Support for outside Plugins

BY FAR my #1 request would be a component that would allow me to insert VST (AU?) plugins into that are not included with Guitar Rig.

I would think it would not be too very difficult to write some 'wrapper' component that you would use just like you do any of the default components in GR, but this one would allow you to select any VST plugin you wanted instead of being limited to those which came with GR.

The desire to use other people's plugins (like Pluggo or even the NI Spektral Delay) is the one and only thing that keeps me from using Guitar Rig 2 as a stand alone. Right now I have to run it in Live and that's MUCH less efficent and has much higher latency than I can achieve with Guitar Rig running as a stand alone.

 

I agree 110% with this! There are so many good plugins that would augment Guitar Rig. Right now you have to use some other host to do this and that is just a drain on CPU power - power I would rather see go to GR or the plugins themselves.

Another possibility would be to have a SDK (software developers kit) available for third party programmers to develop additional plugins for GR. There are a lot of talented programmers out there (unfortunately I am not one of them...) that could really do wonders with programming modules... Not only is this a benefit to the GR users - but GR could become more valuable to NI as well..

Dave
www.ambientstickist.com

 

Yeah, an SDK would be nice...but I really think it would be more flexible for everyone if NI just created a 'wrapper' so we could use VST plugs inside GR. Why would a programmer want to write a plugin that had a potential market of only GR users? And creating and supporting an SDK is undoubtedly more complex than creating this wrapper.

V~

 

Agreed - a VST wrapper would be the better solution. Still, I think if a SDK was available you might be suprised at how many programmers jumped on board. Look how many people are doing VST plugins.

NI will probably not want to develope an SDK because of the time involved and also to protect their software code.

Well, we can keep our fingers crossed for something to happen!

Dave
www.ambientstickist.com

 

Yeah, I think I need to give up on GR for a little while and wait for a faster machine and some inherent improvments in GR before I can use it.

I really would LOVE to use it due to the sound quality but:
I need to be able to integrate other VSt plugins and using GR inside Live bumps up the latency requirements too very much. I've been working on it for 4 days now (I mean, REALLY working hard on it) - I can get a great patch running with acceptable latency as a stand alone, but when I use GR as an insert in Live the combined latency and processing power required just pushes me over the edge.

A faster computer would help (running on a 1.5Ghz powerbook right now).

I also really hate having to work around the fact that you can't turn multiple devices on and off using a single controller in GR.

Perhaps someday. For now, I'm headed back to using Live as my host and just creating my own collection of plugins and routing inside there.
Of course, this collection of plugins includes quite a bunch of NI plugs!


V~

 

Curious as to the type of patches you are using in GR that use a lot of CPU. This is a problem I am running into with certain patches I create. I play Chapman Stick though and use GR in the two channel mode so CPU use can climb rather quickly...especially if I am using an Ambient style patch on each side. Plus I can't use the Hi Res mode which would be nice to use.

Have you thought about using something like KORE, or Chainer or Forte? You then run GR into the VST's you want. I have KORE and can do a lot with it but still run into the CPU issue..in fact it's a bit worse because now I have the KORE s/w running.

You can hear an example of the type of patches I am talking about at http://www.ambientstickist.com/Music/Stellar C.mp3 - the "song" Stellar C is Stick and GR2 only. I am running GR as a single process - the two sides of the Stick are mixed internal and then run through the effects. It's an older version of the patch - my newer ones actually have better control over each side ot he Stick. The "song" is really just me noodling around with the patch... Eventually I plan on putting up a bank for GR but I happened to take a listen in the headphones and the sound was so totally different then what I was hearing out of the speakers that I have been making adjustments to hopefully make it more consistent.....

Dave
www.ambientstickist.com

 

I can't use any amp models, they eat up CPU too fast.
Yes, I use it in stereo mode exclusively.
It's not hard at all to use up the procesisng power available on my 1.5Ghz G4 Mac.

Compressor, pitch shifter, phaser, (2x) Chorus/Flange, (2x) DDL, Volume pedal with step sequencer controlling it, amplidude tracker (routerd to various parameters), (2x) distortion, (2x) eq/filter.

That runs at about 45% CPU as a stand alone with about 11ms latency or 68% with 28ms latency within live (Live is set up with 8 aux sends which eats up some power).

I really donn't like going over 11ms latency if I can possibly avoid it.

Yes, I have surely considerd building a custom rig inside Max/MSP or other configurable systems, but there are distinct advantages to running inside a host like Live (such as the built in MIDI control, some preset managment etc).

For me I'm kinda thinking I want it ALL inside GR, or 'to hell with it' and I want to be able to take advantage of the routing, MIDI control, recording/looping and access to other plugins that is available if I work inside Live.

Nice ambient set, by the way. Very 80's Eno. You are doing all that with your stick and GR? I normally pop out the H8000 for these sets ;-)

Vance

 

Understood. Well, I would like to hope that NI contnues to develope GR - actively and not just on a yearly schedule. I think there is a lot they can do with it.


Thanks for the comment on Stellar C. An H8000 - but it won't fit inside Guitar Rig! 8>)

Yea - the whole thing was done by plugging the Stick into Guitar Rig (via my M-Audio FW1814), calling up my Ambient Wash patch and playing...not that you can hear any of the real notes I am playing. The new version actually allows you blend between the clean Stick sound and the wash sound on both the melody and on the bass side. I started using a Yamaha MFC-10 midi control pedal - fantastic for this. Besides the built in pedal you can plug in 4 additional foot pedals.... My Rig Kontrol is sitting in a milk crate collecting dust.

