VST to DX Wrapper and Softsynths

  • Thread starter Thread starter moonman
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Those convolutions you referred to earlier...

Brando,

At last someone who speaks at my level. I'm already a step farther along than I was. Maybe I could crack it from here. Frankly, setting the L1 as Output but not Input for Cakewalk plus Channel 1, then similar choices in Amulet Adapter (which it doesn't appear to remember in the demo version), then similar choices in B4 standalone (I probably shouldn't have even touched that) - all got me thoroughly confused. Too bad I'm not fathoming what it all means.

I, too, am using Cake HS 9.01 (which became sufficiently upset at some of my random settings efforts to crash big time). So, I'll take you up on your generous offer to send screen dumps via e-mailed attachment. andy@geh.org

By the way - Gus from Tech Support for Amulet had replied to one of my questions that he was working on FAQ specific to us Cakewalk strugglers. But he gave no indication of when it would be ready to distribute. Does one have more leverage before or after purchasing the full-version? The 'demo' concept (try before you buy) works well for me in general.

Thanks once again,

ahe
 
Andyesk:
I am also using the demo right now, and have been feeling a little guilty about that. I just bought the WAMI Box I told you about for my laptop, and have been putting all of my efforts into getting that working. I am looking at either jumping into Cubase (I am also currently playing around with the demo of VST/32 5.0), or moving up to Cakewalk Pro Audio, provided that Amulet works well enough for me, at which time I would also register Amulet. So many elements influence the performance of so many others.

I am sending you the email as we speak. let me know how it works out for you.
 
Andyesk:
I am also using the demo right now, and have been feeling a little guilty about that. I just bought the WAMI Box I told you about for my laptop, and have been putting all of my efforts into getting that working. I am looking at either jumping into Cubase (I am also currently playing around with the demo of VST/32 5.0), or moving up to Cakewalk Pro Audio, provided that Amulet works well enough for me, at which time I would also register Amulet. So many elements influence the performance of so many others.

I am sending you the email as we speak. let me know how it works out for you. (By the way, the file is quite large (2.8 MB) due to all the screen dumps. It's only a few pages in size)
 
Mail it to me Brando and I'll put it up on the web so we can all see it

cheers
John

johnsay@lis.net.au
 
Righton C7sus - I realised that I hadn't hit play or record so I did.... I had to reboot!!!
 
As far as I can see, Amulet does everything it is supposed to do. If you want to be pissed at something, you should be pissed at Cakewalk for steadfastly refusing to support VST and ASIO. The people who developed Amulet did an amazing job allowing VSTi to run in this environment. The demo does not limit your ability to try out softsynths. The instructions that I have included here were based on my experiences running the demo version also.
 
Andyesk:
I got your email. That's a bit of a stumper. Do you have a "VST Plugins" directory? In my case, all of my VST plugs are installed in this directory (C:\VST Plugins). The VST plugs themselves are .dll files, and are simply copied into the directory. If you don't have the Plugins directory, I think it may need to be created. You should check the B4 documentation on specifically how to install the B4 as a VST instrument. When I installed Amulet, I didn't need to specify a VST Plugins directory, so if you get the VST Plugins directory setup, and make sure the B4 VSTi file (*.dll) are in it, Amulet should find the file (At least I think so?/)
 
John Sayers:
I sent you the email. let me know if there are any questions or concerns.

Thanks,

Brando
 
Kudos to Brando for the detailed illustrated and annotated instructionsand to John for putting these on web site.

For what it's worth, here's a few caveats or oddities I experienced along the way.

I've now jumped the big hurdles (I hope) and only remaining problem solving is that I arm the track I've prepared per Brando's instructions, click on record, hear the notes played directly on the B4 plug-in. Click STOP, reset to beginning of track - I can see the TEAL colored Cakewalk 'recorded xx' message. But then clicking play yields no sound other than the AMULET demo beeps (to annoy me into buying which I'm now ready to do). So, one last prize to whomever identifies the config (last?) that I'm still missing.

Observations along the way: When installing AMULET and it prompts for the WINDOWS folder where the PLUGINS will be living, that needs to be same folder where the B4 installation put its plugins (B4 defaults to c:/program files/Vstplugins. Now, that may seem like a no-brainer, but I didn't discover it until uninstalling everything (I mean CAKEWALK, AMULET, and B4) and starting over from scratch.

2nd, and more serious: B4's installation procedure doesn't match its documentation (I was actually reading the accompanying printed documentation - rare for me). genmidi.dll doesn't install where the book says it will. Worse, there's a dialog box during install that says 'attention CAKEWALK users' and instructs NOT doing a section. Only when I IGNORED this warning, did I get genmidi.dll to install AT ALL. I'll be relaying this to Native Inst, although they probably already know.

Finally, if Brando or John would like a bmp or jpg screen capture to illustrate B4 analogous to the other illustrations, I'll be glad to provide same.

I'd still be crying in my beer without all of your help.

Best wishes to all,

ahe
 
VST Synths in Cake - official FXpansion response

Sorry to jump in so late in the day, only just found out about this place.

First off, a big thanks to Brando for taking the time to put those instructions together, and to John Sayers for hosting them.

Apologies for the lack of support some of the demo-users feel they've had; unfortunately, a company as small as ours does not have unlimited support resources, and while I realise it makes a difference to your decision as to whether or not to buy, it's very difficult indeed for us to support every demo user.

In general, the best places for getting support on our demos are public forums such as this one, the Cakewalk newsgroup, and our own UBB forum at http://www.fxpansion.com. We monitor all those forums and do what we can to help; there's plenty of existing users who'll be able to help you as well. Future demos will be clearer on this point - we can't promise email support for demo users.

As to the specific issue of VST Synths in Cakewalk, I know our documentation is currently a bit patchy, and a better version is on the way. Can't promise an exact date, but when it's done I'll post it here and elsewhere; Brando's walkthrough, used in conjunction with our existing docs, goes a good way towards acheiving what we'd like in terms of that. If any of you are still stuck, just keep this thread going and I'll try to respond.
 
That's great news from fxpansion tech support!

As the 'middle-ware' between vendors such as Cakewalk and VST vendors such as Native Instruments, Fxpansion/Amulet must have the greatest interest in having some of us succeed in getting this to work.

I think I have it properly put together, simply can't get my Yamaha keyboard to sound, nor get Record function to work (only hear sounds from virtual keyboard).

My settings in Amulet appear green rather than red. Documentation doesn't detail the meaning of the little yellow indicator in upper right corner where Loaded Plugin name is displayed.

What is its significance? I notice it only is on when:
1. The keyboard power is on.
2. The MIDI CTRL setting is on SB Live soundcard rather than LB1 loopback per Brando and Amulet instructions as to correct settings.

I sort of assume this may be a clue as to where my settings are wrong and preventing me from the final celebration.

Thanks in advance.

ahe
 
right-o...

The "little yellow dot" is a MIDI activity indicator. The fact that you never see any activity when it's set to LB1 indicates that you haven't got any MIDI coming through from Cakewalk. I don't know if you're trying to send the Adapter the MIDI from a track in Cakewalk, or directly from the keyboard; but if it's from Cakewalk, check that the MIDI track is correctly set to send to LB1.

First though, you need to check that Cakewalk's own usage of MIDI ports is set up right!

The important things are that (a) LB1 OUTPUT is ENabled, (b) LB1 INPUT is DISabled, and (c) SB Live INPUT is ENabled. How you use the other ports is up to you.

You should now be able to set Adapter to use LB1 as its input port, and select LB1 as an output port for MIDI tracks in Cake. Now, when you playback this MIDI track, the yellow light should blink.
 
Well, just when I thought I was at the last inch, turns out there's another quarter inch - then another eigthth beyond that... (hope not).

Followed Fexpansion's advice above. I think my install of Cakewalk HS 9.01 might have picked up some leftover configs from Cakewalk Express which I never uninstalled.

Anyway, now under Cakewalk/options/midi devices, I have
Input port set to "SB Live Midi In"; Output port set to "A: SB Live Midi Synth" AND "LB1".

I go thru the 'Brando' edition of the adapter instructions.
I notice that after inserting the 'silent' .wav at beginnning and end of the track, the PORT setting automatically reverts from LB1 to SB Live Wave OUT. Is that normal?

Anyway, I put the settings into the ADAPTER and they are green. I notice for first time that if I rotate thru all the device settings in MIDI CTL, they are all green EXCEPT when I get to "SB LIVE MIDI IN" which is red. Previously, I'd either get all greens or all reds. I don't know if this tells anyone anything.

Most important (to me at least), I now notice that after arming the track and clicking record, the virtual keys clicked with mouse still sound as before, while the real keyboard keys still do NOT - HOWEVER, while striking the REAL keys, I DO get blinks from the yellow indicator 'hyphen' on the adapter. I don't think this was happening before. Just no sound, and nothing recorded for playback although CAKEWALK does put in a TEAL colored 'recorded' section with 2 horizontal rows of dots. Also, for whatever it's worth, there is a little 'keyboard' graphic in my system tray called "Midi input/output activity". When I'm in record mode, its right-hand red light blinks (without my doing anything to mouse or keys).

Thanks for indulging all this detail. I figure it's the fine points at this point that are hanging me up. And I'm confused enough to not know whether I'm output or input!!

I don't know how moonman got this figured out so fast - where did you disappear to?

Later,

ahe
 
andyesk - re the port changing, yes that's normal, the way you have things set up. But, you don't seem to have realised you'll need an audio track (set to the WaveOut or whatever) and a =seperate= MIDI track (set to LB1).

In the adapter MIDI settings - yep, that's how it should look - the red means the SBLive MIDI is not available to the Adapter, which is correct - it means that Cakewalk has already "grabbed" the SBLive MIDI port for itself.

I think you're =very= nearly there - just creating a MIDI track and recording on that, instead of trying to record MIDI to an audio track, might get you the rest of the way.
 
Hubis Loopback?

I understand everything that's been said here except-
where/how do i get hubis loopback? what is it? how do i get it and install it?

Also, doesn't anybody elses demo of amulet beep every four seconds to annoy the hell out of you and make you register your version?

whitey
 
Go to http://www.maz-sound.com/misc_without_frames.html. Take your pick between MIDI Yoke or Hubi's. Really a matter of choice. Both are freeware. With respect to the Amulet adapter beeping: Yup. If it's at all useful to you you pretty much have to register it. The beeping makes it all but unusable. But the issue with respect to its long range usability isn't really a fault of the adapter. It's Cakewalk's lack of support for ASIO drivers, and the inherently longer latencies associated with DirectX/MME drivers (currently). You may find that with your particular sound card you get usable latency. But there is no reason to buy the adapter until you get the whole thing together (as long as you can tolerate the beeps) until you're sure your setup works adequately.
 
Thank You Comrades!

Thanx for all the great info. It is incredibly comforting to know that others are suffering through the exact same ordeal! I'm about to follow all the directions posted here, I'll let you all know how it went.

james (whitey)
 
I just went through this whole ordeal . . . VST to DirectX adapter . . It's a keeper. Hubi's loopback . . .it works. Native Instruments Demo . . . it sucks. Times out after 15 minutes. It takes me that long to get things set right. What a bunch of laimbrains at NI. Couldn't they just give a 30 day full usage Demo instead of this beeping bomb on a timer?

PAPicker
 
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