[newbie] Using RC from within Logic

[musicdevelopments]

FYI the VST plug-in is being redesigned from scratch. After all the issues with the VST plug-in, it will become a simple plug-in which will access the standalone application through a bridge (shared memory). This has many advantages:
- the plug-in will be very simple and reliable no more crashes in the host
- there will be one version of the application easier to maintain
- multiple VST plug-ins can be used each will add 16 MIDI channels in RapidComposer
- as a side effect it will be easy to make an AU plug-in that communicates with the application the same way as the VST plug-in happier Mac users

[Dewdman42]

I hope the above new architecture will provide complete automation and sync as if the tools is running in the actual host. Drag and drop to the host of patterns, etc. There are pros and cons to this approach. I will also point out that other mac hosts, such as DP, only support midi routing through VST's.

In the meantime there is another work around I know of for Logic/Mainstage users:

http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_PatchWork/

Not too cheap, so it may or may not be worth it, but this ships with an AU MidiFX version, which can be hosted in Logic and Mainstage, and inside this wrapper you can host VST midi plugins such as RapidComposer. I have tested the demo version in Mainstage and it works with RapidComposer.

There might be a less expensive VST wrapper out there, but as of now this is the only I know of that provides an AU MFX wrapper.

[Dewdman42]

Has any progress been made since 2015 on using RC inside Logic as a plugin? I am having very limited results with LogicPro. I am able to use it standalone with IAC to sync with logic.

it would be even better if I could use RC as a plugin in logic, but I have had no actual success with this, including I tried to use BlueCatAudio patchwork to wrap the VST. it just doesn't work and often ends up crashing Logic somehow. I think the crash is happening due to an endless midi loop, but not sure.

It appears RC plugin can not output to the Virtual IAC bus, it can only output midi back to the host. This may be one thing RC could be improved. Some other midi-out plugins I have used do provide a way to output midi to their own virtual IAC bus, which can then be piped back into logic in order to drive it as a plugin within Logic. This avoids some of the midi clock hassles with RC/Logic.

However, there is another issue in Logic, and I'm not sure how to solve it, which is that Logic feeds all incoming midi through one port to get to the tracks..so if an IAC bus is used that way, then it has to be looped back into the input of Logic and then RC will receive that midi again, potentially as an endless loop. Not sure how to solve that midi routing problem in Logic...so...maybe Logic simply can't handle RC as a plugin even with a VST wrapper? All ideas welcome here..


Please advise..

[musicdevelopments]

Have you tried sending MIDI to Logic using the "RapidComposer Virtual MIDI Output" port? That should work.
I hope others will comment.

I started to work on an AU version of RapidComposer a few months ago, but Logic did not recognize my plug-in at all (used the Apple sample source code as the starting point, but even that was not recognized). Then I had a question to OS X users on this forum about the AU plug-in which nobody replied to. Then I thought the AU plug-in was not high priority...
Attila

[Dewdman42]

sorry Attila, I rewrote my post while you were writing your reply. Check it again please. I can get the RC standalone method to work, just trying to see if I can get it working as a plugin now. I have BlueCatAudio patchwork which enables me to wrap the VST and use as AU that way...and it sorta works, but not completely enough to use it practically speaking. BlueCatAudio can wrap as either AU instrument or AU-MFX, with different results in Logic that I will itemize below.

I think some of these problems would continue to exist even if you managed to make an AU and AU-MFX version of RC, but I could be wrong... Here are the problems I'm having with it, I hope solutions can be found. Some of this is related to Logic and some i think is related to areas RC could be improved.

