Which Cantabile version for a guitar player?

Cantabile
#1

Im using for several moonths Cantabile Lite and studiyng it slowly (its a ver complex soft) to determine which version I would need in order to play guitar and guitar synth wiht it.
One thing I would need is the ability to load and save racks, because I think it will allow me to have like presets with several plugins combined.

Another thing important to me and not easy to do is the ability to route 6 inputs (exaphonic guitar) to 6 instances of zebrify to make an exaphonic guitar synth and be able to load different presets with a single command and or program change. Can I do it with racks? if I program some racks with 6 instances and I load in a song all my audio and midi inputs will be in place? How I can manage it in a simple form? rack states maybe?

I have not managed to do all this in Lite so I am thinking of upgrading to a higher version.
I have also been waiting for months for a possible sale that, given the difficult times that musicians are going through, I thought it would occur but BF and Christmas have passed and no offer has been announced. I missed it perhaps?
Thanks for your help.

#2

Hi Antonioni

I believe racks and rack states would only be available in Performer version. I have no idea what zebrify does, but if you are going to run 6 instances, I would hope your cpu load can handle it. Rack states are basically used for changes in many different things within a rack, such as you are describing. I am also a guitarist, and if I setup a rack forā€¦lets say Amplitube, in a song, I can use states, or footswitches to change fx pedals, activate fx pedals, change amps, change lyrics, change presets, etc. The possibilities are endless. That is the real beauty of Cantabile. This is just a simple description. There is so much more.

#3

Hi!
Like Corky sais, ā€˜Performerā€™ will do it. I am a guitarist with the GR-55 and the Berhinger 1010 pedal board. Performer will do everything you can possibly imagine! Period!
Yes, use states in racks to change any/everything. If you have the GK3 pickup, you can use the two buttons and knob for controls, as well as pedals on your synth to make changes. I love the (INEXPENSIVE!) FBC1010 (Berhinger) foot board because it has WAY more buttons than even an advanced user like me could ever want or need!
Use racks to establish control parameters, but change them in real time with bindings - (you ā€˜bindā€™ a controller button/pedal/slider to a parameter in a synth, [EG. ā€˜filter resonanceā€™ or ā€˜GuitarPickup-vs.-Synth Balanceā€™].
Study: Racks, Bindings, Filters
(I think you meant 'Hexaphonic??) - and six ā€˜instancesā€™ of the Zebrify synth will not really load the CPU that much at all, (I have five instances of KONTAKT running, (BURNING ) on my i7/7th-gen machine without issue - I also play keyboardsā€¦). You simply configure the MIDI ports to individually address the synth if your pickup driver supports it, although I have to say, that is a very uncommon configurationā€¦ BE CREATIVE! ā€˜Uncommonā€™ is GOOD!!!
And you are exactly correct: SONG states and RACK states coupled with bindings will allow you to expect that when you switch to a song, everything will be in place as you saved it, ready for you to manipulate with controller(s).
Happy New Year!
Happy Playing!
Happy ā€˜Cantabile-ingā€™!!

1 Like
#4

Thanks for your answers both, yes I know Performer has everything, problem is its a bit step at this momment for me.
I was hoping that the SOLO version would allow me to do some of this. I have done a rack with 6 Zebrify instances with all the routing in LITE and it works very well, without excessive cpu consumption, but I cant save the rack or make changes which could be recalled, so I suppose that to control the racks as presets of ā€œeffects packagesā€ I have to upgrade to the higher version. Time to star saving I guess.
Not sure if Kushview Element (a modular plugin host that works as a vst inside Cantabile) could do that, anyone used it?
I also use GR55, its a great ā€œeverything unitā€, also a GP10 and have several guitars with a Gk3, but Im trying to use more advanced synths using a laptop, MG2, etc.
Zebrify is an amazing recent discover, it tracks your guitar input (or other signal) and converts to mono synth high quality sounds. The tracking is very good. So if you use 6 audio signals from the GK3 you can have a full polyphonic guitar synth. Its worth a try, here you have some guitar synth patches shared by the user Pasha 811, they are good: https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=13010.msg218047#msg218047

#5

Two choices IMO. First is Performer and use its built in features for racking. Second is Solo and use a third party solution for racking. Iā€™m a guitar player and use Solo with a third party racking solution. Chief motivation is so I can use the racks in a traditional recording DAW as well as Cantabile for live. JMO, YMMV, yadda, yadda.

#6

Which third party rack are you using?

#7

Iā€™m using the no-longer-developed VSTForx.

Iā€™m demoing this as a possible longer term solution:

#8

Have you tried Patchworks?
https://www.kvraudio.com/product/patchwork-by-blue-cat-audio

#9

I have all the Blue Cat plugs, and that would probably work. But, @antonioni was looking for an inexpensive solution, as he couldnā€™t afford Cantabile Performer. Patchwork is $99.00. He would be better off buying Performer than jumping thru the hoops of a third party plug near the same price.

