New Plug-In: Blue Cat's Connector
by bluecataudio   20th January 2022

HI.

Wondering if Connector and Patchwork and MB7 work well with CPU and RAM heavy plugins from Acustica audio and big virtual instruments ?

Is it just a latency thing to adjust ? Or do they not work very well in this product eco system solution ?



Thanks

If your CPU can handle the load of these plug-ins, there should not be specific problems.

You will of course get additional latency if these plug-ins have latency, but that's it. You may want to try the demo versions and check if that works fine on your system.

There is a place you can add a name, just not in the port field.

Indeed, but that's a bit different from the requested feature. You can see the name of the connected instance, but you have to remember the port number to connect.

A redirection could indeed be added using a name, but this would affect performance and connection reliability. Using port numbers let us use direct connection between instances at the lowest level, which definitely helps for performance and synchronization.

“Drum bus insert 8083” “Bass insert 8022” or if you keep all of the ports in the 80xx range you can leave of the 80.

Yes that's indeed the best way to keep track of port numbers and avoid problems. But I guess the original poster would have liked to get rid of the number entirely :-).

If you're using two laptops connected by thunderbolt bridge in the network preferences, but they both need to be connected to the same wifi for reasons separate from using Connector, how do you force Patchwork and Connector to use the bridge rather than wifi?

So far, the only thing I've come up with is to turn wifi off. They then start using the bridge and then when I turn wifi back on, they stay with the bridge. I don't know how to know that for sure other than I get a lot of dropouts using wifi and when do this they don't come back.

Wifi will indeed not work for real time audio streaming, there is too much jitter.

I am not sure if Macs will support having these 2 types of connections at the same time... But in theory they should have a different IP address on each network interface (Wifi and thunderbolt). So using the IP address of the thunderbolt connection should do the trick.

On a Mac the name that goes in Connector's hostname/IP field is the same whether you use the thunderbolt bridge or wifi.

Maybe turning off wifi and forcing the switch to thunderbolt is the best solution for now.

But you should have two sets of IP addresses, so choosing the right one (not using the computer name), should usually let you choose the network being used.

But using a single network at a time is indeed probably the best option.

It took me a little while to find the numerical IP from the wired connection.


Is there a recommended buffer size?

It depends on your connection and the settings in your host application(s). You can find a few tips to set things up here:

Low latency audio streaming tips

We have been asked a couple of times if it is possible to use Connector to play with other musicians remotely and how it can be done. The answer is yes: you can do online jams with Connector at low latencies!

While there is no guarantee (the result depends on your connection, the distance between locations and many other parameters over which we have no control), we have tested it for you, and here is how to set things up in details!

How To Jam/Rehearse With Remote Musicians Online Using The Blue Cat's Connector Plug-In?



Enjoy!

Awesome thank you! Great to see connector having more and more uses, glad I got it!!

If you make a free, receive only client, you'll sell a ton.

Or a send/receive client that can be authorized by one side.

New feature request - iPhone transmission app.

Back when I used a console, I kept a 1/8th cable to a Tape In. I may have done the same in earlier versions of my all digital set up, but currently I don't have an easy way to get audio from someone's iPhone through my monitors. Plus new iPhones don't have the 1/8th inch jack anymore.

An iPhone app that could connect via wifi to Connector would be a great solution to that problem.

Also, if you made a standalone version of the receiver, it would be a viable option for non-pro audio people too.

That's currently not in the plans, but who knows in the future!

That's exactly what Freeceiver is for!