Blue Cat's PatchWork - Virtual Plug-Ins Patch bay - Now with MIDI Routing + AU Hosting

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For the record, I think you have brilliant ideas for plugins but your omission of VST3 sidechains is a serious issue for me. Not everyone shares this opinion of course. But with every new plugin you develop and publish, the time required for this integration to take place increases. I really respect your work and your ideas but I know that I'd just get frustrated; I regularly do with DPM Pro which I've been using for a long time, and it would be so much easier to setup and use with VST3 sidechains.I just want you to know that my decision to pass on this, M7 and other products is mainly based on this. Again, my personal opinion. :shrug:

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whyterabbyt wrote:Question : how does this handle VST/i with multiple inputs/outputs?
I was wondering too and saw this in the User Guide:
Multiple Channels Support
The plug- in supports audio streams in mono, stereo or multichannel (surround) formats (up to 8 channels). If you insert a plug- in that can process less channels, only the first channels will be processed, and others will be forwarded to the next plug- in, until it reaches the output of the PatchWork plug- in.
DarkStar, ... Interesting, if true
Inspired by ...

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Looks interesting :)

Does it host just VSTs? I was wondering if it can also chain AUs on Mac as well? I believe Metaplugin can do this but I've not had the time or opportunity to demo it yet.

This could be great for setting up several alternate mastering chains for ABing and experimenting.

Cheers

Scorb
I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored...

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VSTs only, I believe.
DarkStar, ... Interesting, if true
Inspired by ...

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Glad that the F Manual is finally useful :-)

Multiple I/O VSTs are indeed handled if the plug-in is inserted on a track with multiple channels. Some hosts (Sonar for example) will even let you send side chain signals to the PatchWork plug-in.

On non VST platforms which actually have side chain and/or multiple busses for plug-ins, it is not supported yet.

@Breeze: Thanks for sharing your opinion. I am not sure I fully understand your point though, as this plug-in is just not VST3 yet (but would support VST2 side chain for hosts that implemented it). Also, Blue Cat's DP Meter Pro is a metering plug-in, so how would it benefit from side chains?

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djscorb wrote:Looks interesting :)
Does it host just VSTs? I was wondering if it can also chain AUs on Mac as well? I believe Metaplugin can do this but I've not had the time or opportunity to demo it yet.
As DarkStar (who seems to be reading manuals :-)) mentioned, It's currently just VSTs.
This could be great for setting up several alternate mastering chains for ABing and experimenting.
Indeed :-). And you can also reuse your chains in multiple projects, even if using different DAWs.

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djscorb wrote: I believe Metaplugin can do this but I've not had the time or opportunity to demo it yet.
In Metaplugin you have to access every pluginfile manually on disk - hacker level almost.

No scanning that we are used to in hosts, and just select.

So no Waves plugins with WavesShell thingy(possibly with the tool that make them separate pluginfiles.).

As I understand it Patchwork does not have these limitations.

Even though that no VST3 support is a downer. Waves does not recommend blending of VST2 and VST3 versions of their plugins in the same project. So if having a host that support VST3 today - Patchwork falls short.

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Blue Cat Audio wrote:@Breeze: Thanks for sharing your opinion. I am not sure I fully understand your point though, as this plug-in is just not VST3 yet (but would support VST2 side chain for hosts that implemented it). Also, Blue Cat's DP Meter Pro is a metering plug-in, so how would it benefit from side chains?
DPM is much more than a metering plugin to me! It's a way to automate the control of tracks from a source track (positive/inverse gain, Peak and/or RMS, offset, etc...) and translating audio tracks to automation that can be used for other tracks and effect parameter automation. In this capacity, using VST3 sidechains in Cubase/Nuendo would allow for a faster and more reliable interconnection of source and destination, and potentially an alternate way of controlling gain than MIDI or automation. In the case of M7 and PatchWork, apart from the sidechain issue, VST3 multi-channel plugins capable of just expanding to multiple channels as required simply isn't supported.

Whenever signal from one track has to be sent to another for gain control or multi-channel operation from the same processing device is required, VST3 is just painless to use within Cubase/Nuendo. However it's been made clear many times on these forums that there are many other hosts that don't need this functionality to perform the same function. I did make it clear that it was my personal opinion... ;)

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@Breeze: yes the DPMP plug-in is indeed much more than just a meter. If I understand well you would be interested in generating the envelopes directly on the destination track, right?

Anyway, I definitely understand the interest of VST3 support (both as a plug-in and host). It's just a matter of priorities: resources are limited!

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Blue Cat Audio wrote:...resources are limited!
This, I totally understand. ;)

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Can I chain plugins installed on my other computers like with Vienna Pro?
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You can load plug-ins on the same machine only. There is no network support.

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I tried Patchbay in Cubase 7. The effects plugin works, but crashed Cubase 7. And the instrument plugin didn't output any sound. The meters in Patchbay were lighting up, but no sound.

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Cubase indeed seems to have problems with the Synth version. When reloading a project with the synth on a track, you actually have the explanation (which is not displayed when you just insert the plug-in...):

Image

We' ll check what we can do to help Cubase handle this properly. You can use the non-synth version instead, which Cubase seems to have no problem to configure properly.

Which plug-in were you hosting when you got the crash BTW? Some plug-ins/hosts combination may indeed not work properly, unfortunately.

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Oke, I understand. Soundtoys Filterfreak 1 and AbsynthFX loaded in Patchwork resulted in a crash.

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