Vienna Ensemble Pro

[Belegur]

Hi all..

I've seen a few posts about this Vienna Ensemble Pro thing that works miracles for those of us using a lot of VI's.

Do you need to have a slave machine to use this? Or can you run it as a plugin or rewire DAW inside Pro Tools on your host machine? If you indeed can run it all on the host machine... what are the advantages?

I'm about to go a new Mac Pro, probably 12 Core and HD|Native with at least 24GB RAM, but am still concerned about VI performance. I use EastWest Play a lot, FXpansion BFD2, Geist and DCAM Synth Squad, Komplete 7.

Will Vienna Ensemble be any better than using rewire on something like Ableton Suite or Logic Studio (I also have these) to be able to address more RAM for the VI's?

Any advice is greatly appreciated, as this new system will be my first significant upgrade for quite a while, and I want to make sure I'm getting the most out of it regarding VI's.

Cheers,

Brad.

[Marsdy]

VE Pro works a lot better than any Rewire method. I've tried them all over the years.

It also works great on the same Mac as Pro Tools. VERY solid PROVIDING you keep an eye on Pro Tools memory usage. Over 2.3GB and you start loosing stability. However, PT works great with the 64 bit version of VE Pro. I have 8GB of mostly Kontakt libraries loaded on the same Mac I'm running Pro Tools, (Westmere 6 core.)

EW Play doesn't work that well on the Mac. Stability has improved but you won't get very far with many of the demanding instruments in Hollywood Strings for example. I ended up buying a slave PC and SSD drives to run EW libraries. EW really need to get their act together on the Mac end. They're way behind Kontakt in terms of memory usage, load times, stability, you name it, Kontakt wins!

I'd be a bit wary of buying a new Mac Pro at the moment. An upgrade to the range is LONG overdue. That's if they actually DO upgrade them. Rumours abound that Apple may abandon the Mac Pro range.

[Belegur]

Heh... Thanks for the info re: Vienna...

I know the new Mac Pro's could be around the corner... but my current Mac Pro is 5 years old... and I don't think I can wait any longer for a 'maybe'. Besides, even if they do come out soon, I imagine it would be a while before they're 'qualified' by Avid.. thus may experience teething issues. Could even ship them with Mountain Lion... possibly more issues.

At least if I get a 12 Core loaded with RAM I'm still looking good heading into the 64bit PT future.

[filosofem]

VEP 5 works more eloquently than ReWire Clients. VEP 5 can Preserve sessions and supports Plug-In Bus assignments natively in Pro Tools. VEP 5 also supports on a single host system 32-bit and 64-bit Server applications simultaneously. By the way, Ableton Live does not support hosting VSTi's in Slave mode.

[GS-DK]

Buy it. You will never look back.

[Belegur]

Thanks for the feedback.

If I'm running on the same machine, do I need the Pro version to run plugs from other companies? or will the normal version that comes with their instrument purchases suffice?

Also, I have an old Steinberg eLicenser that came with an older version of Cubase... is it correct that I can use this instead of getting the 'Vienna Key'?

PS: Since my last post, I've ordered the components of my system upgrade. I decided to go with the 6 Core 3.33GHz Mac Pro, 24GB RAM. HD|Native + OMNI, Presonus FaderPort, UAD-2 QUAD. Plan on using Vienna Ensemble and Kontakt Memory Server in conjunction with the UAD to help spread the load. Hopefully it all works out fine :) I'll post a new thread with my experience once it's all setup properly.

Cheers,

Brad.

[filosofem]

Originally Posted by Belegur

If I'm running on the same machine, do I need the Pro version to run plugs from other companies? Also, I have an old Steinberg eLicenser that came with an older version of Cubase... is it correct that I can use this instead of getting the 'Vienna Key'?

Yes and yes.

[Jennifer789]

My brother purchased Vienna Ensemble Pro some months ago and he has been pleased with the application.

[Hanswurstlsepp]

Originally Posted by Belegur

Hi all..

I've seen a few posts about this Vienna Ensemble Pro thing that works miracles for those of us using a lot of VI's.

Do you need to have a slave machine to use this? Or can you run it as a plugin or rewire DAW inside Pro Tools on your host machine? If you indeed can run it all on the host machine... what are the advantages?

I'm running PT & VEP on the same Mac for everything. Works flawless as long as you do not use Play together with Kontakt.

Originally Posted by Belegur

I'm about to go a new Mac Pro, probably 12 Core and HD|Native with at least 24GB RAM, but am still concerned about VI performance. I use EastWest Play a lot, FXpansion BFD2, Geist and DCAM Synth Squad, Komplete 7.

Play runs best if you use it on a separate computer when you are using big streaming and memory intensive libraries (i.e. Hollywood Strings).

Originally Posted by Belegur

Will Vienna Ensemble be any better than using rewire on something like Ableton Suite or Logic Studio (I also have these) to be able to address more RAM for the VI's?

If you got a lot of EXS-stuff, and/or still want to use Logic's built in VIs then maybe MainStage comes handy in addition. But also here - best is on a separate computer. I'm using a MBP especially for Logic & Mainstage.
Got Logic synced with PT with MTC & MMC using a ProFireLightbrige.

For live (Mainstage) I'm using an ApogeeDuet.
Works great for both scenarios !

[brianjanthony]

I've been using it for the last 2 years. don't know if i could work without it now. esp with the advent of all the virtual instruments being 64 bit (or most of them that i use). without question the most useful addition to my recording tools the last few years. And I use it on the same mac. it's never choked. even on stupidly large sessions.