Searching a live host, is Cantabile for me?

[krraqk]

Hello has the topic said im searching for a live host, after read all the specs in the paper I decided to go for Kore software version.

I like from it very much the fact that its a host and a plugin so I can move my live sounds to my daw and viceversa, the great sounds browser, the great integration with Komplete5 that I use, etc.
But after trying it Im disappointed in some important areas:
It heats serious cpu (compared to other hosts). When used as a plugin it heats even more cpu so it disables that feature.
It dont supports multiple cpus (in live mode its a very bad idea to have other core/s without being used while the one used is maxed).
The routing although can be very complex its a bit convoluted.

The other two live hosts I considered where Forte and Cantabile. Forte is too much expensive so Cantabile is my next option, so I d/l the demo and Im 2 days trying it.

The first thing I noticed is that it seems to run more plugins than Kore (yet testing that) and the best is that it runs in the two cores, thats great! and it seems to do that very efficiently. With 2 cores I can do a lot more than with Kore, thats sure. About that I dont understand very much the cpu % meter, sometimes it give a 130% !?!, in general it shows more cpu % than the windows cpu meter, why is that?

The signal flow seems to be much more limited than the one in Kore, only 2 sends?? is not that very limiting? there are plans to improve the signal flow in future versions? A problem that Im having is trying to use Mobius (a live Looper). I need to route to it an input signal from my soundcard (I have done that already) but also the signal from some other racks. I tried to send the signal with a "partial send" but Mobius dont see any signal. What can be the problem here? It can receive and input signal and signal from other racks simultaneously? Can anyone help me to solve that?

The gui seems good, but to me there is a to much waste of space with all that white areas, all that big faders (which can be solved with small buttons). While in the rack there is not a input signal menu, not an midi input led...

I have not tested yet the midi routing/mapping/curves, etc. Cantabile capabilities, Kore is limited in this area and I hope Cantabile can be better.

Sorry if my post sounds like a rant, Im only talking about my impressions, if im wrong in something, please correct me.

If you know any other advantages from Cantabile over Kore I would like to know.

Last one: Cantabile will be a plugin in the future?

Thanks for reading and any help would be appreciated.


pd: excuse my bad english.

[red37]

I dont understand very much the cpu % meter, sometimes it give a 130% !?!

Thats one thing i always 'panic' about sometimes....ive seen it go way higher than that though - occasionally when changing a synths presets, Cantabile cpu metre will go off the scale!

Dont really think there is too much to worry about though - overall the software is excellent and i could not do without it.

[TiUser]

Welcome, Red.

I can't see any rant - you're unsure, exploring and asking...

A longer time ago I've checked out a free Kore Trial too and was not convinced - it didn't work well at all on my Pentium 4 based systems while Cantabile did. On Core 2 (Duo or Quad) things are less critical but efficient software is still a key getting more out of a system.

If you're looking for a host that uses all your CPU cores as good as possible - Cantabile is for sure first choice. It's also future prove because you can choose between 32bit and 64bit versions.

The meter in Cantabile is not a CPU meter, it is an audio timing meter... I am a bit confused about this too. It shows the audio timing - i.e. if your system can respond fast enough for real time audio. Over 100% means risk of audio dropouts but if I'm honest I didn't hear that even slightly over 100%. This value has not much to do with what you can see on the windows cpu meters which seem to average load and not showing spikes.

Cantabile has many features under the hood that might sometimes be difficult to master too but there's hardly much you can not do. What you can set up in the midi path is outstanding.

You may be familiar with audio sends which works similar to a mixer but keep in mind that you can route racks too or you can simply add effects in the same rack. There is also a complex master bus that is a bit difficult to use but opens up even more options. Theoretically you can set up surround audio and much more... I hope Cantabile will once improve the gui so that these massive technical possibilities can be better used.

Finally I'd like to point out that subsessions in the Performer version is the key to fast, nearly instant scene changes in a song when you need complex chains of setups. But don't expect to master all this in a couple of days... Cantabile is here no different to other complex software, give it some time and use your 30 days trial period to full extend before you make any serious decision.

P.S. I guess your english isn't worse to mine...

[krraqk]

Welcome, Red.



I can't see any rant - you're unsure, exploring and asking...

Thanks!

A longer time ago I've checked out a free Kore Trial too and was not convinced - it didn't work well at all on my Pentium 4 based systems while Cantabile did. On Core 2 (Duo or Quad) things are less critical but efficient software is still a key getting more out of a system.

If you're looking for a host that uses all your CPU cores as good as possible - Cantabile is for sure first choice. It's also future prove because you can choose between 32bit and 64bit versions.

Absolutely! I play with a notebook because I want to use the best sounds (and combinations of sounds) possible, so every penny of cpu is very welcome!.
Kore is specially ineficient, not to talk about it not being capable of use all the cores. 64 bit compatible is very good also Im trying to migrate to 64 bit from some time, now that Kontakt 3,5 is 64 bit seems to be the momment.

The meter in Cantabile is not a CPU meter, it is an audio timing meter... I am a bit confused about this too. It shows the audio timing - i.e. if your system can respond fast enough for real time audio. Over 100% means risk of audio dropouts but if I'm honest I didn't hear that even slightly over 100%. This value has not much to do with what you can see on the windows cpu meters which seem to average load and not showing spikes.

