Pre-Release Technical Issues

[Bob L]

This thread has been setup to provide a starting place for technical issues with SAC as the product evolves.

Of course we all know there will be none. :D

Bob L

[sstillwell]

How about DX plugins? They appear to load successfully, but do not appear to see the audio passing by, and have no effect.

Scott

[Bob L]

All my DX plugs seem to be working fine... make sure these plugs are not synth DXi plugs... because SAC does not support that protocol.

Bob L

[sebastiandybing]

Hi Scott

Its because it does not support plugins with buffer latency.
I have tryed different DX plugs here and they are working fine.

Sebastian

[Bob L]

Yes... no latency causing plugs allowed... this is a live input data stream... no lookahead. So you will have to try out each of your favorite plugs and see which ones work and which don't... then you might want to create a SAC group in the FX Choices View that includes all the SAC compliant plugs... that way you will always know which ones you can use.

Bob L

[Naturally Digital]

Hi Bob!

Wow, SAC looks, feels and sounds great! Performance is fantastic and I really like how you've handled stereo/mono inputs and outputs.

Congratulations on realizing your vision!

A couple things...

1) Is DWAVE working yet? It seems to lock up the engine with my Mixpander and I have to force a shutdown with the pause/break key. MME and ASIO are working fine.

2) The level meter on the E-Mixer view isn't working when I pop it up by clicking on the F-Mixer.

3) The last item is more of a suggestion than a technical issue... there are a few buttons that cause a bit of a pop on the audio, such as phase rvs and the hicut/lowcut enable... If there were some way to smooth that, it may help when dealing with big sound systems and/or loud in-ears.

Otherwise, first try on my quadcore/P5WDH Deluxe/Mixpander is running great!

[Bob L]

David,

No... DWave is not working yet... the design actually needs to be modified and am waiting for that discussion with various driver writers till after the code settles a bit.

I am not having trouble with the Exploded Meter display though... make sure you are popping up a channel that has signal and not accidently getting an adjacent channel when you double-click.

I do hear the pops on the Swap Phase and Hi and Lo Cut... it actually is the same on SS I just noticed... not sure what the solution will be... perhaps an attempt at automatic softedging on many of the abrupt switch changes.

Bob L

[sstillwell]

Hi Scott

Its because it does not support plugins with buffer latency.
I have tryed different DX plugs here and they are working fine.

Sebastian

Sure enough, they had 64 samples latency...they were simple plugs and I didn't expect them to have latency. I was aware that was a constraint in SAC (and a sensible one, too), but bad me for not checking first.

Scott

[Bob L]

I have detection code in the engine to bypass when it finds a ltancy causing plugin in the loop... guess that is working. :)

I will have a display notice soon that will flag these plugins for you so you don't have to guess about them.

Bob L

[sstillwell]

Okay, another one that is equally likely to be operator error...

I have all my VST plugins in another directory, and have used the VST2INI tool to generate .INI files for my plugins in the C:\SAC\VST_Plugins directory...yet no VST plugins are shown in the plugin list.

Did I goof?

Scott

[Bob L]

Nope... that is a little buglett... just fixed the code... I'll collect some more of these and release the update in a few days.

For now... you can use VST's that will allow you to place the dlls in the VST_Plugins folder.

Bob L

[DominicPerry]

Perhaps there could be a menu option - "Use SAWStudio Plugins", and the user could point SAC at the base SAW folder - SAC would then pick up all the native, VST and DX plugins? Or maybe that's too many. I suppose I just need a few verbs and compressors.
Dominic

[Craig Allen]

I agree with this - that would make having FX easier.

[Warren]

I just copied what my SAW Native folder contains to my SAC Native folder and copied the contents of the SAW Native .ini to SAC's Native.ini and all plugs worked great!

[Craig Allen]

That works as long as none of the plugins hook to the registry. Some VST and I believe some native ones do.

[Naturally Digital]

I am not having trouble with the Exploded Meter display though... make sure you are popping up a channel that has signal and not accidently getting an adjacent channel when you double-click.Yup, checked it many times. The meter isn't working for me. The controls work fine but not the meter for some reason.

[Mountain Media]

Bob, haven't read the full manual, but tried to find info both there and helpfile --

If there isn't already a way, would it be possible to include some type of indication in F-Mixer to show a channel(s) have been disabled in Z or W Mixer?

If you don't have W open, and Z is somewhere except in I/A section, you don't know for sure which channels are disabled. Maybe, at channel indicator you could show disabled as red w/white text, similar to when you select from F Mixer and area goes to black w/white text? Or 'grey' something on F Mixer? Or show Red 'X' through channel indicator at top (similar to what you do with Aut button in SS)?

