VEP5 w/ Event Input = Lots of Stuck & Missing Notes

[fsheinfeld]

Hi guys,

I posted this on the Vienna forum since this is most likely an issue on their end, but I wanted to check if you have found out a workaround for this.

I have a big template with VEP and I'm using the Event Input plugin, but I keep getting lots of missing notes and sometimes they just get stuck. This seems to be an issue with several users since I've seen it posted on their forum a lot, but I haven't been able to find if there's a good solution and Vienna hasn't commented on this yet.

The only useful tip I read is that turning off the plug-in compensation on DP fixes it, but this just creates a bigger problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks!


Basic System Info: DP 7.24 2x2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, OSX 10.8.2, 26 GB Ram, MOTU 2408mk3, VEP5

[fsheinfeld]

FYI I got this reply from Vienna, so they are aware of the problem:

"I have talked to our development team again: It's not trivial to fix, especially because we never was able to reproduce it, even with a large project. The development team will try to fit it in for investigation as soon as possible.

Best,
Paul"

[FMiguelez]

I hope they get to the bottom of this soon. It sounds like it's one of those issues thet are system-specific and very hard to discover.

FWIW, I use VE Pro extensively, and it works flawlessly in my system, with an ancient G5 as the master to 3 computers. I've never experienced the dropouts you speak of.

[fsheinfeld]

Looks like a tricky thing to fix. I was having that issue only on one orc percussion channel from east west, so I thought it was a Play issue, but now it's in more instruments too.

They are troubleshooting the issue right now, but have problem replicating the issue. It's probable system related like you mention.

[labman]

FWIW, I use VE Pro extensively, and it works flawlessly in my system, with an ancient G5 as the master to 3 computers. I've never experienced the dropouts you speak of.

You using Event Inputs FM?

[studio_651]

i'm not sure if this is what's causing it, but make sure your MIDI data is only being routed to that instrument once. i use an app called "midipipe" to combine the MIDI outputs of several keyboards, a korg nanokontrol, and an ipad running touchosc all to one MIDI stream so i can set that as the MIDI input on all of my MIDI tracks in DP and play in MIDI from any controller in the studio. anyway, a couple of times i had the locked/dropped notes issue and it turned out it was because i had two tracks armed and routed to that same kontakt instrument - one coming directly from the keyboard, and one that had been routed through midipipe first and then on to kontakt. so it was just too much for kontakt to take and it was binding up bad on me.

but really, there are SO many variables that could be causing your particular problem, starting with which version of VE Pro you're using - i'm on 5.1.12337 and all is well, but there were some bad updates before that. other variables to look at include: RAM, hard drive speed, software and drivers, the kontakt instruments themselves, potential bad MIDI cables, your keyboard, potential bad usb cables from your MIDI interface/keyboard to your computer, potential bad usb hub, bad mojo between DP and VEP, hardware audio driver settings, DP audio settings and buffer, kontakt's audio or MIDI settings (another way duplicate MIDI could be routed to your instruments) VEP buffer, VEP's audio and MIDI settings (yet another way for duplicate MIDI data to get to your instruments) etc. etc. just try to be systematic about it and try one thing at a time. good luck!

(edited so i could include more info about my system): by the way, i'm using 41 event input plugins (!) and DP's counter is a little sluggish, but my 960x540 .mov file plays without stutter and i very rarely crash. work priority is high, buffer is 256, VEP is running at 1 buffer.

[fsheinfeld]

Thanks for the ideas.

There's a work around that always works which is to turn plugin compensation off in DP. This is obviously not a solution, but at least helps in some sessions were timing is not that critical (legato stuff, etc) and if I'm not using compressors.

This tells me that this is an internal issue between VEP and DP communicating. Like you said, is very hard to tell which combination of things makes this happen, but the fact that there several people affected on the Vienna forums and that this work around consistently works tells me that the common denominator will be something less random than bad cables, hd, etc. It could be a popular plugin that is causing it or even several plugins, who knows. Or just a weird bug.
At least we know it might be somewhat related to the latency compensation in DP.

Anyway, at this point I doubt I can fix this problem for myself , but I'd be happy with more workarounds, if someone comes with something else...

[studio_651]

yep, i came to the same conclusion - i've gotten used to life without latency compensation. it's really not that bad, but hopefully someday they'll fix it!

[James Steele]

I think MOTU is aware of the problem and working on a fix.

[fsheinfeld]

Good to hear!

[FMiguelez]

FWIW, I use VE Pro extensively, and it works flawlessly in my system, with an ancient G5 as the master to 3 computers. I've never experienced the dropouts you speak of.

You using Event Inputs FM?

Yes. Lots of them.

The other day I was hearing lots of delay from the sounds of the saves in VE Pro. A quick restart solved the problem immediately.

[cccppprrr]

I have experienced similar problems with VE event server and DP, however only when using it with kontakt 5. No problems using ve event server with play 3 (as unbelievable as that may sound) and dp. The workaround for the k5 problem was to initiate a new instance of ve pro for each desired k5 instance instead of using the event server.

[fsheinfeld]

I have the same issue with Omnisphere, though.

[fsheinfeld]

Back to this thread….

I installed 8.05 and although there are great improvements as far as general performance goes this problem is still there. I thought the improvements working with VEP would include this fix.

The workaround is still the same: turn off plugging latency compensation.

I don't see a fix soon and need to keep working, so I'm turning it off for this protect, I'm just wondering if there's a work around when working with latency compensation off? A work around of the workaround I guess…
For example, MIDI notes will have to be adjust ahead of time a bit. What about using compressors and sync fxs, etc?

[Marc7777]

I'd love to also find a solution to this. I'll share my experience in hopes that it may help in solving the issue.

This happened on 2 separate rigs at the studio I work at.

One rig had 8.04 running for awhile, no problems. VEP5 was up to date. The only issue was random CPU spiking and erratic CPU behavior on the monitor, but a simple restart of DP fixes it. I upgraded to 8.05 and there were TONS of missing notes, dropped notes, stuck notes. Interestingly only a few event inputs were doing it. Not all of them.. Going back to 8.04 (simply just ran the installer again) got me back. No dropped notes, nothing. yay!

NOW, oddly on the other rig, I updated to 8.05 and things got funky too. But this time, I went back to 8.04 and STILL had all the dropped notes, stuck notes, etc. Sadly for that rig, since I can't seem to fix it, I had to turn off the Delay Compensation and that did indeed fix it. Although now obviously it sucks not having ADC on.. but we are dealing with it for the time being..

So (being systematic) We have clues that definitely point to the Automatic Delay Compensation.. since that is seemingly a 100% fix. Also, something with DP8.05 (at least in my case) really changed something for the worse when it comes to VEP.

I've disabled all plugins, still the same. I've ran it so it's just 1 instrument playing and it happens, so it's not CPU or disk related. It happens to recorded MIDI notes so it's not my controller, cables, or anything like that.

I also noticed that when it misses the note, DP actually shows in the MIDI meter thing that it sent it, and it seems like VEP gets it, but it seems that the RETURN of the audio is what gets screwy..

Not sure if it's related, but ever since DP7.24 and VEP, i've ALWAYS had major dropouts. They happen maybe once every few hours so it's not a big deal, but basically ALL sounds drop out for about a second (like a mute switch) and then it all comes back in. Not the worst thing in the world, but this has always happened for me... More clues?

I'd love to hear other users experience with this.. maybe we can find the common denominator here..

Best,

Marc