When One Computer Just Isn't Enough

January 08, 2002

The 1996 Frankfurt Musik Messe show saw Steinberg unveil a new technology that would revolutionize the world of digital music production. Today Steinberg's Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is a global standard.

The performance of this type of system was to date determined by the capabilities of a single computer, which of course are finite. Musicians and producers who sought to work with numerous audio tracks, EQs, compressors, reverb effects, and virtual instruments in large-scale projects often discovered where performance limits of their computer systems lay. That was then, this is now:

Steinberg presents VST System Link! VST System Link connects computers. The link is established using a simple digital audio cable. A single bit of just one audio channel serves to connect two, three, four, eight, ad infinitum systems and sync them up with sample accurate precision.

Case in point: Any desired number of audio tracks with EQs, effects, compressors, and plug-ins run on computer 1, while VST instruments like HALion, The Grand, LM4 Mk II, TC Native Reverb - just to mention a few - run on computer 2. The user may opt to run MIDI tracks on the first or second computer. In either case, the computers are simply synchronized. In the latter case, computer 1 sends MIDI data to computer 2 via as many MIDI channels and virtual ports as desired - without the merest hint of a timing problem, and always with sample accurate precision.

So much for theory. What does that mean in practice?

Old PCs are spared the recycling bin. Every PC may be reused, increasing the studio's real-time music power.
Limitless performance. Every user can access as many audio tracks as desired, and as many VST instruments as necessary. Every computer in a VST System Link network adds hard drives and increases processing power.
Multiple workstations. Record a guitar solo while an assistant cuts the best vocal takes? Sure. Mix dialogs while sounds are generated on the other machine? Certainly.
Clients come to the studio, notebook and a pre arrangement in hand, and simply dock onto the local system. Nuendo in the studio, Cubase in clients' home? No problem! VST System Link interfaces applications.
Dub videos simultaneously with dialog, music, and sound effects? By all means: three systems can run simultaneously, tripling the creative output.
VST System Link spells a renaissance for MIDI. Hundreds, even thousands of MIDI channels are available – sans any of the usual MIDI timing difficulties.
Digital mixdown using several systems? Absolutely, just like the way multi-system mixing is performed in VST.
Macintosh or Windows PC? Both – here too, VST System Link is the joining force.

VST System Link is exclusively available in Cubase VST and Nuendo from Q 1/ 2002.

For more information, visit their web site at http://www.steinberg.net/.

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