I have just invested in cherry Audio’s GX80 which is derived from Yamaha’s CS80 and their GX1, and it has some absolutely ooooj sounds on it.
I actually am not one for following the current trend for all things analogue, but do go for analogue lead lines and bass lines in particular. I have been using CA’S Quadra which has done ok, although its strings and polysyinth sounds don’t impress. The only downside is that some of the sounds can be very processor hungry, and in Cantabile those sounds can run the “Time Load” figure into the hundreds!
You might remember me having problems with certain vsts causing crackling sounds, largely solved by switching any unused vsts off until they are needed. In particular Korg’s brilliant Wavestate Native is the biggest culprit, with not only crackling, but also hanging notes as well. I am still talking with Korg about this, but to no avail so far. So now I am replacing it whenever I have it loaded with its Performance Strings performance, and the crackling is now being held at bay. So bye by crackling!
I also had trouble with NI’s Session Bassist “Icon Bass”, which is brilliant, but crackles, because Kontakt Player has a habit of grabbing RAM and then not letting it go! I am now in the process of running Icon Bass in a separate instance of Kontakt Player 8, which seems to be working. But again, the bass sounds form the GX80 are ground shaking, so maybe Icon may be being replaced by analogue. Go Me!!!
Cherry Audio are doing some really interesting things, and the GX80 does sound huge, and a darn sight cheaper than a CS80 or GX-1!
I too have some problems with Korg VSTs particular VSTs, particularly where I have more than one in a song, which is a shame as their recent VSts like Wavestate sound awesome and really suited to what I am doing. How did you start engaging with them?
If you want another great sounding VST that is lightweight, have you ever checked out U-HE Hive?
Modwave Native is one of my fav digital synths, even though it’s very cpu hog, like the Wavestate is.
I’m going to buy the hardware desktop version, not a brilliant “workaround”, but that is.
I will have to have a look at Hive. Thanks for the tip! And although I said that some of the GX80 sounds can be a bit hungry, it is because i didn’t understand what I had just bought. I just went with what I saw, which is effectively two complete synth modules, then some common controls. In actual fact there are actually two layers, which means FOUR layers for each sound, with all the effects processing on top. And I am not limited to just one waveform per oscillator either. It might take some time, but i am looking forwards to crating some noises!
And yes, the Wavestate Native is problematic. It is a fantastic beast, with an amazing spread of sounds, but does rather mess with Cantabile performances. I have already thought of buying a hardware one, but can’t justify the £400 or so it would take (despite spending more than that on my annual vst haul, although that is “little by little”!)
So one day, when I grow up, I might end up with a real Wavestate, and take its processor demands outside of Cantabile. Here’s hoping!
A while back (several years ago now) I invested in Vienna Ensemble Pro. I have discovered that using it even on the same computer divides the CPU load amazingly well, driven from Cantabile sending the MIDI and receiving the audio from the VEP instance. It completely removed the problems of certain patches or synths overloading in Cantabile. Might be worth a look.
Hi Terry,
Can you elaborate a bit more how this works? If I understand well VEP runs outside of Cantabile an your vst’d run in VEP instead of Cantabile? How do you organize with song, states and setlists? Or do I understand completely wrong how this is set-up?
Joop
VEP is a standalone program that hosts your VST’s in a separate process space of its own. You hook Cantabile into it via its own plugins - one that sends the MIDI to the VEP MIDI channel where the plugin is accessible, and one that returns the audio from that plugin’s assigned audio channel. There is also a third plugin you can use to send audio to VEP to have VEP host things like delays and reverbs. There is virtually zero latency because it communicates via network protocols. One can run VEP on the same computer or on a separate computer that acts like several hardware synths accessible via your home private network. I also run several instances of Unify in the VEP host, and where even one heavy VST in Unify can overload when run by itself in Cantabile, I can run three or more Unify instances in VEP and things stay under control, all the while controllable from Cantabile. It is quite impressive! I make use of my older quad-core machines to run some CPU-hog synths on those rather than on the main Cantabile machine. Naturally, you can save server setups in VEP for quick startup when turning all your equipment on.
Terry
Hi Terry,
Thanks for the explanation, sounds really interesting! With every plugin a channel means you can run 16 vst’s form VEP? Probably it would make sense to use the Vienna Orchestra in case moving to VEP, which should be quite good and may fit well with my Vienna Imperial Grand. Typically I have some 40+ VST’s in a set list, from which I could move 16 to VEP, is that correct?
Joop
From what I can glean from the comments I will be able to host the “problematic” vsts in VEP alongside Cantabile so that I still have full control of Set Lists, Songs and States within Cantabile? And how much, if any, extra processing power or RAM will this require? I currently have an i7 2.8GHz laptop with 16Gb of RAM.