#10

Yes exactly, Patchwork looks like one of the best and most mature and sophisticate vst hosts, but its pricey and at this money level, Performer would be a better overall solution, although on the other side the vst host capablity is very attractive in order to be able to integrate my ā€œpreset racksā€ with my daw (cubase pro 10) which Performer lacks. Thats why I asked recently about this functionality in Cantabile, although seems unlikely. So the decission is not easy: Solo+Patchwork or Performer.
Anyway I tried the Patchwork demo a long time ago and the routing possibilities werenā€™t very flexible, Iā€™m not sure it would help me to route the 6 tracks of my exaphonic pickup to 6 Zebrify instances (one of my latest projects). Reading another time the manual it seems possible to route individual inputs to individual plugins, the preconfiguration of ā€œrowsā€ and ā€œcolumnsā€ confussed me, in fact I think its confussing that you can route inputs to plugins but the signal flow is closed.
Tried Kushview Element, very similar to Metaplugin, but the audio routing does not seem to allow what I want with Zebrify and are much less capable and no manual to read that I can find.

#11

VSTForx is free and routing works somewhat similar to Cantabileā€™s graphic routing screenā€¦ Itā€™s no longer being developed, but it does support VST3 and comes in VST version and several flavors of VSTi having different numbers of outputs.

I think I mentioned in another thread that Metaplugin has the ability to multiband, if that is of interest to you.

Also if money is a concern, Cantabile offers a ā€œdifferenceā€ upgrade pricing so you can go with Solo and if you want to move up it doesnā€™t cost extra compared to just buying Performer to begin with. If you donā€™t need portable racking Iā€™d say get Performerā€¦ If cost is an issue Iā€™d say Solo and VSTForx. And if that doesnā€™t pan out you havenā€™t lost any $$ when you upgrade to Performer.

#12

Good suggestion, maybe buying Solo as an intermediate step is a good idea.
Speaking of Vstforx, does it have the ability to route multiple audio input channels independently to multiple plugins and save presets?

#13

VSTForx saves presets, and has variants available to output to multi channels, but Iā€™m not sure about multi in beyond stereo.

That said, if it doesnā€™t, there is nothing to keep you from running several instances of it in your Cantabile song and use Cantabile to route the various physical inputs to the various instances of VSTForx. Then just use midi control to mute/unmute the one(s) you want live.

#14

What I am looking for is a vst host that allows to route 6 audio inputs to 6 different instances of a plugin to do an exaphonic processing of the signal and to be able to save presets that contain all the settings of all the plugins, doing it separately would be much more complex and inefficient and in that case it would be preferable to do it with the standard Cantabile tracks, I donā€™t see the benefits of using VSTForx for that.

#15

If that is your requirement, Iā€™d say purchase Performer and be done with it. Apparently most people end up on Performer anyway, so might as well start there. The only thing is you lose the portability of the racks to take to other DAWs. If that is not a requirement, just go with Performer imo.

I just checked the 8 out version of VSTForx and it only supports stereo inā€¦

#16

Thanks for the info.
The portability is a great advantage for me, so I have to think twice.
Meanwhile I will be watching to see if there is any sale or I can find a second hand Patchwork copy at a good price.

#17

I ran across a product named Kushview Element that is sort of a poor manā€™s Cantabile thatā€™s in early development. Interesting thing is it also runs as a plugin. It supposedly can host AU in a VST environment (which is why Iā€™m trying it) and I discovered it can expose all of the ASIO channels your interface provides. Iā€™m using an E-mu 1820m so I can access 32 in and 32 outs. So it might be worth checking out. Itā€™s an open source project based on JUCE and itā€™s just $2 for a one time download of a full installer of the current version. It apparently does all of the rack things youā€™d expect. Iā€™m just now beginning to mess with it but thought Iā€™d give you a heads up since it looks like it might be worthwhile and it exposes all of the I/Oā€¦ Iā€™d not even consider it as a host based on what Iā€™ve seen so far, but as a rack plugin it might be feasible, will post again when I know moreā€¦

#18

So I had a chance to check out Kushview Element and initial impressions are the VST version is fine as a portable rack with the caveat you cannot automate plugin parameters except for plugins that have their own midi learn function (as do most guitar amp sims). It does create the same number of I/Os as supported by your ASIO driver, so if thatā€™s a priority, then maybe worth a look if you need a budget solution. Itā€™s a bit ā€œgreenā€ in that its clearly an early development plugin with a number of quirks. But useable and only $2ā€¦

Metaplugin is actually very similar, though it doesnā€™t contain all of the extraneous ā€œhost modeā€ items and is much more polished, and does allow plugins that donā€™t have native midi learn to be automated. Audio I/O is up to eight channels.

As for me, Iā€™m sticking with VSTForx for now. It only supports stereo in, but can do 8 out if needed. It can also accomplish midi connection to automate plugin parms for ā€œregularā€ plugins that do not have their own midi learn. Itā€™s free and itā€™s been stable for me.

#19

Great info, thank you very much!