New Plug-In: Blue Cat's Connector

[Blue Cat Audio]

Dear KVR Members,

We are happy to announce the release of Blue Cat's Connector, a new universal connection plug-in that can be used to route audio and MIDI almost anywhere "in the box".



Also described as a "virtual cable for your virtual studio", Connector can stream audio and MIDI in real time, between any locations that can load plug-ins, inside one or several applications, on one or several machines connected to a network.

The plug-in offers total control over the streaming to achieve the lowest possible latencies (down to 0 samples, when used in a single application), and its built-in resampling and drift compensation algorithms take care of any potential synchronization issues between hosts for a very stable connection, even when no master clock is available.

A special introduction offer applies to the plug-in until February 20th (details below), and existing customers will receive a special offer by email.

More information about this new plug-in, demo versions and videos can be found on our website.

Blue Cat's Connector Main Features:
- Universal connection plug-in available in VST, VST3, AAX or Audio Unit format.
- Create your own audio/MIDI routings inside your DAW (feedback loops allowed).
- Create connections between any audio software on one or multiple computers.
- Minimal latency, with full control over buffering.
- Supports multiple sampling rates on a single connection (built-in resampling).
- Built-in drift compensation.
- Send and receive back audio/MIDI with a single instance.

System requirements:
- Intel or M1 Mac running Mac OS 10.9 or newer.
- PC running Windows Vista or newer.

Introduction Pricing Until February 20th:
- Blue Cat's Connector: 39 USD/EUR, instead of 49 (20% off)

Enjoy!

[Blue Cat Audio]

A few examples of what Connector can do for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwaTIO1uK0

[sin night]

This looks interesting (I’ve been thinking about using multiple machines in my setup).

How many tracks we can expect to run across a network (or rather: how much bandwidth is required for a single track)? I suppose the audio is sent uncompressed and then there’s a small overhead for the network packets?

Sorry if there informations are already in the video or website, I’m on my mobile and I didn’t watch yet.

[Blue Cat Audio]

The actual bandwidth depends on the sample rate, and the length of the audio packets (the bigger, the less bandwidth, because of the overhead of the software and IP protocols), and the global capacity really depends on your network and the equipment used, so it's hard to give a realistic figure.

It is sending uncompressed audio indeed, in 32-bit floating point format. So if you consider the audio data rate only, at 44100 Hz it is around 1,3 Mbit/s, per audio channel.

[bharris22]

Very interesting. Currently, Renoise does not permit the recording of MIDI data generated by a plugin (such as Thesys). It says above that feedback loops are allowed, and that you can send and receive back MIDI with a single instance. Have you, by chance, tried this within Renoise yet? If not, I am definitely going to give this a try this weekend to see if this would permit recording of MIDI data within Renoise.

[antic604]

Currently, Renoise does not permit the recording of MIDI data generated by a plugin (such as Thesys).

Why would this be any different? From DAWs perspective Connector and Thesys are just pluging outputing MIDI.

What you can do now however is use Connector within Renoise capturing the MIDI, Connector in other DAW to receive it and record as MIDI clip and then import that back into Renoise (assuming it can import MIDI clips, I never tried).

[antic604]

Ok, that's pretty awesome!

I might just get it to support the dev & the initiative, even though the only use case I can come up with for me is getting the sound from DAW into OBS because that only works when WASAPI is available (e.g. Bitwig and S1, but not with Reason, Live or Cubase).

[simmo75]

Can this be used systemwide?
Would love to use ARC3 on the my Mac output.

Also, does it host plugins so it can be used like Audio Gridder?

[Blue Cat Audio]

Currently, Renoise does not permit the recording of MIDI data generated by a plugin (such as Thesys).

Why would this be any different? From DAWs perspective Connector and Thesys are just pluging outputing MIDI.

What you can do now however is use Connector within Renoise capturing the MIDI, Connector in other DAW to receive it and record as MIDI clip and then import that back into Renoise (assuming it can import MIDI clips, I never tried).

If you want to reuse the MIDI output of another plug-in once it has been processed, you can also load it into Patchwork (inside Renoise), route the MIDI out of this plug-in to Connector (all within PatchWork), so that it gets sent to another DAW for recording.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Ok, that's pretty awesome!

I might just get it to support the dev & the initiative, even though the only use case I can come up with for me is getting the sound from DAW into OBS because that only works when WASAPI is available (e.g. Bitwig and S1, but not with Reason, Live or Cubase).

Yes, sending audio directly from one or multiple DAWs into OBS is indeed one of my preferred use cases, sometimes on a different machine!

[Blue Cat Audio]

Can this be used systemwide?
Would love to use ARC3 on the my Mac output.

It works system-wide but can only be used inside applications that can load plug-ins (it is not a driver).

Also, does it host plugins so it can be used like Audio Gridder?

It does not host plug-ins, only transmits audio & MIDI. You may however want to use our PatchWork application as an audio server, and send audio & MIDI to it with the connector plug-in (placed in the first plug-in slot), then send it back to the other machine with another instance at the end of the chain. Works like a charm! We'll probably write a tutorial about that.

[antic604]

...all within PatchWork...

I might be misunderstanding, but is Patchwork required for Connector to work?

[bharris22]

Currently, Renoise does not permit the recording of MIDI data generated by a plugin (such as Thesys).

Why would this be any different? From DAWs perspective Connector and Thesys are just pluging outputing MIDI.

What you can do now however is use Connector within Renoise capturing the MIDI, Connector in other DAW to receive it and record as MIDI clip and then import that back into Renoise (assuming it can import MIDI clips, I never tried).

What you describe is currently possible with the free LoopBe virtual midi cable. I thought this might be different because the product description states that feedback loops are allowed.

[antic604]

What you describe is currently possible with the free LoopBe virtual midi cable. I thought this might be different because the product description states that feedback loops are allowed.

I don't think Renoise's limitation has anything to do with feedback loops. I guess you can't tell Renoise to treat output of a plugin as an input to a track, which is how most DAWs allow to record output of MIDI FX plugins.

[Halonmusic]

very cool