VE Pro and DP7.12, MIDI channels?

[hrw]

i have VE Pro on my slave computer and DP7 on my host. When i open Vienna Pro in DP in only seem to have 16 MIDI channels available for VE Pro in total, how do i make more channels or configurate for different Vi's in VE Pro for eg. 16 MIDI channels for EW PLAY, 16 MIDI channels for Kontakt 4 etc? Also when i have VE Pro open on my slave, in the menu preferences seems to be grayed out... is this how it is meant to be. Please help. Thanks in advance.

[jroadrage]

This isn't an oversite on VSL's part but a limitation of the AU spec as I understand it. The AU spec limits any VI/effect to being able to address only one MIDI port (or 16 channels). Other specs like VST are able to address multiple ports but the AU isn't and that's what MOTU has adopted. I think that VSL is working on some kinda workaround for this but until then you just have to allocate different VE PRO instances to each MIDI port.

[hrw]

This isn't an oversite on VSL's part but a limitation of the AU spec as I understand it. The AU spec limits any VI/effect to being able to address only one MIDI port (or 16 channels). Other specs like VST are able to address multiple ports but the AU isn't and that's what MOTU has adopted. I think that VSL is working on some kinda workaround for this but until then you just have to allocate different VE PRO instances to each MIDI port.

Thanks jroadrage for your reply.
Are you serious? in a way wouldn't that make the thing semi-unusable?
This would be very disappointing..

[Frodo]

Yep. With any VI, one can assign MIDI channels but will only see 16 channels per MIDI track: 1-1,1-2,1-3.... 1-16.

I'm just dreaming here, but as things move towards 64-bit memory addressing, I hope that there will be some provision for OSX and AU to address more than 16 MIDI channels per track. I was just working with a new VI this week which had some amazing programming features that allowed for 32 MIDI channels per instance. Of course, anything beyond MIDI channel 16 was a no-go. That necessitated a second instance with MIDI channels 2-1-1, 2-1-2, 2-1-3..... 2-1-16.


Mac users must be careful not to be seduced by the features included in certain VIs which are (concurrently) PC and MAC compatible in which certain features allowed on the PC platform are not allowed on the MAC platform. Even the manuals will assert certain features which MAC users cannot access. This leads to a great deal of confusion.

As mentioned, I had a new VI this week that was set up for 32 MIDI channels, but on the MAC half of those MIDI channels were accessible.

Just because a VI offers it doesn't mean that OSX can accommodate it.

[Killahurts]

Yes, sad but true.

However, I was on the VSL forum a couple weeks back and someone mentioned that the MAS plug-ins do not have that limitation. We mentioned to the VE guys that we would love to see a MAS version of VE Pro, but I get the impression they're kinda down on DP over there

[FMiguelez]

.

I was just about to ask someone about this exact same thing!

Thanks for the info. Now I know it's "normal", albeit non-desirable.
It kind of surprises me I never heard of that AU limitation before. I never read a warning from VSL about this either.

Not a deal breaker at all, though... there are solutions to deal with this.
Besides I'm SO HAPPY with this library and VE PRO that I can't complain about anything. On the contrary. I'm delighted!

[James Steele]

This isn't an oversite on VSL's part but a limitation of the AU spec as I understand it. The AU spec limits any VI/effect to being able to address only one MIDI port (or 16 channels). Other specs like VST are able to address multiple ports but the AU isn't and that's what MOTU has adopted.

You sort of mean that's what Apple has adopted since it created the spec? And Logic has adopted. I think it would be up to Apple to update the spec. I can't see how it benefits MOTU in the big picture to support VST in DP. MOTU still has MAS which doesn't have this limitation-- but YES-- I realize few third party developers support it.

[jroadrage]

You sort of mean that's what Apple has adopted since it created the spec? And Logic has adopted. I think it would be up to Apple to update the spec.

Ya it's Apple's design, I'd imagine the 3rd party devs have very little to do with it. I don't really know anything about the process but I'd expect Apple to rework the AU spec shortly with so many VI devs finding use for instances with multi-port addressing.

[KEVORKIAN]

This isn't an oversite on VSL's part but a limitation of the AU spec as I understand it. The AU spec limits any VI/effect to being able to address only one MIDI port (or 16 channels). Other specs like VST are able to address multiple ports but the AU isn't and that's what MOTU has adopted.

You sort of mean that's what Apple has adopted since it created the spec? And Logic has adopted. I think it would be up to Apple to update the spec. I can't see how it benefits MOTU in the big picture to support VST in DP. MOTU still has MAS which doesn't have this limitation-- but YES-- I realize few third party developers support it.

James, I remember we debated the merits of DP supporting VST a number of months ago and this is another example of an advantage DP users would gain from VST support. I love AU but Apple beats to it's own drum regarding updates and the AU MIDI implementation is poorer than VST's. I hope that MOTU can add VST support at some point. Maybe they can float a combined VST-Verispeed update

[ScottGlasgow]

Indeed the limitation of AU as a plugin spec is a bummer and that DP does not support other plugin formats like VST. It would be great if VSL would make a MAS version but somehow I doubt it.

The limits of AU make using VEP and DP sort of useless luckily there is a solution-- BIDULE! With Bidule you can host all your plugs and in DP you will see up to 32 ports of MIDI (at 16 channels each).

Until these problems with MOTU / DP and their use of AU or Vienna and their resistance to MAS we just have to make do with work arounds.

[Frodo]

Fortunately (or unfortunately), 32 channels of VIs will scrape most Mac CPUs where plugins are working within a >4GB memory limit....depending on the VI or plugin. VIs tend to be as bad or worse than convolution reverbs. Just imagine running 32 Altiverbs in one project on one machine?

Come to think of it-- perish the thought.

I agree that Bidule or at least one VI in standalone mode can make good use of memory outside of DP.

[Macrozonaris]

midioverlan

[Killahurts]

I think it would be up to Apple to update the spec.

Well of course it is and that's why we're all automatically looking for other options like VST, or a MAS version or whatever. I've noticed that nobody in this thread is seriously entertaining the idea that Apple will fix their crippled spec.. or at least we can't count on it.

And just for the record- 16 channels? What were they thinking? Even my old Korg T3 synth from 1989 had 32 channels of MIDI.

[magnumpraw]

Yeah, I've been petitioning from the start for VEPro to include a MAS version (esp since they made an RTAS version). But alas since DP supports AU, I don't have a lot of hope for the VSL team to support another plugin format. However, if enough DP users made requests on the VSL forums, you never know.


MIDIoverLAN is a solution to get more MIDI channels to VEPro, but you lose the nice delay compensation that comes with the internal VEPro MIDI channels.
Depending on your buffer size, the latency may or may not be noticeable.

[Tim]

midioverlan

When using MOL with VE, one forfeits ADC.