Enhanced multi-I/O for 3rd party plugins and racks

[Khazul]

There are a bunch of closely related features here. The end use cases may be satisfied by a subset of them rather than all as some are simply alternate approaches. Some may remove fulfill some of the reasons people think they need VST3 support even if probably all of this should work with VST2 and certainly AU.


1. - Enhanced Multi-input 3rd party plugin support
With Live's own plugin that have a sidechain input, we get the very useful sidechain input drop down which makes Live (with it own plugins) one of the simplest DAWs for setting up the simple sidechain use case - dynamics, vocoder etc.

However for non-Live plugins, it remains a pain in the ass having to create a separate audio track to serve as a routing bus as unlike other DAWs we do not really have a matrix bus or equivalent (at least not as represented in the UI). Sends only/targetting output routing being the options. Granted most DAWs require a bus to be created, but busses are tidy and hidden and do not pollute your track space.

As all 3rd party plugins have a Live UI wrapper (and presumably internal physical plugin wrapper) can that UI wrapper please include the same sidechain drop-down as native plugins for plugins that have an aux input? In fact one such drop per additional pair of inputs?

Benefits:
Finally the same quick a simple aux input routing as we get with say Live's own compressor/gate etc
This would finally make 3rd party plugin first class citizen from a UI perspective.
This would have having to create dedicated routing tracks (which take UI space in your set, or need to be buried in a group, or occupy a send which cant be grouped and hidden)
Convenient access to additional channels is part of why people think they want VST3 support. (Another reason is surround sound, but Im only considering stereo use cases here), so may remove that apparent 'need'.

2. - Enhanced Multi-output 3rd party plugin support - via group tracks

Maybe have the option to treat a multi-output instrument (or audio effect) as a group track from an audio out perspective - ie all audio outs get their own child audio track.
These would nest just like drum rack tracks.

The enhance plugin wrapper from 1 above could use the same trick as drum racks and simply give you child tracks for each of the audio outputs.
Perhaps give the wrapper a button enable/disable group track behaviour. When disabled, then it only gives the primary output stereo track as normal. When enabled, your instrument is more like a drum track - ie a group of tracks, one child track for each output.

3. - Enhanced Multi-output 3rd party plugin support - via external effect plugin

Another option to think about:

Could the external effect plugin be changed to provide the same internal use flexibility that the external instrument plugin provides?
Suppose the Audio To drop down included every available audio track and device aux input (incl 3rd party).
Suppose the Audio From from down included every available track and plugin and also every available aux output from a plugin especially 3rd party.

To simplify internal vs external use - that could simply be a checkbox on the plugin (Internal/External).

4. - Enhanced Racks with aux input(s)

The aux inputs available inside the rack become sidechain input drop-downs on the containing rack(s) for each additional aux input.

A natural extension of this enhanced I/O is to bring it into effect racks such that an effect rack can be created that actually has an aux input - maybe you want to make a savable self contained rack with a sidechain squashed delay + reverb or whatever?

A more complex rack could have 2 aux inputs:
Side chain chain gate.
Side chain compressor for pumping.

Kick Side chain chain gate
Kick pumped trance gates?

Note - sidechain should apply to instrument racks as well as some instruments have an audio input - playable re-pitchers, real time slicers (Virus TI), advanced loopers etc.

Tricks that may result from the above features
Using 3rd party compressors with their side chain self contained inside a savable drum rack is finally possible as currently as far as I can tell, there is no way to internally route any audio to the aux inputs of a 3rd party compressor over one of the submix output groups. Yes - you can do it via the global returns and you can use the audio to on the return to feed the correct compressor sidechain (in fact that is the only option you get here). However - that is external and you cannot usefully save and reload such a rack in a self contained manner.

I mention compressors, but people do the same with dynamic EQs, gates, vocoders, spacial processors (multi-stereo to stereo / stereo to multi) etc.

Building racks around 3rd party multi-output instruments suddenly becomes easy - including making use of embedded aux inputs within the rack.

There exist plugins with audio + midi inputs and multiple audio outputs (Virus TI for eg) - setting those up would suddenly become easy and potentially self contained rather than relying upon a project template.

In all cases of the above, when selecting a source or destination, that source or destination should be a relative plugin path such that when the context rack(s) is saved, then relative routings will be preserved on reload. I may even suggest a visual warning when attempting to save a rack context that includes an non self-contained aux routing. (For eg, a sidechain from outside the rack being saved)

[Fuzel]

+1 to all that.

I'd only recently started experimenting with side-chaining using Live's native compressor.

Once I got a handle on it I figured it would be fun to see how other 3rd party plugins behave.....yikes.

The hoops one has to jump through to route a 3rd party plug-in are a) tortuous and b) not worth the hassle.

Imagine being able to buy a 3rd party compressor plug-in that has a drop-down menu populated with the tracks in my song just like the native compressor does!

Maybe in Live-X we'll see some advance?