Multichannel routing and hosts

[acousmod]

Hello,

I have just discovered (in a discussion on the Reaper forum) that your Uhbik series support multichannel routings.

I have tried some of them, and I am very disapointed because in most hosts they can work only in stereo.

Audiomulch : the plugin is shown as 8i/o, but only channel 1 and 2 are active
Bidule : idem
EnergyXT : idem
Reaper : idem
Usine : the GUI doesn't show at all !
Soundforge : all 8 inputs are in yellow when the plugin is inserted, but only the first 2 remain "lightened" when the file is played, and only the first two channels are processed (the other cannot be heard)

In fact, they only work as expected in Nuendo.

It seems that they rely on a special VST code which must be sent by the host to activate the channels ?
How can it be possible for modular hosts ?

This problem doesn't exist with other series of plugins like thoses from Voxengo and MeldaProduction.

My question is, could you consider to allow hosts to have access to all the available channels even if they don't send this VST code ?

It is really a shame that your plugins can be used only in a few hosts.

Thanks.

[Urs]

Hmmm... ok. Sheesh.

I was aware of the AudioMulch problem but didn't expect it to be persistent all over the place. It works here with Cubase, Live and VSThost, and in all Audio Units hosts.

The problem is that many hosts allow for "dumb" multichannel connections without telling the plugins what kind of multichannel the track is made of. Unless an Uhbik receive any indication that it's inserted on a specific type of track, say 5.1, stereo, quadro, it reverts to plain stereo processing.

The reason for reverting to plain stereo processing is that not doing so causes crashes in some hosts, and confusion in others. The panning of Uhbik-D for instance does not work as stereo if all inputs are connected, even if the host only sends a stereo signal (Ableton Live is the main hazardeur here)

That said, I would consider all hosts that allow for multichannel processing and that do not propagate the channel layout flawed. (In Audio Units specs this information is mandatory, as is in RTAS and I think also in VST3)

However, as this seems to be a major problem with many VST hosts, I'll think about a way to unlock multichannel support no matter what

[acousmod]

Thank you very much for your answer.

I hope that you will be able to produce an updated version without too much work.

I will have a look from time to time...

[DarkStar]

+1

Reaper (and energyXT) sees that the plugins have multiple channels, as can be seen here (on an 8-channel track):



But the output channel names supplied to Reaper are a bit odd. The number is different for the different plugins.

[blurk]

The problem is that many hosts allow for "dumb" multichannel connections without telling the plugins what kind of multichannel the track is made of. Unless an Uhbik receive any indication that it's inserted on a specific type of track, say 5.1, stereo, quadro, it reverts to plain stereo processing.

I don't know about the other hosts, but Bidule is a modular host so arguably it doesn't know / care what type of multichannel the audio is at some point in the graph (this would only matter upon output). As you are obviously familiar with modular systems, maybe you could relent because you can understand that part of the fun may be in wiring things up the "wrong" way.

[Urs]

The problem is that many hosts allow for "dumb" multichannel connections without telling the plugins what kind of multichannel the track is made of. Unless an Uhbik receive any indication that it's inserted on a specific type of track, say 5.1, stereo, quadro, it reverts to plain stereo processing.

I don't know about the other hosts, but Bidule is a modular host so arguably it doesn't know / care what type of multichannel the audio is at some point in the graph (this would only matter upon output). As you are obviously familiar with modular systems, maybe you could relent because you can understand that part of the fun may be in wiring things up the "wrong" way.

There's also a type of mutichannel setup that is "user defined". So instead of telling the plugin it's "5.1", the host sends "user defined" to the plugin. Once that happens, Uhbiks will feel safe enough to process all channels.