Collaberation or sharing between different DAW's, OpenMPT included

[LPChip]

In the past, I've bought plugins from Mixed In Key, and they have now released version 2.0 of their Satellite plugin suite. Currently it is for free so I gave it a test spin.

What it does is basically allow you to record audio or midi data to the plugin and share it to anyone in the session. This allows you to collaborate with others.

There are a few things you can do:
1. You hear what others do and the plugin perfectly syncs its position with the position in OpenMPT as long as you don't want to do any fancy tempo changes, though I haven't tested if the plugin actually handles it. You do need to set your song to Modern tempo, speed 6 and the tempo to whatever BPM you are working in with the song.

2. You can enter notes in your pattern and in the same way you normally would control a VSTi, you can send these notes as midi data into the project where others can drag the notes in their DAW and use your notes in their project.

3. You can record your audio output of one or more instruments simultaneously into the session such that anyone else can hear exactly what it sounds like in your OpenMPT. They can drag the WAV file into their project and work with it that way.

4. If everyone only records their audio into the project, you can work on a song together without even needing to download audio back into your project. You just need to tell them to alter the volume if that is an issue.

5. There is a chat function inside that saves chat into the session.

6. OpenMPT actually does allow you to drag in midi and wav data from the session into your OpenMPT window. It will then create a new song and put the notes and or samples in that song so that you can switch to your main song and copy over the note data or import the sample back in there. Working with the audio is a bit cumbersome so its probably better to work described as step 4, but it is possible.

and last but definitely not least,

7. If you have 2 different DAW's, where OpenMPT is one of them, you can use this to easily create a song that uses both DAWs. OpenMPT for that chiptune section, and your sequencer for that ambient section, etc... Or a plugin that crashes in OpenMPT can be recorded in your other DAW and editing something is very easy now.


I'm not sure how long this will stay for free, if ever, but it works and it works quite well.

Currently I am testing it with both OpenMPT and BitWig studio, and I find that when I drag in audio or midi from the session into my project, the plugin freezes. BitWig has a really good crash protection so it allows the plugin to die but it does get the audio/midi data, and all I have to do is reload the plugin and am back in business, so that's good...

I did a test where I created a pattern with a simple sine sample in OpenMPT, recorded the midi notes, got them back in BitWig, used a different plugin with different sound and had my pattern in the song there quite easily. Something that would normally take me 15 minutes or more was now done in under 3.

Oh, and of course, this does mean that people can now easily collaborate over the internet using OpenMPT without creating a module, saving it, sending it back and forth, and not worrying about all those great plugins that you now cannot use. You can use your plugins, it stores it as wave data.

You can technically even use only OpenMPT and Satellite Sessions as standalone user to have a sequencer view in OpenMPT if that's what you want, without all the sequencer editing capabilities.

There is one thing that you have to keep in mind though, Satellite sessions does only does its magic when the sound buffer is open, so if you record something and you press stop at the end, Satellite Sessions appears to hang. Just press the upload button in the Sessions window to stop recording, hit play in your daw again, and it finalizes the recording for you.

[Exhale]

sounds great - can you give us a link? I tried looking for it, but it looks like something to pay for.

[LPChip]

Ah, yes. Definitely. https://mixedinkey.com/satellite/download/

[Exhale]

Thank you, i got it, and it seems very strange to have stems popping up from a modplug file ...
now I need to see if I can find anyone to test it with I guess... or maybe I should just access it on two different daws to make working between daws easier like you said you do...
There is one concern I have though... it seems to be recording as soon as I put the vsts into the system... I am not sure if that is something there is an easy fix for... but yeah it seems pretty damn awesome.

[LPChip]

When you put in the midi or audio vst, they will record when the record function is set. Normally they would wait until you hit play, but well.. OpenMPT is technically not supported and does things a little bit differently than any other DAW.

So what you can do is set it to only record once and automatically mute upon recording, then when it starts recording, just hit your play/stop and it should disarm too.

You can also arm/disarm from Satellite Sessions directly by pressing the upload button on each track/stem.

Then start making your pattern and when you are ready to bounce the stem to Satellite Sessions, go there and hit the upload button for all tracks you wish to bounce.

I found out that you can actually record multiple midi and audio tracks at the same time, just not a midi and audio track for the same notes. If you attempt to do that, there is a weird delay inserted into the audio recording.

A simple workaround is to simply play the song twice. First let all the midi tracks record, then let all the audio tracks record.

Also one last thing. If you have audio latency issues, this is a really easy way to record a very CPU intensive track to a temporary time slot so you can mute it in your project and still hear it, so that you can actually work on one instrument at a time without having CPU issues and have a wave representation for all other tracks and work like that one by one. You just bypass the VST effects in OpenMPT so they no longer consume CPU power (or there is probably an even easier way that Saga Musix will point out).

This basically allows you to freeze any channel in place as instrument so it no longer consumes CPU power and still hear the audio. The only drawback is, that you have to listen to the entire length of the song for every render of a track, but it is going to be faster and easier to work with than rendering a channel or instrument to wav, load the sample back in, and create a replacement for your notes. Especially since the Satellite Sessions will correctly sync its position, even midway the pattern, so if you play from row 16 on pattern 29, you will hear exactly what would be playing if you had the notes enabled.

[LPChip]

Btw, I'm playing with the thought of creating a co-op project where anyone can join in using Satellite Sessions to add something and just see where it goes. Will post details etc here once I got an idea of what we want.

[Exhale]

wow yeah, there seems to be a lot to learn here, but I will get it eventually thanks for pointing it out.
maybe I will be able to join you in that collaboration/test of its abilities... this definately feels like the thing I tested for saga a while back with online modplug, which I presume still has more then enough work to be done, so I havent talked to anyone else on here... I can imagine this would compliment that whole concept very nicely especially when someone has a vst that they cannot share (proprietary software etc)

[LPChip]

Yeah. I'm still in the process of setting things up, which is why I haven't posted anything regarding the co-op project, but this is what I'm currently thinking of:

I was thinking: we create a module together, samples only and make a song. The collaboration process uses Satellite Sessions to see who is doing wat and be able to quickly work on the song together, even at the same time if desired. Every addition, aside from rendering it into the project is also created in an mptm file and uploaded to a location I specify (I still have to make this).

As project manager, I check the additions and if I approve them, I will download your mptm, copy the samples and patterns and implement it into main song. I will set the volume correctly compared to the rest, possibly apply some VST effects such as EQ to make it sound better and once implemented, remove your track from the Satellite Sessions, rendering the new version (with your name in the track) back.

Once the song is complete, the final mptm version with all samples and VST plugins (if used) are uploaded and shared as group effort. At any time, you may suggest a change to the project by posting about it as a suggestion in the forum. Either the original person can agree and make the changes on their end and resubmit for approval to me, or I can adjust it if I think it will improve the song.

Basically this is what I need to do for it:

1. I'll create a template module that has the plugin inside with the tempo settings set correctly and an instrument setup, ready to stream audio to the project.
2. Provide an upload script where you can upload your module (still have to build one)
3. Make a forum post
4. Actually start the song.