FX-MAX.com

[rictheobscene]

[Carlos Schorr]

Hello Ric:

Thank you very much for your information about it.

Cheers,

Carlos

[Cortez The Killer]

I've just managed to figure out how to get this working - I am such a non-specialist when it comes to networking that it's embarrassing, but even so it was all pretty straightforward for me. And if I can do it, anyone can.

Here's how I did it:

1. Bought a 2m crossover cable to connect my laptop (slave - already had in-built 10/100 Ethernet port) to my desktop (Host - previously had installed a Netgear 10/100 Ethernet card) and connected the two computers directly (i.e. no need for a switch with just 2 computers).

2. I had to manually configure my laptop's IP address so that it had the same first 3 octets(not sure if this is the correct term?) as it was set to 'Automatically determine IP address'). I did this by exploring the 'properties' for the Ethernet connection's TCP setup and changed from automatic detection to using a specific address. If you don't know your host's or slave's IP address, run CMD from the start menu and type ipconfig. If your host's IP is e.g. 141.198.1.1 then your slave must be 141.198.1.??? (using 2 seems most logical for the last part of the number).

3. Now that both computers had IP addresses that placed them in the same LAN, I pinged each computer from the other to ensure they were talking, which they were.

4. I installed the FXT software as 'host' on the desktop and 'slave' on the laptop.

5. Installed ALL of the VSTs that I had on my desktop system onto the laptop.

6. Ran the FXT server program on the laptop and told it where my VSTs were on the laptop.

7. Ran the FXT configuration programme on the host and told it where my plugins were on the desktop.

8. The config programme picked up all the VSTs I had installed on the laptop without any issues.

9. Wondered what to do next...waited for a while...read the manual...waited some more...scratched my head for a bit...got bored and thought it hadn't worked.

10. Booted up Cubase and watched as it initialised all the plugins I had as LAN versions.

Usage is very straightforward after this...all explained in the html help files that come with the installation program.

Very very cool piece of software...now I can use my host to run BFD and other VSTis and farm out all the effects processing to the laptop.

Still trying to get latency down....that's my next job. In operation currently, noticed that the tracks which aren't subjected to remote effects processing are out of sync with those that are (which would be the latency issue I guess so am looking at using a chainer to build effects-bundles to use on the slave). When you export a final mixdown though, there is no such sync problems and it all works beautifully.

I am definitely spending the money on the product once the trial period runs out.