Shubus have you updated VEP Pro 7 to the latest version. There was bug which sounds a bit like the issue you have in one of the many versions VSL issued lately. They just recently fixed it.
As some others mentioned I am also using VEPro on a Mac with Dorico with multiple channels per orchestra section (Woodwinds High and Low, Brass High and Low, Percussion 1 and 2, Strings VSL High anf Low, Strings BBCSO high and low). So 10 VEP instances with for most pieces at least 8 active. Most with more than 10 channels (all to the same port). Percussion 1, with 16 channels due to the many percussion instruments available in my percussion libraries. The instruments are a mix of VSL Synchron, BBCSO for string sections and Spitfire Percussion.
Some very useful infos here from Thurisaz & mavros. I want to try getting BBCSO Pro going so I can try the indicated setups but at the moment the standalone Spitfire Audio app is giving an “Error 2”. Need to resolve this before even getting to VEPRO & Dorico . Seems the rabbit hole is getting deeper here!
Here is another useful information provided by Spitfire Audio when I had performance issues with the BBC SO Pro.
The following settings will vastly reduce the resources needed for the performance:
I just tried creating 31 tabs (instances) in VEPro on my Mac. Created a VEPro instance in Dorico and am able to see all 31 tabs available to connect to. I do not think there is a Dorico limitation in this respect at all.
Regarding Ports and your comments a bit further up this thread - Multiple Ports most certainly work in VEPro - You can use as many ports as you desire - The issue is OUTPUTS coming into the Dorico Mixer. As I’ve reported multiple times, If you run all your instruments through the VEPro stereo bus, it’s fine to use multiple ports. However, if you assign separate outputs in VEPro, then there is currently a limit of 16 channels coming into the Dorico Mixer for each VEPro instance/tab, and as such, once you start using different ports, these outputs will start to overlap and cause major confusion. That’s why most people stick to midi channels 1-16 in each instance. If, however, you’re not interested in separate outputs coming into the Dorico mixer, and you want to balance everything in VEPro, then multiple ports will allow you to have loads of instruments in one VEPro instance, no problem.
As far as I know, it has never been recommended to use anything like 30 tabs in VEPro - In fact I have always been under the impression that it was always about how many threads your computer had. VEPro defaults to 2 Threads per instance in Preferences…My 2022 Mac Studio M1 Max has 10 threads…That’s 5 instances. I’m sure I can probably run more, like mavros, but unless something has changed, that was always the consideration. Maybe someone else can shed more light on this, but it seems pointless having loads of instances with only one instrument in each.
Have just recovered from a series of unfortunate adventures whereby Dorico was hanging whilst saving. (On Mac you do a “Force Quite” to kill the app.) Anyway, I continued reloading the same Dorico program and working on it. Turns out that somehow this file got corrupted as it also was killing VEPro. Eventually I deleted the Dorico file and the VEPro file and started anew. My advice to anyone encountering a hung Dorico Save or a hung VEPRO Save (yes my VEPRo file also got corrupted) is to DELETE them an go back to last known good backup…and see if that backup can be saved without hanging.
I resolved my Spitfire Error 2 and quickly adjusted the setting that Thurisaz kindly supplied for BBCSO Pro… Thanks for that . I need to keep that info handy as I use BBCSO Pro quite a lot.
So now that I’m finally back in business again, am resuming testing of the port limiting problem I’ve been encountering. Too early to tell yet if it was my bad files as I’ve just restarted testing.
Have done some more testing. First, am very happy with the new release of VEPro to 7.2.1495–which seems to have fixed VEPro crashes.
Am happy to report that I have BBCSO Pro working as expected. The whole thing lives on one tab in VEPRO AND with up to 3 Ports, 16 channels. This test had only one tab in VEPro.
The next problem is how many VSTs in Dorico can be setup with lots of VEPro tabs available to choose from. By “access” (I mean the “E” option popup list in Dorico’s Track Inspector showing a list of VEPro tabs)…
To test this, I started with my 42 Tab VEPro template and started deleting tabs until I got everything to work.
After some pretty extensive testing, the limit I’m seeing is 21 VEPro tabs. as the number now. With up to 21 tabs open, the popup list on all VST’s created in Dorico works as expected and instruments can be used in any of those 21 Tabs on any port and any of the 16 channels. (Great!)
Now if VEPro has 22 Tabs open then in Dorico I can open one and only one of those VEPRO tabs and get a list. Once a VST has been chosen, a second VST cannot be since the list has vanished and only appears. This has been consistent in the many tests I’ve run in the past few days. If anyone in Dorico is able to assign 2 or more VSTs with 22 or more VST tabs open, then I must have something wrong somewhere.
Hi @Shubus,
I don’t have any VE Pro tab limiting issues with Dorico Pro
Here is an example with 72 active and visible tabs within the VE Pro plugin inside Dorico Pro 4 (tab Untitle 70 is connected to Instrument Rack 02):
Hi Thurisaz,
I am able to follow your example and have all those server instances show up like you are showing. The problem doesn’t show up until you start connecting the Dorico VST’s to those VEPro server instances. Your example shows only 2 Dorico VSTs connected. Things get difficult when you want to have 30 VST’s in Dorico connected to 30 of those VEPro tabs.
Hi Shubus, I tested with 25 VEP instances all with contents of 1-16 channels in my VEP Pro Server file. I was able to connect all without issues in Dorico. I stopped at 25 but am sure I can connect more.
