Hey Guys,
This is my first post to the forums, (although I’ve been lurking around on here for the past week to absorb as much as I can). I recently bought a laptop dedicated to running cantabile. I love how detailed C3 is and I can see that once I wrap my head around certain concepts the realm of possibilities opens up.
On to my question:
I want to have a single Rack dedicated to Keyscapes with presets for all my favourite keyscape Keyboard sounds. I.E. Piano, Rhodes, Wurlizter ect… Then I can just throw that Rack into any song and change the rack preset on the fly to discover which type of keyboard will work best for the song and leave it there to be saved at the song level for the next time. Once I find the Keyscape sound (Rack state) I then save the song I then save the song. I tried it and this works great during the live experimentation phase but here is the problem:
The Song successfully switches the Rack state preset and the Keyscapes VST window reflects the preset change has occurred but the actually samples do not load. In order to get the samples to load I have to manually select a different rack state and then go back to the one I wanted for that song. That finally cues Keyscapes to start loading the samples.
Since I couldn’t get this working I have just been setting up individual racks for each Keyscape instrument I want but I would like to know if I’m missing something in Cantabile (I probably am) or if maybe the Keyscapes VST is behaving abnormally when it receives program change information.
I should also mention that I DO NOT want keyscapes to preload the sample data for all these sounds. I want previous samples to be unloaded and new sample to be loaded on each state change. This is because Keyscapes has a really cool preview feature that allows you to start playing a basic (but very playable) version of the sound within a second or two which is good enough for me under certain circumstances (Jamming, ect…)
Also, in terms of linked or embedded rack (still a bit hazy on these concepts) which should I use for this particular setup.
Thanks and happy to be apart of such a cool community!
Todd
If Keyscape’s UI is updating but the sounds are not, this sounds like an issue with the plugin. Any other Keyscape user’s here who can comment? Perhaps contact Spectrasonics and see what they say and tell them to get in touch with me if they think it’s something weird about Cantabile.
As for linked vs embedded racks:
Embedded racks are saved as the parent song file and can’t be shared with other songs (except by exporting and reimporting)
Linked racks are saved in their own file and can be shared across multiple songs.
The big advantage of linked racks is that if you have multiple songs using the same rack that rack (and it’s contained plugins) doesn’t need to be reloaded when switching songs.
Thanks Brad!
Ok, so in this particular case the linked rack isn’t necessary because I don’t need those samples to be loaded in multiple songs for fast switching. I could use embedded racks and it will have the same effect. Is that correct? Will linked racks go through each state and load the samples ahead of time from each state? Mabye this is causing the glitch?
I also think that keyscape is at fault now because there is sometimes a wierd note sustain thing happening when I switch to the piano sound. It sounds like the notes are being half sustained. I should double check to make sure my keyboard isn’t sending unwanted midi data. It shouldn’t be, there are no program changes happening. (It’s a Hammond sk2)
Again, if I click to another patch and then back again the sound returns to what it should be.
Possible workaround: I haven’t tried it yet but could I use a trigger to “remind” keyscape to switch the patch after the song is selected?
I’ll send spectrasonics an email if I can’t find a solution soon.
Nope, still can’t figure this out. I just realized that the same problem happens when keyscapes is loaded as just plain plugins. So I don’t have a way to make keyscapes work live for me.
I emailed spectrasonics, hopefully we get a response, in the meantime, I’ll keep trying to find a workaround.
I discovered a workaround that is wierd but it works. Since loading a different plugin preset and then reloading the preset I want works… I can automate that when the song loads using two bindings. I select any other preset and then set another binding that returns me to the preset I actually want. This cues keyscapes to load the samples.
The piano still occasionally has a half dampening glitch (pedal is not engaged) that only happens on the piano if I leave any instance of the plugin untouched for 5 minutes or so. Again, if I reload it right away (for the 3rd time) it loads correctly I guess the workaround here is to reload the piano 3x using bindings, I’ll see if that works… This half dampening glitch only relates to the Yamaha C7 presets within keyscapes.
Are there some sample management settings related to setlist that I could mess around with to see if they change how the plug responds?
I think before trying to figure this for sure it’d be good to hear from Spectrasonics about why the UI updates to a new patch but the sound doesn’t. If that’s a bug and can be fixed then it will simplify the whole setup for you.
As for when samples are loaded that’s a little outside Cantabile’s control - all the host does is instructs the plugin to load a its settings (essentially an FXB file) and it’s up to the plugin how and when the samples are loaded - or even if a sample load is necessary (eg: some plugins will maintain the old loaded samples if the loaded bank uses the same ones).
Anyway, the control you have from Cantabile over this is when the plugin bank is loaded. Cantabile will tell the plugin to load it’s entire bank in the following situations:
When the plugin is first loaded (obviously)
When using States and the “Entire Bank” behaviour is selected for that plugin
When switching presets on plugins that use “Pseudo Presets”.
Whereever possible I recommend leaving Entire Bank behaviour off and not switching presets and using MIDI routing to do sound switching. eg: in Omnisphere and Kontakt (not sure with Keyscape) you can load different instruments on different MIDI channels and then switching your MIDI Channels to switch sounds. This will be instant and completely seamless.
Make sense? Let me know if you need anything clarified.
Can you provide a video of this occurring? - I’m a little unfamiliar with Cantabile.
Keyscape isn’t necessarily designed to support this sort of program changing – if what you’re describing matches up with what I’m envisioning, which is VST “snapshots” with different patches saved to them, this may not be something we support.
In any case, I’d appreciate a video showing what you’re describing, as I may have to get the input of our development team on this issue.
Please provide a video and I’ll be glad to look into this further.
I’m going to send him a video of the problem soon. I’ll post it here as well but it seems like the Keyscape plugin might not be ideally suited for this type of live setup. The Keyscape sounds open in Omnisphere 2 which let’s you load multiple sounds at once like the method you suggested @brad. As you said this would be a more stable way of doing things because Omnisphere 2 would load everything at one time and accept different midi channels per sound. But I haven’t upgraded to Omnisphere 2 yet! Grrrr… The money pit…
I love their products so I know I won’t regret buying it. For now my little workaround will get me through some rehearsals and I’m learning lots about cantabile as I work through these little issues.
To anyone who’s experiencing the problem with Keyscape/Omnisphere going silent after song/patch switching, here’s the latest from spectrasonics:
I have forwarded this to our development team to look into. As of now, this issue is on their radar and they are looking into it. In the mean-time, if you have any customers reach out to you regarding this specific issue – please have them contact us directly via email as that will be helpful regarding this case.
