Feature request - vst connect

VST Cloud VST Connect
1

Please write your ideas and upgrade requests for vst connect here. here are a number of my requests:


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  1. option to somehow save plugin settings- I record a lot of guitars, and my performer uses a software plugin for his electric guitar.
    I record both the dry signal and the wet, however, if we go back to a certain song at another moment in time there is no smooth way to know what kind of settings we used if we happend to like the sound of the guitar and wants to stick with it. Yes my performer can save the preset somewhere, but its a hassle to keep track of.

  2. precount, working. Sometimes when we work with songs with time changes, and odd bars, I want to be able to use precount, because
    having the player listen to the beats before will not be optimal as there might be another tempo there.

  3. cycle record.

  4. option to turn off performers talkback mic during recording, this will enable me to get a usable mp3 stream during the session. Wheras now the sound of the strumming strings leaks into the talkback mic and is getting mixed with the wet signal of the guitar. therefore my mp3 stream is not really usable. OK to only include in the PRO version :slight_smile:

  5. The option for the studio to speak over the recording as it plays back on the performer side where both recording and my voice is in sync. being able to just hit play, and then sing or make other kinds of sounds over the mickrophone would make it easier to explain ideas and suggestions to my performer. This would not make this into a jamming tool, as I dont mean that the performer should be able to play in sync simulatenousely, this would require a separate setting were the performer only listens. OR atleast the performer should be muted in the studio during this, its probably nice if the perfomer can still hear himself on his side

2

3 and 4 would be very useful.

With 5 I suspect that would need a fundamental way to the approach that VST connect is using - would be good though :slight_smile:

3

1 maybe later
2 is really tricky because of the remote delay, sorry
3 should work with the next version.
4 you can record all channels seperately with the PRO version.
5 is available, use the “Rehearse” button.

4

  1. Would be greatly appreciated. It never happens when you record locally in cubase (without vst connect) because then the plugin settings are saved right there on the insert (as you of course know)

  2. If its tricky maybe you can come up with some kind of work around that helps with the problem but in a different way? Perhaps by telling vst connect specifically what tempo it is, if it does not know it, and then the vst connect app can play a midi-click itself without cubase knowing :slight_smile:
    Or if it cant handle midi, it will have to create an actual audio file that it plays before, but its all done within the app so you tell vst connect what tempo it is, and then vst connect creates an audiofile of two bars of click and stores it somewhere good (without me knowing cause the app takes care of everything), and then the ap pplays this audiofile before it starts cubase.( when I click a button telling it to do so)

  3. cool

  4. I know I can do that, but sometimes I might just be working with a demo and getting HD files takes extra time. The way it is now I HAVE to get the HD files, but if this would be implemented I can still USE the mp3 compression, now however it sounds like poop because of the talkback leak

  5. Are you sure that you understand what I was asking for? you and I had a discussion about this before in this thread and then I thought you meant that it did not work, was I wrong?

5

re: 4

wonder if this would work:

I strongly suspect not - and don’t have time to test it myself but might be worth a try

6

sure. We’ll try our best.

  1. If its tricky maybe you can come up with some kind of work around that helps with the problem but in a different way? Perhaps by telling vst connect specifically what tempo it is, if it does not know it, and then the vst connect app can play a midi-click itself without cubase knowing > :slight_smile:

We could do that, but it would be entirely out of sync.
Count-In actually works without transport having started, sort of ‘offline’. The plugin doesn’t even now that count-in is active, so all that it knows is that transport has started or not, when it switches sync.

Or if it cant handle midi, it will have to create an actual audio file that it plays before, but its all done within the app so you tell vst connect what tempo it is, and then vst connect creates an audiofile of two bars of click and stores it somewhere good (without me knowing cause the app takes care of everything), and then the ap pplays this audiofile before it starts cubase.( when I click a button telling it to do so)

Creating a click is not a problem. The problem is “before Cubase starts”. We just don’t know and even if, best we could do is wild guessing and then precount would almost be guaranteed to be out of sync when the actual transport start occurs.

  1. cool

  2. I know I can do that, but sometimes I might just be working with a demo and getting HD files takes extra time. The way it is now I HAVE to get the HD files, but if this would be implemented I can still USE the mp3 compression, now however it sounds like flower because of the talkback leak

You can set pan hard left/right and split after recording.
We cannot mute a Performer channel and record it at the same time. There is always a stereo signal sent from the Performer, and that is what you hear and that is what is beeing recorded, nothing you can do about that.
If you want to just record one channel, you can disengage the ‘talkback’ channel of the Performer in the RECORD section.
If your suggestion is to automate mute to be engaged only during run, we don’t have the resources or even permission to add such a feature, as it would require a specific user interface change to declare a channel as ‘Talkback Channel’.

  1. Are you sure that you understand what I was asking for? you and I had a discussion about this before in this thread and then I thought you meant that it did not work, was I wrong?

how does the rehearsemode work? - VST Connect - Steinberg Forums

I’m sorry, I was mistaken. You are perfectly right that that is a different issue, sorry, it’s just too much :slight_smile:
It might be possible, but it’s tricky. The plugin reports its latency to Cubase/Nuendo so to implement Remote Latency. In this case, it would just ignore transport altogether and stay in ‘chat mode’, even when transport is running. However this would mean that the plugins’ latency would have to be reset, which wasn’t possible when VST Connect was created, but maybe now. Then again we’d need some user interface action for that and that’s something difficult these days. But if we get to make a renew with UI changes, we can give it a try.

