I'm trying to use MMorph within Renoise for separate audio samples on an upcoming project (rather than switching to a whole different DAW). Renoise doesn't support VST3, so no true side-chaining.
I thought Patchwork would help with this, but there appears to be some inflexibility in the routing that prevents the use of MMorph correctly.
MMorph is an effect plugin, and requires two separate sets of channels to work: one mono/stereo signal from the regular bus with no side-chain, and one mono/stereo channel going only to the side-chain, with no regular input.
To get two separate audio signals, I tried loading each sample into a separate instance of dspDisco Bliss in the parallel chain within Patchwork, and then having MMorph somewhere after that (logically the post-chain). Renoise provides a way to send midi commands to the Patchwork effect using a VSTFX alias like an instrument.
However, I can find no routing options within Patchwork that allow me to control whether only audio or side-chain output get sent to MMorph. It's all or nothing - setting the outputs to 0 on one Bliss instance also prevents side-chain output. This has the effect of both Bliss instances sending both audio and side-chain audio to MMorph, preventing it's use as an effective A/B morphing modulator.
Have I missed something here? My current project is specifically from next Friday through Sunday (an intense 48-hour project), so if Patchwork doesn't support this, and no fix can be quickly produced, it sounds like Patchwork will not work for me.
On that note, for anyone else reading this post, if you know of a solution that will solve this, I'm all ears. Renoise devs are 100% silent on the several year old topic of true native side-chain support, unfortunately.
Patchwork, MMorph & Renoise
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 29 posts since 18 Mar, 2014
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 29 posts since 18 Mar, 2014
Pah, skip it.
Came across a simpler option in my quest: DDMF Metaplugin. 5 minutes with a demo, their stuff is just flat solid and dead simple to use. Patchwork crashed itself and Renoise dozens of times in the hour I spent trying to find a way to get what I wanted. Zero crashes with trial of DDMF, $49. Yes, it doesn't look as pretty, apparently they are selling the insides of the product, which really works for me.
Thanks anyway.
Came across a simpler option in my quest: DDMF Metaplugin. 5 minutes with a demo, their stuff is just flat solid and dead simple to use. Patchwork crashed itself and Renoise dozens of times in the hour I spent trying to find a way to get what I wanted. Zero crashes with trial of DDMF, $49. Yes, it doesn't look as pretty, apparently they are selling the insides of the product, which really works for me.
Thanks anyway.
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Blue Cat Audio Blue Cat Audio https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=39981 - KVRAF
- 5821 posts since 8 Sep, 2004 from Paris (France)
All right. Just for the record, if I understand well the request, the right way to do the routing is the following (not using parallel chains, since they will not mute unprocessed channels but keep them as is):
[for a stereo instance - channel 1 & 2 are main channels, while channel 3 and 4 are for the side chain]
- set patchwork to use two columns (just get rid of the parallel chains)
- insert the first instance of the plug-in that lets you load samples in the first slot. Using the "Audio I/O" menu item, choose the first two channels to send to the main bus.
- insert the second instance of the plug-in (for side chain) in the second slot. Using the "Audio I/O" menu item, choose channel 3 and 4, to send the audio outputs to the side chain.
- insert the morphing plug-in anywhere after in the chain. If PatchWork does not detect automatically the side chain, click on Audio I/O to manually setup the inputs and output sas follows: choose 4 inputs and two outputs, with channel 1 to 4 for the inputs, and channel 1& 2 for the outputs.
If I remember well, the VST3 Melda Production plug-ins used to have a bug that caused lots of random crashes, so only the latest version of these plug-ins should be stable.
[for a stereo instance - channel 1 & 2 are main channels, while channel 3 and 4 are for the side chain]
- set patchwork to use two columns (just get rid of the parallel chains)
- insert the first instance of the plug-in that lets you load samples in the first slot. Using the "Audio I/O" menu item, choose the first two channels to send to the main bus.
- insert the second instance of the plug-in (for side chain) in the second slot. Using the "Audio I/O" menu item, choose channel 3 and 4, to send the audio outputs to the side chain.
- insert the morphing plug-in anywhere after in the chain. If PatchWork does not detect automatically the side chain, click on Audio I/O to manually setup the inputs and output sas follows: choose 4 inputs and two outputs, with channel 1 to 4 for the inputs, and channel 1& 2 for the outputs.
If I remember well, the VST3 Melda Production plug-ins used to have a bug that caused lots of random crashes, so only the latest version of these plug-ins should be stable.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 29 posts since 18 Mar, 2014
Downloading again, will reinstall and try this again. Before, I was not able to add outputs for any channels beyond 1 & 2 - channels 3 & 4 were never an output option, but I will validate whether that's resolved when using a serial chain instead of parallel.
I haven't seen the VST3 version of MMorph crash inside DDMF Metaplugin yet performing the same operations, but will continue testing. The issue I experienced would primarily happen in Patchwork when unloading a plugin - not just MMorph, but others as well. In either case, while I haven't designed audio plugins specifically, it seems like Patchwork should handle and surface exceptions generated in hosted plugins in such a way so as to protect my DAW, not completely crash it.
Thanks,
Mickey
I haven't seen the VST3 version of MMorph crash inside DDMF Metaplugin yet performing the same operations, but will continue testing. The issue I experienced would primarily happen in Patchwork when unloading a plugin - not just MMorph, but others as well. In either case, while I haven't designed audio plugins specifically, it seems like Patchwork should handle and surface exceptions generated in hosted plugins in such a way so as to protect my DAW, not completely crash it.
Thanks,
Mickey
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Blue Cat Audio Blue Cat Audio https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=39981
- KVRAF
- 5821 posts since 8 Sep, 2004 from Paris (France)
Patchwork will indeed propose only the maximum number of channels offered by the host. So since your host does not support side chain, it will be limited to 2 channels when using the effect version of the plug-in. So you may want to try the instrument version instead ("PatchWork Synth"): if the host supports it, you may have extra outputs and thus extra internal buffers. The plug-in was not initially designed to overcome such limitations of hosts applications, that's the reason for this behavior.
About crashes: it is not a problem of catching exceptions.... if a plug-in trashes the memory, there is unfortunately not much we can do about it. The only way to properly avoid such problems is to use a separate sandbox process for plug-ins, but this has limitations and performance issues, so that it is out of question.
About crashes: it is not a problem of catching exceptions.... if a plug-in trashes the memory, there is unfortunately not much we can do about it. The only way to properly avoid such problems is to use a separate sandbox process for plug-ins, but this has limitations and performance issues, so that it is out of question.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 29 posts since 18 Mar, 2014
I appreciate your feedback on this.
It sounds like my expectations of this tool were different from what it's intend use is. In this case, you're right - I sought to overcome the limitations of my DAW in a way the tool doesn't support. If at some point the tool is updated to support a scenario like this, I'd be happy to test it out.
Regarding plugin crashes: My understanding (again from a blackbox perspective) is that many VST hosts overcome plugin misbehavior by sandboxing each plugin, or at least allowing the option of sandboxing, thus preventing disruption of the entire system. I have seen cases where Renoise is not able to fully prevent bad behavior, but it will still typically issue a warning letting me know when a plugin goes completely rogue, and that it's not safe to continue without saving and restarting.
I imagine this functionality is crucial to hosts like Cantabile, which seek to provide the most stable environment environment possible to ensure the integrity of live performance to the best of its ability. A tool like Patchwork may not be oriented toward live performance, and certainly performance is a factor, but even in the studio I'd always want the option to save my work before complete system failure. I make it a habit to version and save work in progress, but losing something amazing while exploring is painful at any time.
Thanks,
Mickey
It sounds like my expectations of this tool were different from what it's intend use is. In this case, you're right - I sought to overcome the limitations of my DAW in a way the tool doesn't support. If at some point the tool is updated to support a scenario like this, I'd be happy to test it out.
Regarding plugin crashes: My understanding (again from a blackbox perspective) is that many VST hosts overcome plugin misbehavior by sandboxing each plugin, or at least allowing the option of sandboxing, thus preventing disruption of the entire system. I have seen cases where Renoise is not able to fully prevent bad behavior, but it will still typically issue a warning letting me know when a plugin goes completely rogue, and that it's not safe to continue without saving and restarting.
I imagine this functionality is crucial to hosts like Cantabile, which seek to provide the most stable environment environment possible to ensure the integrity of live performance to the best of its ability. A tool like Patchwork may not be oriented toward live performance, and certainly performance is a factor, but even in the studio I'd always want the option to save my work before complete system failure. I make it a habit to version and save work in progress, but losing something amazing while exploring is painful at any time.
Thanks,
Mickey
