Using V STACK to make FX Teleport work with a MAC

[scores4film]

I am sequencing in Logic on a mac g4 but have 6 other pcs dedicated to QLSO/Vienna etc. I\'m currently using V Stack to run multiple instances of QLSO,and have purchased 3 additional Dakota cards to the tune of 1,000 bucks, ouch.

I am wondering if I can simply use V Stack as a VST host for FX teleport on one of the pcs- and eliminate the need for new soundcards(except for the host machine). This would be a lot easier than installing a pc sequencer on one of the machines and then syncing that to my mac.

One other thing, I am unsure how mid routing would be handled across the 3 pcs. Does FX Teleport do some sort of midi over lan or do I need a physical midi port for every instrument I will using?

The most important thing is to have specific midi ports and channels available such that I can assign them in Logic on the MAC. I\'m assuming FX Teleport creates virtual midi ports to make this possible. Is this the case?

I\'m going to test out the demo of FX teleport in a mac pc combo environment today. If we can make this work it will be a significant $ saver for composers on the mac side.

Thanks,

Colin

[Zerostudios]

Please let us know how this works! I have a very similar mac-driven setup to yours.

Michael
www.zerostudios.com (\"http://www.zerostudios.com\")

[David Govett]

The Mac users are getting screwed for the time being. I don\'t think it will work but if it does, let us know.

I\'m working on a configuration document to cover some of these things.

All Mac system
All PC System
Combination Mac PC
MIDI over LAN
System Link
V-Stack & Chainer
Old fasion MIDI & Audio connections. (expensive but stable)
FX-Teleport

An all PC system (PC sequencer & PC sampler slaves) can take advantage of everything.

A Mac system seems to be stuck with old fasion MIDI & Audio connections or System link but a more expensive version of system link.
You see, on the PC we programs like V-Stack and Chainer to run multiple instances of VST instruments (like QLSO) and effects but nothing like that for the Mac that I yet know of. (If you know of anything like this, let me know)
If a composer wants to go all Mac, they would have to purchase a full blown sequencer for each of their Mac computers to have multiple instances running. I hope somebody is working on a V-Stack or FX-Teleport like option for Mac computers.

A Mac sequencer with PC slaves works pretty good but they still cant take advantage of MIDIoverlan or FX teleport as far as I know. System Link with V-Stack however should work with that setup.

Anyway, keep us informed on what you learn.
Cheers
Dave

[Bruce A. Richardson]

I\'d sell the Mac and buy a computer.

[Chris Caouette]

Bruce, with your apparent intelligence, you clearly have a closed mind with that kind of comment. images/icons/rolleyes.gif

On another note, there is a company out that that is making custom rack PCs for gigastudio and they came up with a MIDI over LAN (audio too?) solution that was cross platform.
Chris

[scores4film]

Dave,

Actually I only want to sequence on the mac. The rest of my computers are pc\'s. I think I will be able to accomplished what I mentiond in my earlier post with V Stack. I know there will not be any FX teleporting on the MAC (yet).

Here is what I\'m thinking In a pc setup you have your sequencer on a host pc with several other farm pcs hooked up via FX teleport. I am simply going to sync midi from my MAC sequencer to my host PC via a standard midi interface (jsut as we\'ve done for gigastudio for a long time now). Instead of a full blown sequencer I will use VStack to route all the midi. The big IF is does FX teleport generate virtual midi ports which I can assign in Vstack and then trigger from the mac. I don\'t see how else it could work. By routing all the audio through FX teleport I am simply going to save buying 4 new soundcards for QLSO pcs.

Do you see any potential pitfalls in this setup?

Colin

[scores4film]

Dave,

Actually I only want to sequence on the mac. The rest of my computers are pc\'s. I think I will be able to accomplished what I mentiond in my earlier post with V Stack. I know there will not be any FX teleporting on the MAC (yet).

Here is what I\'m thinking In a pc setup you have your sequencer on a host pc with several other farm pcs hooked up via FX teleport. I am simply going to sync midi from my MAC sequencer to my host PC via a standard midi interface (jsut as we\'ve done for gigastudio for a long time now). Instead of a full blown sequencer I will use VStack to route all the midi. The big IF is does FX teleport generate virtual midi ports which I can assign in Vstack and then trigger from the mac. I don\'t see how else it could work. By routing all the audio through FX teleport I am simply going to save buying 4 new soundcards for QLSO pcs.

Do you see any potential pitfalls in this setup?

