The Rack view displays all hosted plugins on a single page. Any combination of plugins can be viewed at any time, with options to show/hide plugin windows during the work process.

The browser pane makes it easy to drag and drop plugins to create new slots and load patches. See Browser for more info. A Nektarine instance can host up to 16 instrument channels, each containg 4 insert effect slots, as well as an additional four Send Channels each hosting one plugin. With all possible plugins loaded in Nektarine, a total of 84 plugins will be viewable in the rack.

The example below show an instrument channel hosting Korg Polysix, routed to 3 insert slots hosting UAD Neve EQ and 1176 plugins as well as NI Replica delay.

Nektarine Rack hosting Korg Polysix, UAD Neve EQ and 1176 compressor plus NI Replica

 

2.1 Instrument Channel Overview

An Instrument channel hosts an instrument plugin, up to 4 insert effect plugins and has 4 send controls for routing signal to the 4 effect send slots. The instrument plugin slot contains all the channel features and act as a header for insert FX slots.

Nektarine Rack instrument channel

  1. Click to show/hide plugin windows in the  instrument channel. If any combination of plugin windows are open, they will be hidden at click and a second click will open to the same view.
  2. Instrument slot select button.
  3. Show/Hide the plugin window hosted in the instrument channel. This does not affect any insert effect plugin windows.
  4. The audition button send a middle C (MIDI note 60) to trigger the hosted plugin.
  5. Channel Mute. Right-click to activate Solo.
  6. Keyboard Zone parameters. If the Pads view page is active, this location is used for Choke.
  7. Automation on/off.
  8. MIDI input activity indicator.
  9. Currently loaded patch. Click to select from popup list.
  10. Currently loaded instrument plugin. Click to select a plugin from popup list.
  11. Channel volume control and meter.
  12. Channel Pan.
  13. Sends 1-4.
  14. Pre-button switch sends to pre prefader.
  15. Add new instrument channel.
  16. Remove this instrument channel.

 

2.2 Patch and Instrument

The currently loaded patch name is displayed in 9 . If a patch name is not loaded either click the ‘No Patch’ field and select from the popup list or drag and drop from the browser pane. Read more about how to use the browser in the section Browser: Loading patches.

The Instrument field displays the loaded instrument plugin. You can also load an instrument plugin by clicking in the field and selecting from the popup list. Using this method is slightly different from loading a plugin via the browser because no patch is loaded and the loaded instrument plugin is selected. This means that only patches for that plugin are displayed in the browser pane. Read more about the browser here.

 

2.3 Mute and Solo

The Mute button mutes the audio output of the channel, prior to reaching the fader and sends. This means the entire instrument channel is muted immediately when Mute is activated.

Right-click on the button to activate Solo. Solo mutes all other Instrument channels but not the Send channels. You can mute Send Channels separately.

 

2.4 Keyboard Zone Parameters (Keyboard Profile Only)

The zone parameters can be set to create layer and split points for instrument channels which enables the creation of setups for live performances.

When keyboard zone view is active, the zone parameter options replace the channel parameters in each slot (see left image). For each instrument plugin channel, the following parameters can be set:

  • Note Range. The blue line above the graphical keyboard indicates the current range. Click and drag the left or right border to change the current zone. Alternatively click Note Range Lo/Hi fields and enter values using your computer keyboard.
  • Velocity range. If you don’t want a slot to respond to the entire velocity range from 1-127, set the values here. Click on the Velocity Range Lo/Hi fields and enter values using your computer keyboard.
  • MIDI Channel. By default all instrument plugin slots are set to Omni, which means they will receive on any MIDI channel. Instrument Plugin slots can also be set to receive on a specific MIDI channel. Click the MIDI Channel field and enter a value from 1-16 using your computer keyboard.

Nektarine Keyboard Zones

Remember to store setups as a Multipatch for recall at any time, or as part of a DAW song/project.

 

2.5 Choke (Pads Profile Only)

The Choke button takes the place of the Keyboard Zone button when the pads profile is active. Choke needs to be active for at least 2 instrument channels but it can be activated for any number of channels.

If one channel is playing, it will be ‘choked’ when another channel is activated. A common example is to activate choke on channels playing hihat sounds so the closed hihat chokes the open hihat whenever they overlap. If choke is active for all instrument channels, only one instrument will play at any one time.

Nektarine Rack Choke

 

2.6 Automation

The parameter movements of plugins hosted in Nektarine can be automated in your DAW. This is a seamless process when a few plugins are hosted. Several thousand parameters can be automated and generally each plugin is automatically enabled for automation when loaded.

If a plugin is not enabled for automation by default, first try clicking the Automation button. If it does not enable, look for plugin slots that are enabled for automation, then disable automation for any plugin that you don’t need to automate. Next enable automation for the plugin that you wanted to automate.

