Hoping I can get a bit of sage advice to avoid what threatens to become a thorny situation.
I have a complex performance rig that works great. It lets me play my WindSynth (Sylphyo) as a wide range of instruments, through virtual synths and a few hardware sound modules and other units (e.g. a looper). However, the Cantabile setup is complex:
That’s a single C4 Song which runs my Rig in one mode. I have maybe a dozen modes (through Kontakt, through this or that hardware unit, through Massive X, through Respiro, etc). So I need maybe a dozen C4 songs.
The rig is run by MIDI controllers (Faderfox EC4, Novation Launchpad) that let me switch modes, switch instruments in the same mode, and control various volumes and reverb levels.
I’ve used Linked Racks to abstract out the complexity, including the many bindings needed control of various aspects of the rig. All the blocks in the routing diagram above are linked racks. I think these are sort of Utility racks, except specific to my rig setup.
The problem is: Each of my dozen C4 Songs will need much of the same routing between the racks. However, a new block may appear (eg. a Soft Synth), and some of the wiring will be different.
(ASIDE: I tend to keep all racks loaded in all songs, since switching to a song that does not have a particular rack, X, will cause X to be RE-loaded at some point down the line, and it then reinitializes, which is a problem in my setup).
If my basic setup changes down the line, I’ll need to re-wire all dozen C4 songs. How can I avoid this??
Some possibilities I can think of:
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One mega linked rack that has all the functionality of my existing 8 racks. Ideally, it would include the other linked racks, but that is not allowed in C4.
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Create a single C4 song file that embodies all my modes. The complexity and delicacy of this scares me a bit … The number of states to support this may make the scheme brittle and difficult to debug …
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Insert the linked racks in my Background Rack and then (somehow?) access them. Is this a good idea? (Access would seem to be through pseudo-ports, which gives me the shivers …)
Anything else??
FYI, here’s my hookup diagram for the Rig:
(The upper-left “Satellite Setup” quadrant is for one of the 8 keyboard players I’m playing with over the next year. This quadrant is not represented in or controlled by Cantabile).
