VST Connect & VST Connect SE - Solution Thread

Found out one strange thing today by accident: if both sides use the same name (like “John”), it will fail because the server disconnects the “first John” when the “second John” tries to log in. Nobody ever appears to have tested this…you’ll never know.

i know a solution thread is not really the place for this because i cant offer any solutions (because it works flawlessly for me), but i still wanted to say this out loud, and be it only so that people who still have connection issues know that its worth getting those fixed:

VST connect is to me probably the best audio innovation of the past 10 years. ive now used it on a regular basis for quite a while, and its just downright amazing. you gain so much from this on a personal and a musical level, its just great, great, great.

  • for me, its so stable and troublefree that i am now up and ready to record in an instant. i have a couple of long term clients, and with them, i can basically go out of a skype call and into cubase recording mode within 20 seconds (the time it takes to open the template). it took a while taking care of general gain structuring and levelling on all sides, it took a while until they all had a combo of mic/interface/headphone they liked, but now that its all there, its just the best thing since sliced bread. and with many younger clients who all have some sort of setup anyway, its also pretty much “could you please install this little tool and enter this number, then we can start” “huh???” “no, im serious”. i recorded people in their kitchen, on their balcony, from a neighbour city to the other end of the country.

  • i save HUGE amounts of time that i would otherwise have spent away from home, away from the kids, doing vocal recording sessions for many days in a row for whatever particular LP i would be producing at the moment. the extra time this gave me with my family alone is worth more than pretty much all workflow and audio feature business that was introduced say in the last 4 major updates combined. i mean, how often does it happen that a feature in an audio daw actually ends up improving your overall life quality! this is no joke. people with kids will know what i mean, this is highest priority stuff, and im not talking about some audio daw blablabla priority but “overall-life-priority”.

  • what used to be a stressful event in the calendar (vocal recording in studio XY! you got X days! better get shitloads of awesome vocal tracks done in that time!) is now the equivalent of casual skype meetings in the evening. with everybody pretty much sitting in their private comfort zones.

  • and its not just a question of convenience - that very setting i just described also leads to way better vocal takes. its all so relaxed and pressure free, you can just hear it. you get takes that are natural in a way where youd have to work your ass of to get the same thing in the classic “studio! vocal tracking time!” environment.

thank you charlie steinberg and whoever else was responsible for this. thank you so very much.

that is all :slight_smile:

A few comments and an easy request:

First: Love it! Very stable for me and so many possibilities.

Second: Read this whole thread and there are several excellent suggestions as to functionality enhancements.

MIDI would be cool but it would have to come with audio, whatever the performer is hearing as they play for reference (it’s a delay thing - you could not generate audio on the studio side for performer monitor, obviously). Then sounds/performance could be edited as MIDI on the studio side. Nice.

Stereo would be great. At first I thought it would do this until I realized that the addition of the “Inst” track just gives you a separate talkback mic on the performer side. Needed, in some circumstances, though (mic on a guitar amp, FI).

Cubase/Nuendo Networking capability - in kinda real time - would be great. Either side records something and the other side sees it happening and could hear it too. That would require various delay compensations on both sides - a full+ version of VST Connect. And identical plugins. Of course jamming is impossible. It would get complicated: An audio recording on one side would be recorded from it’s compressed web version on the other. Perhaps marked as such for possible future integration. Or - as an option - MIDI could be transmitted and recorded AND played back by the remote by any plugin. Whatever - A BIG jump . . . but a cool one.

That last idea is a big extension of the whole VST Connect concept, extending it beyond a remote performer to complete integration and mirroring of 2 running instances of Cubase/Nuendo.

My last comment: It seems to me that there are - without major changes - 2 basic uses for VST Connect.

  1. The obvious. somebody far away adds a couple parts to whatever you are working on. Works pretty excellently as it is.
  2. Obvious - but not properly implemented: Working together on a project.
    And the thing is, this use only requires one little change in VSTC to be MUCH more do-able.

And it’s already been mentioned: A rehearse mode.
Specifically, allow transmit of the full cue mix from the Studio side - including sounds/MIDI VSTis being currently recorded on the studio side - to the performer side in “Full” fidelity without the additional delay compensation on the studio side. The performer would be listening only. Again, no “jamming”. Easy. All the functionality is already there.

This would allow real time (one side at a time) collaboration for songwriting and such, but ALSO . .
Some people (like me) have mentioned using VSTC as a way to play “ideas in progress” for Film and TV work to clients. This would allow the composer/editor (Studio side) to try new things in real time while the client listens! Brilliant.

Just ONE button: Activate cue send AND turn off additional delay compensation on Studio side. During play OR Stop. Piece of cake.

PLEASE don’t wait for the BIG FULL VERSION to do this. Do it now, call it VST Connect SEplus, and I’ll pay for it (hey . . I’ll even beta it . . just sayin).

Hugh

I can’t reveal what’s coming, but rehearse will be included.

Some other comments:

  • in the Performer settings, there is one that can be set to mono, stereo, or dual mono. This way you can record 2 mono signals indepenently (dual mono). If you want to record a stereo instrument, the instrument channel on the performer side should listen to a stereo input. Recording 2 stereo sources independently is not supportet as only 2 channels are transmitted at a time.

2 side operation: I don’t see how this should work. Do you mean both sides have the plugin, and at one time one side records, and at another time the other? That would of course be doable, but both recording each other at the same time isn’t possible.
As for the first case, yes, it could be done, but we only have limited resources, so you will have to switch from time to time, sorry. Maybe someday :slight_smile:

Why vst connection not able to work on 2 computers in local net?