Sure am pleased and impressed, so far!! Thanks!

[Bob L]

I am planning some sort of hatch display down the channel or a graphic dimming or something like that.

Any other people not seeing the Exploded Mixer meter working? Works here.

Bob L

[Naturally Digital]

There seems to be something odd with the Solo In Place mode. If I choose that option and save it with the default preferences then re-start SAC and enable live mode, I get a nasty feedback of some sort.

This is with a completely clear mix template (reset to default) and no inputs assigned. No faders up etc etc.

You seem to need to save it with the prefs to see this behaviour as it doesn't do it when you just enable the option in the mixer menu and engage the engine.

[Naturally Digital]

Yup, checked it many times. The meter isn't working for me. The controls work fine but not the meter for some reason.FWIW this is on a P5WDHDeluxe/Q6600/NvidiaGForce 7600GS running at 1920x1200 single 24" monitor.

[Bob L]

Yes... good find... it is because there are no assigned channels and the buffers have not been zeroed out... I will trap for that.

Bob L

[Ollie]

My Bad below, this was becasue I was in the monitor section and not in the FOH

Not sure if this is an issue or not implemented yet. On the return channels when you want to return from hardware I am only seeing virtual, pre-fader, post-fader

[Bob L]

The FOH allows return from hardware... the FOH is the only connection to hardware... you are looking at a Monitor Mixer... you would place the hardware verb on the FOH and feed it thru to the monitor consoles pre or pst.

Bob L

[Mountain Media]

Bob, very minor but for the 'list' --

On Z Mixer view, Atten. section -- Phse Rev -- could you extend the options select area to cover the upper-left arrow? I'm use to selecting the arrow instead of anywhere in the name, and that one doesn't select. Clicking on arrow in Mono works fine, and clicking on Phse Rev arrow in W mixer works fine.

Thanks --

[Bob L]

That area is so close to the module edge it actually becomes the left scroll selection area.

Bob L

[mako]

This response has been posted on other threads but since this is the Technical Issue thread, I'll repeat it here.

64 is excellent for me - if it would only stay there :)

On my Gigabyte K8NNXP (64 bit nVidia chipset) machine, it looses sync after a couple of minutes (seems to slip one buffer) and gradually gets worse with time.

I've tried it with 6 buffers @ 64 but there's no improvement

Sometimes it will slip many to give me a delay effect. If I stop and restart the engine, it comes back perfectly (for a few minutes).

I realise that perhaps I shouldn't do this but if I minimise SAC it will slip buffers immediately, and more each time I minimise.

I have another motherboard coming this week with a SIS chipset (SIS has been much more reliable for me with audio) so I'll test that as well.

Anyway----- well done Bob - I can hardly wait to have this stable on my laptop for live.

cheers

mako

Update
All tests previous to this were done with Digiface (PCI) into ADA8000.

For the record - I've just been testing the 9632 card and it works really well @ 64x4 and 64x2 - but still slips synch over time.
e.g. It was running great for about 10 minutes - then I left it for 1/2 hr - when I returned there was a discernable delay.

So far seems very much more solid than the Digiface. I wonder why that is?

asio driver
K8 1gig ram
xpsp1
Digiface/PCI card
ada8000
RME 9632

[Bob L]

Sounds like you may have some service running in the system that comes alive every so often and steals the cpu and shuts down other threads... thereby glitching the buffer fills.... try using my RealTime Priority option in the Options menu and see if that fixes it and gets my threads on top of the others.

Bob L

[Ollie]

Here is a small issue that could be resolved without any changes on your part, but I did notice that when the screen saver came on, the console went a bit wacky. Things were out of sync, plugs were way louder then they should be, etc.


Sounds like you may have some service running in the system that comes alive every so often and steals the cpu and shuts down other threads... thereby glitching the buffer fills.... try using my RealTime Priority option in the Options menu and see if that fixes it and gets my threads on top of the others.

Bob L

[Bob L]

Again... background services we know can cause Windows to stomp on threads... this is something you want to avoid... especially screen savers in some cases actually hook the audio cards and drivers... that is not ok... so there are definite rules here for a stable result... simply realize that SAC needs as much control of the machine as possible with very little interuptions... so... you want to stop background interference as best you can.

When you are running at such low latencies and the code is attempting to capture, process and pass audio data thru the FOH and multiple Monitor consoles all within a few millseconds... NOTHING can interfere... or else you will glitch a buffer... and start to loose latency and pick up signal delay.

Bob L

[AlanH]

A bit of oddness in solo-ing...

