#REWIRE VST HOST DRIVER#
The Audio Driver becomes Rewire, and the 'Playback performance' slider is greyed out. Once Rewire takes over audio streaming, the performance response time (latency) cannot be adjusted at the source.
#REWIRE VST HOST PRO#
These include Digidesign, with their new DirectControl protocol for slotting stand‑alone software synths and samplers into TDM Pro Tools systems, and MOTU, with AudioTap, which allows integration of Mac‑based Sound Manager applications into Digital Performer. Rewire is one technology that seems to have come to the rescue, along with VST 2.0 (see box), although several other manufacturers are also working on their own solutions. Thankfully, some developers are beginning to cater for the all‑in‑one studio by providing ways to integrate several applications. Some PC‑based musicians have worked round this limitation by installing several soundcards, so that they can allocate one to each application, but even this doesn't solve all the problems. It can be extremely difficult to get several applications to talk to the same audio output device or soundcard simultaneously, since each one requires audio playback facilities (incidentally, this is the subject of the PC Musician feature this month, starting on page 140!). However, the specific problem that concerns us in this article is that of interfacing with the world outside the computer. This is a big 'given', however, and there are various other practical problems too, such as latency (see the aforementioned feature for more on this). If you read that feature, you'll know that this way of working is a theoretical possibility, given sufficient processing power. Now that computers are powerful enough to run real‑time software synthesizers and samplers in real time, many musicians using Macs and PCs are intrigued by the possibility of running an all‑in‑one computer studio, incorporating a software MIDI + Audio sequencer alongside these applications - indeed, the feasibility of this approach was the subject of last month's PC Musician feature. Using a Rewire‑compatible sound source with a Rewire‑compatible host such as Cubase VST has the huge advantage that each sound can have EQ and effects added separately, as shown here with Rebirth on the PC.įirst seen on their Rebirth software synth, Steinberg/Propellerhead's Rewire technology not only provides a means of getting software from multiple manufacturers to work together, it also arguably makes the 'studio‑in‑a‑PC' a workable reality for the first time.