Carl - Thanks.  (BTW I bought Hidden Symmetry a while back - some killer tracks bro!)  I've heard the same things from others about VEPro - how they use it for everything.  I'm using the regular VE that I got with Special Edition and it is very cool.   I did download the Demo VEPro to see if Play would crash it in bootcamp, and it did, but I can see the power in it.  Isn't VEPro used as a Plugin?  The regular VE is a plugin so when you open up a Sonar project, it starts loading everything and when you close the project it closes down too.  How do you keep it open all day?   And I checked - VEPro still comes with the "epic orchestra".

it's at this price time to time in the years in Audio deluxe and others ...and yep i was talking during black friday also

guitartrek
Carl - Thanks.  (BTW I bought Hidden Symmetry a while back - some killer tracks bro!)  I've heard the same things from others about VEPro - how they use it for everything.  I'm using the regular VE that I got with Special Edition and it is very cool.   I did download the Demo VEPro to see if Play would crash it in bootcamp, and it did, but I can see the power in it.  Isn't VEPro used as a Plugin?  The regular VE is a plugin so when you open up a Sonar project, it starts loading everything and when you close the project it closes down too.  How do you keep it open all day?   And I checked - VEPro still comes with the "epic orchestra".

Thanks, learned so much since I did all those tracks back in 2001.
You can load instruments, MIR inside your daw but to keep it open you need to run it using VEP Server.
Check the vids & manual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCoagnXH1a8

Briefly-
1- open the VEP Sever & add channels, load vi's etc.. I'd suggest to save it as both a metaframe or project & in steps.

2- open your daw & add ONE instance of VEP's 'Server Interface' plugin.

3-add instances of the 'Event Input' plugin (1-8) then route midi channels in the daw to correspond to VEP where your have all your vi's loaded (Kontakt, Play etc.)

The audio gets routed back into your daw.
(recommended that no more than audio 32 in + out channels & 8 instances of the event plugin for one opened VEP project)

When finished with the project raise the 'Server Interface' instance, select 'disconnect' save & close the project.
VEP is still up with all the samples loaded. When you open the next project simply select 'connect' again & any previous routed projects are ready to go.
No reloading all those GB's of samples over again.


For orchestral projects I use one big VEP metaframe consisting of 8 Event Inputs in the daw (8 x 16 / 128 total midi channels)
I edit, automate all the midi tracks in my daw, run eq's, comps, additional routed buses ( & MIR ) in VEP's mixer then bounce it all down using a single 1/2 out back into my daw.

I also no longer need or use separate audio tracks for all those midi / vi tracks.
I mix them all in real-time then bounce.
That audio track ends up as being what I call my 'Orch' stem.

'Band' type instruments & tracks ( gtrs, drums, bass, keys) get recorded inside the daw. I have 'Band' metaframes with all my drum kits & synths which can be loaded in VEP all at once & left open for the entire session.

I use mostly in Cubase now but it worked fine in X1 when I first got it. I do remember setting it up & getting it to work In Sonar was very confusing though.
Like all software it has glitches & abnormalities but I really like using it.

Hope you get to work with the demo, that's the only to see if it will be useful for your work.
  

Thanks Carl for sharing your work flow.  That makes sense to me and I can see how it could be very useful.  I would probably set it up similar to yours bringing in the orchestral stuff in just a couple stereo audio tracks, and leaving the traditional rock instrumentation the way I've got it.  I'm doing that with Play and VSL right now.  I might put Trilian and Superior in VEPro to reduce load time.  But with this new SSD load times are super fast for those smaller libraries.  However the advantage would be that I could use the same setup in Sonar and Logic.  That is very intriguing.
 
Just curious - which orchestral libraries do you like to use?  I started with EW and then VSL but you never know which is the best until you work with them.  And it gets expensive to try them all.
 

guitartrek
Just curious - which orchestral libraries do you like to use?  I started with EW and then VSL but you never know which is the best until you work with them.  And it gets expensive to try them all.
 