Fujitsu-Siemens Centrino-based notebook, MOTU 8-PRE + ADA8000.
SAC0.1a 44k, 2x64

Assign solo monitor to 8-pre 1-2 (phones) out
Assign FOH to ADA8000 1-2
Assign Mon 1 to ADA8000 3-4

All is absolutely fine - very low latency - until I switch SOLO on and off, at which point the latency between input and solo monitored leaps up to significant fraction of a second.

Can clear it by exiting live mode, selecting audio device setup, presing Reset, then Cancel (which seems to preserve the assignments but presumably restarts the engine).

This is consistent with solo engagement / disengagement, so probably not due to other Windows service effects. Is the selection of SOLO causing an engine glitch?

Cheers,

Alan

[Bob L]

I am not having that result when I assign my solo bus to a separate bus on either my RME or Mixtreme cards... seems to stay perfectly in sync.

Any other clues?

Could there be something going on with the MOTU headphone out?

Bob L

[Mountain Media]

A bit of oddness in solo-ing...

Fujitsu-Siemens Centrino-based notebook, MOTU 8-PRE + ADA8000.
SAC0.1a 44k, 2x64

Assign solo monitor to 8-pre 1-2 (phones) out
Assign FOH to ADA8000 1-2
Assign Mon 1 to ADA8000 3-4

All is absolutely fine - very low latency - until I switch SOLO on and off, at which point the latency between input and solo monitored leaps up to significant fraction of a second.

Can clear it by exiting live mode, selecting audio device setup, presing Reset, then Cancel (which seems to preserve the assignments but presumably restarts the engine).

This is consistent with solo engagement / disengagement, so probably not due to other Windows service effects. Is the selection of SOLO causing an engine glitch?

Cheers,

Alan

Bob and Alan - I mentioned similar in another SAC thread. Mine seemed to be associated with buffer settings. Solo visuals seemed to be ok, but audio didn't 'solo' until about 1 or 2 seconds later. It does resync with stopping the engine and restarting. When I increased buffer setting from 1x64 to 2x64 solo seemed to stay in sync. I was thinking it was that the solo was associating with audio similar to what meters and audio were doing in 0.1 --?

[Bob L]

Again... there is no question that things go haywire when the buffers are set too low for your systems capabilities... so make sure to adjust the buffers up and test again before reporting some of these issues.

Bob L

[Mountain Media]

Bob, unless I'm missing something (that I should have learned with SS:) ) there seems to be a problem with re-ordering channels in F-Mixer.

When I FIRST enter SAC, and select a channel in F-Mixer to re-order (Shift - L-click) the dotted vertical lines don't appear, and subsequently the response to any mouse movement is erratic. After focusing somewhere else in the F-Mixer channel (click on one of the area select sections or name section) then re-order all works fine. From then on, the re-ordering works, until I exit SAC and re-enter.

This is the action on two systems, one laptop and one DAW system.

Rel .1a, both XP one with Sp2 and one with Sp1.

[Bob L]

That seems fixed in 0.1a.... I'll have to check again.

What will fix it for you now is for you to first click once inside the F Mixer view and force a hot chan set... then it should work from then on... but it works perfect on my test systems without having to do that in 0.1a... double check that you actually have 0.1a installed and that it says so in the info dialog.

Bob L

[Mountain Media]

That seems fixed in 0.1a.... I'll have to check again.....
double check that you actually have 0.1a installed and that it says so in the info dialog.
Bob L

According to 'Help, About...' it's 0.1a on both systems I tried. And I reloaded the current 0.1a on the DAW - still fails.



What will fix it for you now is for you to first click once inside the F Mixer view and force a hot chan set... then it should work from then on...
Bob L

Yeah, that's what I didn't, too well, explain that took care of it. Works fine after that --

Thanks Bob!

[Bob L]

I see another possible flaw in .1a that may be connected to the failure on your system... I am changing it in .1b and let's see if that fixes it for you.

Bob L

[Mountain Media]

I see another possible flaw in .1a that may be connected to the failure on your system... I am changing it in .1b and let's see if that fixes it for you.

Thanks, Bob. Certainly not an urgent one, but will be glad to check when b's out.

[Mountain Media]

Bob, unless I'm missing something (that I should have learned with SS:) ) there seems to be a problem with re-ordering channels in F-Mixer.



I see another possible flaw in .1a that may be connected to the failure on your system... I am changing it in .1b and let's see if that fixes it for you.

Bob L

Bob, .1b fixed the re-ordering channels in F-Mixer situation. All seems to be fine now. Thanks --