How to record latching (no MIDI) VST?

[dburns]

I have several VSTi's that produce sound without needing a MIDI track for input. I use the Synth Rack to load them. Basically, you turn them on (from their GUI) and the audio is produced without me playing a MIDI keyboard. This is similar to using a "latch" on a synth; you turn it on and it runs until you turn it off.

How do I record these instruments? I can see their output in the Master Bus (or any bus I route them to), but I can't figure out how to record them indidividually, as you would when bouncing a soft synth track. The only solution I have so far is to set the M-Audio Delta control panel to Monitor Mix, and record that in a separate track. But, of course, this is just a bounce-back of the main outs, not a multiple track recording. I would have to record each synth individually, which doesn't seem very efficient.

I want to be able to put several of these synths on separate tracks and record each one's audio in one pass. Is it possible?

I'm using Sonar 8PE, WinXP SP3 and an M-Audio Delta 1010. The three synths I'm working with are HG Fortune's The Dream Machine and Wheel of Fortune, and Algo Music's Atomic.

Thanks for any help, especially if this is something you've done yourself.

[tconrardy]

While I am not a Sonar user, does Sonar have any audio capturing device? If not, you can use the freeware 'Tapeit" on the master effect buss, and then record the whole thing to that. While not an ideal fix, at least you can capture the performance. Another method is to use a modular VST host like Energy XT or Bidule, which has these audio capturing and use that within Sonar.

Tim

[dburns]

Thanks Tim, I'll check those out.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

[tconrardy]

another idea I just thought of

Since Atomic outputs MIDI, why not take thef MIDI Out of Atomic, and record the results onto a MIDI track of Sonar, then insert a VST to that MIDI track?

Tim

[dburns]

I've tried a couple things with some success.

1) Recording Atomic's MIDI output to a separate track, then using Sonar's "bounce to track" feature works fine. Of course, it requires running Atomic as long as I need to create the MIDI track, which can take some time. I'm not thinking 3-minute song here.

2) Inserting Tapeit in Atomic's audio track works. I am using Atomic with HG's Dream Machine (TDM) and Wheel of Fortune (XWOF), but haven't tried Tapeit with them yet. But, I forsee a problem getting all the Tapeit takes in sync after recording them.

3) The thing I am trying now, with the best results, is to enter one long MIDI note (C3 for 4 minutes for now) in Atomic's MIDI input track. I have set up the HG synths to sync to host, and enabled all their audio outputs. This is giving me pretty much what I want, a bunch of semi-randomly generated audio tracks that I can tweak with filters. I'm loving Tone2's FilterBank3 and Warmverb at the moment.

It's strange that Sonar 8PE won't let me capture audio directly from a VSTi's audio track. It seems to require that I have a MIDI track to drive it, and then bounce it to an audio track. Or, it could be a limitation of my Delta 1010 card. I've sent a message to Cakewalk support to see if they can help me figure this out.

Anyway, the whole reason I am playing with this stuff is that Atomic, TDM and XWOF are so cool for generating ambient (is that what you call it?) music. I often let them run on the laptop all night as I sleep. I really enjoy the results, and I think others may too, so I want to try to record and edit something worth sharing.

Thanks for your help, Tim. I'll have some questions about getting started with Atomic's synth programming in another thread, later.

[ew]

It seems to require that I have a MIDI track to drive it, and then bounce it to an audio track.

You need the MIDI track for receiving clock.

The way I handle those kind of instruments is insert the synth as an effect on an audio track (don't use the synth rack) and route a MIDI track to it. Then, I arm the audio track and record.

With later versions of Sonar, you can enable the plugin's MIDI output in the synth rack and echo it back to the MIDI track. However, this only works if the plugin actually sends MIDI, which a lot of the generative instruments don't.

ew