7

thanks musi for all your detailed answers. here are some more comments

  1. regarding pre count. ok, so I understand that there is no obvious solution, and maybe this suggestions has no way of working but I am just trying to think creatively: If I understand you correctly you can never know when cubase starts, am I right? but in that case, would it be possible to tell it to start, and then whenever it does start, at that very instant, would it be possible to do more of a pause, let vst connect play the two bars precount, and then unpause cubase? sorry if that is just a ridicolous idea… I wish I knew all the ins and outs so I could try to come up with a solution, but maybe it just really is impossible…

here is another idea, but it requires cycle recording to work. what if cubase cycles the first two bars but only starts recording the second time. and then it does not cycle but continue? I realize that the solution will appear a bit “cheap”, but atleast it will work :slight_smile:

  1. thanks for the advice on being able to pan hard left and right, but I dont way to do that because I dont want to compromise the experience, I want to be able to listen with the guitar in the centre, so that I hear it clearly and know whether it was a good take or not. it does not have to be a talkback channel kind of solution, even though it could be, that would certainly make sense. But it could also just be that you record enable or record disable for the mp3 stream as well, a separate setting obviously because the settings for the HD channels has 16 possible channels I know that, so its another deal.
8

did you try that plugin I suggested - interested to see if it works in the performer app

9

would it be possible to tell it to start

No. A plugin cannot start Cubase/Nuendo.
It might create a remote control interface for that, but then you would have to install scrips etc. Given the Q&A requirements it would take ages to release it.
But even if that were possible, it wouldn’t work. Provided we could tell Cubase to start and then? You say “Pause”, but there is no such concept in the Cubase transport. It is either started or ‘stopped’ - actually it is never ‘stopped’, it is always paused (preloaded etc and is ready to be triggered).
And even if there was a pause function, you never know when such commands as start and stop (or pause) arrive at the process that initiates it, unless you use clock sync. So it would be wild guessing as I said before, and there would be a count-in and then ‘somewhen’ after that, the Performer would hear playback. And that difference between ‘right now’ and ‘somewhen’ can be quite distracting.

what if cubase cycles the first two bars but only starts recording the second time.

Great idea. However not even Cubase provides that functionality, and even if it would, there is definately no way for a plugin to suggest to it to do that :slight_smile:

But it could also just be that you record enable or record disable for the mp3 stream as well

But you can do that afaik, disable recording for that channel in the recording mixer which defines what is beeing sent from performer to Studio. However then you can also not hear that channel anymore.
I may be mistaken, don’t currently have the time to check it thoroughly. But if you disengage the record button in the RECORD section for that ‘talkback’ channel before you start recording, it should be left out of the stereo stream, and you wouldn’t hear the ‘talkback’ leakage. Or use the record level which defines how much of that signal is transmitted and mixed into the stereo stream. There is just no provision to automate that task.

Hope that helps.

10

From the manual:

When recording, you must not enable the Rehearsal function, as your microphone signal may
confuse the artist and also the Performer signal is no more in sync.

I propose:

  1. “Having a preference to disallow engagement of REHRS when recording”.
  2. Another option to allow with Low quality of talkback signal.
  3. Count-in should be possible if set to greeter or equal to 3.

The reason for 2 is that: Cubase reduces the bit rate/quality of the talkback signals (say phone quality), it will be almost in sync during both recording. This is great for producer talking to performer.

11

It would be great,

  1. if the performer could have a ruler ( above its video) to see the project cursor and also the punch-in and out symbols for the performer to know where in music/song is being recorded.
  2. Share score editor ( in sync) with Performer
  3. cycle recording as OP mentioned is what everyone wants.
12

Two GUI improvements:

  1. More contrast of the font with the background color. It is very little and hard to read.
  2. Hover help or Tool tip for GUI. For labels and knobs and buttons.

I suppose this can be down very easily.

13

Makes perfect sense. We already added that for change Remote Latency, and ‘Reset Settings’. Done next version.

  1. Another option to allow with Low quality of talkback signal.

The reason for 2 is that: Cubase reduces the bit rate/quality of the talkback signals (say phone quality), it will be almost in sync during both recording. This is great for producer talking to performer.

The signal sent is always a stereo mix of the VST Cue Channel which includes the TB signal. If you want to reduce bandwidth, you can only do that for the entire stream in the settings (audio upstream). However it cannot be repeated too often that bandwidth is rarely ever a problem. Network quality is almost always the bottleneck, not speed, nor bandwidth. Also this has nothing to do at all reg. latency, which is what I guess you refer to. Latency is entirely depending on network quality (ping) as well.

  1. Count-in should be possible if set to greeter or equal to 3.

VST Connect has no count in functionality at all, so this is a Cubase/Nuendo request it seems?

14

There are different opinions of such requestst. Some say it should be even simpler for the Performer, otheres want an entire Cubase on the other side :slight_smile:
We have a bunch of such options already, but currently there are no resources at all for that.

  1. Share score editor ( in sync) with Performer

Definitely not, that is a huge beast which can’t just be integrated like that.

  1. cycle recording as OP mentioned is what everyone wants.

Will try!

15

Thanks for the prompt response.

  1. your explanation about network delay and lag make perfect sense. Is phone an alternative ( now sure what are the pros/cons yet!) if we’re able connect it to in/out of Control room? Now sure how to do that, though!
  2. If I am not mistaken count-in is available. Please go to Metronome Setup. Under Click option there is a check box with label "Click during “count-in”.
16

That can go to VST connect preferences/setting as user options. Everyone chooses the way he/she wants!

At least for beta version! Maybe the Steinberg R&D team, can develop a protocol similar to Precision Time Protocol! passing PTP event messages utilizing midi beat clock messages back and forth between the performer and producer’s computers. Maybe a dedicated physical hardware ( have not tested it): Ethernet MIDI for Live Musicians - an iConnectivity Guide — iConnectivity

Sorry, I guess I am throwing ideas, it may or may not make sense!

17

Everything is possible. Give us 10.000.000 Euros and we’ll hire some developers to do it right away :slight_smile: