Rack Synth to Soft Synth Upgrade Path :help:

[Kaneda2112]

I've been using my FCB1010 with my PK5 pedals and a Roland JV1080 rack synth module to play and change patches etc, while playing bass with my band. We do a fair bit of Rush!

However, what I'm finding is that the palette is somewhat limited in a single
module (even with the 'vintage synths' expansion) and was wondering if any folks here have experience using Cantabile and some good plugins (like the Sonicprojects OP-X II) instead of a hardware synth with the FCB?

I'm looking to be able to change synths and programs, while disabling the other synths as I depress switches on the FCB1010. I've played with various rack setups in the software, but was unable to wrap my head around how to accomplish this. I played with Ableton and that seemed like total overkill for what should be a relatively simple task.

It'd be great to be able to change up sounds and perhaps get some more accurate representations of sounds for certain songs like Tom Sawyer etc while changing the patches via the FCB1010.

Any ideas or thoughts out there? If Cantabile is not the right solution for this, is there anything else out there?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Matt

[humphrey]

Hi Matt,

as far as I understood your request cantabile would easily able to do what you need. Simpy start with the Lite version (free) and have a look if you can get familiar with it. Then Solo or Performer will give you the possibility to change settings by program changes (f.e. sent by your FCB1010).

Cantabile is able to handle lots of instruments plus effects (if needed). Cantabile is able to make a "snapshot" of each instrument settings (this is the usual way it works) so you don't have to handle with program changes inside.

Also every other parameter (routing, transpose, volume, pan, effect,...) is storable.

Concernig VSTis: as far as I saw on Wikipedia Geddy played the following instruments during the years (I try to give you some hints on how they could be substituted):

OB-X/OB-Xa: Sonic Projects OP-X Pro-II*
PPG Wave 2.2/2.3: Waldorf Wave 2.V or 3.V
Roland Jupiter 8: u-he DIVA*, OP-X Pro-II*, Arturia Jupiter 8v
Roland D50: http://kontaktbanks.com/kb_deepflight.html (Kontakt Samples only)
Roland XV5080: ??
Fantom X7: ??
Minimoog: u-he DIVA*, Arturia Minimoog V*, Minimonsta
Moog Taurus: Smartelektronix Taurus (Beta 4) (did not test it)
Moog Little Phatty: ?? (probably DIVA)
Yamaha DX7: NI FM7*/FM8*

I have those VSTis with * available and recommend nearly all of them (only Minimoog V doesn't convince me as there is DIVA...). Specially OP-X Pro-II is a must have for playing Rush! DIVA is a real burner but very CPU hungry.

If you don't like Cantabile Forte (brainspawn) could be another useful host for you. Both are very good in what they do. Each of them has its speciallities. At least it's a question of personal taste.

Hope this can be of some help,

kind regards, humphrey

[Kaneda2112]

Humphrey,

Ok, I must be mentally deficient because while I can get VSTs to play, the concepts around changing synths and patches eludes me.

It makes me want to retreat back to the hardware synth world where everything seems straightforward. Forte seemed a little more intuitive - but it I still had issues with the process of setting up separate synths with specific patches, and then being able to switch between them with the fcb1010.

There seems little documentation for the beginner. With one rack synth, it's easy to address a bank and patch. But this doesn't seem to work that way. I was hoping I could just set up say 5 synths with their own presets and be able to switch between them while playing live.

For relative newbies to the software side of things, it would be great if there were tutorials and walk-troughs for at least the simple tasks.

Thanks anyway for your help. Aaaargh!

Matt

Hi Matt,

as far as I understood your request cantabile would easily able to do what you need. Simpy start with the Lite version (free) and have a look if you can get familiar with it. Then Solo or Performer will give you the possibility to change settings by program changes (f.e. sent by your FCB1010).

Cantabile is able to handle lots of instruments plus effects (if needed). Cantabile is able to make a "snapshot" of each instrument settings (this is the usual way it works) so you don't have to handle with program changes inside.

