Listening using VST plugins

[soberjudge]

Hello everyone. I have a question for the Experienced Of VST members.


I'm not a music producer, but I do listen a lot. I'm not listening all the time out of a PC source, but this is becoming increasingly common mainly because I park my fat ass in front of them so often :p


A lot of my listening is done with headphones, and some of the phones I have have some quirks which I like to EQ out. From the detailed but overtly laid-back nature of the Stax Omega II electrostatics, the 'shouty' boosted midrange of the Audio-Technica ATH-W2002 to the overextended treble of the Sony Qualia 010, I just get a nicer listening experience when I EQ. The difficult part is of course getting the EQ right.


I've just found a VST plugin that allows me to draw an EQ curve. The ability to just draw what I think would be the best curve would be fantastic. I don't know how practical this 'drawn EQ' will be, but short of buying a Luxman tablet-pen Equalizer which I have thought about, but can't quite justify, I don't think I have any other options to explore this sort of EQing.


So the question is, what do I need in terms of software (and perhaps hardware) to listen to music with a VST plugin in the chain? The soundcards I use for listening are the RME Fireface which I use via an audio switch to the Stax SRM-007t headphone amp, MOTU 828 Mk II which is plugged digitally into a dCS Elgar Plus DAC and the RME HDSP9632 which is currently fed into my HT system. Software wise, I currently use j.River Media Center via ASIO, Foobar via ASIO, Winamp via ASIO with various degrees of success. I still use iTunes a lot though.


I'd appreciate any advice you guys can give me.

[roughrider]

you use a fireface for listening? ****, i thought i was flash..

i'm sure there's a freeware version of cooledit that you can use for vst, but as money is not an issue, how about wavelab, i'm sure you'd get a lite version bundled with some of that hardware you have.

[soberjudge]

Actually, the headphone system plugged into it is far more flash :p In case I'm not being clear, what I'm looking for is a way to have VST plugins affect in realtime (or near it) the output of music playback programs.


Hmmm, the above sentence was far more succinct. I should have put it like that from the start.

[MrM]

What you need is a 'VST host' that allows direct input of a source.
Most audio sequencers can do this, but they are rather expensive if you just use them for that.
But I am not sure which one is least expensive and still does what you want; try some cheap cubasis version if you can still find them, or some new cubase SE version.

[Pingel]

http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm

Is this something for you?

[soberjudge]

Originally posted by Pingel
http://www.hermannseib.com/english/vsthost.htm

Is this something for you?


It does look like what I need. I'll give it a try. Thanks a lot!!!! :D

[soberjudge]

I'm baaaack :D


Perhaps a dumb question, but I can't get it to work. But how do I target the VST Host (now I know what to Google I've been trying others) from a ASIO compatible music playback app? The apps only allow me to target the soundcard in ASIO.

[Pingel]

I'm not used to do such things, but you can try to find a vst host and a music playback app which both support ReWire. Using ReWire, you can route the output of one application to another, without consuming another 'physical' audio driver. I don't know whether a music playback app which supports this exists.

[RGD]

Originally posted by soberjudge
I'm baaaack :D


But how do I target the VST Host from a ASIO compatible music playback app? The apps only allow me to target the soundcard in ASIO.

I doubt that you can, that would be like tryng to use the VST host software as a plugin. IF your software of choice can run DX plugins, there are VST wrappers that will let you run a VST plugin as a DX, but otherwise you need to pick new software to listen to your music with which will host VST plugins, like the affore mentioned Wavelab lite.
-RD

[soberjudge]

It's a heck of a lot more complicated than I thought, that's for sure. Perhaps I am better off with the Luxman EQ... I'll continue searching. Thanks for the information. Anything else you might come across would be much appreciated.