Yep, it gets real pricey so for my budget I use a combo of basic but good libs.
My default VEP orchestral project or metaframe loads up samples & presets from VSL Opus, Epic Horns, Solo Strings, Epic Orchestra, Spitfire Albion, Project Sam Orch Brass Classic, Sam Orch. Essentials, Hollywood Strings & Brass silver, CineSamples CineOrch, SoundIron Choirs + others.

Speaking of budget & if you don't already have it here's the free Pocket Solo Cello for Kontakt. I keep it in my strings section,  nice sound- comes in handy.
http://www.asinusadlyram.com/pocketBlakus/

Nice selection.  Some of those I don't recognize and will check into.  I'd love to have the Hollywood series someday.  The pocket Cello sounds fantastic.  For free.  Wow.  I don't have Kontakt yet, but I should download the cello anyway, while its free.

So what's the final word about EW , play and sonar ? the EW ghostwriter thing is making want to get it but i hear mixed reviews about play engine and its satbility .....
 
of course no way to try EW play stuff ...

Zo
So what's the final word about EW , play and sonar ? the EW ghostwriter thing is making want to get it but i hear mixed reviews about play engine and its satbility .....
 
of course no way to try EW play stuff ...

There won't be a "final word" since different people have different experiences. There are those that use Play and Sonar and are happy. I'm just not one of them :P. My recommendation is to steer clear but if you do decide to try it, do it with a cheap product first.
 
Also Play seems to hate fast bouncing, you get more problems with that, realtime bounce is slow but less problematic. That is true for all the DAWs not just Sonar.
 
If you decide to try it just be ready that it might have problems, and they might not fix them since they seem to think their software is the best EVAR. Also don't buy it if there are features you need that aren't there yet. Their development cycle is the slowest in the universe it seems. Like if editing instruments is a must, then stay away. While they say they are developing Play Pro, which can edit things, they've been saying that for like 6 years and nothing has come out. So buy only on what you can get today, because you never know if or when something will come in the future.

Well, I had a couple issues with Play and Sonar.  
 
The first one was weird - it worked fine for 6 months then started crashing and corrupting Sonar files.  EW didn't have a solution.  Thank god Cakewalk support noticed in my crash dump that I was using Norton Anti Virus, and they told me to stop running it with Sonar.  Of course I'd been using it for years with Sonar and NEVER had a problem.  Sure enough I turned it off and started using Microsoft Essentials, and Play worked fine.
 
The second problem is that Play crashes Sonar and VEP in Bootcamp.  Play is the ONLY piece of software that doesn't work in bootcamp.  EW support won't give me the time of day with this problem.
 
I don't like Play.  I think it is awkward to work with.  For example:  When you are setting up different instruments, lets say channel 1 through 8, if you don't load them in the right order you can never resort the instruments by channel number.  Or lets say you loaded them in the right order, but you decide you want a different patch for the Violin which is channel 2.  The new patch goes to the bottom of the list.  The other thing is the articulations and keyswitches are not standardized between different instruments in SOGold.  Like Violas and Violins have different articulations, and in the Keyswitch the same articulations may be different keys.  Not well thought out.  I guess the Hollywood series is more consistent.
 
The bottom line for me is that I've got SOGold and Solo Violin in a bunch of projects which I've spent considerable time orchestrating.  The sounds are really good for the most part.  I can't reach the level of quality with VSL Special Edition.  Maybe it's just me.  But I'm going to stick with those sounds.  They are really good and sit very well in the mix.
 
I wish they could write better software.
 
Oh I forgot - Play takes forever to load and doesn't support background loading.  So you have to wait.
 
 
 

They did, supposedly, add background loading with Play 4.1. I haven't tried it since, well, screw Play I'm using Kontakt now :P. But it is there allegedly.
 
But yes, very slow on the loading. Part of it is they don't do sample compression, so that makes things slower, but also their software is just not fast at loading, even when comparing uncompressed samples. It is just not well written. Also might be an encryption thing, I don't know how their sample format works, since it is proprietary, but it wouldn't surprise me if they encrypted it since they are super paranoid about piracy. That would, of course, slow down things.