Posted
I wonder if someone could help me regarding setting up a synth (with dynamic channels) and using more than one copy of it in an arrangement.
For example, the FreeAlpha synth from LinPlug (which everyone should have because it's free!). There's a ready-made Device Description for it, which I have downloaded, but I'm unsure of the steps to get it working because you can only load that DD once in the arrangement.
So if I want to use one preset on one track, and a different one on another track, do I have to set up 2 DDs, one for each preset? This way, you could end up with hundreds of DDs!
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I've only really used multi-timbral instruments (e.g. Kontakt) until now. I've looked in the manual and it seems to suggest you need many DDs, but I wondered if I'd misunderstood?
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 00:02 Permalink
Dynamic channel is a multi timbral device description
You can probably work with a DD for fixed channels ( extract automatically a DD for the Vsti and give it a name for ), then you assign a channel with a sound and assign a second channel with a sound ( up to 16 )
I hope this will work for you with the VSti, seems to me possible
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 00:29 Permalink
Selecting the FreeAlpha DD in an arrangement adds a copy of it to the rack. So, if you have 4 instances of FreeAlpha, you will end up with 4 copies of the DD in yor arrangement.
Note that FreeAlpha has a single channel 1 only. It can select many programs, but only 1 at a time. That is, if you want 4 different sounds from FreeAlpha (or any other single-timbral synth for that matter), you need to load 4 instances of the plug-in and assign them (a copy of) the DD each.
To avoid making copies, you can add 4 connectors to the DD (A, B, C, D) and use these to connect 4 individual rack modules (= plug-in slots) to a single copy of the DD.
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 00:43 Permalink
Yes, I read about the A,B,C,D connectors and thought I would try that. Other than that, how do you make a copy of the DD? Do you mean a physical copy and rename in explorer, or can you do it in Synfire somehow?
So if I wanted 16 different patches, I could load the original DD with 4 connectors, and 3 renamed copies of the DD, each with 4 connectors. Is that what you mean?
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 11:36 Permalink
It is laborious this free alpha synth (monophonic) with only one channel to assign sounds ( the payd version has probably more channels..no..also monophonic )
You start with one rack and extracted a DD for the free alpha plugin then go to the connector, channels tab and add 3 connectors more : B,C and D
Then add a second rack and choose as DD FreeAlpha :B and free alpha as Vsti .assign this to channel 2 and assign a sound to it
I did it for two sounds..for channel 1 and 2 ..sounds good the free alpha linplug compairing with HALion5 ..different synth ..refreshing
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 13:16 Permalink
Other than that, how do you make a copy of the DD?
Sorry for my bad explanation. No, you don't need to make a copy of anything. Synfire does this internally (and I should not have mentioned it to avoid confusion).
Simply go to your arrangement rack, add a module, load the FreeAlpha synth and pick its ready-to-use DD from the menu. Synfire does take care of the rest.
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 15:20 Permalink
Simply go to your arrangement rack, add a module, load the FreeAlpha synth and pick its ready-to-use DD from the menu. Synfire does take care of the rest.
But I thought you could only have one copy of a DD per arrangement? I know you could get 4 with the connectors, but then if I loaded a 5th instance of the synth wouldn't it unload the first set?
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 15:44 Permalink
Ah yes, I've got it. So when you download or save your own DD it automatically becomes global. I was trying this before with a local DD. Thanks for your help with this Andre!
The only thing now is that the FreeAlpha DD isn't working for me. This may be becuase the instrument has been updated with new patches since the DD was created, or because I added some more patches to my version of the VST.
What happens is that when I select a patch in Synfire, it loads a different patch into the actual instrument.
Mon, 2014-06-02 - 18:16 Permalink
No, I downloaded it from within Synfire, i.e. the Online Repository. It says it's for version 12.48, but my version is Alpha 3 version 3.2. It's still the free one, but that's the only one available on their site now.