How to save a rack (Linked Rack) including its external send routes to FX Racks?

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Hi everyone,
I’m new to Cantabile Performer (4.0 Build 4344) and I’m in the process of building my first live setup. So far I created a rack called “Korg Rhodes” containing an E-Piano plugin. From this rack, in the main song routing, I created 4 send routes to separate FX racks (Reverb, Delay, LongRev, ModDly).The problem is that I cannot save this rack with its send routes as a Linked Rack to reuse it in other songs.
• When I open the “Korg Rhodes” tab and try File → Save Rack As…, it only saves what’s inside the rack, but not the external send routes.
• In the main song routing view, I don’t see the “Save Rack As…” option on the rack.
Question: Is it possible to save a rack including the external send routes coming from the main song routing? Or are those routes “embedded” in the song and cannot be part of the rack itself?I’m trying to understand the correct logic of Linked Racks vs Embedded Racks so I don’t have to recreate the 4 effect sends every time.

Thank you very much in advance,
I’m still a bit confused but eager to learn the right way.
Marcello

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Hi Marcello and Welcome to the forum! :slight_smile:

That is correct behavior. The rack is self contained so any external routes from it can not be saved with the rack file and are saved in the song file. Some workarounds are to copy the rack and it’s external routes from the song where it works and paste it all to the new song. Also you could create a template song that has all that done when you start a new song.

To see “Save Rack As” make sure the rack is open in a tab and in focus and go to the File menu for save options.

Hope this helps,

Dave

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Hi Dave,

Thanks for the warm welcome and for clarifying how Cantabile handles this! It makes perfect sense that external routes belong to the song file rather than the rack itself.

I think creating a template song is the perfect workaround for my workflow. That will save me a lot of time when setting up new projects.

Thanks again for the clear explanation and the tips!

Best, Marcello

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4

Have you considered putting the effects in the rack?

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There’s no concept of saving a rack and its external routes.

If you want to keep instruments and effects bundled together it’s easiest to put them in the same linked rack.

One thing you might be unaware of but might be useful is this: by default Racks in Cantabile can’t “see” the external environment level ports. ie: in a rack you can’t see “Main Speaker” output port.

However.. if you turn on Tools -> Options -> Miscellaneous -> Advanced -> Show Environment Audio and MIDI ports in Racks then you can route from inside the rack directly to external ports. ie: you don’t need to route from instruments inside racks back to the song to get the sound out.

Does this help?

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Hi raydyo,

Thanks for the suggestion! I did consider putting the effects inside the rack, but that would defeat my goal of having 4 global send effects shared across all plugins in the song.

If I put the effects inside the instrument rack, they would only be available to the plugins within that specific rack. To replicate this setup, I would have to add those 4 effects to every single instrument rack in my song. While it would definitely look cleaner, it would be way too expensive in terms of CPU resources and RAM.

Thanks anyway for brainstorming this with me!

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Hi Brad,

Thank you so much, this is incredibly helpful!

The option to “Show Environment Audio and MIDI ports in Racks” is a game-changer for my current workflow. I didn’t know about this feature, and (theoretically) it perfectly solves my modular template issue for now. Being able to route from inside the instrument rack directly to the song’s global effect ports should mean that I can save the rack with those internal routes already mapped to the environment ports. This way, if I got it right, when I drop the rack into a new song, the sends should automatically connect to my global effects.

I’ll be in my studio in a couple of hours and I cannot wait to test this new setting. It should be fantastic!

Also, the upcoming pre/post racks update sounds exactly like the ultimate architectural solution I am looking for. Having those 4 global effects in a post-rack available to everything will be perfect.

Thanks again for your amazing support and for pointing me to that advanced setting.

Best regards,
Marcello

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Just to be clear - you can’t do this yet. Currently, from inside a rack you can only route to audio/MIDI ports defined in Tools → Options → Audio Ports and MIDI Ports. Not to effects you have loaded elsewhere.

The next big update (probably will be called 4400 series) will include the pre and post rack functionality where you can route to effects loaded in those globally shared racks.

Brad

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it sounds like brad is working on something better, but I have been using a linked rack I call mixer. It currently has 4 stereo inputs, but nothing magic about 4. The mixer sits between all of the song’s instruments (racks or plugins) and the main outputs. I’m currently using the mixer as a simple way to control volumes with StreamDeck+, but it could easily contain effects as well.

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Hi Brad,

Thanks for the clarification! That upcoming pre/post rack functionality in the 4400 series sounds like exactly what we need to make global effects routing elegant and seamless.

In the meantime, since I wanted to keep my instrument racks self-contained (and save them with their internal send routes already mapped to global effects), I managed to find an effective workaround using global Audio Ports with Loopback adapters, though with one drawback that I’ll address later (the send effects being Pre-Fader).

Here is how I set it up to overcome the current limitation:

Global Virtual Ports (The “Bridges”):

In Tools → Options → Audio Ports, I created a set of global stereo ports specifically for my shared effects (for example, a port named Loopback - ToRev ). I assigned these ports to virtual Loopback channels (using an audio interface loopback or a virtual audio cable).

Inside the Instrument Rack (The Sends):

Inside my instrument racks (like the Korg Rhodes or Kontakt), I can now route the plugin outputs directly to these global environment ports (e.g., Loopback - ToRev ). Since these ports are defined globally in the Options, Cantabile allows me to save the rack with these internal send routes fully mapped and intact.

At the Song Level (The Return):

In the parent song where my shared effects racks are loaded (e.g., a global Reverb Rack), I simply set the input port of the effects rack to receive from Loopback - ToRev .

By doing this, any instrument rack I load into any song automatically “knows” where to send its effect signals, and the parent song’s effects rack captures that stream on the other side of the loopback.

It works beautifully for keeping the instrument racks modular and reusable across different projects, even if we still have to manage the post-fader gain scaling (which I currently handle via internal bindings linking the plugin gain to the send route gains).

Looking forward to seeing how the 4400 series native pre/post rack routing will simplify this even further!

Best,

Marcello

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Hi raydyo,

That’s a really smart alternative, using a dedicated, globally linked “Mixer Rack” as a central hub is a clean way to manage routing. It should basically acts like a custom analog summing mixer if I got it right

In my case, the only hurdle with that method for send effects (like reverb and delay) is that to keep the routing post-fader, the send levels still need to scale dynamically with the channel volumes. If I change the instrument volume inside its own rack, I need the send to follow it.

Your mixer rack idea, however, is a brilliant way to clean up the Song level routing and keep the main outputs tidy. I might actually experiment with combining both ideas—using the loopback adapters for the global FX sends, and a centralized mixer rack for managing the overall dry stems and main gains.

Thanks for sharing

Best,

Marcello

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