Yep, that’s what I realized…
It may not be worth it. Have to think on it… at least I don’t literally have to route EVERY output in EVERY scene in EVERY song. Just whatever happens to be active and audible at any given time.
Obviously going forward I’m going to create a song template that already has a rack inserted as a master rack, and maybe even a blank dummy rack that can just be there for whatevs, just in case. I really wish C3 could have a dedicated output rack, seems like it would make a lot of sense.
Damn… it was quite early here too when I wrote it…
I think about it again.
Which Audiointerface do you use? Some of them come with loopback ports. Iirc the newest focusrite and rme interfaces do so.
Or how about a physical loopback? Main out into two inputs of your interface? Of course this will have a major drawback as this doubles the latency.
Hi Fred,
This is from left field and is probably as dangerous as it sounds but I have this program called Advanced Find and Replace by Abacre that can go through every file in a folder and replace words, phrases etc inside the files with very advanced conditions (regular expressions). I’ve been using this since the stone age for surgery on all kinds of files.
- Search files with smart queries as with Google or Bing.
- Replace simple or multiline text in multiple files.
- Complete search and replace in Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
- With batch replace operation you can easily replace or update hundreds of different links in several files.
- Preview found text as with Google.
- Possibility to replace in file names: it can be used as full-featured file renamer.
- Possibility to rename or delete folders.
- Use Perl-style regular expressions for replacements of any complexity.
- Saves results in XML and other formats.
- Works with command line parameters.
- Extremely fast, easy to use and excellent documentation is included.
- It is a great time-saver for programmers and Webmasters
@Torsten can probably put the kibosh on this discussion.
2 Likes
Torsten is a master kibosher! 
I just started “reading” .cantabileRack files, they’re as complicated as I imagined.
I will stick to short stories then. After 2 years of programming in Fortran, it took 5 years to uncross my eyes. 
Main problem is they’re written in Australian! 
2 Likes
I’ve come up with a workable solution, which is to say f**k it until the next show setup.
3 Likes
No putting any kiboshes on anything this time - sorry 
Unfortunately, it is as @dave_dore indicated: loopback ports only exist for INPUT ports. So yes, you could use loopback ports to communicate between songs and the master rack, but you’d have to use the loopback ports in your songs:
- create a new audio input port “MasterRack”, not connected to any physical port
- send the output in your songs to “Loopback - MasterRack”
- then use the “MasterRack” input port in your background rack to process the output from your song (compression, master EQ, limiting) and then send it to the physical outputs in your master rack.
- the advantage of this: you can use background rack states to switch between different audio configurations (mono / stereo, individual outputs vs. summed) and processing settings without having to do anything within your songs.
But as @dave_dore stated, you’d have to edit the routes in all your song files to point to the loopback port instead of the “Main Speakers” output.
On first glance, there should be no need to use complicated regex magic; it should be feasible to simply do a mass replace of “targetPort”: “Main Speakers” to “targetPort”: “Loopback - MasterRack” with a batch text file editor like AFR (mentioned by @dsteinschneider).
After this operation, your songs would then send all audio output to the new loopback port, making it available for your background rack to process and send to the physical output.
I’d definitely recommend backing up all your song files before doing that and testing it first with a few of your songs - not sure if this simple replace operation might not mess up some things outside routes. I’ve checked it in some of my songs, and haven’t found anything surprising, but you never know…
BTW: I’m just working on a simplification of my song files using loopback ports - I’ve moved most of my “Faders” rack connections to my background rack, which removes a lot of the tedious “standard cabling” from my songs. The idea to move the master rack to the background rack is a nice one - I’ll consider this as a next simplification step.
Currently, all my songs have this master rack as their final stage, but it would be a lot cleaner to move it to the background rack. Since all my songs already contain a master rack, making the switch will be pretty easy: create the master rack in the background rack, then change the linked master rack contained in my songs so that it simply forwards the audio streams to the loopback ports. Then I can change the songs one by one and replace the linked master rack with direct routes to the loopback ports.
Cheers,
Torsten
2 Likes
I personally work with a master song rack which then goes into another masterrack in the BG rack. The master song rack allows me to adjust the whole volume of a song while the masterrack adjust all songs at once.
3 Likes
Good idea! Noted for my rework project…
Basically I don’t change the master-rack. But I’ve set up three states in that rack. Each state drops the volume by 10db. Most of the time my output is too hot for the FOH 
My master rack has two inputs and outputs - one for my keys, the other for guitar. Makes it easier for the sound person…
It contains mainly limiters and volume controls that are mapped to sliders/rotaries on my keyboards that give me a range of -6dB…+6dB so I can adjust on-the-fly when the volume of one of my songs is too wimpy or too hot compared to the rest. I usually make notes of such adjustments during rehearsals and then bake them into the songs later…
Also, it contains a separate monitor output path with an additional volume control (mapped to slider/rotary) for my on-stage active monitor, for those club gigs where we all just play from instrument amps or where I just want a keyboard amp on-stage and focus the monitor wedges on vocals. This way, I can adjust my monitor volume to adapt to the on-stage noise level without changing the route to the P.A.
Cheers,
Torsten
2 Likes
I usually make these adjustments with a DI box - most techs are happy to receive DI’d signals and are suspicious of audio interface output… My (passive) DI has a pad switch, so I can lower the level as needed.
Cheers,
Torsten
Never used a DI box in the past 3 years cause of balanced outputs of my audiointerface (first RME, now Focusrite). I don’t have any jack-cables anymore 
There are more reasons to use DIs than just the balanced signal. I wouldn’t like to be without them in a live situation, personally.
yup - ground lift, galvanic isolation and impedance conversion being my top three…
Don’t DI boxes prevent phantom power going into your outputs? Some older boards send all or none.
That’s actually part of the “galvanic isolation” bit… Other DI boxes (active ones) can actually draw the power for their circuitry from phantom feed. But you don’t really use active DI boxes for keyboards - you’d want those for lower level signals - active DI boxes contain a preamp circuit that can boost weak signals. Keyboard signals (and audio interface signals) are strong enough to use passive DI boxes.
Cheers,
Torsten
1 Like