Not sure what all that means. Not have seen this type of meter ever. Its a bit confusing. Sometimes it seems a normal cpu meter, other I dont understand why it shows those peaks. Well, not very important, but maybe to have a more "normal" meter would be more convenient? Whats the developper explanation to it? would like to know.

Cantabile has many features under the hood that might sometimes be difficult to master too but there's hardly much you can not do. What you can set up in the midi path is outstanding.

Well im finding it a bit intimidating, maybe even a bit obscure in some menus and functions, I need more time to know it. At this time it seems that I can do many of the mapping that I normally do to acomodate the midi signal to control comfortably the vsti sounds. Probably I would return with some questions about it very soon.

You may be familiar with audio sends which works similar to a mixer but keep in mind that you can route racks too or you can simply add effects in the same rack. There is also a complex master bus that is a bit difficult to use but opens up even more options. Theoretically you can set up surround audio and much more... I hope Cantabile will once improve the gui so that these massive technical possibilities can be better used.

Thats the part that I find more strange to me. I mean, it can be more simple in my mind. Would not be more easy to have a simple audio input in every rack? the you can route any physical input of your audio card to it. Its planned to have some more simple? Any word from the developper about that?

Also to have only 2 sends can be limiting in some situations.

If this area can be improved It seems a winner.

Finally I'd like to point out that subsessions in the Performer version is the key to fast, nearly instant scene changes in a song when you need complex chains of setups. But don't expect to master all this in a couple of days... Cantabile is here no different to other complex software, give it some time and use your 30 days trial period to full extend before you make any serious decision.

Subssesions, yeah, sounds interesting, not there yet, I hope to take to that soon.

In the end Im liking it more and more, easy, efficient, multicore, solid, no dropouts even at very low latency (I want to use 96 samples with my live setup), all that are very important things when one wants to get a notebook live. Sounds very promising, really.

P.S. I guess your english isn't worse to mine...

Thanks another time for your time and kind words.

[TiUser]

Hi.

If you want to mix 32bit and 64bit have a look on "jBridge". It's a wrapper where you can use 32bit plugins in 64bit hosts and 64bit plugins in 32bit hosts. Best of all Cantabile supports jBridge and integrates it.

Cantabiles load meter is really a bit strange - but for general cpu load we can use the Windows thing... multi cpu processing isn't that simple because resource conflicts can lead to problems using all power of all cores at the same time... imagine 4 processes want to use your HD... just one can do that, the others have to wait. The HD is slow so probably we have 25% cpu load in a quad system but 100% load for the process using the HD... ök, that's a bit stupid and incorrect simplification but shows the point... in real life it's even more complex than that because there are a lot more processes running in a system...

The master bus is indeed not transparent. You find a dialogue in a rack in "settings" - "tools" - "audio channels"

Sends in live mixers are often used for monitoring so you hardly have more than 2 sends for effects here too - except you work with highly professional monster mixers...

So a conventional mixer structure can be very limiting too - unless you start patching with inserts and subgroups - and that's what a rack chaining concept offers. I usually set up a rack for master effects like reverb and assign rack send while for individual effects I set up other racks or put it in the instrument rack too.

Cantabiles concepts are for sure on a high level - especially technically. Feature wise it mixes things hardly found in the same combination elsewhere. As any software it can not do everything but what it does is on a very high level.

[krraqk]

Sends in live mixers are often used for monitoring so you hardly have more than 2 sends for effects here too - except you work with highly professional monster mixers...

So a conventional mixer structure can be very limiting too - unless you start patching with inserts and subgroups - and that's what a rack chaining concept offers. I usually set up a rack for master effects like reverb and assign rack send while for individual effects I set up other racks or put it in the instrument rack too.

Cantabiles concepts are for sure on a high level - especially technically. Feature wise it mixes things hardly found in the same combination elsewhere. As any software it can not do everything but what it does is on a very high level.

Well, what you say about a hardware mixers is true, bue we are in the software domain, excuse me but I think its not comparable at all, there arent the typical hardware limitations, so there are not restrictions like we can see in many other software, Kore is a good example, the concept in this area is totally open, any channel or slot (similar to a rack in Cantabile) can have many instruments and effects and can have 11 sends. The signal flow is practically limitless. I dont think all that complexity is needed, but in the other side, yes I think the one in Cantabile in some situations can be limiting.

The rack chainning concept in Cantabile is interesting, but when you send audio to another rack it works like a bus, although no send to the main is possible, so its more like an insert.

In my normal setup I use several audio sends:
One is dedicated to Moebius (to record and loop any signal). One for general reverb. And generally I use a couple more to setup some rack of effects to process the signal in some situations. That, if Im not missing something, seems not to be possible in Cantabile, right?

I have some questions about the midi routing and filters, but I will post it in another thread.

Thanks another time for your answers.

[TiUser]

Hi.

I am not sure if you played around with Cantabile enough...

You can send the AUX to master with a little trick:
1. Set up the send as pre fader.
2. Create an empty rack
3. Route the send to this empty rack
4. Route the empty rack to master

I guess this does what you need, does it? Furthermore it gives you two additional new sends. Ok, it's a bit cumbersome, but seems to work. It's a bit like making an empty rack a subgroup.

Possibly it would not be technically very difficult for Topten to add more sends - it just haven't been done to make things not too confusing for beginners.