Cubase/VEP Workflow Help

Cubase
1

Hi, I’m in a bit of a workflow rut with Cubase/Vienna Ensemble Pro. I’m hoping someone can suggest something.

A few months ago I purchased Vienna Ensemble and I’m working to incorporate it into my workflow.

Here are a few notes before I start:

  • I’m using separate VEP instances (instance per instrument) to avoid the routing hell that results from having to use midi tracks and have the audio route back into a different track. CPU is about 15% higher than using one instance per group of instruments (Strings, Brass, Winds, etc), but so far I can work with the higher CPU usage.

  • I only have one PC. (i7 Quad-core 3.6GHz, 32GB RAM, SSD’s)

  • The main reason I’m using VEP is to be able to keep instruments loaded while switching projects. That way I don’t have to reload instruments which takes up so much time and breaks workflow and momentum.
    This is my current workflow:

  • Created a metaframe with the instances I need for a main template. (Vln 1 Long, Vln 2 Short, Vla Long, Vla Short, etc)

  • Created a template Cubase project with each instrument track going out to corresponding VEP instance.

  1. Load VEP metaframe.
  2. Load Cubase template project.
  3. Tweak instruments. Record.
  4. Save Cubase project.

This is where my issue lies. Let’s say the next day I come back to work on the same project (or switch to another project), I load my main VEP metaframe, load the Cubase project but now the tweaks I made on the instruments for this project are gone. Apparently, VEP or Cubase can’t recall the VEP plugin settings for a specific project.

A solution to this would be to save a metaframe for each project. But seems like this would defeat the whole purpose of using VEP since I have to reload all instruments every time I work on a new project. And with a large template it would take a very long time to load, which is one of the main reasons I read people use VEP, and why I purchased VEP; to avoid having to reload instruments every time I switch projects.

Is there a way to save the state of my instruments for this specific project so that I can move on to other projects and come back to this one and recall the instrument state (settings) without having to reload a new metaframe each time?

Can anyone suggest a fast and efficient workflow on a single computer and separate instances per instrument (to avoid routing hell)?

Thanks!

2

Hi,

What kind of tweaks do you do? Is it possible to save these tweaks as an automation or MIDI controller movement?

If yes, the I would recommend to keep your default settings as the metaframe, and then use MIDI CCs or automation to set the init state for this particular project.

3

Yeah, I actually do that with most. But there are some libraries that you can’t. There is setup that you can’t do with CC. For example, NI Acoustic Guitar, you have to select the rhythms you want to assign to each keyswitch slot. You have 8. But you can only trigger the rhythms that you manually set (unless you save a patch with that set). So for instruments like those where you need to manually set is where I’m having a bit of trouble.

Although, I don’t have that many instruments with a GUI like that. Most of my instruments I just use CC for tweaking. So I guess for now I can just load that specific instance of the guitar manually per project.

4

Then you could maybe keep your template library without the Guitar, and store the Guitar directly in the project (as an Instrument track). Then you are sure, you will load only once, what is always the same.

5

Yeah, I think I’ll do that. It’s a shame VEP won’t save and recall plugin settings. Hopefully they can add this in the future.

Thanks for the help!

6

VEP will remember plugin settings if you turn “decouple” off. However, on large mainframes this can make for incredibly long load times in Cubase. A solution is to have a seperate VEP “frame” with the instruments you need to tweak (with decouple off) and another “frame” with decouple on for instruments you don’t need to tweak.

Also, I turn off “Asio Guard” for VEP (in Cubase plugin manager). I’m not sure if this is still necessary but it was so I still disable it.