First Experiences with VE Pro 5 and Sonar

I recently completed a composition in Sonar and for the first time, hosted the East West Play instances in VE Pro 5. I began the project in Sonar without VE Pro and started having a few audio pops when I had about 3/4 of the final number of instruments loaded. Bumping up the ASIO buffer helped a lot but I still tend to get some glitches from time to time during playback or rendering. I have a fairly powerful system (check the specs in my sig).
 
I decided to try VE Pro 5 and all I can say is "Wow, what a difference!". No glitches, no pops, even with the full set of instruments loaded. The project consists of 39 tracks, all loaded with East West Hollywood Orchestra Gold instruments. Some of the tracks are fairly heavy legato samples, although I did not use the Powerful System sample set. 4 instances of QL Spaces Convolution Reverb are also included. All of the instruments were streamed from disk as opposed to being fully loaded into RAM. With this set of instruments in Sonar, I would normally end up freezing a couple of virtual instrument tracks to keep things running smoothly. I may also have loaded the more intense instruments completely into RAM.
 
Setup
Initial setup was very quick. Configuring the project in VE Pro was simple and very similar to setting things up in Sonar. Once VE Pro had the instruments set up, connecting to VE Pro and routing the tracks was pretty straightforward. I added one instance of VE Pro as a virtual instrument to Sonar. I chose multiple outputs but ended up routing everything in VE Pro to its 1 and 2 channel master bus, so I really only needed on audio track in Sonar.
 
One thing I needed to do was to increase the number of MIDI ports in VE Pro to 16. I have 14 separate Play instances, one for each section of the orchestra. Each play instance in VE Pro is routed to a separate MIDI port. This allows me to load multiple articulations into each Play instance and route a track from Sonar to a MIDI Port and Channel. For example, the Play instance with 1st Violins are setup as MIDI Port 9 in VE Pro. When I route the track in Sonar, I simply set the track to use MIDI port 9 of VE Pro and the correct channel for the articulation. I had 6 tracks of 1st Violin, each with s separate articulation. I also increased the thread count in VE Pro from 2 to 4.
 
Use
I added 4 effects sends in VE Pro for reverb, one for each section and loaded QL Spaces onto each send buss. This is the same way I would set up reverb in Sonar. I did the coarse mixing in VE Pro and like I always do, used automation lanes in Sonar to manipulate CCs like Expression and modulation. It really was very similar to the way I use the console in Sonar. In essence, VE Pro replaced the console for me.
 
Results
I was expecting that using VE Pro would add significant overhead to managing the project, but it really didn't. The performace increase was significant. I didn't have to set a high ASIO buffer and it just worked. And I did this on ONE system. VE Pro was running locally on my DAW, not on a slave PC. It really made a difference for me. I hate being distracted by software or hardware issues when composing (and I design software in my day job).
 
Just thought I'd share my experience. Maybe it will be useful to someone.
 
VE Pro Project

Thank you Dave - that is very informative and helpful. I'm considering adding VEPro at some point, as I run out of CPU on my main Sonar system.

Allan - I have one instance of Play for each section of the orchestra. Each of those contains 1 - 7 articulations. Each articulation is driven from a single midi track in Sonar. I find it easy keep things organized that way. And EW recommends multiple Play instances. Even if I wanted to, I can't fit everything in one instance of Play. Also after reading EW forums, this seems to a common configuration.

Let me know how it works for you!

I always open the metaframe & not the project first. I do save the metaframe as a project for backup.
Save the metaframes as you would templates for different uses. I only need to load my samples once using my default metaframe, the open or close projects by disconnecting.

Also make sure you learn channel sets.
My default is a 12GB metaframe or project consisting of 16 channels x 8 sections. I make default channel sets for each section (stngs, brass, winds, perc) also master section & busses.

You can click+hold (to select multiple faders) then save them as a channel set.
Then you can swap out or build projects or templates just by importing any channel set you saved..

Using VEP as I do ( a single 64b server / same machine) does result in better performance overall.
Can't tell you in tech terms but it does. I wouldn't try to do any orchestral projects w/o it now. And I have done them in both Sonar & Cubase previously.
I launch VEP once in the morning  (with all my orchestral sample libraries loaded) & work on different projects in different daws, open & closing them all day long until I turn off my puter at night.Works great for me, I hated loading all my sample libraries over every time I opened or closed a project.

