Nektarine can host up to 16 instrument plugins, 64 inser effect plugins (4 per instrument plugin slot) and 4 send effect plugins per Nektarine instance. The Plugin View menu is where all hosted plugins and plugin slot parameters can be viewed and edited.

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Once effect plugins have been scanned, Click on the top field labelled ‘No Plugin’ in a slot and select a plugin from the popup list. The field below the plugin field show patch names which is described in more detail in the section about the Nektarine Browser.

Plugin Slots

The Plugin View menu is where all hosted plugins can be located, viewed, more slots can be created and more.

If Nektarine has just been installed, one empty slot will be present. The slot has the following features:

  1. Expand/collapse the plugin window
  2. Slot number and slot select. Click to select turns the background red.
  3. Audition button. Click sends note C3 to the hosted plugin.
  4. Display the currently loaded patch. Click to select patches from the current browser target list.
  5. Plugin select/view. Shows the currently loaded plugin. Click to select a new plugin.
  6. Mute/Solo button. Click to mute the audio output. Right-Click to solo the audio output.
  7. Volume control/indicator. Click and move to adjust volume from 0-100.
  8. Pan control. Click and move left or right to adjust slot panning from Center to -/+100 left or right.
  9. Sends 1-4 controls. Click and move to adjust send volume routed to one of the 4 send slots.
  10. The A button activates/deactivates automation for the current slot. If the background is yellow, slot automation is active.
  11. Delete slot. Click to remove a slot and all it’s settings.

Loading a Plugin

  • Click on the plugin field (5 in the above image). The popup window that appears show the list of scanned plugins. If the list is empty, go to Settings to scan your plugins. In the settings tab you can also change how plugins are sorted in the popup window.
  • To load a plugin from the popup list, click to select it. This will load the plugin and display it’s GUI below the slot.
  • Once a plugin is loaded, the tab displays the plugin’s name. From any other tab, click on the plugin name to display it’s GUI.
  • When the plugin tab is selected, click on the tab again to load a new plugin.
  • Nektarine can host multiple plugins at the same time, layering each plugin with options to set volume, pan, mute and solo for each plugin slot.
  • Click on the + below the plugin GUI to add slots and subsequently load a plugin.

Creating Plugin Slots

Up to 16 instrument plugins can be hosted in an instance of Nektarine. To create a new plugin slot, click on the + bar below the last instrument slot.

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Header Options

The view buttons are located just below the header. They are essential to manage the display area while working.

Expand/Collapse Plugin Slots

The first header options button expands all slots to display GUI for every instrument slot. Click the second button to collapse the plugin’s again.
Each slot can also be individually expanded/collapsed by clicking the slot bar positioned just prior to the slot number field.

Select Mixer/Keyboard Zone Slot View

The 3rd and 4th buttons selects the mixer and keyboard zone view for each slot. The currently selected button’s background color is red.
The mixer view is selected by default and provides access to volume, pan, mute/solo and sends 1-4 for every slot
Click the keyboard button to select the keyboard zone view. When active, the zone view allows the setting of instrument slot zone parameters such as note range, Velocity Range and MIDI channel.

Displaying Any Combination of 3 slot View Areas

The plugin slot display area is divided in to 3 area’s, each of which can be toggled on/off by clicking on the corresponding pane in the View area:

  1. Instrument Plugin Slots (top left pane)
  2. Insert FX Plugin Slots (right pane)
  3. Sends 1-8 Plugin Slots (bottom left pane)

Keyboard Zone Parameters

When keyboard zone view is active, the zone parameter options replace the mixer parameters in each slot (see left image). For each instrument plugin slot, 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.

Send Slots 1-4

The 4 send volume controls located on each instrument plugin slot are routed to each of their own Send Slot destination S1-S4. Send Slots are identical in operation to instrument slots with a few exceptions. They can host audio effect plugins instead of instrument plugins, they are fixed and cannot be removed or added to and the 4 send volume controls present on the instrument plugin slots have been removed.

Insert Effect Plugin Slots

Up to 4 insert effect plugins can be hosted for each instrument slot which means that each instance of Nektarine can host up to 64 insert effects at the same time.

To bring the insert effect slots in and out of view, click the right view pane in the header options panel.

Vst Plugins In Browser

Loading an Insert Effect in a Slot

This works the same way as instrument slots. Once effect plugins have been scanned, Click on the top field labelled ‘No Plugin’ in a slot and select a plugin from the popup list.

The field below the plugin field show patch names which is described in more detail in the section about the Nektarine Browser.

Vst Plugins In Browser

Vst Plugins In Browser Plugin

Select, Bypass, Disable and Automation

The 4 buttons on the left side of an insert plugin slot do the following:

The slot number button selects the slot when clicked. The buttons background is red while the slot is selected and this deselects the parent instrument plugin slot. While selected, the insert slots hosted plugin’s GUI is displayed under the parent instrument slot.

Select another instrument plugin slot will also change the insert plugin slots to correspond with the new selection.

To the right of the slot select button is the Bypass button. Click to bypass the plugin hosted in the insert slot and route the audio directly to the next slot.

The button immediately below the select button switch the slot on/off.

The A button enable/disable Automation for the slot.