Blue Cat's PatchWork - Virtual Plug-Ins Patch bay - Now with MIDI Routing + AU Hosting

[4tune]

Really liking Patchwork 1.2 here on demoing!

It`s great how you can inversly link the input and output gainer levels, for easy gain staging and A/Bing.

Have been trying this out with some IKmultimedia compressors which patchwork really complements to enable driving the comps and enabling parallel usage easily. However a couple of issues so far and one question:

- With the IK precision compressor I am getting phasing when using the mix knob on patchwork. Trying the phase button changes the sound but from one phased sound to another, so doesn`t solve it. This phasing doesn`t occur for IK`s
2A or 76 models. --Patchwork 1.2 tested in Renoise and Samplitude Pro X, all latest versions.

- Patchworks GUI seems to take about 3 seconds to appear after opening here (even when none of it`s sub-hosted GUIs open). A lot longer than most VSTs bar maybe kontakt 3. Would there be any chance this could be improved with a future version. Not a showstopper but would certainly be welcomed.

- Just to check is the copy protection on this serial number alone or Challenge response aswell?

[yessongs]

I already have Reaper though and it won't cost me anything more to use it this way though I can use markers in my daw SONAR and use snapshots at markers plus move to next marker to activate and deactivate channels in my daw. I will try this patcher since it does look to be a lot more user friendly than cantabile or intone and if you can use multiple instances on channels in your daw I can use one instance for each keyboard and each guitar I play and then use it for switching sounds on keys and patches and amp sims vst's for guitar

but as I do this is it fast enough for live usage? Will my I7 quad core with 8 gigs of memory be powerful enough using sonar x3 to also record my playing?

[Blue Cat Audio]

Hi there,

Thank you for the comments. I will try to answer all questions in a single post!
- About VST3/AU support: it will indeed probably happen in the future, but we have been mainly focusing on other features right now, given that there are already lots of VST2 plug-ins available.
- plug-ins reordering / drag and drop: we are currently investigating several ways of quickly reordering the plug-ins. It is still not sure which methods will be chosen though, as all options have pros and cons .
- live usage: the plug-in should not add much overhead, so it should be fine for live usage. It is indeed MIDI controllable, but switching presets is not available using MIDI yet, so you need to check if your host application supports it.
- phasing issues when using mix knob: this will unfortunately happen with some plug-ins that change the phase of the signal (most plug-ins that do non linear phase filtering), and there is nothing we can do against this. These plug-ins usually offer a mix knob that compensates phase changes, so if this is the case here, you should use the internal dry/wet instead.
- GUI response and long loading time: this is surprising. Can you please tell us on which platform (Mac or Win) this is happening and give more details about your hardware configuration?
- Copy protection: there is no challenge response. It is just a simple serial number, so you can register the software on a system that is not connected to the internet.

[4tune]

- phasing issues when using mix knob: this will unfortunately happen with some plug-ins that change the phase of the signal (most plug-ins that do non linear phase filtering), and there is nothing we can do against this. These plug-ins usually offer a mix knob that compensates phase changes, so if this is the case here, you should use the internal dry/wet instead.

Fair enough, unfortunately the precision comp doesn`t have a dry wet, but this clearly isn`t a patchwork issue.

- GUI response and long loading time: this is surprising. Can you please tell us on which platform (Mac or Win) this is happening and give more details about your hardware configuration?

- Windows 7 64bit
- Boot + VST drive samsung 840 EVO 120GB ssd
- Q6600 quad core intel on a foxconn mobo
- GeForce GT440 graphics (2GB I think)
- running demo of Patchwork 1.2 32bit

- Copy protection: there is no challenge response. It is just a simple serial number, so you can register the software on a system that is not connected to the internet.

Great to hear user friendly copy protection!

Just ordered from Audiodeluxe and awaiting serial, looking forward to fit this plug into my workflow! I always feel there is a bit of a risk sub-hosting VSTs in a chainer, but having serial only protection helps me feel confident that there are less potential problems.

[rasmusklump]

nevermind

[yessongs]

live use is really the only reason I can see for using something like this in sonar x3. IF it will allow a guitar play the ability to switch presets by say putting an instance of pod farm in slot one and then an instance of amplitube in slot 2 and etc on down the line for all 8 slots then if you can control presets to delegate which of the sims is active you effectively have a switcher that could work live if they switch the preset delegating which amp sim slot is soloed and which is mute such that it is FAST enough that the switch is seamless and instantaneous. This is how I see it being used in that situation if it will do it fast if not then its not usable for me period.