I’ve read quite a few post here, but haven’t seem to come across my problem yet. i can use vst connect template in the hub and hear, record and playback with my partner no problem. my situation is trying to create a vst connection within a existing song. i can see my partner and he can see me, but no audio at all. everything is setup correctly in the vst connection cue settings, tb track, monitoring track etc. i watched the video and did exactly what they did on a “new” project and worked, but can’t seem to get it to work on a track that i made months ago. can it be done on a existing track? i say it has to, i just can’t do it right. anybody?

cubase 7 64bit
windows 7 64bit

Hi, can anyone please post the VST Connect Template somewhere for me and post the link here? I have Nuendo 6 and it does not have the Hub feature with the templates. I can get VST connect to work, but for some reason it’s recording the talkback and not the performer. Such a cool feature!

This should do:
Take your existing project.
a) create an Input (Devices/VST Connections) with your TB (Talkback) Microphone as input source, name it “TB/Performer”.
b) insert the VST Connect plugin into the corresponding Input channel (not an audio channel, it has to be the Input channel). Its input is what the Performer hears (your TB Mic, along with the playback), its output is what comes from the Performer (which you want to hear and record).
c) create a group channel, label it “To Performer”. Make sure its output is routed to your main mix output (default). Insert the VST Connect Cue mix plugin here.
d) for each track that the Performer should hear, send to that group channel (just like you would send to a reverb fx channel, for instance). I prefer to use real sends here, not multi-output routing.
Whithout beeing connected, when you run Cubase, there should be activity in this “To Performer” Group channel. Once you assured that, lower the Volume of that Group channel to zero (you don’t want to hear it, only the Performer should), but do not mute it.
e) create an audio track, named “Performer Mon”, its Input source is the “TB/Performer” Input, output to main mix (default). Engage the white/yellow Monitor button (next to the record button).
Now connect. Make sure the “Talkback” button on the top left and the TB rotary knob are engaged.
You should now hear the performer via the “Performer Mon” audio track/channel. The Performer should hear you (your TB Mic is sent via the VST Connect plugin in the Input channel). When you run playback, the Performer should also hear whatever is sent to the “To Performer” Group channel.
To record the Performer, create further audio tracks with the “TB/Performer” Input, but don’t activate the monitor button there (to avoid confusing echo), just use the record buttons (Preferences/VST/Auto Monitoring should be set to “Manual”).

This may sound a bit complicated but in fact that is what you also do when you record somebody next door: provide a headphone mix (“To Performer”) of the playback and send your Talkback Mic to communicate. The one difference here is that recording and monitoring the Performer must be split (one “Performer Mon” channel with active Input Monitor, several record tracks with just record activated).

Of course, hardware i/o and connections on the Performer side should be set up correctly, you can remote control that in the Performer Setup. Also, do not mess with settings that you don’t fully understand, eventually delete preferences (/appData/roaming/Steinberg/VST Connect SE.ini).

Hope that works…if not, drop me a PM, so far we have sorted out each and every problem :slight_smile:

attached.

You probably activated the “Mon” (loopback) button on the right. Don’t.
The next version will warn you when you activate that function, because you should really know why you’d want to do that…
VST Connect SE.zip (12.2 KB)

Thank you. I’m really excited about this new feature as I know many musicians from all over. Also, it will allow me to be even MORE of a hermit!

thank you musicullum. you da man!

I would love to get this to work but every time I load the connect se plugin on the group channel, my cubase crashes requiring a restart of my mac just to reopen the project

What is your OS version? Probably, 10.9 (Mavericks), there are many problems with that, and this is most probably one of them. We are working on a solution. The current VST Connect 1.3 comes with Cubase 7.06, which is also not certified for Mavericks, sorry.

ok thanks. Thats correct, I’m running Mavericks. I look forward to the update

tried two hours with a friend yesterday.

all we got was you arent conncted messages, while we were seeing the knobs getting turned by the other user

and I heard myself and everything no audio could be send received…

I dont want to go into details, I just hoped it worked right out of the box :frowning:

Well the engineer has to have some basic understanding to set up his own and the Performers’ connections (if the Performer is sufficiently skilled he can set his own up as well). So without details we can’t help. If you start Cubase, load the VST Connect template, connect your mic and set Performer audio device and input, that should do, pretty much almost “out of the box”.

I’m having a strange issue where I can only hear the “recording person’s” talk back mic, not the performer’s audio. I use the Cubase template and have checked to make sure the settings are as described in the manual. When I activate the monitoring button on the Perform Mon. Channel it plays my mic, not the performers. If I deactiviate the monitoring button and put some audio on that track, it plays the audio, so I know it’s routed properly…

I’m also able to record the performer on the Performer Rec channel.

Any thoughts?

Most probably, you have activated the Loopback function (“Mon” button on the right side). This is only for controlling what the Performer actually hears, do not activate it for recording. The next version throws a warning when you activate this function for the first time.
Does that solve it?

Hi Musi!

Very Cool . . . . uh . . .when?

OK. Yeah, I missed that. Great.

I understand. I got a bit carried away in my post. That particular functionality - which you correctly interpreted - is really a whole different product requiring a ton of development.

My BIG Request that I buried in there was the “Rehearse” thing - though it’s not really a rehearse feature.
It would allow the STUDIO side to add things to the project while the Performer side LISTENED (only) in full fidelity.
And then, with a press of a button, the PERFORMER side could add something while the Studio side listened (as it already works), and so on . . .

Looking forward to it!!
Next week, you say??

Hugh

Yep. Just as I thought . .

Thanks, Musi!

Hugh