1. RC (plugin mode) does not output to virtual IAC bus or provide option to do so while being used as a plugin. This would help if it did. The reason is because Logic does not support midi output from AU's, only from AU-MFX in the midi FX slot and all it can do with the midi is pass it along in the same mixer channel to any AU instrument that is also hosted in the same channel. Most AU instrument plugins that have midi-out features, have had to add Virtual IAC output to their plugin, specifically to support Logic for this reason. So providing RC plugin with ability to send directly to IAC in addition to returning to the host *MIGHT* be helpful. There are other problems though...
2. It is possible to wrap RC plugin with BlueCatAudio as an AU-MFX, which means it can be used in Logic's midi fx slot and the midi output is received by Logic! Yay! However at that point we still need to get the midi to other tracks and it appears the only way is through IAC, same as above.
3. note that even with the above setup, RC (as an AU-MFX) will only play if logic ALSO has an instrument loaded into the instrument slot. For some reason if I only have RC in the AU-MFX slot, and no instrument in the instrument slot being driven by midi from it, then hitting play in logic will not cause RC to play, and even putting RC into local mode and hitting play will not make it play. that being said...
4. Also note that its not possible to turn on/off the composition loop feature in this mode for some reason.
5. Also, for some strange reason, when I have things setup as above, and hit play, RC will play but no notes are sounding in the instrument. However if I change RC to "local play" mode and hit play directly in RC, then the notes are sent on to the instrument. Yes that is very strange, I think that must be a problem with RC, but I'm not sure. it needs to work when RC plugin is slaving to the host and sending out the midi notes in that mode.
6. Its also possible to place an "external instrument" plugin into the instrument slot of the logic channel (that has RC in the AU-MFX slot as noted above), which will then send all the midi output from RC to an IAC bus through that utility plugin. Logic does some wierd stuff with timing when using that external instrument plugin, so it would be better if RC was able to send to an IAC directly itself.
7. There is another problem which is that even if I manage to get RC to send midi to an IAC bus using some of the above; the way Logic works, is that all incoming midi from any IAC bus or midi controller or other device, they all have to funnel through a single sequencer port in Logic to access any of the tracks/channels. The end result of this is that while the IAC bus can be used potentially to get all midi data out of RC and back into the sequencer to point to other instruments, RC itself is also hosted in the sequence and will recieve all that data also, potentially creating an endless midi loop, which probably will freeze up Logic.
8. I have managed to freeze up Logic several times when using RC as a plugin, not sure if it was because of the above mentioned midi loop issue or something else
9. I also tried to put two instances of the VST plugin onto seperate tracks of Logic, but this caused Logic to freeze up, I have no idea what it was trying to do.
10. its also possible to just put instrument plugins inside of BlueCatAudio's patchwork, and then RC can feed all the plugins and BlueCatAudio will output their audio back to the main program..ok.. but still don't have a way to isolate the midi data into recorded midi tracks that way and its kind of a hassle to setup. It does at least have the RC composition embedded into the Logic project file that way.

[Dewdman42]

I've made some progress but still a few things that RC could potentially do better:

1. RC doesn't seem to play composition loops when used as a plugin. the loop button is lit up (and unable to change it), but hitting play on Logic will just play until the end of the composition and no looping occurs.
2. RC seems to always pass incoming midi through and no way to turn that off if desired.
3. RC does not allow us to have outgoing midi be sent directly to an IAC bus in plugin mode, only back to the host. It would be helpful if we could send directly to an IAC bus.
4. RC plugin mode should also allow audio to be output for everything, not only midi. So ideally in plugin mode we would be able to choose VST host, IAC, or various built in soundfont options from RC itself as possible output for all tracks in an RC composition, or for previewing

Now here is what I have working for anyone seeking to use RapidComposer in Logic. This does require the use of BlueCatAudio Patchwork. This guide will not work with other free alternatives that I know of because BlueCatAudio's is the only one I know of that will wrap an AU-MFX form around a VST plugin, which is needed to handle midiout in Logic, UNLESS RC were improved in the future to include direct IAC output as mentioned above, then there are free alternatives for wrapping a VST inst as normal AU inst that would work in Logic also.

1. In Logic, go to the environment, on the clicks and ports page, create a channel strip object using File->New->Channel Strip. Just use an AUX type for now.
2. select the newly created channel strip object and look at the inspector on the left, change the value of the "channel" parameter to Inst->Inst255 (or some other unused instrument number)
3. The above should have created a new mixer channel WITHOUT a corresponding track in Logic, which is key, that this mixer channel will be dettached from the Logic sequencer completely as a mixer channel that doesn't receive input from the sequencer. This will avoid the output from RC looping around back into RC again.
4. On the GUI mixer, Look for the newly created mixer channel and place an instance of BlueCatAudio Patchwork into the midi fx slot. Within Patchwork, setup one plugin, RapidComposer, by finding the VST. Also make sure to configure midi input and output to that plugin to be "Host" for both input and output, output is off by default.
5. In the mixer channel, add to the instrument plugin slot, the Logic->Utility->External Instrument plugin. Configure that plugin to send output to an IAC bus of your choice.
6. Fine so far, at this point RC will be ready to use, it will play in sync with Logic and output midi will go to to the specified IAC bus which is feeding back into the Logic sequencer by default to feed the RC output to any other instrument tracks you see fit.
7. Additionally, in this mode if RC were to output audio (which currently I do not think it does in plugin mode), then that audio would also be heard on this mixer channel.
8. If you need to use a midi controller to control RC, then additional midi patching is required in the enivornment to get a midi controller's midi to be sent directly to the mixer channel you just created for RC. This can get a little complicated and beyond the scope of this guide, but it can be accomplished.

