SAC A Great Success Today!!!!

[bassthumper]

Well I am just now able to settle down this evening from the event I had today. Ran 1 mic, 1 guitar, 1 cd player, and 1 mp3 player on SAC with my M-Audio Firewire Solo interface, Acer Laptop and Crown XTI 2000 power amp. had eq's, comps, and reverb on all ins on both FOH and Monitor mixes along with a Freq Analyzer on the output of the FOH and output of monitor. After all was set up and running smoothly I went back and plugged in one of Bob's 7 bands on the output FOH. Total cpu usage was no greater than 17%.

I think this is a great achievement since I do not have an onboard firewire connection and was forced to use a pcm card. At no point did I end up with a problem of any kind. Ran a total of about 4.5 hours without so much as a restart. Looking forward to really putting it to the test in a couple of weeks when we hit the street with our band and street gig setup. That show will have anywhere from 19-21 inputs and 4-5 monitor mixes.

Switching between the FOH and Monitor mix took some getting accustomed to. It is very easy to forget what mix you are looking at if you are not paying attention. I had a little click each time I would change between mixers but I attribute that to the pcm card.

The guitar player was completely impressed with how his Taylor accoustic sounded. Since he was the only instrument playing I boosted his low end a bit so he could have a little bass feel and man his guitar came alive. If you didn't know it was just one person playing a Taylor accoustic and singing you would have sworn he had an accoustic bass playing with him.

Your setup is only as good as your weakest link. In my case the weak link is speakers. I brought 2 Ev 15" cabinets for the mains (real cheap stuff) and 2 Peavey monitors (simply because I didn't want to haul the Jbl stacks out and have to put them up), but even for what they were they ain't never sounded that good.......EVER!!!!!!!!!!

Bob. No doubt about it I will be working towards getting SAC installled in our sanctuary at the church and will also plan to replace our street console with it as well. With all it has to offer SAC will solve so many issues I have that could never be solved with a LEAD SLED!!!!!!!!!

[Bob L]

Good news... but.... I do not like hearing about a click when you switched between FOH and monitor mixers... that should not be happening... something does not sound right there... did you check after a time whether you have been slipping buffers... because perhaps your display load was stepping on something that caused the clicks when buffers were actually sliipping and being corrected.

I have run tests at 90% loads and jumped all over the screens with F-Keys and Mixer switches as well as switching between apps with no clicks and pops... something is not right... although I have seen this on my old Mixtreme ASIO driver and it seems that it might actually be caused by the driver mixer app which may be getting stepped on when SAC is used in RealTime Priority.

Bob L

[bassthumper]

Bob everything checked out ok. It was not noticable to anyone but me, that is why I really think it had something to do with my pcm card. My laptop doesn't have onboard firewire and so I had to use a pcm card to make the connection. Everything processed in real time it just had a bit of a click, but the click only happened when more than one channel was being processed. It could also be a Vista issue since the machine I was using is running that as the OS.

[Bruce Callaway]

To add to bassthumper's comments, I have just returned from my conference and it was a very busy but interesting weekend :rolleyes: On Friday night we setup my mobile rig with SAC/SAW. Microphone inputs were direct from the snake into my preamps. The FOH output from SAC fed into the existing mixing desk as a backup. We found that there was no signal output to the FOH speakers. This was baffling as the Mackie mixer was showing signals on its output LEDs :confused:

This was not surprising as the venue for the Christian conference was a school gym with an inhouse sound system that is prone to problems as it is used by so many different people, most of whom "play" with the connections. So after a lot of anxious minutes, we had still not found a solution.

So I plugged the output from SAC via ADA8000 directly into the FOH and bingo, it worked. We then had some foldback connection issues and these were fixed by again running direct connections from SAC/ADA8000 into the foldback amp. The only learning curve I had to figure out was that the signal selection for the outputs on the Digimax are not software programmable as they are on the ADA8000s. Totalmix did not give an indication that this was not possible. I had to read the manual to sort it out :o

So instead of using the existing hardware as a backup, my rig became the core mixing platform. The organisers were concerned that my gear was the problem until we removed the Mackie desk and got it working. I couldn't work out if the desk had a fault or this was caused by a setting. We had run out of time to fix it with only a few minutes before the event started.