Also every other parameter (routing, transpose, volume, pan, effect,...) is storable.

Concernig VSTis: as far as I saw on Wikipedia Geddy played the following instruments during the years (I try to give you some hints on how they could be substituted):

OB-X/OB-Xa: Sonic Projects OP-X Pro-II*
PPG Wave 2.2/2.3: Waldorf Wave 2.V or 3.V
Roland Jupiter 8: u-he DIVA*, OP-X Pro-II*, Arturia Jupiter 8v
Roland D50: http://kontaktbanks.com/kb_deepflight.html (Kontakt Samples only)
Roland XV5080: ??
Fantom X7: ??
Minimoog: u-he DIVA*, Arturia Minimoog V*, Minimonsta
Moog Taurus: Smartelektronix Taurus (Beta 4) (did not test it)
Moog Little Phatty: ?? (probably DIVA)
Yamaha DX7: NI FM7*/FM8*

I have those VSTis with * available and recommend nearly all of them (only Minimoog V doesn't convince me as there is DIVA...). Specially OP-X Pro-II is a must have for playing Rush! DIVA is a real burner but very CPU hungry.

If you don't like Cantabile Forte (brainspawn) could be another useful host for you. Both are very good in what they do. Each of them has its speciallities. At least it's a question of personal taste.

Hope this can be of some help,

kind regards, humphrey

[pinkcanaru]

Hi there,

Firstly, you can download the full Performer version and have a trial period.

Not all synths transmit their bank contents to the host (any host, not just Cantabile) . To use an example from Humphrey's list, the PPG does show its patch list in the drop down list in the program column (just to the right of the plug in name. Something like Omnisphere which uses a dedicated browser does not.

In these cases it makes sense to right click on a plugin in the rack and in 'sub-session behavior' enable 'entire bank'.

There are a series of videos on YouTube giving you an introduction to 'Sub-Sessions'. This is the key to using Cantabile live. Each 'sub-session' has a unique set of instructions for each song.
When a new sub-session is called up, it can recall the exact state of all the plugins which you have enabled 'entire bank' for.

Once you get your head around a few simple concepts you will be surprised at how fast you can get things happening. This forum is a great resource - so use it!

[humphrey]

Hi Matt,

sorry you're not directly able to handle these live tools but to be serious: it takes some time to get familiar with the way live hosts work. First off: most VSTs and VSTis are not designed to be used in live situations. The normal way is to load them into a DAW like cubase or logic, call up a sound. Normally you add another plugin if you need to change the sound during the song. Mostly program changes inside the host are not needed so. What you never need in a recording session is to "jump" form one song to another (with other instruments and sounds) but this is exactly what is needed in live hosts.

Developers of live hosts have developed certain strategies to handle this. F.e. they keep the vsts in a rack and only disable them if they are not needed or the host remembers if a plugin needend in a new song was already used before and is so not released which leads to reduced change times and enhenced stability.

One thing seems to be common: the normal way to create a song (or set) is not to send pc, fxb,... commands to the plugins (not every plugin has the same behavior here!) but to take a snapshot of the whole bunch of plugins including all the perameters inside the plugs.

This means: you can easily call up the sound you like inside your synth, but you are allowed to change anything (f.e. decrease the release of sound you like). When storing the song / set every parameter inside any plugin you use is stored. If you recall the song these parameters will be recalled exactly in the way they were stored. I think the advantages are clear: the procedure works with any plugin (independently from the way they handle sounds / soundbanks) and calling up a song doesn't rely on the soundbanks inside the plugins (think of a harddisk crash - a backup of your songs is absolutely sufficient to rearrange everything - you don't have to manage all the soundbanks of all plugins).

If you urgently want to use program changes to call up the sounds inside your plugs you will also find tools inside cantabile and forte. For cantabile it's called subsession. Here the plugins can be kept untouched form the "snapshot strategy" and the parametrization is done by sending program change / bank commands by using trigger events f.e. Btw: this also is a proper soulution if large samples are used as the samples are loading at the begin of the show and kept inside the plug all the time. So you only decide which slot (or whatever it's called in the plug) shall be active.

