(Best) VST HOST

[scottsta]

Hello,

So you know - I am a pretty well versed Mac person but with a PC I feel like my mother who calls me about programming her vcr.

I have GigaStudio 3 and GOS, which I just found out (yesterday) was discontinued. I bought it in late 2005, used it for 5 minutes, because the learning curve and what I was doing was too demanding. (I was writing my first film score)

So I began reading the GOS manual with great interest. Beautifully written. And I tried some experimentation but I couldn't find the Maestro tools (even though i had an old email with the serial number) I called and spoke to Gary Garritan, who sounded very, very busy. I guess I sounded like someone who woke up from a coma. He asked that I email him. I did. The email bounced. I used his web form and haven't heard anything. No matter.

Anyway, I am going to install EW Platinum and Plat XP when it arrives in a few days. I use Kontakt 2 in Pro Tools on the mac BUT (thanks to advice from Lee Blaske and others) I will install it on the PC. Thus I know I can use Kontakt in standalone BUT - I was also told about FORTE as a VST host.

Finally - my question. I would love to know what others reccomend for a VST Host that will play the Kontakt VST plug in AND the Giga VSTi without too much hassle. It looked like V Stack was the perfect thing but I understand it is no longer supported. (Which as a side note is very mis leading on the their website as there is absolutely no mention of it's being discontinued http://www.steinberg.net/29_1.html) Whatever.

AND is there a recommended plug in for the Giga Studio VST? I have not updated Giga 3 since late 2005. I see on the Tascam site that there are updates. Is it now called GVI? I will check the website and figure out what's up with it - although I think I would be fine dumping Giga except for the GOS which I would like to further explore.

Many thanks for any help on this.

Scott

AHA - i upgraded to the Tascam GVI - and am furiously reading that info.

[lallis]

Scott,

Do you have a sequencer on your PC? It seems reasonable to assume you do or will. Then you wouldn't really need anything else -- if you had Sonar installed, for example. All mainstream sequencers that I know of will act as VSTi hosts.

There's also a simple free VST host distributed by Hermann Seib, called "Savihost" or some such thing, It has asequately done the few hosting jobs I have asked of it. It's miniscule and primitive, apparently fooproof.

The Brainspawn Forte is an elaborate host, allowing plugins and all luxuries. But if you have a sequemcer, I predict you won't use Forte often in the studio. It's useful on the bandstand, though.


Larry

[scottsta]

Scott,

Do you have a sequencer on your PC? It seems reasonable to assume you do or will. Then you wouldn't really need anything else -- if you had Sonar installed, for example. All mainstream sequencers that I know of will act as VSTi hosts.

There's also a simple free VST host distributed by Hermann Seib, called "Savihost" or some such thing, It has asequately done the few hosting jobs I have asked of it. It's miniscule and primitive, apparently fooproof.

The Brainspawn Forte is an elaborate host, allowing plugins and all luxuries. But if you have a sequemcer, I predict you won't use Forte often in the studio. It's useful on the bandstand, though.


Larry

Hi Larry

Thanks for the reply. I'm using pro tools (via my Mac) to sequence. I have fooled with digital performer but hate it's menu structure. I don't think i will change sequencers - god knows the pro tools "move song start" hassle is enough to get me to try anything once..... but i hadn't planned on sequencing in the PC.

[moosethree]

Forte is nice
Chainer by Xlutop is less expensive and works great with VST.

[Gitaartje]

Hi,

You should try Cantabile: http://www.toptensoftware.com/cantabile/.

I think it is simply the best and very cheap also. Audio recording is included.
Just great stuff. Much more stable also than Chainer for example.

I use it as host with Sibelius, by the way.

[dwdonehoo]

I can't believe people are still overlooking the best host out there, Bidule.
http://www.plogue.com/

[Pfraser]

Protools to sequence? You mean like sequence MIDI and what not? That's just not right.

Get Cubase. all protools is good for is pressing record ie it's universally known and used across the world in music studios.

In terms of midi sequencing, digitial/music production, scoring, sound designing, and being creative. Get Cubase... then you can just load vst(i)s right into it.

[Hannes_F]

On my slave PC I run Reaper which has full multiprocessor support, is LargeAdressAware by default and has really really good routing. I can only reccommend it as a slave host.

I think it might even be possible to run an extra instance of Kontakt besides it to overcome the 3 GB barrier and include that audio stream with ReaRoute etc. but did not yet fully figure it out. Will report here if done.

[Hannes_F]

That being said I use GOS in Kontakt which works very nicely.

As an alternative I load some of the GOS patches into Samplelord which can deal with giga folders and is very fast. Sadly it lacks a reasonable modwheel funktionality adding a weird vibrato instead. But the developer promised to fix this.