The Sound Board

VSL have teased an upcoming release of VE Pro 8 "sooner rather than later" in 2026.

Mentioned new features are:

"Faster, better and more comprehensive" workflows
A separate video VE Pro app
Crash protection
Faster switching times

This video should jump to the section where they discuss it.

Cryptic but exciting

scherzo wrote: ↑Dec 23, 2025 11:51 am Cryptic but exciting

yeah.

Interesting.

I’ve moved away from VEP due to various factors-I’m writing fewer bombastic full orchestra scores, less trailer stuff so VEP isn’t really necessary. There’s also the fact that I’ve been too lazy to repair my big templates and each load needs to be attended, with multiple dialogue warning boxes that need to be checked or unchecked.

It’s still a fantastic tool and we’ll see what 8 brings to the table. I fear it won’t be Intel compatible so that may leave me out.

I've grown a little disillusioned with the Big Template thing and have been thinking about moving away from VEP too. With Steinberg revamping the expression map system I'm looking at doing some rebuilding/reorganizing anyway. Not sure which way I'll go yet, but I'm curious to see what they come up with in the new version. Faster, better and more comprehensive does sound good, if only I knew what it actually meant

I still like it for my disabled template, it works brilliantly and it would be hell trying to do that in Cubase.

That's what I used to do. Definitely a bit hellish.

Problem is I like the idea of a big pre-balanced VEP template very much in theory. In practice I keep endlessly tinkering with it and often want to do project-specific tweaks and things like that, and I've found it difficult to come up with a VEP strategy that is flexible enough without being absurdly overcomplicated and having a million return channels or automation parameters. Self-contained projects in Cubase are easier to deal with in that sense. Then again, then you have to deal with bloated file sizes instead and I get irrationally angry if saves aren't more-or-less instantaneous.

Pathological tweaker and control freak, I guess. Possibly I need a psychological intervention more than a new workflow.

I hope they make disabling and enabling tracks via midi from the DAW more easy to setup, now its a bit cumbersome

scherzo wrote: ↑Dec 24, 2025 7:43 am That's what I used to do. Definitely a bit hellish.

Problem is I like the idea of a big pre-balanced VEP template very much in theory. In practice I keep endlessly tinkering with it and often want to do project-specific tweaks and things like that, and I've found it difficult to come up with a VEP strategy that is flexible enough without being absurdly overcomplicated and having a million return channels or automation parameters. Self-contained projects in Cubase are easier to deal with in that sense. Then again, then you have to deal with bloated file sizes instead and I get irrationally angry if saves aren't more-or-less instantaneous.

Pathological tweaker and control freak, I guess. Possibly I need a psychological intervention more than a new workflow.

Yeah, it's my pact with the devil - anything in VE Pro stays untweaked. I add the reverbs etc in Cubase which of course are easy to tweak, but if I need anything more fiddly (not often in my case tbh) then I just load those patches bespoke in Cubase and copy the midi. That's fine on an occasional ad-hoc basis, but if you're doing it more or less every time of course that's whole other ballgame.

Running coupled is a nightmare - I doubt they can do anything about that.

Pablo Crespo wrote: ↑Dec 24, 2025 8:05 am I hope they make disabling and enabling tracks via midi from the DAW more easy to setup, now its a bit cumbersome

Yeah, I've got my system so it's not too much of a faff - I block copy my midi inserts in Cubase, and the automation setup in VE Pro is much improved now you can copy and auto-increment each midi channel. But setting up from scratch is a PITA for sure.

Released today:





(the video version could be a godsend for Windows Pro Tools Studio users who only have access to one video track - AFAIK until today all third party solutions have been Mac-only).

Upgrade pricing starts at 69 EUR (reg. 99 EUR), free 30 day trials available.

https://www.vsl.co.at/products/software ... mble-pro-8

The transition was simple and smooth for me. I haven't put VE Pro 8 through it's paces yet. But my largest template from VE Pro 7 loaded without a problem and played back perfectly. All instruments, settings, automation etc. exactly as they were in 7. Loading felt quite a bit faster than in 7. It makes a great first impression.

