Maybe it’s just me, I’m still new, but I’m not getting polyphonic output out of Host FX. I’m running the polyphonic output of the mixer into Host FX then back out to the Audio-8 and it’s not working as expected. Am I doing something wrong?
To reproduce:
Load the default template (set the inputs/outputs, etc. so you’re getting sound)
Set the MIDI CV module to Polyphonic
Add Host FX
Add a plugin (Valhalla Delay for example)
Take two outputs from the Mixer and send them to MonL and R channels of HostFX
Take the Left/Right outputs from HostFX and send them to Audio Outputs 1 and 2 of Audio-8
Result: monophoic cables from Host FX to Audio-8 even though Host FX is listed as polyphonic. Only the first voice is heard.
Expected Result: the summed audio from the Mixer should go to Host FX, then back out to the output.
Also, HostFX 1.01 still takes a wildly long time to scan my plugin folder. Not having any visual feedback just makes it looks like the module has frozen. I honestly think it would be better in the short-term if users just had to manually navigate their plugin of choice. Otherwise, some sort of scanning/caching system. Right now, it seems HostFX is scanning the folder from scratch each time it’s loaded. I have something like 84 plugin folders, with god knows how many plugins. In fact, I suspect it’s just frozen now.
Note: as a workaround for the slow scan times, I’ve just limited myself to a few subfolders of my larger VST Plugins folder. So instead of scanning the whole folder, I’m just pointing directly to 4 sub-folders for now.
You should use VCV Sum (included with Rack) to convert polyphonic cables to summed monophonic cables. However, modules are recommended to sum the channels of their audio input for convenience of not needing to use VCV Sum, so I will add this to the next VCV Host release.
I thought I had fixed the plugin scanning issue. How long does plugin scanning take now in Host 1.0.1? How long did it take in Host 1.0.0? How many files do you have in your plugin directory? Do you have a HDD or SSD?
Hi Andrew, I just got Host FX today so I can’t compare to 1.0.
This will sound completely bonkers but according to Windows File Explorer my VST Plugins folder looks something like this: 84,291 files spread out between 3,668 folders.
How does that happen? I have 82 high-level “Vendor” sub-folders. Then, some plugins, like Acustica, Blue Cat’s Patchwork, OBXD, have huge amounts of sub-folders and files associated with them. My U-he sub-folder alone is 69,731 files spread out between 2,662 folders between the thousands and thousands of presets, different skins, resource files etc.
Also, these are on a standard SATA 7,200 RPM HD (not SSD).
Roughly how many seconds does Host 1.0.1 take to search (launch the plugins menu)?
If I limit plugin scanning to 2 subdirectories, would that solve it? In other words, it would find NI/Kontakt/Kontakt.dll but not look inside NI/Kontakt/libraries/.
Andrew, so upon further digging, it looks like the load time issues were pilot error on my part. Here’s what I think was happening:
The plugin menu launches on right-click - at least some of the time, I bet I was left-clicking. That said, I think I was mostly right-clicking, but…
The plugin menu takes about 7-8 seconds to launch the first time, and 3-4 seconds to launch any subsequent time. This is just for the menu to populate and show the plugin list. Until the menu pops up, it just looks like nothing is happening, and…
If you right click a second time, because your impatient and think nothing is happening, the menu never appears at all. This is what I was doing most of the time. In effect, cancelling the menu by right-clicking that second time.
Those factors combined, resulting in me thinking it wasn’t working at all or was freezing. The reality is, I’m just impatient and didn’t understand how it would work.
That said…if there was some kind of visual indication that something was happening (hour glass cursor, beachball, something) I think it would’ve prevented me from thinking that it was freezing. Left click to open the menu would also have been more intuitive for me. Anyway, sorry for the false alarm. Hopefully, I didn’t send you on a wild goose chase.
To answer your question though (in case you’re still interested): if you were to go two-directories deep into each folder, you’d catch all my plugins. Wouldn’t be an issue here.
New host update works great! No need to use VCV Sum for polyphonic patches and the plugin menu opens instantaneously now, including with a left click. Big thanks!