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View Full Version : Do you think this setup is stable enough?



DavidandMary
12-20-2008, 01:15 PM
Hey Guys,

I now have added SAC to my SAWStudio Full setup and wanted your advice. I have a two bedroom home studio. The first bedroom is for mixing. The second is where the double walled 7 x 7 recording booth with quiet ventilation is located. The inside dimension is only 6 x 6 after you figure the walls, the lumber and the foam on the walls, but I digress...

I have a RME FF400 interface. I remember that Dominic said that interface adds 32 x to your buffer setting. Before I get to those settings in detail, here is what I am doing now. I only record two mics right now. One is in the mixing bedroom so that I can talk to the person in the booth. The other mic is in the booth to record vocals and acoustic guitar.

I have out 1-2 in SAC going to the mixing room speakers with Bob's graphic EQ setup to help with the room acoustics and cooperate with my acoustic foam there. I have designated out 3-4 for the headphone feed into the headphone amp in the booth. I have designated the SPDIF out for my headphone feed in the mixing room. I use that for the majority of my mixing decisions so far.

Now that you know what we are doing, I want to know what you think is stable. I really love SAC. The reverb in the headphones and EQ are really neat. I can close my eyes and feel like I am in a real concert hall. It is breath-taking to me. My buffer settings are 2 x 48 (plus the 32 that Dominic told me about). I can do that if I make use of single commands and refrain from using the scroll wheel with the mouse. If I use the scroll wheel with the mouse, I drop output buffers. I also loose out buffers if I string two commands together. I do not loose buffers if I make a command, wait a second and then make another single command. So, is that stable enough? Or, is it pushing it too much. I must say that the latency that low is addictive. It feels so live in the phones!

But, what do you guys think? What do you suggest?

Bob L
12-20-2008, 02:36 PM
First... try to set SAC in the realtime priority mode... then I would suggest 2 x 64 and see if it is stable... you should be able to freely F-Key around and click on anything, use the wheel mouse... no dropped buffers.

Bob L

DavidandMary
12-20-2008, 02:52 PM
That is great Bob. I did what you said and then saved preferences. It worked a charm. Now I can change F-keys several times in a row, zoom in and out with the jog wheel of the mouse, etc. No dropped buffers on a recording for 10 minutes with me really punching knobs. I even added a few native plugs during the recording without a hitch.

And, I think that it will be easy to live at 2 x 64 plus the 32 of the FF400. It still feels live. I realize that this is not multi-channel audio like you and most of the others here, but it is so much fun and feels like a real studio to me now. You are a genius.

DominicPerry
12-20-2008, 03:44 PM
Sorry, my mistake, the safety buffer is a single output buffer of 64 samples - from the manual:


Safety Buffer

FireWire audio differs significantly from RME's previous DMA technology. DMA access is not possible here. To be able to transmit audio reliably at lower latencies, FireWire requires a new concept – the Safety Buffer. The Fireface 400 uses a fixed additional buffer of 64 samples on the playback side only, which is added to the current buffer size. The main advantage is the ability to use lowest latency at highest CPU loads. Furthermore, the fixed buffer does not add to the latency jitter (see Tech Info), the subjective timing is extraordinary.

Dominic

DavidandMary
12-20-2008, 04:15 PM
Okay thanks for the update Dominic!

That means at 2 x 64, it is really 3 x 64. I guess that is still realtime feel?

DominicPerry
12-21-2008, 07:19 AM
Okay thanks for the update Dominic!

That means at 2 x 64, it is really 3 x 64. I guess that is still realtime feel?

Certainly through SAC, that's not a problem for most people.

Dominic

DavidandMary
12-21-2008, 08:51 AM
Okay thanks so much Dominic and Bob!