Newbie question. I want to have a reverb plugin routed in all of my songs as the final block before “Main: Speakers”, so I assume I will put this plugin in the Background Rack.
I added my NI Raum plugin to the Background rack with a connection coming from the “Rack: Stereo In” and out to the “Rack: Stereo Out”. What do I have to do to route the song’s audio through the Background Rack to the Main: Speakers"? I am hoping I don’t have to add a binding to each individual song, as that would appear to defeat the purpose of having a Background Rack in the first place.
There are 2 common ways people set up buss effects. For the versions that support Linked Racks (Racks that stay loaded all the time across Songs in a Set List) you can set use the buss structures and routes in the Song.
If you want to route from the Song level to the Background rack you have to use a loop back port. Here is an example of a loop back port setup for master buss into the Background rack.
First go to the Tools>Options>Audio Ports> and Add a new Stereo Audio port. I named mine Main BUSS. Leave the Left and Right channels unassigned. save the cahanges and go back to the song level.
Open the Background rack and Add an input port that routes the MAIN BUSS port that was made to the reverb (in the example, VahallaSupermassive) and the plugins output is sent to the Main Speakers port which is the hardware port to your amp and speakers.
Then you save the rack and return to the song level and add a stereo output route from whatever plugin you want to send to the reverb buss and use the Loopback to the MAIN BUSS port that was created as the target …
Thank you, Dave, for the very thorough and detailed instructions on how to use the loopback port to bind the Background Rack to songs. Your description would be a great addition to the User Guides, as this is probably a common question for new users.
I’m wondering though if I would be better off putting the reverb plugin inside the 8x2 mixer linked rack that I already have in each song? Since I want a touch of reverb on all songs, this seems like a logical place for it that doesn’t involve any extra binding at the song level.
From your description of your linked mixer rack it would be a good place to put it because it is more easy to access and monitor your levels in general. Just refer to your mixer rack as the Main Buss rack or something like that. It would be advisable to add another stereo input port to the rack so you can keep the reverb send stream separated from the dry stream. You could then internally route the reverb out to your main speakers along with the dry signals.
If you look around this forum, you’ll find a lot of discussions about “Utility Racks”. They have many uses include encapsulating Input and Output devices, audio interfaces with different numbers (and different media) of outputs, effects, routing/splitting and transposing tricks, automated fade-in/out, etc. My utility racks include (they all start with “_” so they sort high–like a lot of other stuff I borrowed from @Torsten here in the forum):
Input
_Bass (If I have to play left-hand bass, I can turn this on without affecting other settings, even at the last minute)
_Mixer (Keeps track of 8 color-coded faders and keeps my Behringer moterized mixer happy)
_Keyboards (switchable from 1 keyboard set up (church) to dual (band), manages splits/layers, transpose, etc.)
Output
_FinalMaster (encapsulates different audio device output and selects Analog out for the PA or digital for the studio. Also has some “mastering-type” channel plug-ins for compression, final EQ, metering, etc.)
There’s also a sax mic rack and a flute mic rack that aren’t in every song, but they loosely fall under “Utility Racks”. With these racks, using a Song State or Bindings, I can switch the mic on or off and change the rack color (indicating the mic is hot) with my sustain pedal.
Oh, the Background Rack. I try not to change the BG Rack. it is mostly MIDI cc settings and translations. Depending on whether I’m recording with motorized faders, at a gig with a tine Korg Kontrol2, or using controls built into the keyboard, they all work about the same thanks to the BG rack.
Apologies for missing the reply to you on this request, very busy lately and it slipped by. As far as I know you read my post and you set up the “in: MAIN BUSS” audio port in the options and you also opened the background rack and added the input port routes and the FX plugin and it’s audio routes and saved the background rack. I hope I am correct in that you are stuck at not being able to see the “Loopback - MAIN BUSS” port as a choice in the song audio target slots. This is usually because the environment and the loopback ports option are not checked in options. Please check that they are and reboot Cantabile and see if the port now appears.
