... and it deserved it. Like many other people I love that host / VSTi.

Me, too!

Go Chainer!!!

Jim

Chainer is one of the single best plug-ins (or standalones) available. I use it constantly, every day. Nice to see it get some recognition...

Agreed,

I haven't reviewed it yet, but chainer finds extensive use in my setup as well.

My favorite

Layer 1, Synth1, pusling bassline or arpeggiated bass
Layer2, z3ta+ motion pad
layer3, ohmboyz or mobilohm

end result - aural heaven.

prog

Chainer? Hmmm.... I think I missed something. You try to stay on top of things but eventually the flood of VSTi's and hosts washes over you and something slips by.

Robert

Chainer is wonderfull, I do wish the vst/vsti version had the same features
as the standalone (sf2 export)

Bring on 1.4

AndreasEhrhardt wrote:

... and it deserved it. Like many other people I love that host / VSTi.

Hey Progfusion, that's a cool idea, listing your fave Chainer setup. Right now, my favorite is:

1. Tassman with a "plucked string" kinda patch
2. Infinity "Guitar" (tuned down a fifth from Tassman)
3. Nigel Guitar processor

Result: Shred!

Or:

1. Albino (with a cool looped envelope)
2. Virsyn Tera (spectrum oscillator stuff)
3. TC Spark FX synth
4. Pultec EQ plug from UAD-1
5. TC or Waves Reverb (via ffx4)

Result: Bass that can peel paint from the walls, or lush pads thick enough to swim in....

One I've been using a lot recently...
Layer1-CronoX with a Schrader module patch with a fairly long release time.
Room 844 reverb
Layer 2-Fat Machine in legato mode
mda auto-panner
Nice quasi-harmonic wash underneath with a panning solo synth!Life doesn't get much cooler
ew

SF2 export?

Hmm, will have to check it out. I didn't really see the point just glancing at a description, but maybe it's like TiVo that way... people who don't have one and use it fully just don't get what's so great about it.

TIVOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok.. i gotta go try this chainer now

Question on Chainer... From what I've read and researched... You can take this app and put multiple vst's or fx in it???

Can someone tell me in simple terms what this does? I'm not at home to play around with this, so I could use a description! lol

thanks alot

I think, i already said one or maybe two (in no case more often than three) times , how much I appreciate this sound-workbench...

And reading all this posts a lttle idea flushes in my oppressed brain :

Why not sharing banks and presets for chainer

(of course under the stringend condition of only using vst/vsti's available for anybody)

...Or even making a competition

(First price : a second chainer )

OK-Chainer can function as a VST host,a VSTi or a VST effect. It's a 10x10 matrix-each column of 10 is a different layer. You can import external audio;you can route any layer to any other layer,and you can load an instance of Chainer into itself.You can record your doodlings as a .wav file,or you can export multisamples in either .wav or SF2 format.You can have it receive on up to 16 MIDI channels(by nesting instances of Chainer).In short,it'll do anything a normal VST host will do EXCEPT record MIDI and do multitracking of audio.
ew

That brings up an interesting thought - supposing someone wrote a couple of plugins to do that - record midi and multitrack audio - you'd have a complete studio just about.

Wow! Thanks ew! that's sounds killer! I'm definately gonna have to check it out later tonight when I get home!!!

I'm drooling now. I want to skip out the rest of the workday and go home and try this If nothing else, the SF2 export sounds like an incredible tool.

Layer ungodly numbers of synths to make a pad from hell, and don't worry about CPU load.

Take a monophonic synth and make it polyphonic (so long as you're willing to give up live knob tweaking).

For that matter, go ahead and use that ridiculous monophonic 19-oscillator SynthEdit monster you built while drunk.

And (cough) bypass certain types of demo restrictions. Obviously you'd want to be very careful with legal issues and just plain being a lousy pirate on that one though. Yarr!

foosnark wrote:

(so long as you're willing to give up live knob tweaking).

...which you can take , on the other hand, with another *nice* feature of chainer, to new, fully-controllable heights by record and replay every knob-movement as midi-CC's in your host...

[[[ Yessssss, *diabolic laughter* I willllll everybody make buyinnnnng chainnnnnnnnerrrrrrrrrr, yesssssssss ]]]

Has anyone tryed chainer using FruityLoops VSTi?

I love chainer concept, but have yet to be able to make a single noise with it...

Any step-by-step tips?

I just tried it. And it works great!

Steps:
o start Chainer standalone
o in the first slot, right-click and select Load
o navigate to my Image Line folder and select Fruity Loops VSTi
(Note: I used Load instead of Instrument because I don't have the Fruity VSTi in my Chainer VST folder list at the moment).
o open the Fruity UI in Chainer
o pop in some beats and click on Fruity's Play button
Voila -- Fruity sounds!

