Any really simple plugin chainers?

[Breeze]

There's also Seib's VSTHost.

But honestly, if someone made an up-to-date 32/64-bit carbon-copy clone of Xlutop Chainer that worked with ALL new protocols (ie VST 2.4-3.x), I would pay for it. I haven't found anything as simple and quick to use. It's got a random patch generator, a multi-sample generator, quick plugin instantiation, you can save configurations and since it can also be a plugin itself you can load it into a host and load a saved configuration; you can also load it into itself.

I don't think the author would mind since he's repeatedly said that he has no plans to update it. I resent his decision too but what can you do? He was also a good coder because it's weathered the decade well. I must have posted about this half a dozen times over the last few years...

[V'ger]

Phrazor is good and free.
It's more simple to use as a chainer than it looks.

This seems to work fine and its free, ie a demo that works? Took me a little bit to figure out how to view loaded vsti's gui and computer crashed again before I figured out how to save presets (not plugins fault), I would be happy with it if it didn't have its own preset browser for each vsti and its own mixer for the vsti's, these are all well and good but IMO not really needed cause each synth usually has there own browser and I have Orions mixer that I'm happy with.

In short I wouldn't classify this as being simple though it looks pretty easy to use, to clarify when I say simple I mean a really simple plugin with not any other windows to bother with, ie mixer, browser etc, for the vsti chainer just a simple slot to load vsti's in sequence would suffice, save and load presets, and each vsti' to open its own mixer channel in host daw. If you look at my original post you can see an fx chainer, a vsti similar to this in terms of complexity or options would be ideal IMO.

I think you misunderstand how normal chainers work as they are just normal plugins and don't connect with your DAWs mixer to give you individual outputs for every VST that's loaded in the chainer.

And to load presets in VSTs loaded inside a chainer, you would either do it via the VSTs own system, or if it doesn't have that you would have to do it via the chainer's interface (menu), there's no other way to do it - you can't load presets to a VST inside the chainer via the DAW.

[Touch The Universe]

Most of the plugins I use have there own browser so I could do without it, however having a minimal browser attached would be ideal IMO, not a plug that fills a great portion of my monitor space. As for individual outputs for vsti's loaded, I'm no synth developer so I can't say if it would be easy to program it to function this way, but I would imagine the coding would be simpler than building an entire mixing console inside a plugin,, why not just let the daw handle it.. I've experimented with a lot of chainers and can't recall if the majority of them behave in this way or not.. In any case this goes in line for a really simple chainer without any of the bells and whistles, if I ever go for creating a chainer I personally would shoot for something like the aforementioned, hopefully making it easier to build too without the mixer, browser and etc of windows, cause I never made a plug before and haven't a clue the more humbler in functions the more realistic my chance in making it

[V'ger]

Just out of curiosity, how will you use the chainer in your setup? Why can't Orion (if that's what you are using) do what you need to do?

[Touch The Universe]

For template of sounds spreading across the frequency spectrum so to speak covering 2-4 octaves? with a single 'preset" file opposed to opening 3-5 synths, finding the preset (tweaking or creating) each one to mesh well each time. Same reason I suppose Hypersonic, Purity, Omnisphere, Stylus RMX are really popular or at the least why I like them so much. Only problem coming to mind, if I was to build from scratch how would I save the DAW's mixing channels seetings and vst's along with the preset file?? Sounds a bit impossible to me, but all is good as long as proper sounds are chosen eq wise at least and lots of synths these days are having very good effects....

[Touch The Universe]

I'm messing around with blue cats chainer again and I noticed that when you add another synth in the chain it lowers the volume of the first synth quite a lot. Mute the 2nd synth from its gui so you only hear the first then deactivate the second synth from the chainer and hopefully youll hear what I mean. But its fairly obvious enough activating the synths on and off from the chainer.. The volume will increase on the 1st synth once the 2nd muted synth is deactivated or vice versa. Why is it doing that, something to do with how its routed? I have a parametric equalizer on the post channel insert as well cancelling the low freqs up to 200hz in case that for some reason could mess of the routing??

Other than that I'm starting to like it, hopefully I can sort these issues with it out and maybe Ill dig more into its structuring to see if I can make it only stack the sounds the same as if they were open in the daw.

[winds350]

RE: Blue Cat, is this what you are hearing?

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2&t=396348

[Touch The Universe]

Thats exactly it, thanks so much for routing me to that thread, unfortunately it seems there isn't an option to turn off the volume compensation being routed between the inserts at present, which is surprising because the developer said no one suggested it in beta while I thought it apparent enough at first to cause me to dismiss using it further off hand for a few weeks not knowing why the same synths stacked sounded different routed into the chainer??

I voted for the turn off option in the thread so maybe soon, but for now Ill see if I can work around it if its merely a volume issue and hopefully thats all it is, but if they managed to add this function I would be quite happy indeed, speedwise, maybe happy enough to not have to build a chainer myself

[V'ger]

For template of sounds spreading across the frequency spectrum so to speak covering 2-4 octaves? with a single 'preset" file opposed to opening 3-5 synths, finding the preset (tweaking or creating) each one to mesh well each time. Same reason I suppose Hypersonic, Purity, Omnisphere, Stylus RMX are really popular or at the least why I like them so much. Only problem coming to mind, if I was to build from scratch how would I save the DAW's mixing channels seetings and vst's along with the preset file?? Sounds a bit impossible to me, but all is good as long as proper sounds are chosen eq wise at least and lots of synths these days are having very good effects....