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Jan 21, 2026 1:36 pm Released today:





(the video version could be a godsend for Windows Pro Tools Studio users who only have access to one video track - AFAIK until today all third party solutions have been Mac-only).

Upgrade pricing starts at 69 EUR (reg. 99 EUR), free 30 day trials available.

https://www.vsl.co.at/products/software ... mble-pro-8

I don´t think any improvement was made in the Automation CC learning, or global settings for enabling and disabling.
I am not seeing a lot of improvements if you are not heavily invested in their synchron player

Pablo Crespo wrote: ↑Jan 21, 2026 2:47 pmI don´t think any improvement was made in the Automation CC learning, or global settings for enabling and disabling.

No, but I'm okay with V7 there. Those shortcuts (to copy a setting but, say, increment the mid channel) that they added on a release after 7.0 were totally transformative for me.

The activity monitor looks very helpful. More efficiency gains are always welcome. It looks like a nice-to-have update rather than essential.

That video player isn't cheap btw - €219 intro price for me.

I'm just becoming a real tightwad I think... there are some interesting new features, and the intro price is quite reasonable... guess I'll be downloading the demo version.

Since we are expected to complain about everything here But I'm just not seeing anything just yet

Guy Rowland wrote: ↑Jan 21, 2026 3:05 pm

Pablo Crespo wrote: ↑Jan 21, 2026 2:47 pmI don´t think any improvement was made in the Automation CC learning, or global settings for enabling and disabling.

That video player isn't cheap btw - €219 intro price for me.

I think you are using Cubase Guy, so you have a free video player solution already, just use the previous Cubase version alongside the current one.

I use this system and it has been a life saver, I drop the mixes in the "video cubase" and compare versions, can score series with different episodes, reconforming an new cuts are super easy to handle (just working with timecode).

Just a virtual cable and some synchronization options and ready to go. I even have dedicated hardware knobs for dialogue volume, temp music, rough mixes.

I'm okay Pablo, I don't need anything myself - I was really thinking very specifically about Pro Tools Studio owners. For 99.9% of users, it's the only major feature limitation compared to Ultimate, so that's a very useful new option for them.

That´s great Guy, yes, it seems that vepro video is a nice solution, there are some nice features (like exporting video in different formats, looking at you steinberg, it cannot be that hard after 4 versions)

Vep 8 on the other hand doesn´t have a lot of new features for me to upgrade my main and two servers.

Well there goes nothing... I'm happy with 7, and because you can't mix versions, I need to update 5 licenses.
There's not really anything groundbreaking in it for me or most of my clients (save for the video stuff), but I hope they are continuing to improve the engine.
VE Pro is just the centrepiece of everything I do, and the releases are infrequent enough that (so far) I see the updates as "making sure the company continues to develop it".
If it was for me, I'd still be a happy camper on VE Pro 4...

I rarely use VE Pro anymore because like Larry, I just am not called upon to use big templates much. But I will probably upgrade because sometimes my Logic clients need help with it.

The video version would be helpful for Logic users as well! Logic's video playback is solid, but minimal.

It reminds me how much I hate Cubase being locked into one video export format, which increases the size of the imported video hugely.

Unless C15 became more sane?

I downloaded the free trial just to get a look. Somehow I thought it would look quite different, more sleek, more modern, but it pretty much looks the same.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Jan 22, 2026 4:33 pm It reminds me how much I hate Cubase being locked into one video export format, which increases the size of the imported video hugely.

Unless C15 became more sane?

Nope. Half baked feature completely unusable for me despite needing it desperately. Cubase 15 is the same.

Still prefer to add audio to video outside of Cubase rather than the 1gb per min export or random crash replace audio in file that they reintroduced after realising how disappointed people were with the export. I worked mostly on animation series, so when an editor sends me a scrappy 11min 360p animatic to work with there's no way I'm going to send an 11gig HD pic back. The best that can happen is re-converting the video outside of Cubase but that all needs to be done manually as there's no "After export" post process for video exports.

I ended up developing my own app using Python that kicks off as an "After export" post process on audio export and it makes mp3s with id3 tags/images, adds to mp4s etc. but it will never be as good as it just properly working inside Cubase.

dbh