energyXT in Cantible

[codevyper]

Has anyone tried running energyXT as a VST inside Cantible? I use soft synths mostly for live work, and I used to use Ableton but made the switch to Cantabile thanks to TIUser and haven't looked back since. I really like the flexibility it gives me for live performance, but a band I'm playing with will be doing some canned stuff and I need more flexibility than the built in sequencer in Cantabile give and I don't want to have to make my soft synth rigs work in another DAW app. Since Cantabile doesn't come in VST form (yet) and the only DAW based sequencer I found that will come in VST format is energyXT I was curious if anyone has tried using it in Cantabile.

Thoughts and experiences with this combination are gratefully appreciated.

Thanks

Codevyper

[TiUser]

A long time ago I've loaded the eXT Demo and it seemed to work. But I am not really familiar with using eXT. I am not sure how eXT saves its configurations but I guess you'll need the "load entire bank" option when using subsessions.

It's not much more I can tell here.

[codevyper]

Okay, to answer my own question for future reference. Current version of energyXT (2.5.4) provides a VSTi interface and VST interface for VST based hosts. They only expose the built in instruments and EFX processors via the "modular" view. They do not provide access to the full sequencer interface (DAW) that I need.

That is a shame because I'm really in a bind with my current situation where I want to run canned tracks and my VST racks in the same application. I love Cantabile and need it's flexibility but I need more robust sequencing capabilities than I get with the one in Cantabile. Since Cantabile isn't supposed to be a DAW by design, that means that I either have to go back to Ableton for this project and find ways to do what I do with my VST rig in Ableton (not really gonna happen) or hope that there is another VST based sequencer that does more than loops out there.

Well, we'll see how it goes. I'm off to the Opinion Poll now to reiterate my desire to have Cantabile in VST form now

[curucaman]

Can you give a bit more detail on what you are trying to accomplish? I'm not really sure based on what I am reading... I have a band that plays alot of Rush cover tunes and I needed to play alot of sound effects (birds, crashing waves, etc) while still having my live VST's. Cantabile worked great, and I wanted to have the same functionality to record in a DAW and I found Reaper with it's virtual channels that helped me. I can save everything the way I want in Cantabile and route specific racks to specific reaper channels.
Not sure if this is related, but it might help if there was a bit more detail on what you were looking to do..

[sunhome]

If you are looking for Piano Roll app try

1. Phrazor
2. Thesys

or try this webpage

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/printview ... 28&start=0

Regards, James

[codevyper]

Sorry if I wasn't entirely clear on what I was looking to do. Here's my situation.

In the past I've used Ableton Live 8 before I discovered Cantabile. Since I wasn't doing any canned tracks for live performance, but I use my VST's fairly extensively, I jumped to Cantabile to setup my rig so I could just use patch changes on my controller keyboard to switch between various VST's and do layering, splitting and all kinds of interesting stuff. Stuff I couldn't seem to do wih Ableton. I use sub-sessions to store all my patch setups across all my VSTs and assign a patch change number to each sub-session to quickly switch sounds. Sometimes I switch sounds in the middle of a song.

Now this band I am getting involved in wants to can some tracks, like secondary keyboard parts, percussion and maybe the occasional vox tracks to thicken up the live bg vox. So I have to be able to create sequences with both midi and audio tracks. This won't be for every song so I only need the sequencing capabilities for @ 30% of the songs. The rest of the time, I'd just like to use my Cantabile setup as I've gotten quite used to it.

Since we will be running tracks in songs from start to finish, I want to make use of markers and some loops so we're not totally at the mercy of the form of the sequence if the crowd is really into the song so I need the power of a DAW type sequencer but for my VSTs I want the flexibility of Cantabile.

Today I worked with Reaper and I like it's lightness. It's fast compact and seems to not hog a lot of resources so I'll take a peak at assigning a rack from Cantabile to a track like curucaman suggests and I'll also take a peak at the VSTs you suggest sunhome. Thanks to both of you for your suggestions and I hope this all makes more sense now.

Thanks

Codevyper

[sunhome]

So I have to be able to create sequences with both midi and audio tracks. This won't be for every song so I only need the sequencing capabilities for @ 30% of the songs. The rest of the time, I'd just like to use my Cantabile setup as I've gotten quite used to it.