Back to SAC/SAW, it all ran flawlessly over one night and a day. On Saturday, SAC run not stop from 8am to 10pm. SAW recorded a number of sessions during this time with an average length of 1.5 hours. They even asked to me to leave it in place for the Sunday service which I did :)

The regular sound mixing guys were amazed that we could mix and record at the same time and were warming to SAC. They loved having compression and multiple channels available. I also had the Tranzport connected and they used this to ride the fader for the speaker microphone as the volume could vary depending on who was speaking. Same as on the Mackie.

All in all, it was a great success........congratulations Bob on such great software :cool:

[Bob L]

Good news all around... It's fun to see SAC getting out in the field... and it's fun to start seeing the reactions.

We are gearing up for a huge event right here in Vegas on the strip downtown at the Fremont Street Experience in two weeks. We are doing a 3 band festival on one of two main stages... all with SAC... FOH and 8 monitor feeds... we have a wireless laptop rig ready to walk around the venue with, since they will not allow snakes and consoles out front of the stage in the crowd... this should be real fun.

We will be video taping the event and our setup and soundchecks... I will later put some promo videos together for all to see.

We will also be recording the event on the same rig with the SAWStudio hooks running in the background.

Hoping to get some press coverage of the SAC Virtual debut on the strip in Las Vegas. :)

Bob L

[Bob L]

Bruce... that's also awesome that you ran solid for 12 hours.... on a similar note... we have been testing the rig for this gig and it has run for over 24 hours with no problems yet... I am now beating it up with the full templates for the show running at about 34%... task manager up on top... SAWStudio in the background... a BCF2000 connected and chasing all over the place... been running a few hours already... no slipped buffers at 2 x 64.

Bob L

[Bruce Callaway]

Bruce... that's also awesome that you ran solid for 12 hours.... on a similar note... we have been testing the rig for this gig and it has run for over 24 hours with no problems yet... I am now beating it up with the full templates for the show running at about 34%... task manager up on top... SAWStudio in the background... a BCF2000 connected and chasing all over the place... been running a few hours already... no slipped buffers at 2 x 64.

Bob LYes it sure was Bob, SAC was solid as a rock :D

A bit of information FYI. I was running 17 channels into 9 submixes, 10 x EQ, 14 x Comps with a levelizer comp on the main output. I had two monitor sends where I used the pre fader selection, 6 channel outputs on one and 7 on the other. I used ASIO with 3 x 64. The CPU load was 10% for SAC.

[Bob L]

That sounds awesome Bruce... it makes my day. :)

Bob L

[mako]

Some more good news.

My first public outing of SAC - a demo for a local Country music club went without a hitch yesterday.

2 Acer laptops linked with crossed CAT6 wire. One on stage and one out front.

I ran the master at 64*6. The rig ran for over 4 hours with just 7 lost buffers, though I never heard a glitch at all.

>Edit< I realised after the event that I hadn't engaged the "Force realtime priority class" which could have eliminated the lost buffers.

7 channels of eq, comps and delay with 7 band eq on main out and 1 mon out.
Also Elephant 2.5 on main out.
It ran at 8 ***37; load.

The people involved were knocked out by the sound quality of both FOH and monitors.

I really didn't like mixing via mouse and usually had my hands on the ADA8000's trim knobs.

----------------
Question - if using the BCF2000 - does it chase FOH and monitors selections as you switch between them?

If it does - that would be ideal.
----------------

All in all - a very successful day out.

Thanks Bob - great work.

[Bob L]

Yes the BCF2000 chases both FOH and Monitor mixers.

You should not really need to be messing with the ADA8000 trims except for the initial setup... leave yourself 6db of headroom for loud transients and then forget about them... you have plenty of headroom in SAC.

You also then have the SAC attenuator control (which now also adds gain up to 20db) and can trim your mix in from there.

Bob L

[mako]

Yes the BCF2000 chases both FOH and Monitor mixers.
Bob L
Excellent



You should not really need to be messing with the ADA8000 trims except for the initial setup... leave yourself 6db of headroom for loud transients and then forget about them... you have plenty of headroom in SAC.


Understood - I was using the ADA8000 trims as volume control.



