Overview

Why you may need FX Teleport?
How does it work?
Latency and jitter?
Features
How is this way of working better than MIDI networking or VST System Link?
How can I try FX Teleport with my system?

FX Teleport is a unique and revolutionary DAW networking solution. From now on it's not only possible, but also very easy, to use as many computers as you want for your DAW. Just launch your favorite VST host on one machine and VST instruments and FX on the others, and enjoy working on your ‘audio processing farm’. You can even dedicate a whole computer to your favorite VST synth.

With the help of Giga VST Adapter, FX Teleport will be able to work with Giga Studio. Also, Giga Teleport - a combination of Giga VST Adapter and teleport features is availble. You can get Giga Teleport if you do not need to teleport any other VST plug-ins. See the comparision chart for details.

Why you may need FX Teleport?

If the CPU resources on your main machine are insufficient, you may want to use another machine for the heaviest FX/Instruments. Using FX Teleport you can easily turn your home or project studio into a really powerful audio processing farm.

Even if your CPU horsepower is sufficient for your needs, adding an extra machine will eliminate the peaks of CPU, HD and RAM usage, increasing the overall reliability of the system.

Convenience reasons: a dedicated machine means dedicated keyboard, mouse and monitor just for control over your FX - which in the end may replace a dedicated hardware control unit (like for instance HUI). Just remember how many times you wished there had been another mouse.

Overall stability: in case your FX plug-in crashes the machine, the host machine with your song will remain stable and you won't lose your work.

You work on a project with someone else: another person may want to help you tweak your FX parameters while you are mixing, or make some finishing touches on your sequencer.

You want to get the most out of your software synth: you can almost turn it into a hardware synth if you dedicate a whole machine to it. Just assign the whole machine's CPU, RAM and HD, set the heaviest programs and FX, and this will not affect the whole system in any way - and you will no longer need to do preliminary bounces and mixdowns in order to free up some CPU power for more plug-ins on your host machine.

How does it work?

It's all very easy. On the host machine, where the sequencer is running, there's a VST wrapper. You will see a new VST folder named "FX Teleport" with all the familiar plug-ins, but with (LAN) extensions. You can use those FX in the usual way you work with VST plug-ins. When such an effect is used, the VST wrapper launches and searches for FX Teleport server applications on the network, and on finding those starts the chosen effect on the remote machine. Next the VST wrapper serves as a bridge between the host and the remote machine. It flows the stream to the effect and processed signal back to the host machine.

If you are working ‘on location’, or you're just too lazy to turn on additional machine(s), you have nothing to worry about - the wrapper will search the network, and having found nothing it will just start the FX on the host machine in the way it used to work before you installed FX Teleport. Then if you feel you're getting out of horsepower on the host machine, just start the other one(s) and teleport your FX with a single mouse click.

Latency and jitter?

You may ask "what about latency and jitter while transmitting audio from one machine to another?" There's no jitter at all, as all audio is buffered in the wrapper. Latency exists, but it's minimal. Our tests have shown a latency of 128 to 256 samples (or even less) with the audio card buffer set to 128 samples. This means you can play live on remote software instruments with a latency of less than 384 samples (or 6 to 9 ms) - which is better than with some hardware synths. Also note that the latency is not variable and for your convenience it is displayed in the FX Teleport window. Therefore you end up with sample accurate synchronization between your host machine and teleported FX - just set the proper offset in samples or ticks (depending on your sequencer) to compensate for the latency and you're done.

Network performance depends on the number of FX inputs/outputs, your networking hardware, version of Windows and the way the network is (or is not) used by your other applications. Therefore our VST wrapper tests the system and finds the correct latency on the first launch - just the same way as it is done while installing an ASIO card. While you work, the VST wrapper monitors and indicates the network performance - much like the familiar VST performance monitor. In case of network overload the red indicator will show up, meaning that some audio packets have been lost. If this happens frequently, just click on the icon with 2 computers in the FX Teleport window, and latency will be re-adjusted. Alternatively, you can right-click on the same icon and set latency to current peak value.

The amount of CPU resources consumed when sending audio over a network will vary depending on your system configuration. FX Teleport can work not only via TCP, but also via UDP. Audio buffer size also affects the system performance. Use these parameters to optimize the CPU load of your FX Teleport installation.

Features

Unique VST over LAN solution:
- Reduces DAW CPU load
- Provides a dedicated terminal for FX
- Prevents loss of data when FX crashes

Full host integration:
- FX parameters saved in the host song/project file
- Host automation support
- Audio streams to host mixer

Instant remote/local mode switch

Small and constant latency

Automatic and manual latency adjustment

No jitter

Sample accurate mode enabled

Live performance enabled

UDP and TCP support

VST 2 support

Support of multi-input and multi-output FX

How is this way of working better than MIDI networking or VST System Link?

You work from a single host program on your main machine. The FX are totally integrated into the host - therefore you end up with one song file which contains all your plug-in settings, plug-in parameter automation, and mix integrating all the FX and Instruments. Also instead of quite expensive dedicated hardware you use a relatively cheap LAN connection, allowing you to instantly switch between local (host machine only) and remote modes. There's absolutely no jitter in the system and overall latency is smaller than on most USB MIDI interfaces.

How can I try FX Teleport with my system?

It's easy as 1, 2, 3!
Just make sure you have 2 or more machines running Windows networked via 100 MBit LAN (usually it is so if you can freely transfer files from one machine to the other). Also make sure you have any VST host, like Cubase, Logic or any other installed on one machine and any VST plug-ins to be installed on the other(s).
1. Download FX Teleport installer and install it on all your machines.
2. Install your VST instruments and/or FX on the additional machines and launch FX Teleport Server.
3. On your host machine enable all remote VST instruments/FX using FX Teleport Configure Utility.

Your studio is ready to go!
Launch your host application, choose the remote FX and... wow!!! the FX are launched on the remote machines, totally integrated with the host, working on your main one! Everything is in its place as if you launched it on a single machine: plug-in automation, the ability to save plug-in parameters in the song, and of course audio streams from all the plug-ins into the host machine. Live performance on a remote instrument won't cause you any problems either.

Good luck with your new studio!

Manual | Overview | Installation | Interface | Working with FXT

Danny Lux, TV composer:
This product has changed the way I work. (...) I run about 30 to 40 VSTi's on FXT machines. (...) I am using FXT on every project right now... >>>

Want more CPU resouces staying with one-machine DAW? Checkout FX Freeze - the solution for using CPU for 200%, 300% without overloads. Click here to read more.