[awol9000]

PatchWork is a must have for any Maschine users. Now we can finally use Arpeggiator plug ins inside Maschine.

[rasmusklump]

Hi,

PatchWork does not report the latency of a hosted Plugin to the host.
Nuendos Delaycompensation doen't wotk for plugins with latency that are hosted in Patchwork.

Otherwise the VST Version works great.

The vsti version on the other hand does not work for me at all.
Nuendo 64 bit on windows 7 64 bit.
When I use bluearp and a synth native in nuendo I don't see any system load. When I load bluearp and a synth into PatchWork I see several bars in the vstmeter and I get dropouts, even with 256 samples Latency (Fireface UFX)

Cheers
Alex

[Everglide]

You can load plug-ins on the same machine only. There is no network support.

Surely there is a market for this? It would be great to use an old laptop to crunch all the effects and take the load away from the main CPU.

Have developers considered such a project, a united goal which isn't AAX or HDX?

[Blue Cat Audio]

About latency: Cubase and Nuendo do not support dynamic latency compensation changes while the audio engine is playing. So to make sure it takes changes into account when inserting plug-ins that introduce latency in Blue Cat's PatchWork, you may have to deactivate/reactivate the plug-in using the on/off button in Nuendo.

For the VSTi version, maybe it is due to the fact that by default Cubase and Nuendo do not set the appropriate number of channels, so your synth is maybe processing all eight outputs, which may increase the CPU usage (you can see this on the output meters of our plug-in: if all eight are moving, the synth is producing eight channels). We are currently looking into this.

Have developers considered such a project, a united goal which isn't AAX or HDX?

The main problem with distributing plug-ins across multiple machines is the latency and overhead that is introduced by network communication / multiple machines synchronization. It is very different from dedicated hardware running on the same machine with a dedicated high bandwith bus such as PCIe, Firewire or Thunderbolt.

[vic_france]

(I know I'm beginning to sound like a fan boy with this , but)..
The latest update (v1.3) now also allows loading AU fx and AU Instruments on Mac. Thanks for these great updates!

[Blue Cat Audio]

For more details about the update, here is the full press release:

[url=hhtp://www.bluecataudio.com]Blue Cat Audio[/url] have released Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.3, a new version of their "universal plug-ins patch bay" available in multiple audio plug-in formats.

With Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.3, it is now possible to host Audio Unit plug-ins inside the plug-in on Mac (in addition to VST plug-ins). Copy/paste enhancements simplify moving plug-ins in the signal chain or between applications. Several compatibility and performance improvements have also been included (full list below).

The update is free for existing customers and is available for download from the same page as the initial purchase (link received by email). Demo versions are also available for download on http://www.bluecataudio.com, in VST, RTAS, AAX, Audio Unit and DirectX formats, for both Mac and PC (32 and 64-bit).

New Features:
- Audio Unit hosting support: Audio Units can now be loaded into the plug-in on Mac.
- Plug-ins can now be cut from a slot for cut/paste operations.
- Plug-ins can now be pasted into a slot with their params map.
Improvements:
- User interface loading or resizing is now up to 50% faster.
- Reduced the size of windows installers.
- Minor layout changes.
Fixes and compatibility improvements:
- Fixed undo/redo incompatibilities with some plug-ins.
- (Mac) Fixed random crashes when unloading some plug-ins on Mac (Waves plug-ins for example).
- (Win/AAX) Fixed shortcut to user manual in start menu.
- (AAX) Fixed inaccurate transport information reported to sub plug-ins when stopping playback in Pro Tools

[4tune]

Improvements:
- User interface loading or resizing is now up to 50% faster.

This is great! opens here in about a second, so a big improvement over earlier versions! Seems to be improved since 1.2 aswell.

thanks

[Blue Cat Audio]

There were indeed small improvements with 1.2, but 1.3 is almost a complete rewrite of parts of the user interface to make it much faster to load.

[Blue Cat Audio]

By the way, for those having latency compensation issues in Cubase or Nuendo, we have published a short tutorial to explain how to fix it: using Blue Cat's PatchWork or MB-7 Mixer with dynamic latency in Cubase or Nuendo.