Just reread Terry’s earlier post and I see what Pax was referring to. With FreeG, you have to go through their installer software, but you are given a choice of what to install and don’t have to install any of the demos if you don’t want to.
I think they changed their installer - I had no choice but to install all the demos and then remove them afterward. But I used the “offline” installer. I tried that because the “online installer” was not present when I tried it last week.
Anyway - I have it now and am trying out this approach! 
Terry
awaiting the results 
Just thinking out loud, the question occurred to me while reading over these posts, why not merely bind to the volume controls that already come with racks rather than use the FreeG or Gfader plugins? That would lighten up things by one plugin per application. It appears one can have a rack that is nothing more than a rack audio in and a rack audio out, so such a rack would be inherently a volume control standalone rack, wouldn’t it? Binding to that is easy!
- Create a new rack. I’m calling this one “Just Volume”.
- Open it up and add an input object, “Rack Stereo In”
- Send that to Preset/Destination, “OutputPort - Rack: Stereo Out”
- Save and exit that rack.
- In Bindings, add a controller binding from a slider, target “Just Volume” in this case, aimed at “Gain.” Adjust the options to suite (top-out the gain at 0db if you do not want any boost available.)
- For your “Just Volume” rack, click “Add Route” and send the rack audio output wherever you want it to go. That can be multiple destinations - I have a separate headphone monitor out rack with its own volume as well!
Now you can send anything you like to this, and no plugin overhead is involved. Throw plugins into this rack as well if you want. 
Mind you, I LOVE how cool FreeG looks, and the fact it has so many cool extras, but if you do not need those, this might suffice as well.
Terry
1 Like
One difference I’ve noticed though Terry, is that if you bind a continuous controller (expression pedal etc) to a rack fader, you can hear stepping, whereas if you bind to FreeG it appears to change volume smoothly…
1 Like
Neil,
Yes, I just noticed that same thing, literally just moments ago. [EDIT - hmmm, now with this different patch I don’t hear it! Gadzooks!)
If only using it to set volumes that will not be changed much during performance, using rack volumes connected to bindings is fine, but if I’m going to be incorporating the fades into a performance, then FreeG is awesome!
(Plus it has stereo panning and other stuff built-in, like instrument and effects plugins and media players do in C3.)
The nicest thing about using Cantabile’s built-in volumes is that it is graphically right there in front of you graphically representing what the slider settings are on the screen and their relationships without needing to have a plugin window open.
Terry
question about FreeG. I have a piano rack with 3 different instances of Pianoteq, one instance of an M1 piano and one Kontakt keys plugin. I want to calibrate volume levels so that each of these plugins produce their sound at the same db level. Should I use the peak, or RMS readout on FreeG to do this? Or is there a better way?
Lee,
I should think it is unlikely you will find a “representative sound” on each that you can use. Techs typically use a sine wave to balance levels with, but I do not think the these have that. Perhaps a single (same) note at 127 velocity? Then peak or RMS would do.
Terry
The other great thing built into Cantabile is the fader on routes. One thing I do is have rack faders vary from section to section in a song (driven by song states), but then I’ve still got another fader on the audio route coming out of the rack which I use to make adjustments on a song-wide level.
I use this surprisingly frequently actually - I get all my relative settings within a song worked out carefully at home, and then when I come to play the song in rehearsal it often becomes apparent that a sound is too quiet or loud throughout the song - caused presumably by playing loudly through a PA system and fighting against other live instruments rather than quietly through headphones playing along to a studio recording. One quick tweak of the route fader brings up/down that sound throughout the song, maintaining all my carefully set relative song part levels.
Neil
2 Likes
Neil,
Yes, I was looking at those today also - I could not find a way to bind MIDI to those outputs, but they are super useful, and I’m making much more use of them now that I use the Rack Audio Out as my outputs from racks as my new regular practice. (They make it easier to check on my output settings at a glance as well, rather than digging inside the rack to see if I left something out!)
Terry
From a purely quantitative perspective, a slow RMS readout on FreeG (I use VU ballistics - see settings page of FreeG) would come closest to calibrating volume levels - peak doesn’t help at all (just be sure that peaks don’t clip). But unfortunately, even though two sounds may have the same dB level, they may not be perceived as having the same loudness. E.g. clean electric guitar vs. heavily distorted guitar. Or acoustic vs. electric piano. So, after calibrating the RMS dB level, you’ll still need some listening tests. I’ve built a dedicated “volume leveling” song that loops an intermittent piano phrase to test other sounds against it.
Final tuning of volume then follows at song level during rehearsals…
Cheers,
Torsten
Torsten,
That’s what I was trying to say! 
It will still come down to ears!
Terry
If I understand this correctly, using the “secret sauce” will allow me to change the position of the FreeG fader in Song A’s master volume rack, and that change will be saved for that song, but not for Song B. If so, I’ve missed a step somewhere. FreeG Fade changes in the Master Volume rack of Song A DO show up in Song B.
Sorry for not being clear: the secret is not about changes not being saved. It is about a fader position staying as it is between songs and not being reset to its saved position in the new song.
So as long as your master rack is contained in both songs (and you have a pre-loaded set list), the state of the FreeG fader will stay as it is between songs and not be re-set to the position saved in the rack.
Cheers,
Torsten
1 Like
Hi Torsten, very detailed thanks. So I’ve managed to get all my audio routed through FreeG. Now I’m interested in your method of setting the volume on Song Load using a trigger but try as I might I cannot get the volume to change. This is what I’ve got:
Song Trigger - Song Start -> Controller 7 - Value 64 - Target Master fader Midi In
Master Fader Rack
Set an Input route - Rack Midi -> Sonalksis FreeG Omni
If I open the midi monitor on the FreeG plugin I can see
ch 1 Controler 7 = 64 when I click the song or play icon on the trigger.
But the volume doesn’t reset. Is there something I’m missing?
I know you’ve probably been over this a million times but thanks for any help.
Chris
Not quite - try this:
- within your master fader Rack, create a binding: Rack MIDI in, Controller CC7 → FreeG, Parameter 1: Gain
- remove any Routes from Rack MIDI in to FreeG - they’re not needed; the binding does everything
Now the trigger you send to the Master Fader rack should remote-control the big FreeG fader via the binding
Cheers,
Torsten
1 Like
So simple when you know.
Many thanks,
Chris
Would this device work for real time volume adjustment on seperate midi channels?