Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.5 (now 1.6) and MB-7 Mixer 2.4 Released

[Blue Cat Audio]

When I change the buffer size on my audio interface (RME Fireface UFX, Windows 7 64bit) I have to restart Patchwork to work again.

Which subsystem are you using? Is it ASIO?

Hosted plugins keep their position after restarting but the main interface starts always centered.

Currently, the position of the main window is indeed not saved between sessions.

[rasmusklump]

Hi,

yes, ASIO.

I use it as live processor for my voice ( Softube TLA100 and VVV afterwards) and need the low ASIO latencies, in this case 48 samples.

[Blue Cat Audio]

48 samples is pretty good. What is your sample rate?

Anyway, what does exactly happen when you change the buffer size? And when re-launching the application, is the buffer size properly set?

[vic_france]

.. you can also create maps of sub-maps of sub-maps of parameters to control specific parameters of a sub-patchwork with a MIDI control surface or a knob in the main patchwork app. Time to get some sleep I guess

Just read that sentence out loud a few times.. should do the trick

Seriously though, PatchWork just gets better and better! Thank you

[rasmusklump]

48 samples is pretty good. What is your sample rate?

Anyway, what does exactly happen when you change the buffer size? And when re-launching the application, is the buffer size properly set?

44,1
No audio is routed. When I start new or change the audui driver to smoething else and then back to audio, everything works again with the right settings. I am not sure If I remember it correctly (I have no internet in the studio and am at home atm) the bufferdisplay in Patchwork always shows 128...

[Blue Cat Audio]

Do you mean that you changed the buffer size outside of the PatchWork application? Can you maybe tell us what the status of the engine is (bottom of the prefs window)

[Breeze]

After downloading and trying out the 1.6 PW in demo mode, I remember why I originally passed on it: there was of course VST3 sidechain compatibility and the fact that it wasn't standalone, which is now a major step forward for me and for which I can even forego the sidechain business. But there's also other things:

- System-wide settings should all be in one place. It feels like I have to hunt around different menus to get basic things set, though to be fair this can be chaulked up to a lack of familiarity.

- Defining only one VST folder is limiting to me: for practical reasons I have my plugins divided into several different folders.

- Loading dll's instead of having a menu pre-sorted by manufacturer makes things a little long-winded. The practical side of this is that you can navigate to wherever to load a dll, but it means a lot of navigating in general and more for someone like me with dlls in different folders. Maybe a user-sortable menu would be useful here.

One thing I noticed about the standalone is that I can't seem to find where I can define the hardware MIDI input PatchWork will use: the MIDI I/O menu still seems to be one from the plugin; I have many MIDI inputs available on my system and I need to pick and choose. One thing I realized about the demo is that I can't test using PatchWork within Patchwork because the demo only allows instantiating PatchWork once...

Overall it's moving along in a direction I like; I'm likely going to pick it up soon. Nice work!

[Lotuzia]

......Blue Cat's PatchWork 1.6 has been released. The main news is that it is now also available as a standalone host application, but the new release also includes several improvements for the plug-ins versions:
.....

Interesting, interesting

[Blue Cat Audio]

@Breeze: thanks for your comments. Please find below our answers:
- there are not so many places where you can change settings. The basic idea is that what's available in the menus is available for all our software, whereas product-specific settings are all right inside the plug-in user interface. It indeed has pros and cons, but we feel this is easier to deal with when using many of our products.
- About the single VST folder limitation, we are aware of this, and it should be removed in the future.
- user sortable menu may be added in the future, but are you aware that it is way less flexible than just using the Windows Explorer features? Check this tutorial on our blog: it may change your opinion (also applicable on Mac)!
You basically have the ability to sort things the way you want (without changing the initial location), change the icons for each plug-in & folder:



You can even search for a plug-in by name or whatever other attribute you may want to set on the file system:


So it's pretty hard to beat this feature-set with just a menu, isn't it?

- For the moment, Blue Cat's PatchWork Standalone will just listen to all MIDI ports available on your machine: no need to worry about configuring the appropriate MIDI inputs. We may add this capability in the future, but it seemed much more convenient this way in most cases.