Some DAWs in addition limit the amount of automatable parameters which further complicates matters. For example, Reason Studio’s only allow automation of the first 256 parameters, which means that even if Nektarine shows all plugins as automatable, it may not be possible to do so in the DAW. The solution is to disable Automation in Nektarine, for any plugin slot that does not require automation and therefore reduce the total automation parameter count.

 

2.7 Channel Fader, Pan and Meter

To control the overall volume output of the instrument slot, move the volume control either left or right. The meter displays the output level from -inf to +12 db. Double-click the volume control to set it to 0db.

It’s best to keep the signal around at 0db max but in reality, this does not matter as Nektarine processing does not introduce any distortion or audio side effects. Having said that, a signal above 0db may affect processing in other parts of the audio chain, such as in your DAW. Additionally, too low a signal can affect signal to noise ratio performance in processors, causing unnecessary noise in your recordings.

The Pan control can be adjusted to position a signal to the left or right of the stereo field. At it’s center position, the signal from the instrument plugin is passed to both left and right channels without panning. In most cases, the signal at the center position is equally loud in both the left and the right channel.

 

2.8 Send Controls 1-4 and Pre Button

The 4 send controls route the instrument channel signal to each of Nektarine’s 4 send slots. As with the volume control, each of the sends have a range of -inf to +12db. Setting a send control to 0db (roughly a 2 o’clock position), routes the same amount of signal to the corresponding send channel as the instrument plugin channel sends to Nektarine’s output.

This can change if you enable the send’s ‘Pre’ button. Nektarine’s Sends by default route the signal post fader (after the fader) which means that changing volume control’s (11.) position affects both the signal sent to Nektarine’s output and the signal sent to the send channel. By enabling the ‘Pre’ button, the signal routed to the Send Channel, is sent before (or pre) the volume control, which means that changing channel volume no longer affects the send channel.

Nektarine Rack Instrument Channel Sends

 

2.9 Add/Remove Instrument Channel

A total of 16 instrument channels can be created in each instance of Nektarine. Though instrument channels can be created when loading patches using drag and drop, another option is to create an instrument channel first and load patches second. To do so, click the ‘add’ icon in the far right top corner of an instrument channel. The new instrument channel will be created immediately below.

To remove an instrument channel, click the remove icon in the far left bottom corner. If there is only one instrument channel in the current Nektarine instance, it cannot be deleted.

 

2.10 Insert FXs

Insert FX plugin slots are part of an instrument channel. Nested under the instrument slot, insert FX slots are identifiable by the blue color bar that stretches the length of all insert fx slots. A maximum of 4 insert FX plugin slots can be created in an instrument channel and slots are similar to the instrument slot but with fewer parameters.

  1. Click to show/hide plugin windows in the insert plugin slots. If any combination of plugin windows are open, they will be hidden at click and a second click will open to the same view.
  2. Insert FX slot select button.
  3. Show/hide the plugin window hosted in the insert plugin slot.
  4. Insert FX slot on/off.
  5. Insert FX slot bypass.
  6. Automation on/off.
  7. Currently loaded patch. Click to select from popup list.
  8. Currently loaded instrument plugin. Click to select a plugin from popup list.
  9. Add new insert FX slot.
  10. Remove this insert FX slot.

 

Nektarine Rack insert FX

 

2.11 Send Channels

The 4 send channels are permanent, each receiving their signal from the corresponding send control on each of the instrument channels. In other words,  Send 1, as located on each of the instrument channels, send a signal to Send Channel 1, Send 2 sends a signal to Send Channel 2 etc.

Send channels are similar to an instrument channel but host effect plugins rather than instruments. There is also a ‘Bypass’ button so it’s possible to hear what the signal sounds like with and without the send effect.

Nektarine Rack Sends 1-4

When recording was still analog, a typical mixing console would route send signals from different channels to a main reverb or delay unit. Reverb and delay units were expensive so it was not possible to insert a unit on every channel so using sends the engineer was able to apply reverb to any channel that needed it. Today we can add a reverb to every channel however there are still several benefits to using sends:

  • Using one plugin instead of many reduces processor load.
  • Plugin settings only needs to be set once to affect many channels.
  • Using many different reverb and delay plugins with different settings can result in a muddled mix that lacks depth.

Send channels can be used with many other plugin types for interesting, creative applications. Their use is by no means limited to reverb and delay effects but those are amongst the most common.

 

2.12 Manage Plugin Views

An instance of Nektarine can host as little as one plugin and as many as 84 plugins with any combination in between. Nektarine has a few tools for managing what you see.

Open all plugins: Right-click anywhere in the rack and select ‘Open all plugins’ to view all hosted plugins.

Close all plugins: Right-click anywhere in the rack and select ‘Close all plugins’ to get an overview of the entire rack.

Use the ‘Inst/Ins’ and ‘Sends’ buttons to bring Instrument and Send channels in an out of view.

Click the instrument channels expand/collapse bar to toggle hide/view the plugins in the channel. When set to hide, click the bar again will bring the previously open plugin widows back in to view. Use the ‘Show/hide’ chevron buttons to open/close individual plugin UI’s in the rack.