Is this what you have in mind?

Jim

Well, I'm playing with the demo, and I'm of two minds here.

My sound card has no ASIO drivers, so I get no audio output when I run Chainer standalone.

When I run it as a plugin in FruityLoops, it uses more CPU than individual instruments alone -- I tested this by running two Vivaldi MX's with complex patches at high quality, using a FruityLoops layer vs. in Chainer. Maybe that also has to do with the ASIO thing, I dunno.

If I ever run FruityLoops and Chainer standalone together at the same time, 90% of the SF2s written by Chainer will crash FruityLoops. Even if I don't, some SF2s written by Chainer will crash FruityLoops anyway. I can't find any particular pattern of settings to avoid to prevent it.

If I had a better soundcard -- though I have no other reason to get one at the moment as I use only VSTi instruments -- or if I bought the full version of Chainer so I could save patches in Fruity while listening to them and load them in standalone to render to SF2 -- maybe it wouldn't be so awkward.

But as it stands right now, if you ask me if I'd rather spend my $60 on Chainer or on PlastiCZ, or on Impulse + daAlfa2K... it's not going to be Chainer.

Ya had me all excited about it too :/

Why would you not need a better soundcard if you are using VSTi's. YOu absolutely need a good soundcard to use VSTi's properly. As for CPU usage, it is surprising. I was just doing the following (my new CPU now allows me to do this):

Slot 1 - Pentagon I (sawtooth strings pad)
Slot 2 - Mobilohm (pulsed phaser sound)
Slot 3 - Crystal, (any bassy pulsed synced patch)
Slot 4 - Ohmboyz (3/4 beat delay)


Whoopeee!!!!!

By the way, this was on the demo version. I had been waiting for my new machine to get the full version.

prog

PS. I could be wrong but you can get ASIO drivers with the demo version of cubase

Hmm... well, I get different results trying an mda ePiano with PalancarWare Empire, with and without Chainer:

With everything loaded but not playing, and smart disable turned on, my CPU use bounces between 15-22%.

With ePiano playing into FX2 where Empire sits, it's about 30-42 with spikes up to 68%.

With Chainer instead, an ePiano and an Empire in it, it's more like 16-22% with spikes up to 35%.

Adding Claw, Plucked String, and Multiplex (in mono mode) to the mess, without Chainer: 46-69% with spikes off the charts (crackling and readings over 100%).

With Chainer: 30-46% with spikes up to 70%.

So clearly it's good for something even in my setup... just not a cure-all.

This bears more thinking about...

Oh, and on the soundcard issue... not to get too off-topic, but I am doing no live performance or recording, or using any synth or DSP resources on the soundcard itself.

Latency isn't the best, but that doesn't bug me for what I'm doing. Sound quality for monitoring purposes is really the main issue, and that's as good as I need -- better headphones and good monitors and a non-crappy acoustic environment would help far more.

And the important thing is it's not Creative Labs Driver Hell

Chainer has changed my life. I have a scoring program that's my main workhorse, and it can play soundfonts through the Soundblaster I'm not using anymore or its own digital instruments. I can import soundfonts, but they explode the file sizes monstrously and there's no way to preview anything before you go through all this rigamarole--only to decide that particular soundfont won't work. Some of the digital instruments sound wonderful--I have yet to find a better cello anywhere--but for the most part I wanted to be able to use VSTis and I had no way of doing that from within the program.

Enter Chainer and SoFo's Virtual Midi Router. Midi out my scoring program to VMR and plug it into Chainer. Now I can not only get my instrument lines recorded from my scoring program without having to go through the midi export/import/fix/tweak/pull-hair-out number, I can hear the effects of any work I do in my scoring program directly, in real time, as I'm working. And trying different instruments via Chainer is a piece of cake!

Now, if Chainer will just come up with a way to record out separate channels to separate files so I don't have to go through all this muting in my scoring program (which does not have solo buttons!) or bypassing in Chainer, I will just be in heaven. I may never have to fire up a sequencer again, except to mix/effects-process dry mono waves.

Diane

It makes toast as well

Must remember to add that to my review

Got my chainer license, so been busy saving settings. Here is something I tried last night.


Channel 1: (assign CC to channel 1 level)
CheezeMachine
Frohmage
Synth1 pulsing arp- assign CC to Synth1 level
Ohmboyz


Channel2: (assign CC to channel2 level)
Pentagon 1. Classic analog pad
MobilOhm
daOrgan
Rubytube



Play with levels, mix in and out. Oh boy, this is good.


I am now starting cubase with just Sonic Synth and Chainer. Cool stuff.

progfusion74 wrote:

Play with levels, mix in and out. Oh boy, this is good.

Yeah,and wait until you get Sessions into the mix when it comes out!Reaktor and Chainer rock!
ew