: I have many instances (x24) of the same plugin (eventide E channel), running at the same time in a a way to control & mix a 24 channels audio session + virtuals instruments.
These 24 plugins runs all the same bank (.fxb file). For me, if I save the bank with a new program change added, the 24 instances should be able to read this bank (maybe after a reload of C3), but it seems that I have to reload it manually for each channel each time I add a program, if I want it to be available in the menu…
Yeah this is pretty much the nature of most VSTs - they each store their configuration information in the host and generally don’t share that data across instances. Some plugins do have their own global patch management systems, but not typically.
Depending on exactly what you’re trying to do, the easiest way to get something similar in Cantabile would be to put the plugin in a linked rack and then make 24 copies of the rack each with a different file name and then load those racks into a song. When you make a change, you’ll need to close the song, re-copy the files and then re-open the song.
A similar approach to the above would be to use symbolic links to create the copies of the racks - that way you just need to close and open the song file again. See here for more about symlinks.
This has come up a few times now and I’m still thinking about ways to improve this but it’s not trivial problem. eg: if you make changes in two different instances of the plugin, which edit wins? Cantabile can’t merge the changes since the persisted format for most plugins is completely opaque to the host.
Could use that too…
What about ability to link plugin instance to particular fxb file such as anytime fxb is changed, each plugin linked to that file would reload the presets immediately? And when the plugin is loaded (e.g. with song load) it would import and apply linked fxb.
(The link would have to be stored in rack/song).
That’s an interesting idea, but misses all the other configuration information in the rack which is also valuable in this scenario I think.
The other idea I has was for Cantabile to recognize Windows shortcuts. So in Windows Explorer you create file short cuts to the rack you want multiple instances of. Then if you insert the short cut as a linked rack Cantabile would actually read the linked to file and then never save that rack - ie: all edits would need to be done in the original rack.
This way each rack instance is identified by a unique filename, but each refer to the same file content.
Still thinking about the best way to do this and still gauging demand for it.
Hi Brad,
rack file shortcuts are one level higher than fxb. I tend to have all the instances in single rack (which together with inner routing makes rack to behave as “sort-of” multitimbral plugin) and I use fxb files to share presets. All I’d need is what Cantabile already offers (import bank and reload current preset) but I have to do it manually anytime I change teh fxb. I find fxb files to be good also for backup.
But if you decide to implement preset(state) sharing on rack level, I can use that too.
Hi.
I’ve been testing Cantabile for some days now, and the ability to have a shared cantabile bank for all plugin instances is perhaps the feature I miss the most. I see the challenges with merging and overwriting changes in the different plugin instances, but I’m sure we should be able to figure out a workable scheme. As long as several plugins don’t edit the same program number in the CantabileFxb I imagine merging the changes into a common used bank-file should not be a problem. And I suppose a lot of the difficult scenarios, like two instances currently using the same program, can be solved by force reloading the data in all plugins using the bank.
