Using VST Plugins in live sound

[oldmemories]

Is there a way to use VST Plugins as insert in live sound ?


Thanks

[Ozpeter]

Muse Research : RECEPTOR 2 - Hardware VST Plug-in Player: The NEW RECEPTOR 2 PRO and PRO MAX - PURE PERFORMANCE MUSCLE - Receptor 2 - or just use a laptop and interface and something like "Cantabile"" or "VSTHost".

[huub]

As long as you use a very low latency interface (like rme) and low latency, stable, plug ins (like waves l2) a computer and vst host should be fine..

[Mats H]

Originally Posted by oldmemories

Is there a way to use Vst Plugins as insert in live sound ?


Thanks

I've done FOH with VST plugins. Both concerts and musicals, using a Fireface 800. It works if you have a very low latency and it also depends on the plugins at hand. Some have more latency than others, try what works. 88 or 96 KHz or higher usually works the best, as the Fireface has first converter latency, then 64 samples firewire latency, then VST host latency and lastly converter latency again.

I just came back from a concert where we used Millennia HV3D as mic preamps and Lavry Blue converters into a Fireface 800, then throught he internal mixer and out of the Fireface as analog to a mixing board doing FOH. While we used the FPGA mixer of the audio interface and not really VST plugins, the latency (around 2 ms) worked out unnoticable for us. I should know, as I was one of the singers :D

[Midiscore]

I used a relatively cheap (500$) pc p4 - 2.3ghz - 512 ram 60 gb hd and a m-audio delta 44 successfully on stage for about 2 years all controlled by an old keyboard midi controller ..
with
Brainspawn Forte as host

and 2 eqs from URS the n12 & a10

Princeton 2016 for plate
Waves RVerb for other reverb sounds
PSP Lexicon 42 for delay on voc
Waves L2 on the voc bus for limiting

worked like a charm , made the Poor Club PA sound alot better than it was originally.

Oh BTW , Buying good gear/PA was not an option , the owner of the club was a cheepass who couldnt hear the difference between white noise and mozart .. but thats another story

if u got any questions write me ill try to share my experience

[potscrubber]

I have done so successfully. All previous advice on low latency interface with stable drivers is spot on. I would also recommend if on PC you have a clean no-nonsense XP partition with the usual audio performance tweaks. If you're console is digital, make the interface the slave. Don't switch off the interface by accident -> loss of clock sync can blow all the HF drivers in your PA!

My four year old thinkpad laptop & RME Fireface 800 hasn't broken into a sweat whilst simultaneously..
- playing back 8 stereo tracks
- recording 20 mic splits from DM1000 (16 digital + 4 analog)
- processing soloist thru ring modulator and harminizor plug ins, and manipulating parameters with a midi controller.

The original EnergyXT 1.41 is a small handy modular vst host if you're on PC.

I also once did a show in Shanghai with a Vista console / DV Dosc PA, the whole thing. Would they let me tune the PA? no. I ran the whole mix through the RME / EnergyXT and Sonalksis EQ plugins. It worked great. I was a bit nervous, but it was the least of my problems!

Having said all that, I'm not brave enough to use VST on a star vocalist. So like a good slut I used that as justification to order a Buzz ARC 1.1

[huub]

The Lawo mc2/66 console, my daily weapon of choice has the option of a vst server, basically an industrial pc with a rme madi card and lawo vst host software, which let you control vst plug ins from the console... We're still a bit too nervous to get this option.. Using vst's (and windows!) in a live broadcast should be possible, but we'll wait for a bit, see how this works out for others..

[Roland]

Interestingly, you could probably use the Digidesign Venue live console as a broadcast console (I believe one or two people are doing that) and although not VST it does support TDM plugin's (a good number come supplied with the system), latency is ridiculously low (often in the region of 6-20 samples) and many VST plugs are available as TDM.

Regards


Roland

[DustinPottyMouth]

ifoundasound

LiveProfessor

[Ozpeter]

Heh, 'DPM' beat me to it! A very interesting program, LiveProfessor, which handles scene automation as well as VSTs.

As it tends to mentioned each time we cover variations on this theme, it's worth searching the forum for "LiveProfessor" to find previous related threads.

[BFSound]

Whats the idea or purpose behind using VST plugs live. Like if using a computer, interface and a DAW do you just send a group track or lets say some tom sends to the interface and then do whatever in the daw and stream them back out into the mixer for FOH...

Thanks this idea appeals to me

[ebulb]

if you were using a VST plugin across the whole FOH mix (like a limiter or something) and you are mixing off a larger stage some small latency might act to "time align" the FOH to the backline.. You could add some delay to extend it further also.

if you are looking to use VST as channel inserts or as sends (and not as master insert) you wouldnt want latency, so the lower latency off your audio interface the better, in that scenario.

