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Synchronization
This allows you to route MIDI tracks to VST instruments
running on another computer, as described in the applica-
tion examples (see “Using one computer for VST instru-
ments (not in Cubase LE)” on page 314).
The “Use Selected ASIO Ports for Data only” setting
If you are sending huge amounts of MIDI data at once,
there is a small possibility that you might run out of band
-
width on your VST System Link network. This will manifest
itself by notes “choking” or timing becoming erratic.
If this happens, you can devote more bandwidth to MIDI
by activating the “Use Selected ASIO Ports for Data only”
option on the VST System Link page of the Device Setup
dialog. When this is activated, the VST System Link infor
-
mation will be sent on the entire channel instead of just
one bit, more than enough for all the MIDI you could ever
hope to use. The downside is that you can no longer use
this ASIO channel for audio transfer (do not connect it to a
speaker!), thus leaving you with only 7 audio channels in
our ADAT cable example. Depending on how you work,
this might be a reasonable compromise.
Hearing the network audio
If you are using an external mixing desk, hearing your audio
really is not an issue – just plug the outputs of each com-
puter into the desired channels on the external mixing
desk, start playback on one of the computers, and you are
good to go.
However, many people prefer to mix internally inside the
computer and just use a desk for monitoring (or maybe not
use any external mixer at all). In this case you will need to
select one computer to be your “main mix computer” and
send the audio from your other computers into this.
In the following example, we assume you are using two
computers, with computer 1 as your main mix computer
and computer 2 running two additional stereo audio
tracks, an FX channel track with a reverb plug-in and a
VST instrument plug-in with stereo outputs.
Proceed as follows:
1. Set things up so that you can listen to the audio play-
back from computer 1.
In other words, you need an unused set of outputs, e. g. an analog stereo
output, connected to your monitoring equipment.
2. On computer 2, route each of the two audio tracks to
a separate output bus.
These should be busses connected to the digital outputs – let’s call
them Bus 1 and 2.
3. Route the FX channel track to another VST System
Link bus (Bus 3).
4. Route the VST instrument channel to yet another bus
(Bus 4).
5. Go back to computer 1 and check the corresponding
four VST System Link input busses.
If you start playback on computer 2, the audio should “appear” on the in-
put busses on computer 1. However, to mix these audio sources you
need actual Mixer channels.
6. Add four new stereo audio tracks on computer 1 and
route these to the output bus you use for listening, e.
g. to
the analog stereo outputs.
7. For each of the audio tracks, select one of the four in-
put busses.
Now, each computer 2 bus is routed to a separate audio channel on
computer 1.
8. Activate monitoring for the four tracks.
If you now start playback, the audio from computer 2 will
be sent “live” to the new tracks on computer 1, allowing
you to hear them together with any tracks you play back
on computer 1.
For more information about Monitoring, see “About moni-
toring” on page 24.
Adding more tracks
What if you have more audio tracks than you have VST
System Link busses (physical outputs)? Then you just use
the computer 2 mixer as a submixer: Route several audio
channels to the same output bus and adjust the output
bus level if needed.
Ö If your audio cards have multiple sets of input and out-
put connections, you can link up multiple ADAT cables
and send audio via any of the busses on any of the cables.