Why doesn't SAW Studio Lite remember my audio hardware?

[Rod Pullman]

I'm just learning the Studio platform (migrating from decades of happy use of SAW Pro). At the recommendation of members of this forum, I purchased a Behringer Audio Interface instead of a pro sound card. Every time I open SAW SAtudio, I have to re-enter the audio hardware information in the options. I've tried saving preferences after entering it, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. What should I be doing, so that I don't have to enter the audio hardware info each time?

Thanks much!

Rod

[cgrafx]

I'm just learning the Studio platform (migrating from decades of happy use of SAW Pro). At the recommendation of members of this forum, I purchased a Behringer Audio Interface instead of a pro sound card. Every time I open SAW SAtudio, I have to re-enter the audio hardware information in the options. I've tried saving preferences after entering it, but it doesn't seem to make a difference. What should I be doing, so that I don't have to enter the audio hardware info each time?

Thanks much!

Rod

My guess is your saving a named preferences file rather than "Default" preference.

You'll also likely want to save a default mixer as well.

[UpTilDawn]

You don't specify this, but if you have SAW open before connecting the interface, or if the interface drivers get dropped and have to be re-engaged (sorry for my description of that), then you would definitely need to restart SAW once the interface is connected properly, even if you had properly save the audio driver settings as default in SAW previously.

[jmh]

I purchased a Behringer Audio Interface instead of a pro sound card. Every time I open SAW SAtudio,

I had a similar issue with when I had Behringer xair18 drivers and presonus driver on my machine at the same time. This was a while ago, so I am a bit fuzzy on the particulars. My impression was that it had something to do with Saw liking the first listed ASIO device (and I suppose it is possible that windows loads them in different orders as it is loading usb devices. While windows loads it may be applying patches, scanning for malware... so there is no reason to expect the timing of usb pnp discovery to be consistant). You might try going into system and device drivers and disabling sound devices that you are not using or if they are usb, simply unplugging, and see if your config sticks...

[jmh]

On a nostalgic note, SawPro. That was the best. It was also the interface that I learned to navigate better than any since.

It took me a while to get accustom to SS's key-bindings... Studio does more - but nowadays, I'm finding the less I do, the better the results.

There is sort of too much in studio (not that this isn't handy sometimes) where SPro had just enough. I would love to be able to hide portions of the interface, like be able to set default folds in the channel strip so something like surround sound (which I never use) could be hidden in a collapsed state.

While I'm strolling down memory lane, I want to ask an off topic, and that is if SS's track reordering can be saved so every time you started a new edl it would have say 8 tracks, 3 returns and 2 outputs, and everything else defaulted below?

[Rod Pullman]

My guess is your saving a named preferences file rather than "Default" preference.

You'll also likely want to save a default mixer as well.

Thank you kindly for your suggestion, which appears to have worked as I'd hoped. I saved the default preferences, closed and reopened SSL twice, and both times my audio hardware settings were preserved.

I'm not using a separate mixer, just the Behringer UMC404. Is that what you meant when you advised saving a default mixer?

Thanks again!

Rod

[Rod Pullman]

On a nostalgic note, SawPro. That was the best. It was also the interface that I learned to navigate better than any since.

It took me a while to get accustom to SS's key-bindings... Studio does more - but nowadays, I'm finding the less I do, the better the results.

You know, that's my situation, as well. I'm grateful to hear you articulate this, since I'm sure we're in a minority within this excellent group.

90% of what I produce is commercials and other short-form audio for radio, not nearly as complex as the music recordings that Bob so amply illustrated in his SAW Studio demonstration videos. I do appreciate the real-time response to changes in level, EQ, and so forth. But because I'm accustomed to recording my voice tracks in Sound Forge or Audition (only because Fast Edit went away), and relying on SAW for multi-tracking, I'm not likely to use SS's full capabilities, even in the Lite version.

I was a SAW user from the beginning, it's been a good friend for many, many years. (Similarly, I'd have been delighted to continue using MS Office Pro 97 and Windows XP, had the company not planned their obsolescence.) But after moving to the Windows 10 environment with a recent computer purchase, SAW Pro became glitchy: display windows for Vari-Speed and the Remote Transport would white-out, for example, forcing me to close and reopen the program whenever I needed to make an adjustment.

I wrote to Bob about it and he said that I'd be happier with SS once I learn it. So, here we are. I spent an well over hour editing a voice track this afternoon, just removing pauses and artifacts and trying to use a couple of Sony plug-ins and SS Levelizer to get it where I needed it to be. This would have taken me maybe 10 minutes in SAW Pro, but in the process I learned how to use some of the controls and manipulate regions. So I'm telling myself that the time was well spent. There's a lot of trial-and-error involved. The training videos I've watched, and I think I've watched all of them, some more than once, don't really spend a lot of time teaching the basics that I need to learn. (I've never been an audio engineer.) But, I need to learn the program, so there it is.

Thanks for bearing with my long-winded response. It's good to meet another SAW Pro fan.

