Pro’s and con’s VST Instruments window or an instrument track ?
would like to hear about your setups…
VST Instruments can load one HS and have 16 tracks.
But instrument tracks you pick and choose what to freeze.
basically Im trying to improve performance
any tips tricks are welcome
No one has anything to share ? 
Loading up 16 instances of HalionSonic over 1 multitimbral instance will cost you a little extra CPU of course, although I think it’s marginal.
I have the habit to stick everything in the rack (mainly for clarity), especially multitimbral VSTi’s.
But if you’re keen on the benefits that instrument tracks will bring you, I wouldn’t avoid them in the hope to improve performance. As long as unused slot’s of the different instances of the multitimbral VSTi are empty of course.
How about Audio Routing , Say one audio out and use Midi channels for mixing
Of course use HS onboard effects…
Or just go with all 16 audio outs and use FX plugins…
I been doing the first, I like to think that HS onboard FX and mix
is just as good as Plugins 
I think you have to choose the route that fits your workflow and/or style best.
I prefer using the individual outs, simply because I prefer some 3rd party plugs, have the ability to group with other VST instruments and are using quite some bus- and parallel processing.
when using individual outs do you mix from them instead of
the midi channels
I ask because Im curious as to see what the norm is
and how different, better a setup could be 
I think that performance wise there may be differences but with a fairly decent computer, like niles said, it’s probably marginal. (Some VSTs that utilize parallel processing, might get more out of fewer instances and multi-timbrality.)
I am from the old world of MIDI (even use CV-MIDI still) instruments (as in hardware synthesizers), and I tried using the VST Instrument rack, but I believe it’s just perpetuating the traditional MIDI concepts of Ports and Channels. Mind, nothing wrong about it, some plugins are made for this type of use and even more importantly many people prefer it.
Eventually, I got sold on the Instrument Tracks which essentially keeps a one-to-one operation between Track and Instrument, and it is a little bit of a trade-off as far as flexibility goes. E.g. you cannot split an Instrument across two Tracks (duh, obvious of course, but that’s what I meant with trade-offs).
From a sound point of view, the rack creates another layer of administration (albeit with more flexibility) for me, since I no longer just creates an Instrument Track, choose a sound and record, but I now have to organize the programs and setups using MIDI Ports and MIDI Channels in the plugin, as well as on the MIDI Track.
I still use MIDI Tracks for all my external synthesizers (yes, I have a few 
) and to control other external MIDI devices, such as effects, that I also still use. These old clunkers have served me well, I will not let them down. 
Oh maybe I should note that in the past I used some of my hardware as multi-timbral, but no longer.
Yes, I actually never touch the MIDI channel faders because audio faders have a much finer resolution and are way better to finetune your individual levels IMHO.
Like Elektrobolt mentioned it requires a bit more administration to work this way. But because of the fact I hardly use multi’s, I always follow my rule of thumb that every MIDI channel corresponds with every Audio channel. Just to keep it simple for myself.
To make it even easier I’ve saved a pre-made multi program as default with those settings.
Like:
MIDI 1 = Main
MIDI 2 = Output 2
MIDI 3 = Output 3
and so on…
Aloha guys,
Here is a more current thread on this same topic:
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