I'm sure this must have been discussed elsewhere, but can anyone please point me to some info on what a rack is and how I can use it? I've figured everything else out with T1 except for this!
Thank you,
Paul
Racks -- total newbie question!
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- KVRer
- 17 posts since 8 Apr, 2005 from PA
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- KVRAF
- 3745 posts since 29 Sep, 2002 from Killafornia
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
A rack allows you to route your plug-ins modularly instead of linearly. In other words, instead of audio simply going in the left and coming out the right like in your normal filter area, you can do interesting stuff in the middle, like this, which was made for a guitar signal:
(colours different because the screenshot is from T2)
Just think of the lines as "cables", because that's essentially what they are.
In this rack, look at the left. The top "antenna"-looking thing represents your MIDI signal. I'm not using it, since this track doesn't need to pass any MIDI along. If it did, I would connect it to any relevant plug-ins, or just attach it right to the matching "output" antenna-thing on the opposite side, to pass the MIDI through.
I didn't need all these "cables", I don't think, but since I couldn't remember at the time how racks treated MONO signals, I erred on the safe side, so:
I have the "left" and "right" cables going up to the Green Machine Amp II plug-in, and I also have the "left" and "right" going to the delay.
This way I KNEW that I was getting the mono signal, though I suspect that the same signal is carried on both the left and right channels, so I could have done it with just one. In any event, the end result is that I've split my guitar sound into 2 separate paths, one along the top and one along the bottom.
Now, along the top, I process my guitar sound through the Green Machine Amp II and then sent it to Moneo, a plug-in that allows for panning and filtering.
Along the bottom, I've first sent the signal through a delay (100% wet) to make it lag a bit behind the other signal. Then I've processed it through a JCM900 plug-in because I wanted the sound of a different amp. Notice that the JCM900 is mono, but that's fine, I just take the left and right from the delay and send them both to the JCM900's input. From the JCM900, I send the signal to the 'left' of a pitch-shifter. Since I know for sure now that I'm working in mono, I didn't bother connecting the "right" channel because it would have just carried an identical signal. From the pitch-shifter, I sent it to Moneo.
Now, if I hadn't used Moneo, I could have sent the "top" part to the right channel, and the "bottom" part to the left channel (the antenna-things on the right side of the rack), and I would have had 2 different sounding signals. Inside Moneo, though, I can blend them together a bit and apply some filtering.
Since Moneo is a stereo plug-in, I sent its left output to the rack's left output, and same for the right. This preserves its now-stereo identity.
So, I started off with a mono guitar signal outside the rack, sent it into the rack and treated the left and right channels differently, then spit it back out again.
That's just a very basic way to use it.
Heck, even the way I used it was very linear. The cables can go wherever you want. If I decided I wanted the JCM's signal to ALSO feed the Green Machine Amp II for some nasty distorted distortion, I could have made another cable coming off the JCM and looping back to the Green Machine.
Or if I decided I wanted to swap the left and right around, I'd just attach the cable from the top of Moneo to the bottom "antenna" and the cable from the bottom of Moneo to the top "antenna" output thingy.
If I want to mix a dry signal in, I could also make a third signal path wherever I have space, with just a volume/pan filter in the middle to regulate how much of the dry guitar I want.
Greg
(colours different because the screenshot is from T2)
Just think of the lines as "cables", because that's essentially what they are.
In this rack, look at the left. The top "antenna"-looking thing represents your MIDI signal. I'm not using it, since this track doesn't need to pass any MIDI along. If it did, I would connect it to any relevant plug-ins, or just attach it right to the matching "output" antenna-thing on the opposite side, to pass the MIDI through.
I didn't need all these "cables", I don't think, but since I couldn't remember at the time how racks treated MONO signals, I erred on the safe side, so:
I have the "left" and "right" cables going up to the Green Machine Amp II plug-in, and I also have the "left" and "right" going to the delay.
This way I KNEW that I was getting the mono signal, though I suspect that the same signal is carried on both the left and right channels, so I could have done it with just one. In any event, the end result is that I've split my guitar sound into 2 separate paths, one along the top and one along the bottom.
Now, along the top, I process my guitar sound through the Green Machine Amp II and then sent it to Moneo, a plug-in that allows for panning and filtering.
Along the bottom, I've first sent the signal through a delay (100% wet) to make it lag a bit behind the other signal. Then I've processed it through a JCM900 plug-in because I wanted the sound of a different amp. Notice that the JCM900 is mono, but that's fine, I just take the left and right from the delay and send them both to the JCM900's input. From the JCM900, I send the signal to the 'left' of a pitch-shifter. Since I know for sure now that I'm working in mono, I didn't bother connecting the "right" channel because it would have just carried an identical signal. From the pitch-shifter, I sent it to Moneo.
Now, if I hadn't used Moneo, I could have sent the "top" part to the right channel, and the "bottom" part to the left channel (the antenna-things on the right side of the rack), and I would have had 2 different sounding signals. Inside Moneo, though, I can blend them together a bit and apply some filtering.
Since Moneo is a stereo plug-in, I sent its left output to the rack's left output, and same for the right. This preserves its now-stereo identity.
So, I started off with a mono guitar signal outside the rack, sent it into the rack and treated the left and right channels differently, then spit it back out again.
That's just a very basic way to use it.
Heck, even the way I used it was very linear. The cables can go wherever you want. If I decided I wanted the JCM's signal to ALSO feed the Green Machine Amp II for some nasty distorted distortion, I could have made another cable coming off the JCM and looping back to the Green Machine.
