In another thread someone (clevermind I think) mentioned using a VST chainer as a wrapper to deal with incompatibilities between n-track and some VST plug-ins. I assume that it work like this:
(1) You use a compatible chainer as a plug-in into n-track .
(2) Then you plug the incompatible VST plugin into the chainer.
(3) Because the plugin hooks into the chainer instead of directly into n-track, it will serve as a buffer that shields n-track and the plugin from each other. Is that the right idea?
There must be some overhead to this. Could someone who has tried using a wrapper this way give me some idea of the increase latency and CPU demand? Is the approach just worthwhile as a last resort, or could you use it routinely?
By the way Xlutop.com has a free chainer available.
Hi,
you got the idea 
xlutop chainer has other goodies, like graphical chains re-arrangement (with the mouse) , parallel chains, sends between chains, and midi control of any plugin (with editor 2)
another wrapper who works with vst/vsti/dx/dxi : Console (not free)
The Xlutop web site maily touts the chainer as a standalone application (almost like a live instrument/processing rack made up of VSTs). They say latency is very low when the chainer is used this way. Can’t wait to use to hook together some VST plug-ins, and feed my guitar through it to see if it’s true. I can’t play live through ntrack on my computer because of latency.
Chainer exists in standalone, vst , and vsti version (all for free)
you will get low latency only when using a low latency audio driver
try asio4all if your soundcard doesn’t have a asio driver
asio4all is exclusiive, that means that it can’t work if another audio application is running, or if the Microsoft GS synth is selected as midi output or midi thru (you can use vtsis like sfz with a good GM soundfont like Fluid GM instead of this poor synth)
you will also have to mute playing for you external input, or you will ear normal sound mixed with asio sound
with n-track , you can also use your WDM soundcard driver; after all, asio4all does nothing but wrapping the existing WDM driver to get asio.
if the audio driver buffer size is set low enough, you will be able to play live in n-track also
for asio4all, this setting is by app, you have to open its control panel within your sequencer (don’t use asio4all.exe app)
Thanks for the info clevermind. Chainer is definitely cool. I set latency to lowest settin on my ASIO driver and fired up chainer in stand alone mode. I chained together 8 VST effects and it worked perfectly. No detectable latency, no glitches, and using about 30% of CPU cycles. I can see some possiblities in setting up one of my other computers just to run VSTs with chainer, and feeding the audio from it to the computer running n-track. Not every VST effect that I tried would pass signal when plugged into chainer, but most did, and all of the ntrack VSTplugins that I tried worked.
I know that in theory I should be able to play live through n-track but I get crackles, pops, and dropouts in n-track if I adjust buffers and set latency small enough to play real time when using multiple plugins and handling multiple tracks. I probably haven’t done all the tweaks to Windows XP that I need to, but i’m abot to get around to that too.
Chainer may be just what I need to reduce my need for having Cubase (shiver) installed… Hmmm… Yesterday I toyed around with it again slaps wrist and found a timestretch/pitch alteration function that may come in handy some day. (double-speed guitars, anyone?) Apparently it uses some proprietary algorithm called ‘Timebandit’.
A quick test renders it unuseable for final production, but recording along with a time-stretched premix is something I have been searching for for years, and the quality is good enough for that.
Well… - back on topic, I’ll try to see if Chainer will help in solving the troubles I’ve been having with n-Track and VSTi’s.
Useful findings will be posted to the Forum as they emerge…
regards, Nils
some other asio hosts : Minihost, Bidule
Chainer is limited in its number of chains , but you can overcome this limitation by loading Chainer vst /vsti into Chainer
for loading Direct X plugins into Chainer or any vst only host, you can use VB-ffx4 (free); you can load VB-ffx4 DX into VB-ffx4 vst to get more slots
Chainer also allows easy plugins re-arrangement in Cubase (a missing feature in this sequencer)