Is there any way to get external audio into VStack

[mosspa]

I was pondering this the other day while sitting on a plane. Suppose you wanted to turn a VStack enabled laptop into a portable mixing console. I use VStack quite a lot in the computers that are slaved to my SONAR-based DAW. Personally, I consider VStack to be one of the most usable 'mixing' platforms I have ever worked with. Of course on any given slave computer, VStack deals only with virtual synths and samplers and the audio streams they generate. However, I have gotten complex multi-layered multi synth/sampler combinations that actually generate about 20 channels of audio. I have gotten VStack to work with several fader-based control surfaces (Mackie, Behringer, etc, and even with an old Kawai MM-16 that gives it 16 control faders). I find the 4-band parametric eq in VStack to rival some of the best hardware consoles I have heard, and its unlimited busing and sub-busing options are incredible.

So, back to my original thought. Suppose you had a laptop running VStack, and it was connected to, say, an RME Fireface and some adequate preamps, giving it 24 channels of audio I/O, and to some kind of control surface to give manual control over things. In theory, you would have a 24 channel mixing console with unlimited busing capability and an excellent eq system. Now, how would you get audio from the RME into VStack? I'm sure that there is probably a rediculously simple method. Perhaps, some plugin that can accept external audio for some purpose (distortion?) that could be turned off? Or, maybe there is a plugin that does exactly that... takes an audio input stream and makes it available to a VST host. Anyway, I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on how to do this.

Thanks in advance,

Moss

[Sickle]

Look at Streamboy:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2049.html

[mosspa]

Look at Streamboy:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2049.html

Thank you. I did look at it. Maybe I'm missing something but it still looks like it wants to process streams that are generated in VST hosts in one computer. I don't see how it accepts audio streams that are coming from real external digital audio sources (e.g., ADAT Lightpipe). Maybe I'm missing something. Can you provide me your thoughts on how I would use StreamBoy?

Thanks in advance,

Mos

[Sickle]

Look at Streamboy:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2049.html

Thank you. I did look at it. Maybe I'm missing something but it still looks like it wants to process streams that are generated in VST hosts in one computer. I don't see how it accepts audio streams that are coming from real external digital audio sources (e.g., ADAT Lightpipe). Maybe I'm missing something. Can you provide me your thoughts on how I would use StreamBoy?

Thanks in advance,

Mos

You can't use audio-in with VStack, but any other asio host will. Get one, load Streamboy as an insert, then load the second into VStack. I have a VStack license, but it's been ages since I used it, or I'd walk you through further. You may or may not be able to accomplish this, but if you are, this is the basic way to do it.

Either that or dump VStack and use Chainer or EnergyXT, cause both knock the crap out of VStack anyways, although I understand your attatchment; VStack was pretty cool while I used it.

Good luck,
D

[mosspa]

D

Please read my initial post to this thread. The whole reason for wanting to use VSTtack is to convert a laptop into a portable mixing console with serious capabilities. I haven't used EnergyXT, but I use Chainer all the time. The problem, as I see it, is that no matter what I use something has to act like a VSTi or a DXi (not an effect) to get the audio from the audio buses input to the computer. If you open Chainer, and you can open it as a VSTi in VStack, you are still left with the problem that it needs to host something that can get audio from the outside of the computer. You make the statement "You can't use audio-in with VStack, but any other asio host will". When you say "Get one", are you refering to something like Cubase or SONAR? Or are there other asio hosts that aren't full fledged DAWs? I sincerely thank you for taking the time to answer this for me. I'm really not as dumb as I must appear, and that is what makes me think the answer is a lot more obvious than I an able to see because of all of the digital trees in the way.

Moss

[Sickle]

When you say "Get one", are you refering to something like Cubase or SONAR? Or are there other asio hosts that aren't full fledged DAWs?

No, I'm not refering to a full blown midi sequencer per-se, I'm refering to something relatively light like EnergyXT, which has no difficulties whatsoever using audio-in, and has it's own unique and limitless mixing potentials as well as it's own insertable EQ's. I went and dug VStack out to see what I could figure out, and I don't see a solution, personally. Doesn't mean there isn't one, just means it's beyond my own understanding.

VStack is cool but dated and pretty limited. I wish they would have updated it, but they probably never will. I stand by my recommendation to try out eXT, but you're not going to find loadable templates for external controllers like you do with the Steinberg software in v1, at least, but you WILL find a good CC mapper that might make the job a little easier..

[Sickle]

Only solution I can think of is to load an instance of eXT stand-alone, use it's audio-in, insert streamboy, open VStack, load another instance of eXT in VSTi mode, and try using streamboy from inside that.

Very tasky..

[mosspa]

Thanks for the information, I'll get EnergyXT and see what it does. Somehow I get the feeling that I might have to write this application for myself, or maybe build it with SynthEdit. Anyway, thank you again for your time and effort.

Moss

[Sickle]

Somehow I get the feeling that I might have to write this application for myself, or maybe build it with SynthEdit. Anyway, thank you again for your time and effort.

Moss

Bluntly put; you can screw around all you want in SE, but if VStack has no Audio-In option, it doesn't matter WHAT you load into it; plain and simple, not even Streamboy, I'm guessing at this point, because each channel in VStack is a MIDI one, and not Audio. Even using the swiss army knife of the VST universe is impossible so far. EnergyXT comes in 3 modes of use: Standalone(host), VSTi, and VST. When you load up eXT/VSTi inside VStack, the audio in function usually present in all three is NOT THERE AT ALL. Deductive reasoning tells me from this that the ONLY way to accomodate VStack for you in the way you want is if you build a streaming VST INSTRUMENT, and not FX, so yeah, I guess you're probably gonna have to code it yourself, but my understanding of SE precludes this kind of instruction(streaming). The only streaming plugins I'm aware of is Streamboy, Senderella, and FX Teleport, ALL of which are insert FX.

[Art Evans]

It seems like mosspa is going to draw a blank on his specific question - the impression given is that VStack is pretty specifically designed not to do what he has in mind, although there's a tiny chink of hope in the statement on the Vstack site that it has "ReWire 2 support: audio channels can be sent from a ReWire-compatible application to V-STACK for effects and EQ processing"

There's a bit of a risk that enthusiasts for Reaper will get up the noses of others here by claiming that whatever the problem is, Reaper is the answer, so I'm posting with a bit of trepidation - and I'll say at the outset that even Reaper's "ReaRoute" will not, it appears, help with this VStack problem.

But if I wanted to create a laptop based mixing system without Vstack at its core, Reaper would be my first choice - I suspect that its routing and bussing and h/w interfacing capability would rival that of VStack, it has the capability of being controlled from Mackie-Control-compatible surfaces, and its configurable fader characteristics (for top and bottom extent and fading law characteristic) means that you can set it up to give you the "feel" you want at the control surface fader. Its tiny size makes it small-laptop-drive-friendly. And the experiment costs nothing.

Admittedly, you'd have to get the eq from a VST, but there's a pretty substantial choice for that Out There.

I hope this line of thought isn't too off topic.