Sorry for the long title, but I’ve found a serious issue with Shared Instruments (and Global Layers too, see two posts down) in a specific, but not uncommon, situation for VST Live Elements 1.1.30.645.
I think I’ve narrowed it down to the following statement.
If a saved and re-opened Project is employing Shared Instruments, then after a further save and re-opening, all Shared Instruments links are lost, and fresh instances are created in their place.
I’ve been able to construct a minimal working example that will demonstrate this issue, but you will need to follow these instructions exactly. I’ll use SxPyLz to denote Song x Part y Layer z.
Open VST Live and create a new Project.
Add a Part. Your Project should now contain S1P1L1 and S1P2L1.
Set the S1P2L1 instrument to Shared with that of S1P1L1.
Save and re-open. Notice that S1P2L1 and S1P2L1 are still shared (S symbol next to Layer name and orange outline on Velocity knobs).
Save and re-open again. Notice that S1P2L1 and S1P2L1 are no longer shared.
This, unfortunately, has devastating consequences for me. I had set up a Project with 200+ Layers all using Shared Instruments to one of 6 instruments. After this second saving and loading, VST Live has now instantiated 200+ instruments, and my laptop freezes as my RAM is all used up.
I was planning on using VST Live for a show next week, so am praying that someone out there can either (a) suggest a workaround or (b) point out a mystical setting somewhere that I’ve missed.
TBH I don’t use it but had read about it. I thought the whole point of a global is that it just exists in the setlist. You shouldn’t have to reference it as if it is a shared instrument, otherwise whats the point in having a global?
Then again I got to wondering how you could change the settings of a global from within a part, which I suspect it what you’re looking for. The only solution I can think of is to send it some midi from the part.
Unfortunately, it looks as though you are correct. Even more unfortunately, your report is just a few days too late to be fixed with the upcoming version.
What system (OS) are you on, Windows or Mac?
I hope you still have a version with shared instruments (that would be point 4, saved once and not saved again). Send me the .vlprj file (nothing else needed) and I can try and fix it. It will not yet fix the problem in general, meaning to say that if you save this, it will again loose its connection to the shared instruments, but it should at least run then.
Very sorry about this. I very much wonder why this has slipped QA and beta.
Even more unfortunately, your report is just a few days too late to be fixed with the upcoming version. What system (OS) are you on, Windows or Mac?
Ah, that’s unlucky! I’m on Windows.
I hope you still have a version with shared instruments (that would be point 4, saved once and not saved again).
Alas, I don’t. I only noticed this when turning up to a rehearsal with my double-saved Project. I was able to “sort-of” get around it by disabling Preload (File > Preload > uncheck Always preload), but as the session went on, and more instances were loaded (and presumable not unloaded after I’d passed through them), things started to stall.
Very sorry about this. I very much wonder why this has slipped QA and beta.
That’s okay. My guesses are you’d only notice this if (a) using a big enough setlist to overcome the RAM and (b) editing a setlist more than once. These are both perhaps unlikely to be properties of initial test cases.
I’m afraid I’ll have to go with something else for next week, but I really like what I’ve seen of VST Live and will be looking to come back when these Shared Instruments are working properly.