Rod

[Dave Labrecque]

You know, that's my situation, as well. I'm grateful to hear you articulate this, since I'm sure we're in a minority within this excellent group.

90% of what I produce is commercials and other short-form audio for radio, not nearly as complex as the music recordings that Bob so amply illustrated in his SAW Studio demonstration videos. I do appreciate the real-time response to changes in level, EQ, and so forth. But because I'm accustomed to recording my voice tracks in Sound Forge or Audition (only because Fast Edit went away), and relying on SAW for multi-tracking, I'm not likely to use SS's full capabilities, even in the Lite version.

I was a SAW user from the beginning, it's been a good friend for many, many years. (Similarly, I'd have been delighted to continue using MS Office Pro 97 and Windows XP, had the company not planned their obsolescence.) But after moving to the Windows 10 environment with a recent computer purchase, SAW Pro became glitchy: display windows for Vari-Speed and the Remote Transport would white-out, for example, forcing me to close and reopen the program whenever I needed to make an adjustment.

I wrote to Bob about it and he said that I'd be happier with SS once I learn it. So, here we are. I spent an well over hour editing a voice track this afternoon, just removing pauses and artifacts and trying to use a couple of Sony plug-ins and SS Levelizer to get it where I needed it to be. This would have taken me maybe 10 minutes in SAW Pro, but in the process I learned how to use some of the controls and manipulate regions. So I'm telling myself that the time was well spent. There's a lot of trial-and-error involved. The training videos I've watched, and I think I've watched all of them, some more than once, don't really spend a lot of time teaching the basics that I need to learn. (I've never been an audio engineer.) But, I need to learn the program, so there it is.

Thanks for bearing with my long-winded response. It's good to meet another SAW Pro fan.

Rod

FWIW, I think Bob's right that in the long run you'd prefer SAWStudio. There's always that learning curve, though. SS is plenty fast for me on voice-over editing. I create an F-key view that's one big MT track and one big SF view window. When I edit I have my left-hand fingers on the D, U, and K keys (pinky, middle, index, respectively) and the other hand on the mouse. Goes really fast. After the initial editing, I'll then do a run down the entire voice-over to take out breaths without even doing any playback (with the vertical zoom pumped up a bit). It's rare that one of those edits needs a tweak afterward.

RE: SAWPro graphics issues... be sure you've done Bob's Windows tweaks. There are definitely some tweaks that need to happen for graphics to work right. I'm not guaranteeing it'll fix your issue, but it's worth a shot if you really want to stick with SAWPro. I just opened SAWPro and toyed with the remote transport and vari-speed interfaces, and had no issues. Not that it's a complete test, but it may bode well for you. (I've done the tweaks Windows tweaks to my Win10 system. I think.)

[Dave Labrecque]

I would love to be able to hide portions of the interface, like be able to set default folds in the channel strip so something like surround sound (which I never use) could be hidden in a collapsed state.

Rather than scrolling the channel strip, have you tried using the "TLZ" buttons in the upper left of the MT view to focus particular channel strip sections of the Z mixer view? If you don't have that feature (no Z view in Lite, I think), have you tried clicking on a strip zone button in the F mixer view to pop up the E mixer view to that section of the channel strip? I use the former method all the time, and I never am bothered by extra bits that I don't use (like the surround controls).

While I'm strolling down memory lane, I want to ask an off topic, and that is if SS's track reordering can be saved so every time you started a new edl it would have say 8 tracks, 3 returns and 2 outputs, and everything else defaulted below?

Sure. Set the view you want, then save that layout as the default mix template. That view will appear whenever you open SAW, thereafter. Also, whenever you close a session (EDL), that layout will appear again to start your new session/EDL.

[jmh]

Rather than scrolling the channel strip, have you tried using the "TLZ" buttons in the upper left of the MT view to focus particular channel strip sections of the Z mixer view?

I've never liked using them. I'm partial to hot-keys (don't think there's enough for that) or maybe the good ones are used up (...and let me know if they are there and I'm just overlooking them). I've tried having F keys or alt fkey to different zmixer scrolls but I didn't tend to remember which was which and it conflicted with my main use of f-keys which is various numbers of multitrack channels.

I'm sort of a casual user. What is a lot of use for me it might be for two or three hours a couple of times a week - and if I'm playing a lot of guitar or feeling productive in the songwriting department (which takes precedent - because that is what it is all about for me) much less.

If you don't have that feature (no Z view in Lite, I think), have you tried clicking on a strip zone button in the F mixer view to pop up the E mixer view to that section of the channel strip?

I've tried the various mixer views - but always migrate back to just using the z-mixer with one or two channels and a big multi-track window. I guess what I envision is a z-minus-mixer that could remap several fractional portions of the real z-mixer.

Sure. Set the view you want, then save that layout as the default mix template. That view will appear whenever you open SAW, thereafter. Also, whenever you close a session (EDL), that layout will appear again to start your new session/EDL.

Thanks. Every time I look in the manual, I get sidetracked - but nearly always make some unexpected discovery.