Nuendo 5.1.1. / VEP / EW PLAY - Anyone Working Successfully?

Hi there -

Does anyone have all three of these working solid together - Vienna Ensemble Pro 64Bit Server / PLAY / Nuendo 5.1 64Bit?

I am running a Rain Recording Win 7 64bit box with 16GB Ram / RME HDSP 9652 / Apogee Rosetta 800 / Nuendo 5.1 64bit / many VIs.

I recently purchased Vienna Ensemble Pro to host my VIs rather than loading everything in my Orchestral templates within Nunedo to avaoid the long sequencer loads and expediency of project changes. To get started, I had created a VEP metaframe with three VEP instances (Strings / Wood, Brass, Keys, Choirs / Drums & Perc) almost exclusively using PLAY. I probably have five to six instance of PLAY in each VEP (3) instance within the meta-frame.

At first I was getting a memory reference error 98% of time from VEP. I was, a couple of times, able to load my template in Nuendo, insert the VEP instances into the VST rack and connect to the VEP 64 bit server. Everything would work for a while and crash. I had also noticed lots of clicks and pops, which led me to the buffer settings on my RME - they were set to 64. I raised them to 512 and things were stable, at least for a while and with no more clicks and pops.

What happens now is this: I will launch the 64 bit server and load my meta-frame, which is basically the three instances of VEP handling East/West PLAY Strings (1), Woods, Brass, Keys, Choirs Etc (2), Drums & Perc (3). Then I launch N5, choose new project, load my Orchestral Template, connect my instances of VEP pro in the VST rack of N5 and yea, all works and triggers my samples without issue or any taxing to my system.

Sometimes, however, the VEP server will just terminate inadvertently, or cause Nuendo to hang, which is perplexing. I have not seen the “memory reference” error since I raised the buffer setting, which is why I thought the buffers were the cause. I also created a 32bit server instance for BFD, and have successfully loaded it and my 64bit server instance for my Full Hybrid Orchestral template in N5.1. I have about a 75% load success rate. Once again, it is unstable and the 64bit server will term but the 32bit server stays connected. I have read about and experienced the issues with PLAY 2.2. Is it possible that PLAY may be my issue? Do you think PLAY 3 may solve it? My system is rock solid otherwise.

Could it me the threads in VEP? I have a four (4) core i7 system. Anything I should be setting in the PLAY settings within VEP? Multiprocessing in N5.1 off or on?

I am unable to confidently get work done, because this thing keeps crashing before I can get started.

All help is sincerely appreciated!

Thx,

Mike

Hi Mike,

I also couldn’t make Play play well with VE Pro on Nuendo 5 and 6-core i7 machine with 24 GB RAM - I experienced sudden audio bursts on random Play outputs - too dangerous for my ears and speakers/cans. It seems that this combination doesn’t work very well.

VE Pro is a great concept but it doesn’t work for me - I have experienced lots of hanging notes on Kontakt libraries, lots of VE crashes and awful LAN performance when you don’t have a LAN dedicated only to VE Pro servers and slaves (you don’t have a LAN selection option for VE even though you could have a couple of LANs available in your studio. Moreover it doesn’t accept program change messages - a big bummer for me.

I have decided to dump Play completly and work with Kontakt libraries - I can’t be happier. My main template with over 260 VI tracks loads in less than 3 minutes. I run all my Kontakt libraries from a RAID matrix made of 3 SSD drives with minimal buffer setting. I can overload RAM a lot with no hiccups because my page file system is also on this matrix. The loading times are great!

Let’s hope Play 3 will be a change for better - but I will not go back to EW - their sofware department sucks, pricing schemes suck as well. It is a pity because some of their libraries sound great.

Forgotten to add, I dumped VE, too.

VE Pro does accept program changes. It’s only the VST3 version that doesn’t and tis has nothing to do with VSL. It is all down to Steinberg changing the VST 3 spec. When native Instruments gets its act together and comes out with a VST3 version of Kontakt then you will be able to use program lists, which is the updated version of program changes. In the meantime you can always use a script to convert keyswitches (for example) to program changes in Kontakt. Of course there is nothing to stop you using the VST2 version of VE Pro.

DG

Hey Guys -

Hey DG, good to see you here, too. I posted a reply to you on the VSL Forum. Thx again for all of your help.

Anyhow, I worked with East West yesterday. They provided me with a new 64bit uninstaller, and we reinstalled PLAY 2.1.2 (I tried to get 3 but was informed that it may be released this week). My issue is gone. My template is about 8.5GB and loads in about three minutes. Nuendo opens very quickly now and all works flawlessly. I appreciate you guys providing experienced feedback, it has helped me tremendously.

Peace!