I believe I set out areas of existing Cantabile technology which demonstrate that assertion is not entirely accurate, but only one person is qualified here to know for sure.
Every time someone raises this topic, a kind of panic sets in. I’m not sure that’s necessary.
What is interesting is that, over the years, this request has never fallen flat when some new blood raises it. Invariably, all of us that saw merit in the idea previously chime in.
The only argument in the nay camp, and it’s a totally legitimate one, is that a one man operation only has so much time and energy, so put it where the priority is; Cantabile as the #1 live hosting software. Sure. Who doesn’t get that?
The plus points for a plugin version have been made ad nauseum.
If Brad never hears the enthusiasm for such a development it will be no surprise that it never sees the light of day.
I’m on record saying it would be a huge creative plus in my workflow - because Cantabile is the place that inspires me to play.
Appreciate all the thoughts and conversation. The kind of things I’m trying to do are a mix of looped and live performance…some of this might be familiarity but with all the tools out there I find the way Cantabile works for live performance (especially MIDI control routing with footswitches and expression pedals is great).
It’s surprising with all the amazing technology we have, the limitations that exist. For example, a DAW or plugin host that can’t route different tracks to different channels for quad sound (this is easy to do in Cantabile). I’m big on mixing and matching things to achieve what I want, I can definitely run Cantabile and Reaper or Mixcraft at the same time. Just trying to find ways to better integrate them.
I can’t speak for all DAWs, but what you’re describing with channels is simple in Cubase. Nothing would make me want to run multiple DAWs - it sounds like a nightmare.
ReaRoute or Rewire or other solutions exist. I remember having tried them out and they worked surprisingly well. The solution is out there.
As for modifying the basic purpose of Cantabile, I used to consider this possibility but have come to realize the advantages and disadvantagers of each scenario. I try to keep my Cantabile rig set up for maximum performance even if it’s at the cost of sound quality, but in the studio sound quality is the boss.
If I create a sound that kicks ass in Cantabile and I want to bring it into the studio I take the time to save the presets and import them to the plugins in the studio, but with time and experience I realize that the creative process of trying to reproduce the sound in one to the other always results in a better overall end result since I’m using my ears and imagination and that causes me to come up with new and different sounds, which I’m always happier with in the end.
Now as a bassist I have a completely different tone set-up for live as opposed to the studio. Live I need to fill the room and create impact, whereas in the studio I need to sculpt and dance around the other instruments a lot more carefully to find a delicate balance. This concept will certainly apply for pretty much any other instrument at least to a certain degree, therefore by default the concept of loading a preset that works in both scenarios beit for vocals, synths or whatever simply does not compute. I do the manual work for the sake of the music in context. Knowing this now is what makes me realize that Cantable would actually be almost useless to me as a plugin.
But if you insist, ReaRoute or Voicemmeter or whatever, there are solutions that let two applications on the same computer communicate audio and MID between eachother. It works. Otherwise, recording your performance in Cantabile (which is a performance-oriented tool after all) and importing itno your DAW of choice is always a very good option as well. Solutions are out there that don’t require that Cantabile be a plugin.
Hmm. So is your point that you work harder on perfecting your sound in a ‘studio’ environment? Do you set up all your Cantabile patches in a live rehearsal space? Always in the same room?
Sure. I think there are those of us who have plenty of experience in that arena and find it coming up short, compared to an integrated solution that can take advantage of DAW facilities like ASIO Guard.
“Hmm. So is your point that you work harder on perfecting your sound in a ‘studio’ environment? Do you set up all your Cantabile patches in a live rehearsal space? Always in the same room?”
No. You missed the point. I use a DAW with a recording studio mentality. I use Cantabile with a live production mentality. The requirements for producing a good recording are very different from the requirements for producing a good live performance. The physical environment is irrelevant. It’s a different approach with a different goal, therefore different tools.
“Sure. I think there are those of us who have plenty of experience in that arena and find it coming up short, compared to an intergrated solution that can take advantage of DAW facilities like ASIO Guard.”
ASIO Guard is Cubase-only, isn’t it? Either way, being a Cubase user I have tried turing it on and off and it makes no difference in performance, probably because my studio computer has already been optimised using tools like the “Glitch Free” guide provided by Brad.
OK. I accept that subjective thought. It doesn’t necessarily apply to users who don’t make that distinction.
No, I’m afraid it does make a vast difference, especially on high impact plugins. No amount of optimizing can allow your system to run at low latency while allowing playback of tracks/instruments which are not record/monitor enabled to operate at an internal high buffer, lowering load accordingly. We can discuss this further if you’re interested.
FYI Studio One uses Drop Out Protection. Same Thing. Other DAWs give it different name.
To me, the idea of Cantabile as a plugin would be compelling for the portability of complex chains it would provide, i.e. to avoid having to duplicate them for live and for studio.
That said, several solutions for portability exist. I bought Nembrini’s NEXUS for this and when it came out it was pretty unstable and simply not useable. But I’ve used the most recent version which has been out for months now and it’s working well. No issues doing complex chains and routing inside it and saving the whole mess as a NEXUS preset…and then opening NEXUS in Reaper, Cantabile, whatever and pulling up the preset. Not seeing much at all in terms of performance hits either.
I have just run a simple test. A three plugin chain (PRIMO amp sim, Eventide Quadravox, Flying Autowah) built up in Nexus or in an embedded rack.
No noticeable latency added by Nexus and the Time Load is even sligthly lower (it varies in time but taking a rough average I would say about 25% for Nexus and about 27% for the rack). I have tested it on my laptop which is a Lenovo Thinkpad Gen10 with a 12th Gen Intel(R) Core™ i7-1255U running at 1.70 GHz and 16.0 GB RAM.
OS is windows 11 pro.
Nexus looks fine, and it doesn’t seem so far removed from Metaplugin, which allows all the wiring, automation, plugin format accommodation etc.
It’s great that these tools exist.
As others have mentioned, it’s the beauty of Cantabile architecture, and avoiding the slog of recreating the racks that have been tweaked into shape, often over a period of years, that is the cornerstone of the OP’s post.
I’ve been switching over any Cantabile racks I have created in the past into Unify patches. Unify, besides being an amazing standalone instrument, for me is The VST to Rule All VSTs. I use it for all patches now. It’s standalone, it’s a plug-in, and John’s amazing sound libraries that come with it really add value.
This way when I build and tweak a patch in Unify (which can also contain other Unify “layers” or patches) it’s usable in Cubase, Ableton, standalone, Cantabile, whatever. Then I can build my favorite sound libraries in Unify (i.e., My favorite synths/orchestral/whatever), tag them with whatever system I want, and then it’s WAY easier to find my favorites when building a song.
So for me, I don’t see the value in making Cantabile a plugin at this time. There’s no way I’d invest the immense amount of time necessary to building patches (i.e., Cantabile racks) in Cantabile when the organization of them is nowhere as good as Unify. And it doesn’t really need to be either.