(Solution) Revamp top level plugins to rack

1

I have a setup which has predominantly developed at the top level of Cantabile’s hierarchy.
I’d like to move all that stuff into a rack along with the states.
States can be duplicated and linked clones made - but how can I move all the top level states into a rack, where they still function as required?

TIA

2

Hi Adrian,

The issues you will likely run into by doing this are :

  • first you have to migrate the plugin(s) at song level to the rack level. If your presets are saved as plugin preset snapshots the snapshots will copy over to the rack with the plugin.
  • next it depends on whether you used environment ports and they are enabled for use in racks
  • if you want the rack to be modular you would want to have the input ports of the rack set to rack in: and rack out: for the output ports. This applies to both audio and MIDI ports.
  • the bindings will need to be checked in case they have any broken routing conflicts. Usually a binding that affects a plugin at the same level can need attention.
  • once the first state was working you would have to rebuild the states in the rack to match your song level states for preset changes etc …

There is no import function for song states to rack states that I know of. But if I am mistaken I would love to know of a way to do it.

Dave

2 Likes
3

Copy and pasting all input ports, plugins and bindings does retain connections and binding interactions as far as I can see. [EDIT] Bindings do break. CB seems to be OK but routings not happening.
So…
Is it possible to attain a ‘export song as rack’ function?

It’s the container I’d like to redefine.
@brad ?

4

The problem here is that states are very closely tied to all the objects in a song or rack - it’s not something you can really copy/paste on it’s own.

No, but songs and racks are essentially the same thing - you should be able to rename a song file from .cantabileSong to .cantabileRack and then load it as a rack.

The only catch is linked racks can’t link to other linked racks. Just make sure the song file doesn’t have any linked racks before renaming and loading it.

At least this used to work. I haven’t tried it in a while though - let me know how it goes.

1 Like
5

Great hack!
That works beautifully.
Any embedded rack status needs tweaking otherwise import from the file menu fails with some kind of ‘incompatible object’ warning.
Drag and drop does import, even with the incorrect rack status, but you’ll be warned once you try to access that rack.
Only other things to watch out for (thus far) are commands which address at song level; for example, next or previous state. Just tweak those bindings to operate at rack level and it’s all good.
This is a really excellent solution. Over the years, one does acquire random songs with neat little things set up which would be a pain to reproduce in a new song environment- so you might not bother. Thanks for the heads up, @brad !!

6

OK, one little issue which is easily solved if it’s a total hassle to fix, but the dropdown ‘choose route target’ is not showing the direct to Stereo option. If a different output is chosen, say the rack output, there’s no way back from that menu.
Other top level stuff does offer the way back.
It is possible to copy and paste from another route which hits Stereo Out, so it’s no biggy once you know, and if it’s the price of using the ‘rename song to a rack’ trick, I’ll happily live with it.

7

Try turning on Tools → Options → Miscellaneous → Advices → Show Environment Audio and MIDI Ports in Racks:

image
image1649×265 6.3 KB

1 Like