Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Is Cantabile considered to be a DAW?

Just a quick question here. [Edit: Er, maybe not so quick.]

I have Cantabile and use it to play VST pianos.

Recording is built-in. But there is no sequencing. And no editing. I guess this is what makes a DAW a DAW?

From the Cantabile web site:

http://www.cantabilesoftware.com/

Play VSTs, trigger media clips, instantly switch between songs, integrate with your existing hardware, control it all via MIDI and simply perform better.

On the same page, they call it a:

Real-time VST Host

VST instruments and effects turn your PC into an incredibly flexible sound and effects module.

Choose from the hundreds of free and commercial plugins available - everything from simple FM synths to high quality samplers, convolution reverb effects and more.

And, VST's only take up disk space - not the whole back of a van.


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One of the testimonials says: "From a musician's point of view, this is the most valuable piece of software on my DAW." I wonder what this means. Does he/she use Cantabile along with a DAW? I wonder why.

No, Cantabile is a VST host and to my knowledge it is the best for live work

That's about it. From what I can gather Cantabile is a simple host/container, able to play a collection of VST instruments. If it records as well that must be a plus but to qualify for DAW status it would have to be a total working environment that can turn out a finished product with all necessary tools available or useable as plugins.

With editing, the sky's the limit so a decent DAW needs not just to be able to do 'everything' in MIDI and audio but to be capable of approaching every task in a variety of ways to suit various situations. That's why most decent DAWs are fairly mature products that have been developed over the years. Cantabile could gradually become a DAW (a young DAW) if its developers have the wit and patience to take it on. At this stage it would probably feel like reworking the wheel.

I don't know how Cantabile might be used in tandem with a DAW since the DAW already serves the host function. Anyone?

well just wondering out loud, based on the little that I know and have recently learned with my excursion into the software piano world:
I have a DAW named Reaper.
and I have 2 piano SW programs.
Ivory II ACD, plays in Cantabile.
and Ravenswood.
that plays in UVI. they tell you that that can be used standalone (snap crackle pop.........boo), or as a VST, in a DAW.
I have done it both ways.
now, I wonder if I am guessing right, to think that Cantabile is different, in that it can only be used standalone?

Even though it's not a fully fledged DAW I think Cantabile is none the less at the top of the food chain, like Cubase and Reaper; you would use one or the other of them.

top tier--:Reaper, Cubase, Logic, Cantabile.... (loads of freewares too I've recently seen). These will all contain VST instruments.

second tier-----: Kontakt, UVI, Ivory pianos, Massive, pianoteq - these are all VSTis. Some of them, like Kontakt are containers (second tier) themselves, designed specifically to host sample libraries. The vast majority of VSTis are soft synths and don't host anything. Ivory is the odd-man out in that it is both a sample library AND a VSTi but NOT a container/host. Nor is it containable in a sample-player (e.g. Kontakt).

third tier------------: sample libraries. Can't exist in isolation so have to be hosted inside a special VSTi designed to hold them, e.g. the second tier components Kontakt, UVI, Halion.

Almost all second tier items can be used in stand-alone mode, just for simple playing without the need for a container. UVI unfortunately is VIlabs Achilles heel - it's buggy and not yet entirely happy working as a stand-alone as it should be. That's why we're having to host UVI in a top tier thingy.

Fascinating.
Do you think it's a good idea to try Ravenscroft in cantabile? (Instead of UVI?) (It's been mentioned before but I haven't tried it yet.........thank you for thoughts.)

If that's possible then my overview is flawed. AFAIK you can't run Ravenscroft (3rd tier) in Cantabile (1st tier). It needs to be run in the only 2nd tier device that it was designed to work with, namely UVI. Then you run UVI in Cantabile ( I haven't figured out where MachFive fits into all this.)

Yes, Cantabile will host UVI, which can contain Ravenscroft. Running Ravenscroft that way solved all my issues with it. VI Labs knows that it is currently flawed within UVI (Windows), and UVI are supposed to be working on a fix.

Cantabile is a very useful tool, and a somewhat neater solution than hosting in a DAW, particularly for live use.

Cantabile makes adding vst effects like reverb easy.

UVI, I think, has its own reverb; unless what I'm seeing is True Keys verb in the effects section.

Super valuable information. Thanks guys.

Yes, for simple playing/recording a DAW is serious overkill not to mention more possible drain on the cpu.

If Cantabile gives you reverb also then all three devices have their own independent offerings.

I figured out how run Ravenscroft inside Cantabile just this week. Except - Dire Tonic has it right. It's UVI Workstation that is the VSTI (and it hosts the Ravenscroft library of samples).

Thus I open up Cantabile, add a rack, and then add a VST plug-in to the rack. [That's the pointer to the UVI Workstation VST plug-in. It lives in C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins; and is named UVIWorkstationVSTx64.dll.] Then the UVI Workstation container opens up automatically and inside UVI Workstation you open up Ravenscroft or any other sound library that you may have; for example, I have Kawai EX in addition to Ravenscroft and load either one.

You can't run Ravenscroft without UVIWorkstation as the host.

It is working well and by running everything from Cantabile, I can record Ravenscroft, or Ivory II, or Alicia's Keys, just by turning on/off a plug-in. Pretty neat. And it opened up my ability to create the files for the Shootout thread.

Aah. This would explain why the musician views it as important. He uses Cantabile and it presumably is lighter, quicker, more responsive, and just simpler for the musician's needs during live performance. Doesn't have all the extra trappings of a DAW.

Super helpful info again gang. thank you.
I will try it this way.
2 quick notes:
1) a feature of Reaper is that it goes easy on the cpu.
2) running rc/uvi in Reaper, I still had lots of snap crackle pops. The cpu usage was low. But still lots of artifacts.
Thank you so much again dire tonic and AZ, for your excellent help to make rc run right.

One thing is for sure: at least in my experience using Cantabile for live playing is very safe. I have never had it hiccup or in any way fail to do what it is supposed to do. Within its limitations it is pretty powerful. You can put two entirely different piano VSTs on different racks and switch between them seamlessly, chain VSTs, etc. Really neat product IMHO.