live use of laptop (at the mixing console)...

  • Thread starter Thread starter cedric
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cedric

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(or however it's said the best).

looking for some ideas to run a leadsinger through and VST plugin for a bitcrushing/crunchy-effect.

i've got a fast and solid laptop and for I/O i have a motu 896.
i want to mike him on stage,
go throught the 896 and laptop,
into the mixer and etc.. (out the monitors, speakers etc...).
(or... through the mixer first - then out the SEND/RETURN to the MOTU)

is there any program that let's me simply send audio through a VST plugin, in realtime, and straight out again (hopefully firewire compatible)?

any suggestions?

- ced
 
Stop me if I am wrong, but I believe input monitoring would not be a solution, because it would only pass the input signal, and not the processed output signal. Personally, I would set up a prefade aux send to the laptop, and then monitor the output of your effect from your software. You will get latency though. I believe steinberg makes a program called "V-Stack" and also I think D-Sound makes a program as well. If I remember right, those two programs are basically designed to do just that. They don't edit or record, just pass effects. That might allow you to lower yourlatency just a touch from using a full blown sequencer.
 
xstatic said:
Stop me if I am wrong, but I believe input monitoring would not be a solution, because it would only pass the input signal, and not the processed output signal.
Click to expand...

Well the whole point of input monitoring is to be able to hear what your recording along with the effects in real time ( less a few ms latency).

Actually I don't know why it's called INPUT monitoring seeing as it's the Output from the s/w that's being monitored
 
You can do this with n-Track.
Grab up on version 3.3.
No need to even register it, unless you intend to record with it or use effects on more than one channel.

How you ask?

I'll explain in great detail ..... or try at least. :D

OK you downloaded and installed ver. 3.3 and now you want to set it up for your 896.
Launch n-Track (agree with the little demo pop-up thing) and hit Ctrl+P or File > Settings > Preferences.
Now click the "Audio Devices" button. Click the "Advanced" button and make sure "show ASIO devices" is selected. Click OK.
Now click the MOTU FireWire Audio drivers for playback and record.
Click OK.
You can browse through the rest of the preferences settings if you like or just click OK to close the Settings window.
Now click F6 to view the playback VU's. Click the little hammer, then click "Select I/O channels" and select the Input and Output you intend to use.
ASIO drivers group IN's and OUT's as stereo pairs, but you can use just one channel of the pair.
Click OK.
Now click "ASIO settings" then "ASIO control panel". This will bring up the MOTU control panel.
Set your samples per buffer to 128 (that should give you low enough latency).
Click OK, OK and OK. :cool:
Now open the record VU's (F5). Click the hammer and set the Channels to ... "Stereo -> two mono tracks" also select "Enable Live input processing from this input" and click OK.
You can right click on the title bars of both VU's and deselect docking, so you can move them around if you like.
The little green button turns the meter on and the little red button lets you select how you wish to record from the channels.
Turn on the record VU's and figure out which inputs you selected (it would be nice if n-Track named them a bit better but it's easy enough to figure it out by trying each input until you register a level on the VU).
Now click the red button and select "don't record from this channel", for the other channel of that stereo pair that's not being used.
Now click the "Live" button in the transport bar (this is for live input processing).
A track will appear in the time-line.
You can right click in the grey area just under that track and click "select left track bar elements" and make any selections you feel appropriate. I think the Pop-up mixer is selected by default. If not, select it. It's the arrow button in the track controls and pops out a mixer strip for that track.
At the top left of those track controls is a little "fx" button. When it's green, effects are enabled for the tracks. Although, with the demo you only get effects on the first track.
Seeing as how you are just using one input, this is not a problem.
If you haven't done so already, click the arrow and pop out the mixer strip.
The strip has level, pan, mute, solo, three EQ knobs (when double clicked, open up a 20 band EQ/spectrum analyzer .... it defaults at three bands but you can add more), effects insert window (right click in that window and n-Track will scan for plugins and open a little window where you can select the ones you want to use) and AUX sends.
All you will really be using is the effects insert window and maybe some EQ if you desire.
I should also state that back in the Preferences settings, under the "Paths" tab ... you can specify where your VST plugin directory is or you can select for n-Track to do a complete re-scan.
If for some reason you get an error about the scan, just let it continue doing it's thing (don't click anything) until you get the window for selecting effects. This just means you must have a plugin or two that doesn't agree with n-Track. Once you get the window for selecting effects, you can get rid of the "vstscan.exe has encountered an error" thing ... if you even get an error.
Now you just need to select the plugin/plugins you wish to use, tweak them how you like and have the singer sing away.
n-Track supports DirectX and VST plugins. If your looking for some freebies .... here is a start.

One other thing ..... CueMix offers direct monitoring, so you will have to mute the output of CueMix to get just the effected signal from the live input processing of n-Track.

After all of that, I'm sure there are other options out there for achieving what you wish to do but I know this will. Free even!

HTH and good luck

-Ken
 
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