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  1. #41

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    With two RME cards in the system, make sure you have your clocking setup correctly... many times when you install the second driver, it swaps places with the first card... this can mess up your sync cable setup if the master and slave card switch around... verify that you have the sync cable going out of the master card into the slave card and the drivers are setup to match.

    Bob L

  2. #42

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob L View Post
    With two RME cards in the system, make sure you have your clocking setup correctly... many times when you install the second driver, it swaps places with the first card... this can mess up your sync cable setup if the master and slave card switch around... verify that you have the sync cable going out of the master card into the slave card and the drivers are setup to match.

    Bob L
    Great info Bob, Thanks
    The second card was tested by its self and started dropping output buffers using the same config as the other one which did not have near the issues.
    Also could not get the SPDIF to work at all.
    Waiting on a new (To me) card to arrive soon.
    Thank You all for everyone's help.

    Warren
    Warren @ The Masters Tracks

  3. #43

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    I'm wondering how you all do stress testing. I'm at that point now and I had a plan. I'd run a single signal into SAC channel 1 perpetually. Then I'd have SAW grab it from SAC and write it to disk. