Tonewise

This is another VST-DX adapter, similar to the one that Cakewalk has bundled with SONAR. I'm an owner of SONAR 3, so I already have a VST-DX adapter, essentially free. Why, then, would I shell out my hard earned dough for a competing product?

Well, see my review of Cakewalk's adapter to get the answer. Put simply, Directixer makes it possible for me to manage my huge collection of VST and VSTi plugins, whereas Cakewalk's does not.

Directixer has some very cool features, and is a good looking, highly usable application. It seems totally stable and is able to encapsulate just about any VST I've ever thrown at it. It also has the singular ability to be able to capture the MIDI output of a VSTi plugin and route it back into SONAR. Try that with Cakewalk's adapter!

It does have a few limitations, which I hope will be addressed soon:

- No ability to randomize VST parameters (a feature I sorely miss)

- Relies on the VST plugin id to uniquely identify a plugin. Unfortunately, some VST developers don't properly set their VST plugin id, and so duplicate plugin ids are not all that uncommon. Other adapters allow you to load and use those plugins, but Directixer balks. In fairness, the bug lies with the VST developers who didn't set the plugin id, but it sure would be nice if Directixer would insulate me from it.

All in all, this is a great product at a great price. Cakewalk's adapter is still lagging behind this one. Worth a look.Read Review

I cannot live without this thing. I use sonar and the one they recomend does not compare. For one...forcing regular audio plugings like Orange Vocoder and Akai Vocoder speaks volumes. I rate it a 10 ....if you use Sonar ...you got to buy this too...I would like to see it cheeper...but as a studio owner digitizing my investment...I think things like this are worth it!Read Review

I love this thing. I purchased DirectiXer not long after getting Sonar I and it has been one of my best purchases. I did not realize how nice it is until I got the Cakewalk adapter with the purchase of Project5. I much prefer DireciXer because of the ease of use. Big K is right on top of updates and quickly handles new features. He also seems to be a help to other developers when they are having difficulty tracing down problems in their VSTi’s. The only thing I don’t like is the copywrite system, but I totally understand when software is a developer’s primary income. I did loose my number once after a bad HD caused me to loose everything. After emailing for customer support I had my SN within 5 minutes. If you use Sonar, you need DireciXer.

Pros:
Ease of use.
Stability
Quick support of new features and new VSTi’s.

Cons:
Copy protection.

Robert

PS: The review system forces you to select a value for sound and presets. I set them to 9 becaue that is close to the average rating for the rest of the areas.Read Review

DirectiXer is an essential tool for Cakewalk SONAR users who wish to use VST effects and instruments in their compositions.

Although Cakewalk now includes their "VST Adapter" VST-DXi wrapper software with both SONAR 3 and Project5, on a per-plug-in basis, it does not always work as well as DirectiXer. With that said, it is great to own both wrappers to have the other to fall back on when issues arise.

User Interface: Very clean and intuitive; much easier to use than Cakewalk's wrapper.

Sound: N/A

Features: Offers very detailed control over how VST effects and instruments should be wrapped, and it includes a MIDI Loopback device driver for routing MIDI output by a VSTi back to the host (very useful for plug-ins like Steinberg's Groove Agent). Includes plug-in delay compensation for VSTi (even works with SIR convolution reverb), has settings for forcing a VST effect to behave as a VSTi (for pitch correction and vocoder plug-ins), allows for alternate VST window sizing methods, and has variable rendering settings per plug-in. One downside that I noticed is some VSTi that sync their tempo to the host do not work correctly, unlike with the Cakewalk counterpart.

Documentation: Very good. Includes description of the technical differences between VSTi and DXi.

Presets: N/A

Customer Support: Excellent. Tonewise even offers a listserv and beta tester program that openly accepts reports on badly-behaving VSTi to improve DirectiXer for later versions. Kirill, the lead developer, went out of his way to support PDC and Groove Agent.

Value For Money: Excellent; I prefer it to the Cakewalk VST Adapter for 95% of my VSTi.

Stability: Very solid. Some wrapped VST plug-ins will crash with it, which I would presume is the fault of the plug-in developer and not a problem with DirectiXer itself in most cases.

Overall, I would recommend this product to Cakewalk users who seek better flexibility, control and organization with respect to their VST plug-ins.Read Review