New Software Review: Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 by Vienna Symphonic Library
The Vienna Synchron Player is a “powerful and easy-to-use playback engine that enables you to make the most of multidimensional samples.”
As music creatives, we’re always looking for the best way to speed up our workflows so we can create without feeling limited by technological limitations.
Companies like Avid and Universal Audio have created products that allow the user to offload processing to external cards/hardware, and Vienna Ensemble Pro allows users to offload processing to external computers.
For those unfamiliar with the software, it is a staple for many film composers and it allows us to link multiple machines over ethernet to each other.
You have one main machine running Vienna Ensemble Pro as a plug-in in your DAW of choice, and can connect it to your external machines in the Vienna Ensemble Pro Server application.
That means I can run 14GB of Spitfire Libraries on a PC and connect it to my main Mac workstation as though I were sending MIDI and receiving audio from a synth! The other upside is that it also allows for offline bouncing. Today, we are reviewing version 7 of this software and without further ado let’s dive right in!
Features and Use
When you purchase a copy of Vienna Ensemble Pro 7, you receive a copy of Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 (standalone, server, and one extra license for an external computer) and a copy of the Epic Orchestra v2.0 sample library from Vienna Symphonic Library.
The new version 7 also comes with Instance CPU usage so you can see a real time readout of the specific CPU load, Instance MIDI/Audio activity so you can observe MIDI and audio activity per instance, a Vertical Instance List, and an improved Color Selection section. You can also automate Instance Disabling, copy and paste channels for template adaptation, and experience faster saving times with demanding plug-ins like Omnisphere and Kontakt.
My typical Logic template has about 95 locally loaded Kontakt, U-He Diva, Zebra2, and Newfangled Audio synth instances running and on my Macbook Pro 2019 with 8 cores and 64GB of RAM, it has been really stable. I created a 256 track Vienna Ensemble Pro 7 template in Logic Pro X running the Beta AU3 and was immediately impressed.
I was able to lower my buffer size in Logic to 256 and using 2 Buffers in my VEP plug-in instances, the latency was very manageable and the CPU load in the VEP server was way more efficient!
Though it took me a couple of days to set up a great template, I found it very seamless to integrate into my workflow. It’s really nice to have all my favorite instruments up and running and simply switching between DAW projects is so much faster as I don’t have to wait for Omnisphere or Kontakt loading screens to start writing. I created instances for Strings, Percussion, Brass, and Woodwinds and tried connecting my template to both Logic and Cubase.
I liked the workflow more in Cubase as the Cubase Rack instruments and ability to more easily offline bounce the VEP returns in Cubase made it a clear winner for me. Additionally, the AU version of VEP doesn’t currently allow you to use Articulation Sets and it also requires the user to use the Environment in order to send large amounts of MID tracks.
The AU3 beta version fixes these issues, but it currently has an issue where the session BPM information is received by the Vienna Server but it isn’t sent to the instruments hosted in the server. That means tempo-locked loops and phrase-based patches aren’t going to work properly especially when switching between multiple projects.
I also found my Cubase template with all my favorite Kontakt and Omnisphere plug-ins loaded, which led to each project file being 400mb in size. Now running the same instruments in VEP7, my Cubase sessions are about 15mb each and the Vienna file itself is only 60mb! In the long run, this will save me a lot of hard drive space.
Finally, Epic Orchestra 2.0 has a very lovely sound to it. The 72GB library includes Strings, Woodwinds, Oboe, Coronet, Trumpets A6, Epic Horns A8, Timpani and Percussion. It includes sounds from the Synchron Strings I, Synchron FX Strings I, SYNCHRON-ized Appassionata Violins, SYNCHRON-ized Chamber Violins, SYNCHRON-ized Dimension Brass II, Synchron Percussion I, Synchron Power Drums, and Vienna Smart Spheres. It’s almost like a nice tasting menu of what you can get with the other VSL libraries!
Overall, the library is pretty dry-sounding and benefits from some reverb. You can really hear the rich natural verb of the room the samples were recorded in on short articulations and when playing the percussion.
Dimension Brass All Players patch shook my speakers and felt great for playing Wagner-style brass passages. The Vienna Smart Spheres sound design patches had a ton of low end and weight to them that made me think they’d work great in TV underscore! There’s a lot of great content here and it makes me want to explore more of the VSL libraries.
To Be Critical
Admittedly, VEP7 works better with some DAWs than others. It is incredibly stable in Cubase but there were a couple of quirks I ran into with using the software in Logic Pro X and Ableton Live 11.
Even though VEP7 comes with an AU3 version, there’s some quirkiness with setup in Logic as most DAW’s still do not support AU3plug-ins yet and this is technically a BETA AU3. The biggest downside though, is that the AU3 version has an issue sending MIDI clock to instruments inside of Vienna Ensemble Pro’s Server so I can’t run tempo-locked libraries or loop libraries in Kontakt, Omnisphere, etc.
Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 also used to contain 3 licenses of the software for running on external machines whereas version 7 only offers 1 license. The software costs about $230 for a first license and each additional license is about $115 so this can add up quickly.
In addition, you need a separate E-Licenser (Vienna Key or Steinberg E-Licenser) for each computer running a VEP server instance for this to work.you will not need a separate license purchase for the main host machine running the Vienna Plug-Ins in your DAW but you will need one for each machine running a Vienna Ensemble Pro Server instance.
Summing it Up
Setting up a working Vienna Ensemble Pro template takes a good amount of time but it can be well worth it for composers and producers who use the same sample libraries and virtual instruments among many different projects.
Because of its enhanced CPU optimization, it can make loading and switching between sessions a lot faster. VEP7 adds some incredible new features for existing users and is a CPU-efficient program for running large sessions with loads of plug-ins.
Matthew Wang is an LA-based guitarist, producer, songwriter, film composer, and SonicScoop contributor.
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