VEP6 Macro-based Multiport/SinglePort Templates

I have downloaded this template but cannot open it with Logic Pro x, what am I doing wrong?

did you unzip the file?

Err, no, I will do it now and get back to you (It didn’t give an option to unzip!

Its compressed using 7z because it was too big to attach to this forum in a zip file. 7z compresses to a smaller file size. If you have problems getting it uncompressed, let me know but you probably have to uncompress it twice, its a zip file instead of a 7z file. So uncompress the 7z and you'll get a zip file, then uncompress the zip, and you'll get a folder full of stuff. I will update the docs on the original post about this

actually reverse that, its a 7z file inside of a zip file. So when you downloaded it your browser might have unzipped it from the zip file, but you need to manually uncompress the 7z file. You'll end up with a folder full of stuff. If your browser didn't unzip it, then you will need to do two steps, unzip the zip, then uncompress the 7z file.

Got it, never come across that before. Will try it shortly. I want to build a 6 x16 track to use for orchestration (I am quite new to this) Which template do you think would best suit me at this time?.

only 6 ports is easy to do, you have mainly two options from that setup.. I presume you want a single VEP instance, which is what I would recommend

 

1. There is a template called 1.instance.empty.48ports. Start with that one and add your tracks one at a time. Right click on each track header and reassign to the Port and channel you want for each one. (see first post docs)
   
2. There is a similar template called 1.instance.768.tracks.48ports, which already has 768 tracks created for you. You could certainly start with that and DELETE the tracks you don't plan to use for ports 7-48
   
3. Something else you might do before you get going is go into the environment and REMOVE the ports you're never going to use. This will make the reassign command less cluttered and busy...and might also free up environment resources in some way also, never know. I will explain below how to do that.

 

 

How to remove ports from the above template

 

1. Let's stay you start with the empty first of the template mentioned above
    
   
    
    
   
2. go into the environment and navigate to the environment layer called "VEP 1". You do that by looking at the top left corner of the environment window you'll see a control called "Layer", so select the VEP 1 layer.
    
   
    
    
   
3. On this page you will see this big scary looking schematic.
    
   
    
    
   
4. each port is represented by two objects in that scary looking schematic. Together they look like this:
    
   
    
    
   
5. Delete each pair of unneeded ports by selecting them and hit DELETE. You can drag the lasso around a bunch of them and hit DELETE once if you like. Make sure not to accidentally delete anything else, after you lasso them, check to make sure they are the only ones highlighted with blue lettering before you hit DELETE.
    
    
    
   
6. You should end up with this:
    
   

 

The above is kind of optional. You can leave all 48 ports in place if you feel like it, but I like to clean my projects up and remove the ports I'm not using. Maybe leave 8 around just in case. or leave them all..up to you.

 

IMPORTANT, also make sure you read all the notes on my first post in this thread, and make sure to setup LPX preferences per recommendations I have noted and follow all usage notes.

Extra Notes

 

If you delete a bunch of ports from the environment and later want to add a couple ports back, its not that hard. All you have to do is select one of the pairs noted above and copy and paste. Make sure they are cabled to the Vep 1 object above like the others, which will probably happen automatically when you copy and past anyway.

 

Then you adjust the number value on the little port object. You can double click on it to edit the number or you can drag your mouse up and down to set it.

 

You should also change the name of the Multi-instrument object to match the convention of the ones above it, that is the identifier you will see when you try to right click on a track header and assign it to a port/channel. So give that object a meaningful name like "VEP 1_7". Or god forbid, name all of them better then I did. For example you could name it like "VEP Port 7", and rename the others too if you want, then the reassign menu will be more readable and actually the default track names will be easier to read too before you rename them anyway.

Thank you for this. I would like multiple instances in VEP as thy would be easier in my opinion to organize with instruments of the same family with their articulations per instance making navigation of the various orchestras relatively simple. My first look at the 16 looked great but I could not see how to connect to an instance as there were no instruments to choose from in the template. I am probably missing something and will read all your notes to try and ascertain these items. Maybe I’m looking at the templates the wrong was but as I said before this is all pretty new to me. Thank you very much for your time and patience.