Colin

[David Govett]

I don\'t think will work just yet. For one thing, FX-Teleport is PC only from what I know. If that changes, let us know because that would be wonderfull.
Also, if you are using V-Stack, you don\'t need FX-Teleport for the VSTI instruments. It would be like two programs doing the same task. They both allow multiple instances of VST instruments but you can probably only use one at a time. If FX teleport was to work from the Mac host, then you would not even need V-Stack, FX-T would do it all, multi instances, MIDI and Audio through the Network, no audio cards needed. I don\'t know how robust it is yet but this will be very cool. As far as I know, it only works on PC computers. I hope he can do cross platform eventually. If not, FX-T will be of no use to you unless you sequence on another PC. You would need sound cards and MIDI connections.
Good luck.
Dave

[Ned Bouhalassa]

Originally posted by Bruce A. Richardson:
I\'d sell the Mac and buy a computer. <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">So with that comment, you\'ve just insulted me and other Mac users here who, following your logic, don\'t have the brains to know the difference between a \'computer\' and a Mac. Hopefully, you had a bit to drink or smoke, or maybe you\'re over-worked. If not, I guess I won\'t be reading your comments or reviews anymore...

PS: Oh, and if it was a joke, then next time use a smiley...

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Satire, guys...satire. A smiley kind of ruins the effect, don\'t you think?

\"Badap bop...I\'m just keeeeding\"

I would opt for a computer instead of a Mac, though.

[Mike Auty]

Originally posted by scores4film:
Dave,

Actually I only want to sequence on the mac. The rest of my computers are pc\'s. I think I will be able to accomplished what I mentiond in my earlier post with V Stack. I know there will not be any FX teleporting on the MAC (yet).

Here is what I\'m thinking In a pc setup you have your sequencer on a host pc with several other farm pcs hooked up via FX teleport. I am simply going to sync midi from my MAC sequencer to my host PC via a standard midi interface (jsut as we\'ve done for gigastudio for a long time now). Instead of a full blown sequencer I will use VStack to route all the midi. The big IF is does FX teleport generate virtual midi ports which I can assign in Vstack and then trigger from the mac. I don\'t see how else it could work. By routing all the audio through FX teleport I am simply going to save buying 4 new soundcards for QLSO pcs.

Do you see any potential pitfalls in this setup?

Colin <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I have just setup a rig similar to what you are proposing. Basically, MIDI going to PC which is the Master FXTeleport machine. Then VSTs can be slaved out to other PC\'s over the network and it all comes back to the Mac via ADAT/SPDIF. There aren\'t any virtual MIDI ports though so you do need to have a MIDI interface on the Master PC for as many channels as you want. I have just tried this out with the demo version of FXteleport so there could be kinks I haven\'t come across yet but everything seems to work so far...

[David Govett]

\"I have just setup a rig similar to what you are proposing. Basically, MIDI going to PC which is the Master FXTeleport machine. Then VSTs can be slaved out to other PC\'s over the network and it all comes back to the Mac via ADAT/SPDIF. There aren\'t any virtual MIDI ports though so you do need to have a MIDI interface on the Master PC for as many channels as you want. I have just tried this out with the demo version of FXteleport so there could be kinks I haven\'t come across yet but everything seems to work so far... \"

Now that is a clever setup. I take it the Mac to Master FX-Teleport PC is via standard MIDI? It is getting communication from the Mac to the PCs that I don\'t think you can do with FX-Teleport. Not a bad idea. Perhaps you can share the signal routing with us sometime and how it is all setup.
Do you have multiple MIDI outputs going to the Master PC from the Mac? I guess in the end, this makes it possible for your other PC computers to go without hardware if needed.
Good ideas.
Dave

[Mike Auty]

Originally posted by David Govett:
Now that is a clever setup. I take it the Mac to Master FX-Teleport PC is via standard MIDI? It is getting communication from the Mac to the PCs that I don\'t think you can do with FX-Teleport. Not a bad idea. Perhaps you can share the signal routing with us sometime and how it is all setup.
Do you have multiple MIDI outputs going to the Master PC from the Mac? I guess in the end, this makes it possible for your other PC computers to go without hardware if needed.
Good ideas.
Dave <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I have 32 channels going from Mac to PC and I will probably buy another 2x2 interface if I find I need more. I have a feeling I will be limited by RAM and polyphony more than MIDI channels. And I already had a Wavecentre card in the Master PC so I am routing 5 Stereo channels back to the Mac which gives me a bit of submixing capability during the composition stage.

Also, since I am using a Hammerfall Multiface, I don\'t have any more audio channels to use even if I could afford to buy another ADAT card for the second PC... this way if I can ever afford to buy a third PC I will be set, though I will always be limited to 5 channels back to the Mac. Isn\'t offline bouncing with FXteleport kinda screwed anyhow currently?

Perhaps someday though with a fully loaded G5 I could run EWQLSO happily and all these shenanigans won\'t be necessary... images/icons/smile.gif

[scores4film]

Thats great news! This is exactly what I\'ve been trying to setup. I understand you need a physical midi interface from the mac to the host pc, but the rest of the pc\'s do not require midi interfaces, correct? They show up as some kind of virtual midi ports in FX Teleport which you can then route to the physical interface and trigger from the mac. Is this correct?

Thanks,

Colin

[Chadwick]

Bruce isn\'t the messiah, he\'s just a naughty boy!