Or if I decided I wanted to swap the left and right around, I'd just attach the cable from the top of Moneo to the bottom "antenna" and the cable from the bottom of Moneo to the top "antenna" output thingy.
If I want to mix a dry signal in, I could also make a third signal path wherever I have space, with just a volume/pan filter in the middle to regulate how much of the dry guitar I want.
Greg
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 17 posts since 8 Apr, 2005 from PA
Wow -- thank you! I can't wait to play with this now!
One more thing, however -- I noticed with the drum sounds I loaded in on tracktion's sampler that some of the hits aren't playing during playback. Do I have something set wrong? I even rebooted to see if that'd fix the problem to no avail!
Thanks again!
Paul
One more thing, however -- I noticed with the drum sounds I loaded in on tracktion's sampler that some of the hits aren't playing during playback. Do I have something set wrong? I even rebooted to see if that'd fix the problem to no avail!
Thanks again!
Paul
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- KVRAF
- 4644 posts since 28 Nov, 2002 from Chicago
I pulled them all when I started work on the user manual - the guides are no longer there - and as I was far too busy writing manuals, I never got around to putting up any kind of place holder page either. You'll just get a 404 if you try to follow that link.
All the rack stuff that was on the site is now in the ref manual.
Someone shot the food. Remember: don't shoot food!
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- KVRAF
- 10815 posts since 26 Nov, 2004 from UK
witch you can get herevalley wrote: All the rack stuff that was on the site is now in the ref manual.
http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktio ... on2_UG.pdf
& also
http://www.mackie.com/products/tracktio ... e_RevA.pdf
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- KVRAF
- 4908 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Colorado Springs
Don't feel bad about not understanding racks.
I wrote up this .pdf to help explain to myself probably the simplest thing that you can do with a rack - store a preset of several effects in a chain.
Scott's simpleton rack guide
Enjoy. There are much more cool things that can be done with the modular rack capability, but I'm too dumb to know what to do with them.
-Scott
Thanks again KVRian Clueless for hosting the file.
I wrote up this .pdf to help explain to myself probably the simplest thing that you can do with a rack - store a preset of several effects in a chain.
Scott's simpleton rack guide
Enjoy. There are much more cool things that can be done with the modular rack capability, but I'm too dumb to know what to do with them.
-Scott
Thanks again KVRian Clueless for hosting the file.
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- KVRer
- 18 posts since 19 Apr, 2005
Hey rockstar_not, thanks for that simpleton rack guide. Although I am new to Tracktion, and have not tried anything with racks yet, I already had seen that I would want to do just what you describe in your guide. 
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
Fookin' last time I go out of my way to explain anything. <laff>
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- KVRer
- 18 posts since 19 Apr, 2005
I gotta walk before I can run dude!Lunch Money wrote:Fookin' last time I go out of my way to explain anything. <laff>
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- KVRAF
- 12977 posts since 29 Sep, 2003 from Ottawa, Canada
It's not like what I put there was complicated. I don't mean that to sound condescending, either-- I just mean that instead of looking at the post and going "boogidee boogidee" and tuning out just because I'm verbose, you should have read through it while looking at the picture.Frankly, there's no point in a simple left-to-right rack thing except to save a string of effects as a single preset. The main purpose of racks is to do things like what I illustrated. I chose it specifically because it was a simple example...
You should see what OTHER people use racks for.Maybe the problem was that I was explaining what the different plug-ins were doing, whereas in order to show what racks do in general, I could have just called them plugins 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Then without knowing what each was doing specifically, you'd just know that I was doing "something" with one plug-in along one 'chain', and MORE stuff with a series of plug-ins along the other chain.
Or in other words-- all my screenshot shows is *2* of rockstar's chains in the same rack. One along the top, one along the bottom, but both combining at the end.
Greg
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- KVRer
- 18 posts since 19 Apr, 2005
Dude, I don't need that information right now, and that's the end of the story. But thanks for sharing the info, I may come back to it later.Lunch Money wrote:
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- KVRAF
- 10815 posts since 26 Nov, 2004 from UK
racks can be verry advanced!!! if you so wish them to be! thay all so can be verry handy for saving a fx chain!
thay can also be used to make a new synth or new effect out of stuff that by its selfe would be not that worthwhile to use
i find them best for using instruments with multipul outs!!
have fun with them
& tidy up any wood chips you leave behind!!!
thay can also be used to make a new synth or new effect out of stuff that by its selfe would be not that worthwhile to use
i find them best for using instruments with multipul outs!!
have fun with them
& tidy up any wood chips you leave behind!!!
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- KVRAF
- 4908 posts since 10 Aug, 2004 from Colorado Springs
Greg,
This isn't anything to get upset over. I made the save a preset effects chain rack guide months ago to show to some other folks. I never claimed it was fancy. That's why I called it the simpleton's rack guide; not the definitive rack guide.
Yes I know that so much more cool modular stuff can be done with racks. But I bet that most Tracktion users haven't even tried using a rack yet. This guide is for them.
-Scott
This isn't anything to get upset over. I made the save a preset effects chain rack guide months ago to show to some other folks. I never claimed it was fancy. That's why I called it the simpleton's rack guide; not the definitive rack guide.
Yes I know that so much more cool modular stuff can be done with racks. But I bet that most Tracktion users haven't even tried using a rack yet. This guide is for them.
-Scott