Drones: success stories?

HI Janamdo

you put the drones in your daw. If your daw can not find the drones in its list of plugins then you have not included the directory they are install in as part of the path to search in your daw when the daw scans for plugins. There is probably a different path for 32 and 64 bit versions.

Hi Blacksun

Good point the paths.
I think that the drones can be a succes story now, i got the impression that it is easier now in the rackeditor as startingpoint to export a vsti in a rack to a track to Cubase ( from rack to track ) 

Unfortanely it is not that easy with Cubase ..adding a drone in Cubase : do you want to create a midi track assigned to plugin  Cognitone drone --> yes or no ?
I am confused now with the midi drone and a default drone..so i don't know what to do here
Also after i made a plugin in the arrangement rack and export the Vsti ..i got also a DAW1 Cubse port besides the startingport what has chanced too DAW! Cubase : 01
There are now 2 racks ?  .. woow..what is going on here ?..i become tired now of this
Are there Cubase users who are working with the drones  ?

I have been able to import drones into cubase 7.02.

In synfire go to edit arrangement rack. Start engine one. Then click the plus button in the arrangement rack with Engine 1 highlighted. Go to instrument pull down there and chose vst. Find the vst you want to add and click on it from the drop down list. Then I go to the pulldown tab on the new instance of the engine 1 in the arrangement rack and choose  'Extract device description from plug in'

Synfire does this and asks for you to name your plug in. Do that, hit okay and that part is done.

Now go back to your main aerrangement page, just click on the arrangement tab

Double click on empty area in your arrangement window and a new instrument is added. 

Now move to the right in your arrangement, clickon the instr. tab and follow the pulldown menu under sound assignment. Slide down the list to edit the arrangement rack. There you will find your new vst plug in listed.select the plug in and it now will appear in the sound assignment window just below the big plug in sign.

Now you must assign a category to the vst plug in sound. This is the second line in your sound assignment window. click on the little notepad icon next to the second line of the sound assignment tab. This opens a page with the tab  sounds/ arrangement device descriptions/ Connectors, channels

directly below that is a line with the heading channel layout:

on the following line your plug in will be listed to the left and further to the right on that same line is a space with a little oarnge arrow. Click on the oarnge arrow and a pull down menu allows you to assign your sound by category. 

Now just click your arrangement tab again, far left , top of the page. This takes you back to the main arrangement window.

One last thing , go back to the sound assignment window second line and click thre oarnge tab to choose your new sound category. Thats it.

In Cubase I thinknyou will need the J Bridge plug in that you can find very readily on the internet. Mine works great with my mac. This is because the vst's in Synfireare 32 bit and Cubase is 64 bit. Install L bridge and then re open Cubase. 

Your new j bridge plug in should pop up when cubase is opening. 

Open a new project in Cubase . 

Name it and save it with the same exact name as your Synfire project.

Now go to the pull down  devices menu and choose transport rewire. Click on the blue power buttons to turn on transport in the pop up.

Your rewire channels are now activated and will show up.

Go to the gray back drop under neath rewire channels and right click anyware in the gray margin on underneath the rewire channels slot. . choose Add instrument track. On the page that opens choose how many tracks to add, andwhere it says no vst instrument  click on the down arrow. Click on Cognitone

a sub tab onens which is the 32 bit J bridge , click on that arrow and then click on cognitoneDrone. Go down to the bottom of this page and add track.

 Your Cognitone Drones will appear fully loaded and ready.

Now go back to Synfire to the main arrangement page and go to the playback tab. Chooseexternal synchronization.

Cubase and Synfire will now be in lock step. Press synfire play and Cubase starts as well.

To add further plug ins to your arrangement go to the sounds tab at the very top of the page and click on it. This takes you to your arrangement rack.

Be sure engine 1 is selected  or your vst instruments will not be there on pull down menu.

If yor Engine one is not there go to the far right top on your arrangement  rack page and you will see a little cog wheel.  Click on thst, go down the drop down menu and select  launch audio engine. That launches the 32 bit one for your vst's.

If you want to add any more vst plug ins, make sure that the engine 1 tab is selected, hit the plus button and a new plug in will be added.

Repeat the above process which actually is very fast and quite simple when you get used to it. 

