Whilst the combination of DP4 and Rax is useful, it has a major shortcoming in that there's currently no way to get audio from Rax (or any other application that doesn't support Rewire) into DP4 without it having to pass in and out of your Mac via some sort of audio interface. Record-enable one of them, and you'll be away. Back in DP, you should now find 'DP4 to Rax 1' in the output menus of all your MIDI tracks. Here's the clever bit - from Rax's MIDI Source pop-up menu select 'DP4 to Rax 1', which Rax recognises because DP4 has 'published' it to the Core MIDI part of OS X. Now, close Interapplication MIDI, start Rax and select an AU instrument.
Go to the Setup menu, select 'Interapplication MIDI.' and create an Output called (for example) 'DP4 to Rax 1'. First of all, start up DP before you boot up Rax. What makes Rax really useful is that you can play it from within DP4, and here's how. AU effects (including the handful that are part of OS X there's a surprisingly good reverb) can then be applied to the output of the synth. You can then play the synth plug-in by selecting an appropriate MIDI source from the dedicated pop-up menu.
Operation is simple - after you boot it up you're asked to select an Audio Unit synth plug-in from any of the ones you've put in Library/Audio/ Plug-Ins/Components (the OS X location for plug-ins, as explained in last month's Performer Notes).
#AUDIO HIJACK TUTORIAL SOFTWARE#
Rax is perhaps the first stand-alone Audio Units host, and although it's still in a relatively early stage of development, it nonetheless offers robust support of most Audio Units plug-ins, including software synths and effects. Granted Software's Rax, a stand-alone AU host application that you can use with DP4.The answer lies with Rax, an application by Granted Software (who also make the iMIDI utility featured in Mike Watkinson's Apple Notes column back in February). Audio Units (or AUs) may well become the standard format for audio plug-ins under OS X, so it makes sense to start getting a feel for them now. Using AUs In DP4Īlthough early DP4 adopters have had to make do without the vast array of MAS format plug-ins that were available under OS 9, they're perhaps compensated to a certain extent by the promise of native support for Audio Units later in the year. Also bear in mind that Freeze Tracks is perfect for capturing the output of external effects processors being brought into DP via an Aux track - freeze the Aux and you have a 'hard copy' in DP that you can mix, tweak and edit to your heart's content. The above works for multiple tracks, and also Aux tracks, so it'll be possible to freeze software synths in this way too. If you want to return to the original track select it (not the bounced track), hold down Control, Shift and Command/Apple and hit the 'F' key again (or go to the Audio menu, hold down Shift, and select 'Unfreeze Selected Tracks'). Your new track appears and the original is 'frozen'. You select an audio track by clicking its name or dragging over a part of its track in an editing window, hold down Control and Command/Apple and hit the 'F' key (or choose 'Freeze Selected Tracks' from the Audio menu). The advantage of doing it this way is that although you don't get to tweak plug-in parameters any more, you maintain individual control over level and pan, and can of course add more plug-ins! In a single action it takes any tracks you've selected (whether they have plug-ins on them or not), creates the same number of new tracks, bounces the selected tracks to them, and then disables the audio voice assignments in the original tracks it has just 'frozen', freeing up processor power. This is where the new Freeze Tracks feature comes in. It's straightforward in principle, but a really tedious chore that can take 10 minutes to set up, and even then, it results in the loss of individual control over the tracks you've just bounced. Getting around this problem has always been possible, by creating a new voice track, routing all the tracks laden with software synths or plug-ins to it via a buss, record-enabling it, making a recording pass then disabling the plug-ins. Extensive use of effects plug-ins sap processor power, resulting in an increasingly sluggish user interface, pops and clicks in audio, and even system instability. There can't be many DP users out there who haven't pushed their Mac's processor to the limit whilst working on a project. The new Freeze Tracks feature is a great addition to DP, and especially so if you own an older or more modest Mac. More on DP4 and OS X, including the new 'Freeze Tracks' feature.
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