Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 Tutorial 2: Connecting to a DAW

Connect instruments loaded in Vienna to your DAW

Last time we introduced the basics of Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 and how to launch it.
Here we will explore the features that connect your DAW to your instruments.

Let’s take a close look at routing, including MIDI channel assignments and separate outputs, so that the two work together correctly.

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Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 video tutorials

1. 1Basic overview (introduction)
2. 2Connecting to a DAW
3. 3Workflow efficiency techniques

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Excerpt from YouTube questions and answers

Hello, the video was clear and very helpful. I have a question: can I load multiple instruments in one plug-in inside VEP, such as East West Play, and play them from separate tracks in Cubase? Or can each instance of Play contain only one instrument, requiring multiple instances of Play within the VEP instance? I imagine opening many copies of Play might put a burden on the CPU even inside VEP. What do you think? If there are any articles about this, I would appreciate a reference. Thank you.

You can send multiple instruments from one instance of Play to separate outputs. As shown in the screenshot, click the plus sign to add channels. Then route each instrument in Play to a channel and send those channels individually to separate DAW outputs.https://app.box.com/s/1ayuhd9zt7bggy0wz9efiq2r782r6ahh

Thank you as always. When the DAW is Logic X, could you explain how to change to MIDI port 2?

Please refer to this article: https://sleepfreaks-dtm.com/dtm-trouble/mulch-track/ Thank you for your continued support.

Creating an instance and loading instruments

First, prepare the instruments in Vienna Ensemble Pro Server.

Click the plus button on the left.

An instance is created.
You will add the instruments you need inside this instance.

You can add multiple instances with “+” and name them by double-clicking an instance name.
Grouping instruments by type in this way can make them easier to manage.

Next, load an instrument.

Select the instance to which you want to add it and right-click the track list.
In the menu, go to “Insert plugin” → “Plug-Ins” and choose the desired plug-in from “VST/AU”.

Here we have loaded Massive.
Load the other instruments you need into the same instance in the same way.

Right-click a loaded instrument track to delete or duplicate it.

Here we duplicated Massive to create three copies in an instance named Synth.

Loading an instance into the DAW

Load the instance you created into the DAW.

As you would when opening a normal software instrument, select “VSL” → “Vienna Ensemble Pro”.
The three lines on the right indicate the VST3 format. Unless you have a reason to choose otherwise, select VST3.

The window shown here opens; select “CONNECT”.

The instances you created appear. Select the desired instance and press “CONNECT”.
Here we selected Synth1, which contains Massive.

This connects the DAW instrument track to the Vienna instance, allowing sound to be output.

Instance preferences

You can adjust settings for an instance.

Set the delay between playing the keyboard and hearing the sound (latency).
Lower values improve response but consume more CPU power.

Choose a setting appropriate to your use.

Under the preferences icon, check “Auto Raise Instance” to open the instrument settings window immediately when you call up the Vienna instrument from the DAW.

Individual instrument settings

You can adjust instruments within the instance individually.

• The track opened by default lets you control the volume and pan of all instruments together.
• Volume: adjust each instrument’s volume individually
• Pan: adjust each instrument’s position individually
• Instrument: access the instrument on the track

This is also useful for layering sounds, for example when multiple instruments play the same phrase.

Assigning MIDI channels

In the setup above, all instruments play the MIDI performance entered in the DAW.
You may, however, want each instrument to play a different part.

You can do this using MIDI tracks and MIDI channels.
The procedure differs by DAW, so refer to the relevant article below.

Create MIDI tracks to match the number of instruments loaded in the instance.

If the instruments you are using are not multitimbral, using the same port (1) for all of them is fine.

Match each MIDI track’s channel to the MIDI channel of its instrument in the instance.
This sends the MIDI information to the corresponding instrument, which then produces sound.

With a multitimbral instrument, its MIDI channels can overlap with those of other instruments, making the setup difficult to coordinate.
In that case, use ports.

As shown above, create a separate port for each multitimbral instrument. Here we use port 2.
Changing the port gives you a fresh set of MIDI channels 1–16.

Turn on “MIDI FOCUS” to automatically display the instrument receiving MIDI.
This is very useful when adjusting parameters.

Separate outputs

With the current settings, the sound of all instruments is output through one DAW track.
You may want to output each instrument in the instance separately.

This is possible using separate outputs.
Setup differs by DAW, so refer to the relevant article below.

In Cubase,

enable the outputs needed for the number of tracks.

Change each instrument’s output to match the outputs enabled in Cubase.

For software such as a multitimbral instrument that requires multiple outputs to be configured within the plug-in,

press the “+” button under the track name in the mixer.
The track expands, allowing you to change each output to match the outputs enabled in Cubase.

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Frequently asked questions

Q1. How do I prepare Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 to work with my DAW?

First create an instance in Vienna Ensemble Pro Server and add instrument plug-ins to it. Then open Vienna Ensemble Pro in VST3 format in your DAW and connect to the instance.

Q2. How can I play multiple instruments independently?

Match each MIDI track’s channel to the channel of its corresponding instrument inside the instance. With multitimbral instruments, use separate ports to make use of MIDI channels 1–16 and send independent performance data.

Q3. Can each instrument be output to a separate track?

Yes. Enable separate outputs in the DAW, then set each instrument’s output in Vienna to the corresponding output.