You also then have the SAC attenuator control (which now also adds gain up to 20db) and can trim your mix in from there.



Thanks Bob

mako

[bassthumper]

Bob, Just wanted to give an update. I have already started doing demos of SAC with my presentations to potential sound equipment customers. I am currently working on a bid for a church that is in process of building a new sanctuary. In order to keep the bid within there current budget I quoted the job with a 48 channel souncraft console. I have since went in and revised the quote and have quoted them a package deal SAC with computer and modules enough to do 48 channels. I have been able to shave off of the quote about $2,500.00 for equipment no longer needed that is in SAC or can be purchased as a plugin.

I also have shown SAC to the Financial Advisor of another local church and they are planning on purchasing a package deal as a gift to the new pastor they recently elected in. As it turns out he toured with a gospel singing group for several years and was planning on requesting the church upgrade their sound system anyway. It will not take long for it to take off once it ever gets in to a few venues and can be seen at work...........

[Bob L]

Good news... keep it up... things are starting to roll. :)

Bob L

[Naturally Digital]

things are starting to roll. :)Glad to hear it Bob!

[Carl G.]

Bruce... that's also awesome that you ran solid for 12 hours.... on a similar note... we have been testing the rig for this gig and it has run for over 24 hours with no problems yet... I am now beating it up with the full templates for the show running at about 34%... task manager up on top... SAWStudio in the background... a BCF2000 connected and chasing all over the place... been running a few hours already... no slipped buffers at 2 x 64.

Bob L

Bob, what does buffers at 2x64 translate to in milliseconds?
Does the BCF2000 create any additional delay?

[Bob L]

2x64 is about 3ms plus whatever else the AtoD, DtoA adds.

Pretty darn realtime in my opinion. :)

Bob L

[ffarrell]

Does the BCF2000 create any additional delay?

No it is only a midi controller and no audio passes.

thanks
fvf

[Pedro Itriago]

No it is only a midi controller and no audio passes.

thanks
fvf

My guess is he wants to know the delay the BCF may introduce in audio controlling (time it takes for a fade to be made and listened)

If not, sorry

[Bob L]

No noticable latency... the faders work and feel fine.

Bob L

[Carl G.]

2x64 is about 3ms plus whatever else the AtoD, DtoA adds.

Pretty darn realtime in my opinion. :)

Bob L

Where do I adjust the "2" in ASIO ?

I've played some playback off a 22 track EDL - the quickest I can go is 128 with no buffer problems on medium loaded session... but I don't know whether its 2x, 4x, 8x, etc.. (Dual Core E6600, Asus P5b board, Lynx L22 with anti-virus disabled while running SAW).

[Bob L]

Well... hopefully SAC will get you lower... the engine is designed and tuned specifically for the lowest latency operation... and the number of buffers is set in SAC's Audio Device Setup screens.

To be honest... the current engine seems to be running perfectly stable at 1 x 64 or even 32 on many systems... the 2 or 3 just gives a little more breathing room in case Windows goes off on a picnic doing something else for more than the 1.4 ms or whatever the loop time is.

Bob L

[DominicPerry]

Carl, have you tried running just one CPU? And forcing SAW/SAC to RealTime priority?

[mako]

Where do I adjust the "2" in ASIO ?

I've played some playback off a 22 track EDL - the quickest I can go is 128 with no buffer problems on medium loaded session... but I don't know whether its 2x, 4x, 8x, etc.. (Dual Core E6600, Asus P5b board, Lynx L22 with anti-virus disabled while running SAW).

Carl - My Lynxone does 32*4 rock solid for hours on an Asus P5K Pro board.

Lynx have an ASIO utility in the sys tray, if I remember correctly. It also comes up when you select the Lynx ASIO driver.

cheers

mako

[UpTilDawn]

Where do I adjust the "2" in ASIO ?
...

You can find the preload buffers setting in the Options/Audio Device Setup panel in SAC just as you would in Saw. You should be able to adjust the number.

DanT

[Carl G.]

Carl, have you tried running just one CPU? And forcing SAW/SAC to RealTime priority?

Good point... no... I'll Try. Thanks.
... It actually only becomes an issue when I go live with SAC...
Right now I'm using the Mackie 32 for monitoring live....
until... tomorrow. :)