[Dewdman42]

ps - if RC is ever working as AU, it will need to be AU-MFX in order to work as-is in Logic, and no other DAW hosts that I know of would be able to use the AU-MFX form.

If you add the capability to output midi directly to an IAC bus in plugin mode, then it could be a normal AU instrument form and be used in Logic as well as other hosts.

There are advantages to both approaches, so I would reccomend you produce both AU-MFX and AU-inst, and also enable direct IAC output in both. My understanding is that an AU can be compiled into AU-MFX form quite easily with just one line of change, its just a matter of compiling it as a different plugin type, but all the callbacks and everything are exactly the same, something like that. Anyway, sounds like you didn't get very far with AU in general, so just giving you this feedback in case you ever get back to figuring that out.

[bagelfish]

I don't tend to use RC as a VST but I have tried it with Presonus One v3 Pro. Here you can load RC as a VST and then say Garritan Orchestra on another track. You can set Garritan's input to come from RC direct. I used Ch 1 and set that to an orchestral string section or a piano and the sound was correct. Transport was controlled from the Presonus DAW as long as 'local Seq' was not enabled. Looping can be set on Presonus One and it works as usual.
Looping can be set on RC by enabling the 'Local Seq', RC then takes control of the transport and allows looping to be set up under the control of RC but not the DAW.

[musicdevelopments]

Anyway, sounds like you didn't get very far with AU in general, so just giving you this feedback in case you ever get back to figuring that out.

Many thanks, Dewdman42!
You have replied to my questions without having to ask them. BTW I had the same questions and concerns about AU MFX/AU instruments previously which nobody replied to. Someone sent me a short e-mail about AU v3 which I should use.

Thank you!
Attila

[Dewdman42]

Here is the environment setup needed to use RC in Logic with BlueCatAudio patchwork as noted above. I created an environment switch to switch whether my midi controller will be sending stuff to RC or to the sequencer directly. That part is optional. The main thing interesting is the way the channel strip with RC on it, is wired up.

environment.jpg

the channel strip looks like this:

strip.jpg

[Dewdman42]

BlueCatAudio Patchwork then has RapidComposer, with midi out configured and External instrument sends to the IAC bus desired.

patchwork.jpg

midiout.jpg

extinst.jpg

[Dewdman42]

If the above environment diagram made your head explode, here are two simpler options to get things going.

This first one will work...but RC will not be receiving any midi input from any midi controllers or otherwise, it will only output its midi to an IAC port 2 which is then fed to the sequencer here in the environment. The midi controller (on IAC port 1) is also feeding directly to the sequencer.

simpler.jpg

If you want to get the midi controller to go through RC first, then this setup will feed the midi controller from IAC port 1 into RC rather then to the sequencer. Then RC will be forwarding that midi through to IAC port 2, which is fed into the sequencer.

simpler2.jpg

[musicdevelopments]

Thank you, Dewdman42!
Now I see an AU plug-in version would be important not to deal with this clutter.

Thanks!
Attila

[Dewdman42]

There is always going to be some need for some of the environment clutter, even if you make an au version with direct IAC out. But it would eliminate the need for the bluecataudio product or the other use of the external instrument plugin.

But in order to get the midi output routed from RC to multiple sequencer tracks, you have to do the environment wiring because of the way logIc works.

I'm glad bluecataudio works for now. But please consider fixing a few things:

1. rc composition looping is not working in vst plugin mode
2. direct output to IAC not working in plugin mode. Should be able to specify any IAC port for each composition track, and for preview features, just like in standalone mode
3. would be nice if audio features of RC could also work in plugin mode, passing audio back to the host. That would be frosting on the cake. Sorta