Nope. Recorded this way lots of times.

In Kristal, go to channel 1, enable it to record in stereo, go to your soundcard mixer, enable recording from the soundcard's master stereo bus. Go back to Kristal, go to the mixer, pop CTAF's Multifxvst into a VST slot on channel one. Pop a VSTi into Multifxvst. Play the VSTi, look for signal on Channel 1's little recording monitor meter. If you see signal when you play, go to the transport and hit record.

If you didn't see signal, fix your input settings as I described. After recording, playback your work. The only thing is you can't record a discrete VSTi track this way while playback runs on the other channels. It will either be a overdub mix of the prior tracks plus your new VSTi track, or you'll have to track the VSTi first before recording other tracks OR mute the other tracks while you record the VSTi (pretty easy, really). Though bother you can't moniter and record VSTi simultaneously. I sometimes do the overdub mix method to get to hear the other tracks while playing.

And it's free.

I've just uploaded a very limited first sneak preview version (does that sound defensive? ).

Download http://www.hermannseib.com/programs/vsthost133alpha.zip and http://www.hermannseib.com/programs/Legree.zip

This is a very early beta (or more, alpha) release. The VSTHost contained herein can be called with a new command line parameter: /slave. In this mode, it waits for a connection from a Master program that controls every aspect of its operation.

Legree is the first part of the "VSTHost Slavery Suite" (forgive my bad humor ) and contains 2 PlugIns:

Legree.dll is a VST Effect that can be used to control a VSTHost slave, whereas LegreeI.dll is a VSTi that does the same.

Ouverture

To use the stuff, simply put the two PlugIns in your VstPlugins directory, and the VSTHost beta into the directory where you installed VSTHost to. Then, simply create a link to VSTHost on the desktop (or in the start menu, or in the directory, or wherever it pleases you) and append the /slave parameter to the invocation line in the link.

The next time you start up the Kristal Audio Engine, it should detect Legree.dll and LegreeI.dll. During the detection, each of them displays a little dialog that essentially says "For now, simply press Cancel". Do that. This leads to the inclusion of Legree in the engine's list of effects.

OK, all set up... let's go:

First Set
Allegro ma non troppo

If you haven't already, start Kristal. Put Legree into an effect slot. The little dialog will appear again - but this time, don't ignore it. Legree wants to tell you that he is waiting for his slave, so we'll give him one!

Fire up the prepared VSTHost in slave mode. This, too, will flash a little dialog that it's waiting for his master. Since both programs communicate through shared memory, they'll be nearly instantly aware of the fact that both are loaded. Legree will then initiate operation of the slaved VSTHost and, after that's fully loaded and operational, will close the dialog and continue.

From then on, you'll have VSTHost running under Kristal's control. You can load as many VSTi's and effects in VSTHost as you like (and your computer permits, hee hee).

MIDI isn't yet fully implemented in the slave mode of VSTHost. While MIDI transmitted from the master is flawlessly processed in the slaved VSTHost (tried with a Master VSTHost and with Tracktion using the LegreeI VSTi), this doesn't help in Kristal, which doesn't have MIDI. Since VSTHost in Slave mode doesn't allow adding any external MIDI devices yet, you're restricted to the keyboard bar (or whatever simulated keyboard your loaded VSTis provide). This, of course, is not really usable except for a little technology evaluation.


That's it... since the thing is not nearly finished yet, there's no 2nd set or anything else to it.

Try it, have fun... and if something doesn't work, tell me!

ouah!!!
I will try it
I'm a music teacher and krystal and vsthost are perfect for the students ( and very important they're both free)

thanks a lot!!

Uploaded a new version - this one can use external MIDI devices, too, and cures quite some bugs. Same files to download.

Will it have some audio editing capabilities someday (cut, boost, fade in fade out, etc ...) ?

Uploaded a new version of VSTHost / Legree. This one looks quite good already - you can define the # of input / output channels now (although it's not yet saved between invocations). Same files to download. Still missing is the sending back of MIDI events from the Slave to the Master - while the slaved VSTHost sends them, Legree ignores them.

Note: for the moment, both VSTHost and Legree/LegreeI have to be downloaded together, since the shared memory layout has changed. These are still experimental releases, I don't care about inter-version problems at the moment... it's still some way to go.
Last edited by arakula on Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:29 pm; edited 2 times in total

VSTHost? I don't think so.

I was thinking about Kristal itself. Sorry.

Okay... VSTHost V1.33 and Legree V1.00 are officially available now. Both can be found at http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm now, including some documentation.

The beta version has been removed from the server.

Have fun!

I'm unclear of the purpose of this - it would be nice to be able to record VSTi output direct into Kristal and Audition, but in Kristal although the "Slavery" suite produces audio in the Kristal mixer, it doesn't appear in the recorded track. Should it? Am I missing something here? (Quite likely....). Any hints & tips for achieving this beyond what's in the pdf (which I have read several times, honest).

Wow, didnt think this post would turn into anything. Nice work arakula, that vsthost slave thing works fine except I cant use my controller in slave mode.

I use an acoustic correction system ARC and like to pass the windows audio through VSThost and the ARC plugin, back to Windows.
Is this possible with "VSTHost" ??

What exactly do you mean by "from Windows" and "to Windows"?

the windows Sound.
But it's all done now. I found out that WINAMP supports VST now and I already included my ARC Plugin so I can listen to music in a corrected setup