Midi sections try
1. Thesys for midi sections

Audio Parts try
1. Giest
2. Shortcircuit

Regards, James

[humphrey]

Hi codevyper,

did you ever think of using Ableton and Cantabile in parallel? There are some aspects to be clearified before:

1) You need a soundcard with WDM streaming drivers that supports multiclient operation. In this case 2 different (and independent) host applications can work in parallel if they don't share the same audio-outs.

2) If you have the need for synchronisation between Ableton and Cantabile (f.e. if you use arpeggiators running synchronized to the MIDI-tracks in Ableton) you have to realise this by using midi-time-code. For this purpose I used the free LoopBe1.

3) I'm not sure how MIDI-Ins behave in this scenario. As long as you don't need a certain MIDI-In on both hosts at the same time, there should be no problem (but to be serious: never tested this as there was no need for using MIDI-Ins in Ableton).

I did some tests with this some time before (to be precise: the host was forte instead of cantabile which shouldn't make a big difference).

As far as I understood what you need this would be the most linear scenario. Maybe this can be of some help for you.

regards, humphrey

[codevyper]

Thanks again guys.

@ James, I'm really hoping to make this work through a DAW type situation so I don't have to keep track of independent midi and audio pieces. But Giest does look cool!

@ Humphrey, Didn't even think of that. I'm running a laptop with an Edirol FA-66 sound card so it does provide both ASIO and WDM drivers. I seem to remember too much latency when playing a VST in Ableton Live running the WDM driver compared to ASIO. Either way, I had issues with BSODs in Ableton 8. I have really been working with Reaper the last couple of days, and I must say, coming from Sonar to Reaper is easier than coming from Sonar to Ableton, though I know my way around Ableton pretty good.

Reaper seems to be easier on my laptop than Ableton was, so I think I'll stick with it for live use. My laptop isn't the newest or fastest so the lighter the better. I will see how it works with WDM tonight. If I get what I want with low latency then awesome! The alternative would be to output the canned tracks through the laptop audio with WDM and use Cantabile with ASIO through the Edirol. This isn't out of the question I just need to see if the laptop sound card is quiet enough for that purpose. I'm not recording into Reaper on that rig anyway. I'm build all the audio in Sonar on my home system so really, Reaper is just for playback and triggering VSTs as needed. I don't think I'll need to midi sync anything between Reaper and Cantabile so should be fine there.

Thanks again.....

Jim

[SoftMachine]

Hi all!

I'm trying to use cantabile as a master midi clock for ableton live.
(I'm using some tempo-synced audio clips and effects in Ableton. Also i have got a multi client asio card, so there is no problem with audio)
But there is some obscurity..

If i switch between songs with different tempos, cantabile clock stops
and Ableton become out of sync. (I'm using midi Yoke routing tool)
Didn't find any method for automatic playing start, immediately after song loading..

Once again, any thoughts and experiences are gratefully appreciated

[update]
if i press stop, before changing the song, ableton is synced ok.
But is there the way to stop/start cantabile while loading the next song automatically..

--
Best regards

[pinkcanaru]

You can set up a Trigger in cantabile so that action of stopping cantabole causes an action to take place - such as loading another subsession and putting it in play.

[pinkcanaru]

Forgive typos. iPhone in bed with one eye open

[SoftMachine]

You can set up a Trigger in cantabile so that action of stopping cantabole causes an action to take place - such as loading another subsession and putting it in play.

Maybe i missed a point..
This is the first thing I have checked - there is no such an action - Play, in session midi triggers.
There is a midi assigment tool, so i mapped one midi controller to stop and load next song.. But there is no way to execute play automatically after loading session, as I can see

Also I've tried midi loopback from trigger to midi assigment - that didn't work out

[update]
it is possible to assign play or stop action to load|unload session (using loopback with midi triggers ang global assigments) but, unload action seems to trigger too late.
So ableton live ext. midi clock going out of sync.


==
Best regards

[sunhome]

Cantabile worked great, and I wanted to have the same functionality to record in a DAW and I found Reaper with it's virtual channels that helped me. I can save everything the way I want in Cantabile and route specific racks to specific reaper channels.
Not sure if this is related, but it might help if there was a bit more detail on what you were looking to do..

Another Reaper way to help would be to use ReaRoute http://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/ReaRoute with Cantabile receiving audio from Reaper.

Afaik, controlling which app gets focus would need to be worked out.

Regards, James