Thanks - thats superb!! Will look at it later tonight

wish I'd seen your video tutorial before today! Very helpful! Thanks!!

DRanck
UPDATE:
I made 2 changes that make working with VE Pro even better:

1. I am now working decoupled. This means that the VE Pro project does not load automatically with Sonar. This is working so well (in conjunction with #2 below) that I saved the VE Pro project as a Metaframe in the same folder as the cakewalk project. This will now be my starting point for new orchestral projects. Since the Metaframe is decoupled I can load it once in VE Pro and then switch to another Sonar project that uses the same template wihtout reloading the samples. Great time saver. 
2. I moved the Hollywood Orchestra samples to a USB 3 SSD. Load times are WAY shorter now. Big difference over 7200 RPM internal mechanical drives.

Depending on your polyphony needs, you have numerous good options for sample drives.

• If you need lots of polyphony and large storage space (and your virtual instrument can only address a single drive/location), you can put a pair of SATA-III SSDs in RAID.  That'll net 1000MB/Sec.
• If you need massive polyphony, you can install an M2 Ultra SSD that uses 4 PCIe lanes (2500MB/Sec).  The only downside is that you're (currently) limited to ~500GB size.
• If you need massive polyphony, you can install a PCIe x4 SSD (uses 4 PCIe lanes).  Sustains 2500MB/Sec.       A 1.2TB PCIe x4 SSD goes for ~$800-$1000.

If you're an extreme example, you can use a combination of SSDs to achieve disk-streaming polyphony of 4000+ stereo voices.     That should cover most anything...   
 
FWIW, if you pulled that USB3 SSD out of its enclosure and installed it internally via SATA-III, it would perform even better.
External USB-III SSDs usually sustain ~360MB/Sec.  If it's a good SATA-III SSD, it'll sustain ~520MB/Sec.

DRanck
Allan - I have one instance of Play for each section of the orchestra. Each of those contains 1 - 7 articulations. Each articulation is driven from a single midi track in Sonar. I find it easy keep things organized that way. And EW recommends multiple Play instances. Even if I wanted to, I can't fit everything in one instance of Play. Also after reading EW forums, this seems to a common configuration.

Dave - I am fairly new to this but I've been working the past week or so on all things related to Sonar/VEP5 Pro /Articulation Tracks vs Key Switches, etc.   I have many libraries and I finally decided to go the VEP route, but in setting it up, as I answer questions, I find more questions about which best practice to use (I understand that different methods work best for everyone).   On paper I could see ending up with 1000 tracks, if I use a separate track for each articulation for multiple string and orchestral libraries.  I don't want to build and rebuild a template 100 times as I learn new things....if I can help it.   So....
 
I have many questions but one stands out right now..... what is your method for using ONE Sonar Midi Track to trigger multiple articulations in PLAY? 

Honestly..... I don't.    This is the first template I've set up.   My recording experience has been in the rock genre so orchestral is something new for me.   I have three string libraries (HS, Albion, Cinestrings), HWBrass, Komplete, EWQLSO, and others.   I've been struggling conceptually on what to include in my first template.  I know from experience that I'll build and rebuild this many times as my experience, tastes, and needs evolve.  But as a starting point, I guess I'm thinking I need to include every instrument and articulation that I have at my disposal.    Probably not the best move, huh?
 

Just one question. Are elements of the mixer in vepro automatable using envelopes?

DRanck
I just added a tutorial video on using VE Pro with Sonar. If you are interested in using VE Pro with Sonar it might be helpful.
http://www.daveranck.com/#!tutorials/c1ajd
 

Great video - thanks!
...Steven

Nice price on VE Pro Steven!
 
Elfin - 
 
From the manual:
Parameter Automation
All parameters in Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 and its hosted plug-ins are automatable from the master host (512
mappable parameters available), including touch automation. MIDI CC Contol is also possible.
 
So I would say yes, it supports automation although I have never used it. I do automate plugins that are hosted in VE Pro though and that works just fine.
 
Dave
 

Ok...
 
Finally got VE Pro..... 
 
I've installed VE PRO... and you get two programs ... VE PRO Server and VE PRO a (32bit and 64bit)
 
I've installed the Vienna Instruments and that works lovely.
 
So what is the additional Vienna Ensemble and  Vienna Ensemble service? (32bit and 64bit versiosn)