[huub]

A couple of milliseconds latency (up to 5 or so) is no big deal I think..

[7rojo7]

For compression and eq, I would leave that off the monitors, reverb, delay etc... you can do anything you want FOH or return to monitors

[PFozz]

Hi,

The new version of BloXpander (my VST host designed for live performance) has been announced here some days ago and is currently discussed in this thread :

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...r-1-1-0-a.html

Who knows, maybe you would like to take part to the discussion :-)

Otherwise, LiveProfessor is free and seems to be a nice piece of software.

Best regards,
PFozz

[BadGrrmmr]

Would it be possible to use an interface and mac/pc/whatever at the insert point as you would with hardware processors?

Mic/Line in - Insert (send) - interface - plugins - insert (return) - EQ - Aux Sends - Pan - Fader etc.

If this is the wrong area to be asking, apologies.

[PFozz]

It is possible.
Actually, BloXpander has been thought to use a computer as an external device.
(keyboardists, engineers and even some guitar/bass players use it this way on a dedicated laptop).

As far as your interface/computer is good enough to provide a very low latency, this setup is a great option.
If latency is not low enough, results are usually disturbing for everyone.
In this case, it can also be problematic to have a part of an acoustic drums set processed by a computer while other microphones directly go out of the console, etc.

Otherwise, a good computer and a rock solid audio interface (with multiple inputs/outputs) used as an external device is a great option.
And in some smaller live situations, just a computer coupled to a good MIDI controller and a descent audio interface can be enough to do the job.

[imaginaryday]

Originally Posted by oldmemories

Is there a way to use VST Plugins as insert in live sound ?


Thanks

you may want to look into waves multirack Waves MultiRack | Waves Plugin Platform for Live Sound | WavesLive

[neologan]

I have a question.

Is there a way to get VSTs in the chain and then route that new audio live, but over the internet, like a posdcast, Skype, Teampeak?

To explain another way. Talk into a mic, add effects in the DAW somehow, and route the treated signal to one of the above?

I feel like the two apps mentioned here are perfect for this, but I'm lost when trying to use the treated audio as a new input/output.

[PFozz]

Hi Neologan,

Your question is not an easy one :-)
I never tested such a setup but in theory, I can see 2 possible solutions (there may be other things to try):

- Using a laptop to run BloXpander and then route (one of) its physical outputs to the line input of your desktop computer (or the opposite).
As far as you have 2 computers at your disposal, this solution is probably the easier and safer one (one computer for audio processing tasks and another one for network tasks should work better than a single computer doing all of this via virtual links).

- Using Virtual Audio Cable through ASIO4ALL. I don't know if it works (never tested it myself...).
If you want to monitor what is coming out of BloXpander, you can also try to set your audio interface's ASIO driver as the one to be used by BloXpander and then add Christian Budde's "VST interfaced ASIO-Host" in an insert slot so the signal is also routed to VAC (via ASIO4ALL).
It may be worth experimenting with this... At least it can be fun!


All the best,
Philippe

[neologan]

This is going to give me a headache! I've been trying to figure out VAC for a while now and am still very lost. Will keep trying.

I really am quite shocked that this isn't a very simple thing to achieve. Basically i want this, but for the PC: Download WireTap Anywhere for Mac - Professional virtual audio patchbay. MacUpdate.com

[neologan]

Nope, i just don't think it is possible. I tried everything.

Found myself lost with VAC, i just don't understand what it's trying to do.

[fidelgoa]

Hello, for that I use this PC configuration : AMD Phenom II 965 / SSD Crusial 64GB / DDR3 Kingston 1600 RAM, ASUS M5A88-M / Win7 x86 / Nuendo 4.3.1 / Lynx AERS16e assembly in RACK 3U case...

In my case, most of the time we use Yamaha digital consoles. So I use the Yamaha card MY16AE as part of my personal rig, which allows me to add to consoles YAMAHA 16 in and outs in AES / EBU format, with this settings I can insert directly VST plugins with up to 32smpls of latency, and works fantastic, immediately noticed the quality of the process, usually use them as insert into channels or groups of yamaha consoles.
Works perfectly on the VENUE D-SHOW. The plugins I use regularly are the v9 ??Waves, Drumagog, Brainworx, Soundtoys, Lexicon and Native Duende .. produce very low latency and low load the CPU, so my current machine configuration allows me to work up to 23 plugins without cause any break in the audio.

Hopefully this information will serve you somehow, I can post photos and interconnect diagram if you want.

Estudios Tumbador EN COSTRUCCION

https://www.google.co.ve/search?sour...w=1280&bih=737