Sorry if this has been covered. Here is my situation. I play at a really contemporary church with a full band. We usually play a 5 song set. I set up each song separately, then add them to a set list and pre-load all of the plug-ins. There are times when I need a patch with a long release time to carry over into the next song. E.G. We’ll finish a song and my pad sound is still decaying. I need to switch to the next song without that decay being abruptly cut off. How can I make this happen?
TIA
Hi Tim,
The easiest way is to take the 5 songs and instead of them being separate songs, put them in the same song and have a song state for each song. Then you change states instead of songs and the vsti can stay loaded and running while you move to the next song state. Also this can only work if the patch is the same for the sustaining plugin when you switch, if you do a patch change it will always cut off.
Dave
That’s a problem since we often repeat the same songs week to week, but not always, but always in different order. I can’t recreate the songs every time. Sonically, they are pretty complex. I use varying plugins depending on what’s needed. I use two keyboard controllers and sometimes zone them into as many as 5 sections, not including drum pads. A couple of times I’ve put a plugin or a media player into the background rack to have continuity, but…
I wish there were a way to have multiple instances of plugins span across multiple songs. If I have the computer horsepower, you would think that would be possible.
Others have wished for the same thing but as of the last I heard each C3 Song’s Vsti’s in the Set List have to cut off there audio tails from sustain and reverb before the next song can load. Maybe later there will be a change but only @brad would know.
Dave
Cool. I hope it’s a feature that can be implemented. I’ve been watching how people do it in Ableton – it’s really convoluted. I’ve taken a look at (product X), which claims to be able to do it, but it’s not as robust.
So… I’m playing around with Gig Performer. It doesn’t have near the amount of features as Cantabile, but it does pre-load plugins in X amount of songs before and after the current song, which is what I’m looking for. It also lets you keep the current song plugins loaded for X amount of time after you’ve moved out of it for trailing sounds. @brad, I know this probably isn’t an easy feature to add, and I don’t know what your demand for it is, but it’s a pretty important feature to me (and to my band leader, who keeps asking if I can maintain a sound during song transitions). I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.
[EDIT: Now that I think about it, the plugins are already pre-loaded. I just need to be able to keep holding notes while switching to the next song without them cutting out – and/or have a note with a long release to keep playing for X amount of seconds.]
What @dave_dore suggested about using five states inside a single song is a good workaround, though. I do that all over the place. It works like magic!
But yes, it is not an easy thing to simply copy an individual state into a different song’s list of states. At least, I do not know how one would go about it.
Terry
For the church gig where this is common, I was thinking about putting M1 or Xpand!2 or something really versatile with a pad-type sound in the Background Rack, That way I could trigger the sound in the background rack (which stays around during song change). I haven’t tested it or figured out exactly how it would work, but possibly it’s a concept worth trying.Perhaps use a Route and a dedicated virtual MIDI port. I’ve got two more songs I need to finish recording (which I’ve been saying for 2 weeks). After that, I’m gonna try it.
Putting a lightweight plugin in the background rack will work. I’ve done it and there are several ways that you could switch to that sound. I also currently have media players in my background rack with pad sounds loaded up (in the right keys for what I need). I can start them with buttons on my controller and fade them in and out as needed. That’s been really helpful.
However, I’ve started putting each song into a rack and using rack states within a song as a set list. It works great, but it’s definitely a workaround, IMO. There are some things that make this technique a little more time-consuming. But as for it doing what I need to do, it’s fully functional. I can finish up a song and then crossfade into the next song’s rack – or I can hold the previous song’s sound, switch to the next song (rack) and as soon as I start playing again the next patch is up and running.
I’d be glad to lay out exactly how I’ve made it work if anyone needs the info.
In my idea of could be possible if cantabile had 2 audio chains. This way chain A can switch to chain B while finishing the sound or even holding on.
I play on coverbands with medleys and i encounter similar problems.
I’ve achieved this before by having a state in the rack that routes the output directly to the environment outputs rather than to the rack outputs (there’s a setting to enable these so they’re an option in a rack). You have to then select this rack state if it’s the last state in a song that you want the sound to carry over while you change songs.
If you route all output into an “Output” rack for processing then this wouldn’t work but in my case I don’t so wasnt an issue.