Seems like track templates (or what the same is called in Orion) is all you need really. Much better than chainers as you get the VSTs on mixer channels etc even if they are all on one track, and none of the drawbacks of a chainer setup. Plus you eliminate the chainer itself, a possible source of hassle and incompatibility.

I remember a thread (I think here on KVR), someone distraught when realizing all his chainer setups (he was a regular chainer user) stopped working after switching system. I think he switched to 64 bit, but could happen for other reasons too, better to remove this risk in my opinion.

[Touch The Universe]

For template of sounds spreading across the frequency spectrum so to speak covering 2-4 octaves? with a single 'preset" file opposed to opening 3-5 synths, finding the preset (tweaking or creating) each one to mesh well each time. Same reason I suppose Hypersonic, Purity, Omnisphere, Stylus RMX are really popular or at the least why I like them so much. Only problem coming to mind, if I was to build from scratch how would I save the DAW's mixing channels seetings and vst's along with the preset file?? Sounds a bit impossible to me, but all is good as long as proper sounds are chosen eq wise at least and lots of synths these days are having very good effects....

Seems like track templates (or what the same is called in Orion) is all you need really. Much better than chainers as you get the VSTs on mixer channels etc even if they are all on one track, and none of the drawbacks of a chainer setup. Plus you eliminate the chainer itself, a possible source of hassle and incompatibility.

I remember a thread (I think here on KVR), someone distraught when realizing all his chainer setups (he was a regular chainer user) stopped working after switching system. I think he switched to 64 bit, but could happen for other reasons too, better to remove this risk in my opinion.

You certainly bring up a valid point here and I began thinking about it after Kriminal first mentioned the track templates. It's a solid option and perhaps a bit more stable as a daw than a plugin would be in the long run, just to clarify "template" is simply the Orion's normal song file saved ideally in a separate folder, ie 'template', with the express purpose of being well a template to launch into other tracks or expand further into a song. Both systems have advantages and drawbacks and no system is perfect.

Chainers are convenient for loading many complex synth combinations into a single preset which can save time especially if you find yourself combining similar sounds often. Otherwise you'd have to loud the same sounds individually over and over. Drawbacks being like you said incompatibility issues, using route chains inefficiently seeming that most are modular and can have various route paths as well as the obvious only one sequencer for all the synths, but this can be a good thing too.

A track template however can suffer some of the same 'incompatibility' issues, I have lots of old Orion sfs files that can't load correctly after switching systems, upgrading etc, so this while still more stable, isn't impervious to error, maybe a song template file becomes corrupt while a preset file would open crossing systems or during a crash, where the preset is already save while the song file may become damaged while still "open" to write on disk.

In any case a chainer gives you more options to explore, different methods of creating and focusing workflow into one area, ie pads, leads, basses etc to be recalled in simple patch, I really like spending time layering and sculpting synth sounds so they compliment each other well, and again conveniently saving them to preset in a dedicated chainer. I'll probably settle on a mix between the two.

[V'ger]

No track template isn't a normal project file, it's just a track (or several) already loaded with all your goodies how you like them, and which you can insert into any project you're working on.

There are also FX chains (this is all Reaper speak, you have to guess the equivalent in Orion), where FX are any type of plugins (ordered in a chain obviously). This you can load onto any existing track and after or before your current plugins.

[Touch The Universe]

In orion the normal song is saved to 'sfs' and the track templates are also 'sfs' just saved to default in another folder labeled 'template' in orion, unless I'm missing something, then you have the option to load this 'sfs' song file/template into another track. For the fx insert , you can certainly load any vst into them but you cannot save and recall that chain instance if you are using anything other than the daws internal effects, major drawback, but for this I will try using acon digital multi fx instead..

[Shabdahbriah]

Doing a search for plugin chainer's here at Kvr and haven't find anything as to what I'm looking for, they are either all for mac, discontinued or using a modular approach. I'm looking for a really simple plugin chainer for both effects and instruments that can save and load presets.

Cantabile

[crimsonwarlock]

For the fx insert , you can certainly load any vst into them but you cannot save and recall that chain instance if you are using anything other than the daws internal effects, major drawback, but for this I will try using acon digital multi fx instead..

I'm not completely sure as I've not used Orion for quite some time, but I seem to recall you can now import projects (or project templates) into another project. If so, just setup a project with one track, holding your complete setup for that track. Importing such a project would be equivalent to importing a track-template.

[Touch The Universe]

For the fx insert , you can certainly load any vst into them but you cannot save and recall that chain instance if you are using anything other than the daws internal effects, major drawback, but for this I will try using acon digital multi fx instead..

I'm not completely sure as I've not used Orion for quite some time, but I seem to recall you can now import projects (or project templates) into another project. If so, just setup a project with one track, holding your complete setup for that track. Importing such a project would be equivalent to importing a track-template.

Are you talking about saving an 'effect' template or a 'synth' template? Importing projects into another project Orion calls 'merging' since 8.5 release like almost 3 years ago. The above post I was refering to to the multi-fx chainer, you can see a pic of what I mean in the first post, again with Orions multifx chainer you can't save any preset with 3rd party effects.. right now I'm using acon digital multifx instead