FX-MAX.com

[RockinRobbie]

Prior to discovering FX-Teleport I tried to set-up a VST System Link network. What a pain! Absolutely impossible.

Upon initial installation, FX-Teleport seemed to sync instantly with my slave computer. But shortly thereafter my host computer ground to a halt. Every request, even opening the Control Panel, would take up to 15 minutes, if at all. The host became so unmanageable that I was compelled to re-format the disk and re-install Win2000 twice, because I couldn't get the PC to perform any task, as if some background service was sucking the life out my CPUs (dual 733 PIII).

After much experimentation I now have my two PCs humming along extremely well!! My VST Performance meter in Cubase SX hardly moves, latency is minimal, I think I can now record consistently at 96KHz. Operation is seamless and awesome. Here are some suggestions:

1) If you're host was designed as a serious networking workstation, go into Control Panel>System>Device Manager>Network Adapters and remove all miscellaneous adapters. Clean it completely out before you install your network card. If you just have a TCP/IP adapter there, that's probably fine. I installed Netgear 1GB cards and made sure the driver they provided was the only one listed under Network Adapters.

2) If you're using the Netgear 1GB card (model: GA 311), take the "Netgear Configuration Utility" out of your Start Up folder. Let the basic driver that installs under Network Adapters do it's thing.

3) There are a lot of Steinberg VST plug-ins that won't work unless you have their plug-in folder embedded in a Steinberg folder that contains Cubase 5 or SX, for instance. Since your slave computer is used for plug-ins you won't need or want Cubase on it, so don't install the old Cubase 5 plug-ins, or DirectX plug-ins for that matter, in your slave PC. They'll crash your system or make your Cubase project perform very erratically. Take the time to remove all the offending plug-ins that FX reports to you. Then rescan the plug-ins so only usable plug-ins will get wrappers.

4) VST plug-in folder on slave system: just create a folder on the desktop or in the C drive and load it up with your plug-ins. Use sub folders for different kinds of effects and synths. It's just that easy. When you're scanning for plug-ins from your host computer, just make sure you're pointing it to the plug-in folder you created on the slave machine.

Next project is to experiment with some of the VST - DirectX wrappers out there so I can use the awesome Wave plug-ins with the slave!

Final word, it was worth the effort to get FX-Teleport working. The ease of operation and seamlessness are incredible and performance has gone into the stratosphere!