I am interested to know what the difference is between a Rack Instrument and an Instrument Track. I have been learning Cubase just this past year, so I am still kind of a newbee.
I read in multiple places that a rack instrument is for Multi-Timbral vsti’s and a Instrument Track is for one sound, one output per instance. So I as understood it, the difference was that a Rack inst can be Multi-Timbral, but they can’t be used as Track Presets and can’t be imported using File > Import > Tracks from Project. In contrast, Track instruments can be track presets and imported, but can’t be multi-timbral.
Today I learned that it is not true that only Rack Instruments can be multitimbral. Instruments Tracks can also be multi-timbral (have muliple outputs), at least as far as Kontakt in concerned. Multiple outputs in an Instrument Track can simply be enabled by clicking on the Output section in the Track inspector of the Instrument track. Wow. This means you can have a Multi-Timbral instance of Kontakt that you can also use as track templates and can import the tracks from projects.
So if a multi-timbral instance of a Kontakt Instrument track does it all (multi-timbral and importable) , what is the purpose of Rack Instruments?
Reading and watching many views on this topic, I’ve concluded that Rack was originally used to preserve cpu and possibly ram, which is no longer an issue with todays computers. Only in the last year or so have I changed my workflow to Instrument tracks (old habits die hard), but I still find it handy to use it for sketching an arrangement using one Rack instrument with a 16 instrument preset in it. Instrument tracks are easy to treat like an audio track pretty much right away, whereas Racks have to be separated, assigned separate outputs, etc. According to my research, there is almost no difference in resource use, so Instrument Track it is for me.
With Kontakt, I think using one instance as a rack might save loading more of the same instrument which would likely save on ram usage. I’ve tried both but haven’t done a big enough test to challenge my computer; maybe someday.
My conclusion is use individual instrument tracks if you have the power and the ram. There is probably better reasons out there, so I’m ready to be wrong here. It’s just what works for me.
Not really, it’s more mundane than that. For a long time only MIDI Tracks & Rack Instruments existed & to make them work together folks had to manually manage the routing & relationship between MIDI and Audio. Then Instrument Tracks were introduced to combine the MIDI & Audio into a single integrated Track type. Basically the advantage of Instrument over MIDI Tracks is they are simpler & easier to use and less susceptible to misconfiguration.
But neither Rack or Track Instruments are better or worse for performance reasons. For strictly performance purposes the important element is if you are using the VSTi for multi-timbral sounds or not - this is for both Rack & Track Instruments. For example having 8 instances of Kontakt each running 1 instrument is preferable to 1 instance of Kontakt running 8 instruments. This is because the multi-timbral instance will be confined to using one single core of your CPU. This increases your chances of overloading that single core. But when using 8 instances of Kontakt the same work can be spread across multiple cores - reducing the risk of glitches and dropouts. The other advantage is having each Track be a single Instrument is easier to use when mixing etc.
So in general (and with plenty of room for exceptions):
Use Instrument over MIDI Tracks because they are simpler & easier to work with.
Avoid multi-timbral VSTi use to reduce potential performance problems
Just for clarity on the subject, multiple audio outputs does not equal multi timbrality. An instrument is multi timbral when it accepts MIDI data on multiple MIDI channels and internally routes them to different sounds/patches. You can have a multi timbral instrument that only has a single stereo output. On the flip side, a non multi timbral instrument can benefit from having multiple audio outputs. One such example is a drum instrument where each drum sound has its own output.
Thanks for the help on this topic Raino. The multi-core aspect didn’t occur to me when using Kontakt…or anything really. Plus the history which directed this Rack/Instrument evolution. Good to know.