Dave
www.ambientstickist.com

 

"For me I'm kinda thinking I want it ALL inside GR, or 'to hell with it' and I want to be able to take advantage of the routing, MIDI control, recording/looping and access to other plugins that is available if I work inside Live."

I think this is exactly why NI is steering clear of the problem, and why a lot of people have given up on it and bought into Live or some other host. Asking for VST support is one thing, but all of the routing and control options that come along as icing turns this into a much bigger undertaking. Bare-bones VST support would involve a wrapper with enough intelligence to store VST settings along with a GR preset, and that's about it.

What do you use the 8 aux sends in Live for? Would it be possible to off-load some of that to a hardware solution? That's probably what would be required if you were to use GR standalone, even if it did support VSTs.

I do find it a little funny that there's no way to integrate GR2 with the other NI products, though - especially Reaktor. You'd think that with something so open-ended you could route a GR2 signal path in and out of a Reaktor ensemble and build a truly custom rig. That's kind of what I dreamed of when I first bought Reaktor, but amp modelling is a pretty big wheel to re-invent!

 

I'd take barebones support for VST, as most of the ones I'd use(UAD) aren't the kind you'd want real time control over - great compression/limiting/eq/reverb. I love GR2.2 2x more in Sonar w/ UAD, but the program change noise is prohibitive in live use. 25-50% of that is global use of these EFX. Delay would be the only thing I'd like to control - i.e . tap tempo, but I would forego it to have the VST capability... my $.02 worth. Enjoy, Shep

 

I hear ya, Shep, and I agree. I've been championing the VST support cause since GR1. But while you wait, I'd recommend hunting around for a VST host that consumes less CPU than Sonar (maybe something like Chainer?)... or investing in a more powerful computer. It sounds like the VST's you really want to use might benefit by way of a little more horsepower anyway.

Let's just say I'm glad I didn't hold my breath waiting for VST support. I bit the bullet on a faster laptop, started running GR2 in Live, and got back to work. Sad that I had to resort to such an expensive solution, but it was that or drop GR altogether.

 

that yamaha looks really cool. is it easy to use? I'm a little midi phobic but rk2 just doesn't have enough buttons. can you assign more than one event to a switch with midi?

 

Actually I have found it to be very easy to program - definately far easier to program then the FCB-1010 (I have one of those too). Off course, you pay more for the Yamaha. If I remember correctly (I have not programmed mine since I first set it up) you can have I believe up to 4 note events per push button on the MFC-10 - So this could be used to turn off or on multiple selections - i.e. effects . I will try and confirm this tonight or tomorrow. You can also send out control codes with the MFC-10 as well...but I use the midi note commands..

Dave
www.ambientstickist.com

 

Agree: GR + AU Host = musical bliss

Yes! If GR became an AU host it would allow us to bring our favorite plug-ins to the party. We would customize our rigs to an astonishing degree. There are plug-ins available to do all sorts of things musical. Being able to access them within GR would be incredible and very hard to beat!

Right now I dedicate a MacBook Pro to GR. Its outputs feed my recording inputs in my studio. I think the MacBook Pro has plenty of horsepower to handle some plug-ins as well as the more conventional components of GR. If we were able to customize GR via our personal favorite plug-ins, I could imagine GR replacing nearly all of my other guitar gear.

Please consider adding this feature to the next version!

Regards,

Michael Glaviano
Northern Colorado
USA

 

I don't think they should add this feature because it would probably introduce bugs or annoyances and make the program more bloated, and that time could be better spent focusing on GT's main purpose..

Just like BFD decided against this to make the program nice and tight..

it's easy enough to use Chainer or something...........

just my opinion..

 

Well, whether it introduced bugs or not is dependent on the programmers and how much care they took in writing the program. I'm confident that NI programmers could do it quite well.

Where you might see a problem would be when using other VST plugins that were not true to spec - and there are supposedly a lot of them out there. Then you would see problems and finger pointing... but in general I think the benefits far outway the problems.

I use GR in other hosts and it's ok but it requires considerably more CPU horsepower. For example - I run my Chapman Stick into it and process each side seperately using the splitter module. (another example would be someone wanting to use two seperate processes on a single guitar input). If I wanted to put Spektral delay only on the melody side I have to open Kore or another host, plus two instances of GR and then Spektral....and if I am running in Hi-Res mode the cpu useage is considerable. Not to mention that I couldn't put the effect between an amp model and speaker model in GR. If there was a VST plugin module in GR - I could just load it right into GR, into the split path I need it in and only have to worry about the extra CPU usage that Spektral required. Nice, clean slick setup.

Dave
www.ambientstickist.com

 

An opinion i share with you B Sabbath.
I already can see it coming, the future ranting about GR stability being caused by shady vst's.
The stand alone version needs to be ultra stabil for live use.
The plugin version already can use vst's through a host.
I would be more happy if they give us multi parameter switch assigments and being able to use multiple cpu's in stand alone mode.

 

Don't understand what the big deal is here - if a VST plugin is shady and doesn't work in GR - then you just don't use it. And - you would run into that potential problem running it in a Host program live anyways... I would be more comfortable with GR having a Hosting mode rather then relying on another programming groups host and yet another programmers VST plugin.. in other words - reduce the number of chefs in the kitchen...

As mentioned above - you still run the risk of instability if the plugin is bad to begin with. Also, your live system runs the risk of instability or choking due to excessive CPU usage - again affecting it's use in a live situation. And you can't run GR in an external host with VST plugins the same way you could if the hosting was internal to GR.

These would definately be appreciated!

Dave
www.ambientstickist.com