Plugin holders in the Multi Host

To open a plugin on the controller monitor click on the area on and around the lcd screen on the plugin holder.

The lcd area will display the name of the third party plugin loaded. If you save an MPH xml preset, then it will display the name of that preset.

When you add a new plugin holder an empty instance of the single MPH is created. Each plugin holder can host one plugin. To remove a plugin holder right click on the red area and select Remove Plugin. A pop up menu will appear to ask if you want to remove the plugin holder. When a plugin holder is removed it removes the plugin hosted in it as well and there is no undo for this.

When you click and drag up/down on the area marked in red below on the multiplugin of each plugin holder you can change the order of the plugin.

To add/remove plugin holders (slots)

Right click in the area shown below in red on a plugin holder or left click on the corners of the slot (where the little screws are). 

Or

• Click on the top corners, where the little screws are, (left or right) of a slot to add a plugin slot on top of the currently selected slot. 
• Click on the bottom corners, where the little screws are, (left or right) of a slot to add a plugin slot below the currently selected slot.

Changing the order in the audio effect MPH will affect the audio signal path which is routed from top to bottom plugin holders, feeding from one plugin holder to the next. Changing the order of the instrument MPH just affects the visual order but not the signal path as in the instrument audio is output in parallel for every plugin loaded.

When the MPH plugin window in the DAW is closed and you open it, it will automatically open the plugin holder that was selected last, in the controller’s screen.

Multiplugin functions

Within the multipluging host you are able to bypass and solo plugins, change their order of audio processing in Audio effects by dragging up/down and save multiplugin presets. In the Instrument version, you can still drag the plugin slots up/down but since the processing of audio is parallel (each plugin instrument produces audio concurrently) changing the order will only affect viewing order on the small window.

Power Off/On button: Default is On. When Off, It unloads the plugin completely from the host plugin and the CPU usage is zero. This, as expected, when off uses less computer RAM but when it is turned off and then on it will take a couple of seconds to reload the plugin.

Plugin Bypass button: Default is Off. When On, It bypasses sending audio instantly to the hosted plugin and CPU usage is zero. The hosted plugin remains loaded in the host plugin. Bypass works faster than power on/off.

The Off/On and Bypass operations on the Multi host should not be performed during playback as unpredictable latency will be introduced. For the Bypass, if the hosted plugins do not have any natural latency, the Bypass will not cause the audio be out of sync. If there is latency reported by the hosted plugins, then the Bypass will actually bypass the plugin from the routing chain of the Multi host, thus causing the audio to fall out of sync. Therefore, the Bypass on the touchscreen should be used instead of the Multi host one during playback.

You can also bypass a plugin slot from the controller window by long pressing on the button in the Multi host menu. Long pressing again will remove the bypass from the slot.

Solo button: Default is Off. When On, the selected plugin is soloed and the rest of the plugins stop processing audio and therefore do not consume any CPU. You can Solo multiple plugins.

Output led meter: The meter shows grey when no output is present, green when signal above -40 dB is preset up to -6dB, yellow when signal above -6 dB is present up to 0 dB and red when signal above 0 dB is present. Of course some plugins may produce sound that is not clipping above 0 dB because we are in the digital domain, but some other plugins that are emulating hardware may be producing unwanted artifacts, so the meters should be taken into consideration according to the plugin hosted. As a general rule it may be safer to keep the signal under 0 dB so that you don’t have to worry about clipping.

Multi Plugin Control Button

As of version v16-a91f8a59--H2022-08-10--B2022-08-11 a new screen was added to the Multi host, where it allows controlling with the controller all the automatable parameters of the multihost. This means that from a single screen we can now control parameters from multiple plugins hosted in the multihost. The screen is activated by clicking on the Multi Plugin Control button located at the top of the Multi host plugin.

Multiplugin Presets

The MPH stores its configuration, preset files and preset background image files in:

Windows: C:\Users\USER\AppData\Roaming\MP\Host

Mac: /Users/USER/Library/Application Support/MP/Host

multi host presets have an mxmlf file extension for audio effects and mxmli for instruments. They can be loaded via the multiplugin only. When you save a multiplugin preset it contains the current state of all loaded plugins including mappings, background images etc. However, it is still possible to Save individual xml plugin presets, with the Save button in the main controller screen, so you can use them in new future multiplugin instances. Saving a multiplugin preset will not automatically save individual single plugin xml presets.

Multi host maximum number of hosted plugins

We have set a 12 plugin holders limit in the multiplugin version. Although we don’t have to implement a limit, we did set one because in a DAW channel everything runs on the same audio thread. Even without the MPH all the plugins you load in a DAW channel run in a single CPU thread so that the audio processing is uninterrupted (not switching from one thread to another). Since, with the MPH you now have the ability to run 12 virtual instruments on a single thread, this can put extreme load on a single thread of the CPU, not because of the MPH but because of the number of plugins you have in a single channel. With a limit of 12 it means you can run 12 instruments and 12 effects with just one MPH instance for instrument and one for effects. Of course you can load as many MPH instances you want per channel, but even with the latest computers this may not be such a good idea, and it is in general better to spread the load across channels. We may increase this limit of 12 plugins in the future depending on feedback we receive.

For setting up automation parameters in the Multi host see the article here

July 2024 update, for using the MP Host in Bitwig on Windows, see this article here