Patchwork configuration - questions

[jbraner]

Hi,
I've been using Patchwork for a couple of weeks, and it is working great. There is just one small thing that's been bothering me - mainly because I can't help but think there *must be* a way to do this

I'm using it for FX for guitar parts in Reaper. (in windows)
I'm running 4 parallel paths of (speaker cabs running in NAM) FX.
The reason I got Patchwork is that the multi CPU feature works great - and spreads the load across CPU cores. (normally Reaper would process all these FX on one core - and it was killing my CPU)

It works great - but I'd love to have some basic metering, just to check levels and presence of signal on each of the parallel paths. I can load a little meter plugin in each path - but it's awkward to open the 4 guis to see the meters - and annoyingly, when I move the Patchwork gui, the 4 meter ones don't move with it. I know I can save a preset with the meter guis open - but there must be a better way. Even if there was a button I could set up to open/close the 4 guis - that would be good.

Then I realised that the "synth" version of Patchwork has multiple outs, and there are meters for these outputs - on the RH side of Patchwork. There is a stumbling block though.
I realise this version is meant for synths, and they don't have audio inputs (only MIDI).
When I set up my FX (only) in the "synth" version - there is a "dry" signal always running through Patchwork - besides the FX that I've set up. Even without parallel paths, I can't figure out a way to only have "wet" (ie running through the FX) signal coming out of Patchwork.
I know about the "mix" meter (top LH side) and always set this to 100% - but I can not figure out how to configure the plugin so that a "dry" signal does not get through, along with the processed audio. It does this even with only one "row" and no parallel paths.

Reaper is super configurable and I can play around with different i/o settings for the Patchwork plugin - but I haven't stumbled across a setting that doesn't pass "dry" signal along with whatever else is set up.

Am I missing something obvious?
Is the "synth" version just not set up to use with audio input (into Patchwork)?
Are there any hacks to get the multiple outs on the "FX" version of Patchwork?

Thanks for any ideas - I hope my questions make sense

[jbraner]

OK - I figured out a pretty good workaround.
I can't get the "synth" version to work with just FX (see above)

But I figured a pretty good way to set up some meters, The meters are from Hornet
(https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/h ... meter-mk4/)
They're cheap and they make nice resizable windows that work in the Patchwork shell.
Any meter plugin should work though.



I set the "show gui" button for all 4 of the meters to CC51 (that's a button on my MIDI controller) - and the button (slider) appears at the bottom of the Patchwork screen.
So, i can click on that slider - or press the button on my MIDI controller and the 4 meters will toggle on and off.
Of course, they don't move around if I move the Patchwork window - but I just picked a out of the way space to put them.

Of course you also need to enable MIDI input on the track if you want to use a MIDI controller. That's pretty easy in Reaper.

Anyway - I just thought I'd share this in case anyone's interested.
Please jump in if you have an even better solution

[Blue Cat Audio]

Nice setup!

As discussed via the support center, for the synth version, it appears that Reaper lets the dry signal go thru (so that you can stack virtual instruments even if set in series). I haven't found a way to disable tis behavior in Reaper, but maybe they'll add an option one of these days!

[jbraner]

Thanks for having a look at this.
It's good to know I'm not losing my mind
I'll just stick with the FX version...