This is post is more me venting than a question. Maybe it will spur some new ideas on how to get around this horrible thing called eLicenser. Yes, I'm quite aware of the released version of Vienna Pro 5 and was able to get it to work flawlessly on two slaves and then I heard that Vienna Ensemble Pro 6 (VEP 6) supports Reason as a slave: so I had to go to Sweetwater and pull the trigger on three month payment plan, as I'm a struggling musician and old IT guy... Aren't we all?

Anyhow, the other day I had visions of grandeur like a mad scientist creating an EPIC montage of VMs running VEP 6 as slave for each VM. All connected to a Master computer where I have over 200 tracks synced to an amazing virtual orchestra. However my idea using VEP 6 came crashing down after I purchased it and found I had to buy a F'n GD USB eLicenser key, which limits me to only one slave, I now have to spend another $80 in USB keys to get my remaining activations working with my other machines, $40 per key. VEP 6 only gives you a limited amount of activations for three slaves. You will have to buy a brand new VE Pro 6, USB keys not included. The good news is the Master does not need an activation or license.

Yes, the eLicenser key is a big let down and why Vienna forces us to use it when other companies have moved away to a virtual solution leaves me to question the validity of its purpose. The problem with VEP 6 is the painful eLicenser app, it was never designed to be used in a virtual environment. I have found that VEP does not work well in a Local VM environment, like OSX VMware fusion or VMware workstation, My theory is not so much with the VM app, because, VM Fusion offers USB passthrough and should be able to pick it up.

The real problem I see with local VMware apps like Virtual Box, VM Fusion or VM workstation is how eLicenser checks. Example, If the USB is attached to a Windows virtual machine, and you have the app installed on the host machine, the Licenser app will try to access and it crashes your local plugins and DAW. The trick is to not have the eLicenser app installed on the host machine. Now, this may be hard, b/c some have other plugins or DAWs like Cubase, that rely on the same eLicenser USB key, which is not possible. Bottom line, VMware Workstation or Fusion is a bad idea. Also, remember you do not need to have eLicenser installed on the Master Machine only the slaves, eLicenser just sucks the Big Donkey!

Now let's say you were able to get it to work, the real issue is with the extra amount of processing added. You're essentially running two DAWs and a heavy VM on one machine. I would think the better solution is to run the VE Pro as a slave on a virtual client on a dedicated ESXi server.

The reason seasoned IT guys like to virtualize hardware, is it saves in electricity costs, creates a perfect solution for consolidation of slave machines with an ease of management in one central location. Now let's take this a step further and ditch the high costs of ESXi licenses of up to 4K per server, and move to an Open Source, Free as in Free beer kind of solution called Proxmox. https://www.proxmox.com/en/ It offers an amazing Web GUI front end and it will do Windows and Linux.

Big Sigh! In a perfect scenario, I would love to buy a bunch of VEP licenses, and run many VMs on an ESXi server, but found my budget is limited. I have to pay an extra $40 per VM/machine per hardware Key, plus a new server license with only three slave machines. So If my goal is to create a virtual orchestra on an ESXi server with 50 VMs. I now faced with trying to manage 50 USB eLicencer keys at $40 a piece plus activations. The beauty of VMware ESXi, you can do hardware passthrough, which enables you to pass real hardware into its own virtual construct. Why Vienna does not give bulk discounts, leaves me to question their motives, My goal is to do 50 VMs, I will succeed in this goal.

It really ticks me off that companies dictate rules in producing music as if there is only one way. If I want to express my creativity with a 100 VMs, then why should I be limited to a F'n USB key and activations. You have to wonder why so many are turning to the Linux and the Pirate way.

 

First things first:
What do you want to achieve anyway?
Your vision appears to me like all you want is to "do it because we can".
If you put all VMs onto one hardware box, VEP is not the only option.

 

Like I said earlier it's just me venting. I know about jack router and have used it successfully with 4 slaves, and it probably is my choice going forward. I was just more in shock and did not expect to be hit with that damn USB key for each slave.

 

Beside what you already mentioned, virtualization implies some beefed up hardware due to the virtualization overhead.

In your specific scenario I wouldn't imagine this working with less than 64 gb or probably even 128 gb of memory. And I'm not even starting with the Cpu which should also be top notch. Finally a SSD instead of a regular HD wouldn't hurt either.

The question is, assuming the USB dongle isn't an issue anymore, do you have the relevant hardware to run this setup?

 

Last edited: Apr 3, 2018

Yes, I have a Rack with three older Dell 2950s and an IBM all spec out to dual quad xeons and 32GB of memory each. The Dell 2950s are cheap, you can pick them up for under a $100 each. I managed to find some cheap 15K 300gb drives and have each server configure as RAID 5 on 4 drives per server. I plan to introduce an SSD cache drive for each later on and eventually I want to build a separate NAS using FreeNAS. My goal here is to experiment with MIDI audio VST networking at an epic scale. Plus I want to improve my server cluster skillset and at the same time make some cool music. Yes, it's not the best per ram and CPU but if I start small like 10 VM's and then upgrade my servers after it works at a small level, then move to a bigger server.

 

Great but is it really worth doing it?

I mean, do you have some examples on YouTube or whatever showing some significant improvements to what can already be achieved with Orchestral Tools or Spitfire libraries?

 

Well... I don't think this has ever been done, I was under the impression it was, but just can't find anything. I get your point, seriously it's a lot of prep work and at the end of the day is it really worth it, not sure. However, the thought occurred to me, what if you could have a highly optimized machine on a VM and only use one VST with only one instrument. It is in that, I have to try, b/c I have a hunch that if you can minimize the slave, but change the workflow to many slaves, like a 15, 20, slaves, heck let's go big and say, 100 slaves, I would guess you will be able to achieve something completely different in audio.

Not sure it will sound good, but I think it' worth trying to experiment with by taking the orchestral design of audio to a modular level, where each slave computer represents a player in the orchestra map; so if a symphony orchestra has 100 musicians, then why not try to emulate that at a modular level in a virtual construct. Where you have one VM equals violinist 1, and another VM equals Cellist 1, and another, and another, etc., etc., until you have built out a complete virtual map of a 100 VM slaves to equal one epic symphonic orchestral. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I think about sound differently and more on at a dimensional level. But we could start small at a quartet level then go to a chamber level.



Yes, I agree programs like Spitfire and others have the ability to do that internally have taken great measures to emulate that kind of space, but I'm looking for something different, something that interacts with the computer and evolves over time. I would even go so far to say that this is more of an attempt to start a thesis project in Artifical Intelligence and Symphonic Music, how each node is different, but how it reacts other nodes, combines in unison, how each one is specifically configured. Having all 100 VMs and or small light PC's in a perfect union of bliss. That is my goal, So far I have some great ideas with Jack router, Raspberry Pi's, Mini ITX computers and Linux clustering. I think I can get the project started.

 

Do you really NEED all this excess?

I keep my projects <1GB RAM, and try 30 tracks or less.

 

This is theoretically interesting and I am indeed curious but I still have my doubts regarding the technical side: Each VM would have to run the OS plus an instance of Kontakt or something similar therefore a minimum of 8 gb of RAM is mandatory to play it on the safe side. Multiply this value by the number of VM you were mentioning and it will end up being very costly.

 

Yes but ESXi is free as long as you dont run 4 or more and need Vsphere to manage them you can back up with anything with in the image but you can save a
a VDMK with the Vmware converter and just reinstall that
you can run EXSi on bare metal then install a VMware image of that of cubase and all your plugins

but as a Studio it would cost a lot as a musician forget about like everyone said not worth it as of today feb 6 2021

but then there is the future