In my setup, I have a giga pc, a sequencer mac pro, and a printing mac pro. This question pertains to the sequencer mac pro. The reason I don't want to run all my audio into DP (and in so doing, use VE Pro Server) is because I'd rather not burden DP with all the audio bussing, as it would just be acting as a passthrough anyway. DP is not exactly known for it's super efficiency with audio bussing anyway. So, that said, and since I have the audio IO accessible anyway, I am running VE Pro standalone alongside DP. This way, VE Pro uses the audio card IO directly. Then comes the question of how to get the MIDI into VE Pro. Since I use MOL, my first thought was to just put some ports in local pipe mode, which allows other devices on the same machine to see the ins AND outs of the ports (as opposed having to send to another computer on the network). Most other major sequencing programs allow you to select or filter your MIDI inputs, but DP seems to just eat everything that comes in, which, in the case of utilizing the local pipe of MOL, causes immediate MIDI feedback.

Hopefully that clarifies what I am trying to do. For the moment, interapplication MIDI seems to work OK, the only downside being I have to keep DP open for the ports to be in existence. Just curious if other might have another idea regarding sending MIDI from DP to another application on the same machine.

[wrathy]

I'm not in my studio at the moment, so I have to open VEPro up in order to check this out, but I am still confused as to where MOL comes into play on your sequencer computer. If VEPro is running on the seq machine, all things MIDI will publish directly to DP. You are constrained by the 16 channels per instance (an AU spec that I believe the new release of VEPro circumvents). I can understand using MOL for the Giga machine (I used to have one and boy I DO NOT miss those days!), but not on the seq computer.

As for DP's bussing, what problems have you had? I run a huge orch template, 8 different Altiverbs, upwards of 30 stereo busses and print stems and full mixes at the same time
with nary a problem. I do understand if you want to mix in another box with software that you like or are more comfortable with. Audio wise, you could send audio directly via outs from your interface (which is?) to the print machine.

Sorry if that's no help. I've read your post a few times, and not sure exactly how to pinpoint the direction to take. MOL has been made somewhat redundant if you are using DP and VEPro on the same box or even different boxes. But MOL is probably necessary for your Giga box.

I'm going to open VEPro and see if that sparks my brain into thinking about a different angle.

Best.