When you are ready to add your instrument plug ins to cubase , go to your sounds tabthat takes you to your arrangement rack. Click on your engine 1 tab on each plug in and you will see your DAW drones . select first one, done. Move to the next tab and do the same thing.

Your instruments will now be moved to Cubase. Since I use several other DAWs that are AU 64 I always create an arrangement rack for sounds i want to move over to Cubase.

Now when you move to Cubase , highlight each drone one at a time, click on the edit instrument icon and you will get your jbridgeM Drone. 

It is truly drop and drag from there.

Hope this helps.

Now I just have to learn how to create and import a tempo map for Synfire. Just starting to investigate this. Any help here would be appreciated. I have had some issues with my AU based drones and Synfire but this process in Cubase seems to work flawlessly. You do need the J Bridge plug in though to run 32 bit plug ins in Cubase in 64 bit. Very cheap and simple solution however!

Thanks
If i summarize this :

1. Synfire.. assign sounds to tracks in SF
2. Cubase.. add rewire device(activation) + sync in Synfire + adding drone
3. Synfire..export(relocate) Vsti in Rackeditor to Cubase

I did and it seems thatHALion5 is exported from Synfire, but no sound ( has this to do with the fact that in Windows it is not possible to use two audiodrivers at the same time ( this problem you don't have if you use a MAC computer ) 

Synfire is using asio for all audiodriver and also Cubase, so i must use the audioserver software and try this out.

Ok it is working now with the asio server..both synfire and Cubase are client , and the track from synfire is playing in Cubase, but there is no volume indicator direct in Cubase in the tracklist, but now in HALion5 the mixer seems to be normal working.
Maybe if i export the midi from Synfire to Cubase there is no connection abymore between the two programs and are they standalone and is the volume indicator working ?

Note1: it should be userfriendly when the meaning of the knobs: merged,export,online, load and editor is explained in Cubase when the Vsti is opened there in a track

Note 2: another serious problems is when Synfire and Cubase at the same time are opened with two screens--> Synfire is freezing , a big problem that makes it impossible to work normal
It is al crappy working now for me as  window user..  

Well, "hats off" to Richard for figuring that out, but Oh My God, I've never seen anything so complicated!

I was thinking of trying out drones in Cubase but after seeing that, I don't think I'll bother!  Does it really need to be so complex?

Actualy its really easy snd takes less than five minutes. It flows very well. It just takes a lot of words to decribe precisely.

Try it!

Also you don't need to start in the engine and relocate to cubase if you don't want to.

Actualy its really easy snd takes less than five minutes. It flows very well. It just takes a lot of words to decribe precisely.

Try it!

You dont need this long procedure.

You can add a number of drone VSTi to Cubase and then pick them from the inspector menu immediately. Load a plugin and pick a category - done! This is hown in the 3-steps video.

Or am I missing something?

Relocating should also not be more complex for Cubase than is shown for Studio One or Reaper in the videos.

I did the Vsti export from Synfire via the sound inspector in the arrangement window ( and not via the rackeditor ) and it works  easy now to get the drone in  Cubase working as it should be ( volume indicator for audio channel and midi track ) 
A relief ...

But window users need a asioserver to  listen in both audi programs.

In Cubase I thinknyou will need the J Bridge plug in that you can find very readily on the internet. Mine works great with my mac. This is because the vst's in Synfireare 32 bit and Cubase is 64 bit. Install L bridge and then re open Cubase.

 No, the JBridge plugin is not needed. On Synfire's 64 bit Engine you can host 64 bit VSTi's directly.

On the Mac: 64 bit AudioUnits only. 

VST 64 bit is not supported on the mac.

VST 64 bit is not supported on the mac.

Well, then we have at least one advantage on PC.

hah but on the pc those 64 bits only work 1/4 as long, so the mac still has double the number of working bits ;)

However you do it, it works well! Leave it to me to make something which is really easy  appear more complicated. Sorry!

Pete, let's go have a beer while these guys finish figuring this stuff out. You're welcome to join us, Richard.

Great idea Prado, I'm always happy to have a beer (or two!).  I live in England, near Gloucester.  Let's meet halfway, or maybe we could triangulate our positions if Richard would like to join! :)

Great idea Prado, I'm always happy to have a beer (or two!).  I live in England, near Gloucester.  Let's meet halfway

That would be in the north atlantic. Near bermuda. Not a good place to meet. :lol:

What!? ... do you have something against triangles? ;)