If you open the mixer and choose the ALL view you will see instrument channel strips with vep plugin.

 

There are other templates provided to use multiple vep instances.

Thanks again, I have it up and running, I am ever so grateful for your passion and ingenuity in building these splendid templates, I don't know where I would be without you (Yes I do really, still scratching my head).

Glad to hear you got it working and find it helpful!

I now reccomend everyone use the new AU3 VEP plugin, if you are using VePro7 and HighSierra or newer. It runs very well with great performance, but for now, only supports up to 8 ports into a single VEP instance, but still so much better then this old macro approach, I will not be doing any further development to these templates.

I now reccomend everyone use the new AU3 VEP plugin

 

I heard that LPX 10.4.5 breaks this though. Have you updated?

Thanks for all the work you've put into this! I have a question though: how do you go about bouncing out stems? I'm looking at the "4 Instance 48 ports" template. Obviously I can bounce each instance but is it possible to put midi tracks VEP 1_1 1 to VEP 1_1 12 into a summing folder so I can bounce (for example) "high woodwinds"?

 

My confusion might stem (ha) from lack of familiarity with multiport behaviour in LPX. If there are any resources or forum posts where you've already answered this, please point me in the right direction!

I now reccomend everyone use the new AU3 VEP plugin

 

I heard that LPX 10.4.5 breaks this though. Have you updated?

 

It sorta broke the it but it turns out you just have to make sure to go into vep prefs and set the number of audio outs to 50. Then it works fine in 10.4.5

For stems in the multiport templates you have to remember that each track is a midi track. The audio itself is not on any of those tracks it’s on the mixer channel where the vep plugin sits. So you use the multi out version of the vep plugin, I can’t remeber if I set it up like that already. Then hit the little + button on the mixer to get up to 15 additional aux channels, which correspond to different sets of outs in the vep server. Then you have to do a real time bounce I believe, which means you manually setup an audio track and a bus and route the output from the VEP channel to the audio track, then record enable it and record it in real time. To my knowledge there is not a more automatic and direct way to bounce midi tracks that go through the environment like that. That is one of the downsides of this approach. Edited June 16, 2019 by Dewdman42

By the way, just did a bounce with the AU3 plugin and it was tremendously easier. Just selected the tracks I wanted to bounce and it did a non-realtime bounce of those tracks.

See new thread here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=143416 Edited July 24, 2019 by Dewdman42

Amazing. I really don't want to bounce stems in realtime so I'll do some tinkering today. Do you work for Apple or VSL? You seem to know a lot!

No I don't. Just an ex software engineer that has gotten kind of caught up in the tech this year...

I have downloaded your 762 tracks AU3 template but when loaded " Loading plug-ins" stays on my screen so I cannot continue, any thoughts?.

No idea. Do you have vep7 installed?

Yes, works fine on other templates

strange. works fine here. Are you using LPX 10.4.5 just out of curiosity.

I'm in the middle of something else this afternoon but I will take a look and see if I can figure anything out. Could be related to the new plugin-on-demand feature of 10.4.5 in some way, I'm not really sure. There is nothing different about my template compared to VSL's, just twice as many tracks and organized the environment into layers. Do you also have VEP configured in preferences for 50 audio outs?

my template is using the multi out version of the AU3 plugin...that might be why it doesn't work for you if you haven't bumped up your VEP preferences to 50 audio outs. I would think it would have opened up anyway and just display the orange ! plugin button, but anyway, please let us know if that fixes it.

or actually another thing that occurred to me, if you're using LPX 10.4.4, then it will have problems looking for 25 out version of the plugin. So the template I made assumes you have LPX 10.4.5 and also have VEP configured with 50 audio outs.

 

Later on I will make a variation of the template with only stereo version of AU3 plugin, then you can change the plugin as you wish for multi outs and maybe that will open in LPX 10.4.4

I have downloaded your 762 tracks AU3 template but when loaded " Loading plug-ins" stays on my screen so I cannot continue, any thoughts?.

 

I have changed the link above to a new template with 1270 tracks and stereo version of the plugin so it will open in older versions of LPX.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Dewdman42

Yes, I've been keeping up with the comments, thanks for your help. I have the VSL template up and running.