Concernig beginners: yes, it will take some time to get familiar with these tools. Did you see the tutorial videos on the cantabile webside http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/videos/ ? Specially "Working with Sub-Sessions in Cantabile Performer" and "Working with Set Lists in Cantabile" could be helpful for the first steps.

If you decide to do some steps: don't hesitate to post again.

Kind regards, humphrey

[Kaneda2112]

Hey ho, let's go...!

OK, I got it figured out! Thank you all for being encouraging and helping out. The Song and sub-session videos were totally the key. I am now totally blown away with what this software can do in a live setting.

I just created individual songs with individual sessions sessions that contain the racks/settings/patches that I need, and then I assigned an FCB1010 switch to call up a specific song instantly. Now I can select any combination of sounds and effects I require at any time in any order I choose.

Pretty damn amazing. And it is so customizable. The layering and other effects capabilities are pretty astounding and the possibilities seem endless. All I can say is wow!

I can't see going back to hardware synths now that I get how this is supposed to work. I guess the next step is a laptop or rack PC with a decent low latency sound card.

Most laptops these days come with Realtek chipset sound cards. Are there any preferences out there for live performance? In a full blown PC at home I use and ASIO based card (a Creative Audigy which does just fine), but I'm not sure what to use in a laptop?

[pinkcanaru]

you will be amazed at how good your laptop can be with ASIO4All as the driver.
I use a pretty heavy setup with no external hardware apart from a midi interface and get very acceptable latency.
http://www.asio4all.com/

Glad you made such rapid progress!

And - there is much, much, more you can do once you scratch below the surface. You may think that some areas seem a little redundant at first - but then you realize that each module has specific strengths which allow extremely customizable setups to be made.

The most important thing you can do once you have learned the basics is to strategize your approach.
It makes sense to have a master Session which has all the plugins you are likely to use.
You just make subsessions which enable/disable the plugins as required. You can end up with a huge long subsession list - but then... you look at Setlists which allow you to present only the subesssions required in a dedicated Setlist which can be re-ordered with ease.
Also, pay attention to the 'auto-save' mode when setting up subsessions. It automatically saves the sub-session when you move to another subession. This can be GREAT when setting things up but you need to be careful once you have defined your work.
For example, you may have set a specific drawbar snapshot on a virtual organ. You use a controller to move the drawbars like a real organ - but be careful when you switch to the next subsession because the last state of those drawbars will be saved!
That's why you would turn OFF autosave once you have locked in sounds that you may be editing in realtime.

Knowing these little things ahead of time can save some frustration.

[humphrey]

Most laptops these days come with Realtek chipset sound cards. Are there any preferences out there for live performance? In a full blown PC at home I use and ASIO based card (a Creative Audigy which does just fine), but I'm not sure what to use in a laptop?

Hm, depends on the interface(s) available on the laptop. Express Card Slots are rare nowadays - not a future proof solution. Firewire can lead to problems depending on the chipset. I'd recommend RME Babyface (USB) if money is not an issue for you.

regards, humphrey

[pinkcanaru]

Always turn off the network connections when running Cantabile in a real live situation.
That can play havoc with low latency operation.
In some situations I am using multiple outputs so I have to use an audio interface - and I have had no problems with firewire as long as make sure that network is OFF.

[Kaneda2112]

Just a quick note. Thanks for all your help.

I ended up buying the Pro version. I also ended up getting the OBX VSTs to get that vintage Rush sound.

I use the Behringer FCB1010 to select different songs/patches, and I play notes with a my PK5 bass pedals and Roland kb controller. I bought a T-series Thinkpad and I ended up using the outboard soundcard in my Tascam US 1641 because it was rack mountable in a case.

Cantabile is a great piece of software and solved alot of problems and removed the necessity to carry around more than one rack synth.

Thanks all again.