[killerbobjr]

Originally posted by Chris Caouette:
On another note, there is a company out that that is making custom rack PCs for gigastudio and they came up with a MIDI over LAN (audio too?) solution that was cross platform.
Chris <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Yes, we have our NetMIDI drivers that work for both PC and Mac -- OMS for OS 9 currently on the Mac with OSX drivers coming soon. We also are developing NetAudio drivers that will essentially allow a Rewire-like configuration over a network.

[Zerostudios]

Can we get these drivers? Are you selling them? Very interested.

Michael
www.zerostudios.com (\"http://www.zerostudios.com\")

[Mike Auty]

Originally posted by scores4film:
Thats great news! This is exactly what I\'ve been trying to setup. I understand you need a physical midi interface from the mac to the host pc, but the rest of the pc\'s do not require midi interfaces, correct? They show up as some kind of virtual midi ports in FX Teleport which you can then route to the physical interface and trigger from the mac. Is this correct?

Thanks,

Colin <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Pretty much. The subsequent slave PC\'s don\'t need MIDI interfaces but there are no virtual MIDI ports as all you are doing is instantiating a LAN plugin in your V-Stack or whatever VST host you are using on the PC. You just set the appropriate MIDI port here and the processing and audio streams automagically get sent out and back through ethernet.

[J. Whaley]

Bruce your insults on the mac are like insulting a mother\'s only child...... In fact, to a mac user, his mac is much like a child - we instruct, they obey. They disobey, the get punished. On the contrary a wintel system is maybe a bit more like an adult - you can tell it what you want all day long, at the end of the day it still does what it wants! images/icons/smile.gif

[scores4film]

Mike,

How do you assign midi ports for triggering from the MAC? In my setup I\'m using approximately 4 instances of QLSO per PC a total of 128 midi channels. How do route this to be triggered by the MAC if there are not some sort of virtual midi ports?

Thanks,

Colin

[Daedalus]

Hehe, this Mac vs PC thing generates some of the funniest threads.

[mike harper]

ya i would choose logic over images/icons/grin.gif a sequencer

[killerbobjr]

Originally posted by Zerostudios:
Can we get these drivers? Are you selling them? Very interested.

Michael
www.zerostudios.com (\"http://www.zerostudios.com\") <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">I wish to respect Northern Sound\'s policies and refrain from making any sales pitches on here. If you have specific questions about prices or availability from us or any other manufacturer, please contact us or them directly.

If you have general questions about how our software or hardware works, I\'d be happy to answer them for you here.



Originally posted by scores4film:
Mike,

How do you assign midi ports for triggering from the MAC? In my setup I\'m using approximately 4 instances of QLSO per PC a total of 128 midi channels. How do route this to be triggered by the MAC if there are not some sort of virtual midi ports?

Thanks,

Colin <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">The NetMIDI drivers work on a server/client basis. Any MIDI output port present on the server PC (the Musi-Can) is re-created on the client machine (PC or Mac). If you have an application that presents virtual MIDI out ports to a sequencer (like what Gigastudio does), then those ports will show up as if you actually had that program running on the client machine. In the case of Gigastudio, its four MIDI ports will show up on a client machine as MIDI output ports through the standard MME (MultiMedia Extensions) interface. On the Mac under OS 9, the ports will show up in OMS as standard MIDI ports. In addition, any other MIDI output ports on the server machine will show up as well (like the Microsoft wavetable synth and the default MPU-401 port). There\'s no need for routing or creating extra virtual ports -- you treat it as if the MIDI ports on the remote server machine were actual ports available on your client machine. It\'s all done automatically -- there\'s no need for configuring or setting up IP addresses to send to or receive from. If you have two Macs or PCs running the client drivers, each one will see the exact same remote server MIDI ports. If you have more than one Musi-Can, each one will show up individually on the client machines.

Hope that answers your question.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

We live in amazing times.

[Mike Auty]

Originally posted by scores4film:
Mike,

How do you assign midi ports for triggering from the MAC? In my setup I\'m using approximately 4 instances of QLSO per PC a total of 128 midi channels. How do route this to be triggered by the MAC if there are not some sort of virtual midi ports?

Thanks,

Colin <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">You would need to have an 8 port MIDI interface on the Master PC. If there\'s another way, I\'m not aware of it. In any case the cost of one large MIDI interface + FXTeleport is much less than having to buy several smaller interfaces plus audio cards for each PC. I imagine with this many PC\'s you would want to look into gigabit ethernet too. I imagine some of the guys who run larger setups could tell you about network performance better than I...

cheers,

Mike

PS: little pet peeve of mine = it\'s \"Mac\" not \"MAC\"... images/icons/smile.gif

[wolfetho]

For everyone using Macs- in case you haven\'t heard there are a few VST/VSTI hosts for the Mac like the chainer and V-Stack.

1. VSTI Host
2. Bidule
3. The Ugly Interface

Check out KVR .com and search for VST hosts.

I hope this helps.

Tom