- You can actually load Blue Cat's PatchWork Demo as a plug-in into the app: the limitation does not apply to the plug-in loaded in itself as an app .

[Breeze]

@Breeze...For the moment, Blue Cat's PatchWork Standalone will just listen to all MIDI ports available on your machine: no need to worry about configuring the appropriate MIDI inputs. We may add this capability in the future, but it seemed much more convenient this way in most cases.

Thanks for all the great info! I'll definitely check out the explorer options for VSTi selection asap.

The problem with MIDI inputs for me is that I have more than one controller in my setup and some even broadcast MIDI data (including notes and CC) that has nothing to do with music; they get fed into any device listening to all ports, so port filtering is essential, even more so when multiple hosts are live. As a plugin this is a non-issue, but as a standalone that's why it's critical to be able to select specific MIDI inputs.

[Breeze]

Just tried out the Explorer VST setup: it is a very nice way of customizing the VST menu! Funny I was actually thinking to myself that this would be one way to do it when I first posted... Of course it's labor intensive to setup and if you have lots of plugins, but you do gain the ability to customize it, as you point out. This actually takes care of both problems (locations and organization).

Wait: is this only for PatchWork or does this work in other hosts as well? Never considered...

However, I just realized that one thing PatchWork doesn't do is perform a thorough scan of what works and what doesn't; this could be awkward if you're working on something and it crashes on instantiating a new plugin. Something to keep in mind when working with it.

BTW, I was annoyed with the "- Shortcut" being appended to everything (the arrow is OK as a reminder) and while it can be changed by editing the registry, I found this free uility for Windows 7 to do it (under "Additional Tweaks"): Ultimate Windows Tweaker. Just log out and back in and it's done.

[rasmusklump]

Do you mean that you changed the buffer size outside of the PatchWork application? Can you maybe tell us what the status of the engine is (bottom of the prefs window)

So, checked it now.

If I change the buffersize from within Patchwork absolutely nothing happens exept thet the new number is in the window. Latency stays the same and Patwork works.
If I change it hwo I dow it all the time within the RME Driver, Patchwork stops to work although it still says that the audio engine is running until I close and restart it.
The buffer display in Patchwork never shows the actual buffers but only the number I typed in there last.

Hope that helps

Alex

[Noise Makers]

Nice !

[Breeze]

I found a useful way of using the custom VST folder for people like me who have (too!) many plugins distributed into multiple VST folders for strategic reasons: just make shortcuts to the various VST folders you have and move them into an empty folder you assign Patchwork to look for VSTs in. Done. It even handles un-shelled Waves plugins properly this way.

I'm also glad that Patchwork seems to handle problem plugins quite elegantly, even 32-bit plugins jBridged to 64-bits. So far only an error message and no crashes. Nice!

A few things are still niggles for me:

1. The VST file browser could have filter that only shows *.dll's for folders, making folders that contain lots of config files in them (like Blue Cat's, coincidentally ) easier to read.

2. Patchwork seems allergic to right-clicking on the Plug-in buttons. I guess over time I've just gotten used to right-clicking for contextual information and I continuously make the mistake of left-clicking on the Plug-in button which does nothing. Which brings me to:

3. I would love to see left-click and drag implemented to move plugins from slot to slot instead of cut and paste, which is very common in many hosts. It would then be logical to access contextual information using the right-click...

4. And of course my previous request: a MIDI input selector dialog for the standalone. This one is really important to me, hopefully WIP.

Oh, and big thanks to Satyatunes for the white skin: easier on the eyes! I could even use white for the areas still in the dark...

Thanks for considering, and for the great work.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Thanks for the feedback. Please find answers and comments below:
1. Browser: it is unfortunately not possible to filter the folders. But if you are using shortcuts, you can quickly get rid of all unnecessary files and folders.
2. Right click is indeed currently not implemented (using left click). May change in the future when more options are available...
3. Drag and Drop: there are a couple of things being worked on for Drag & drop support...
4. MIDI I/O selection: it will indeed come at some point (it is anyway necessary to support MIDI out for example). Not sure when, though!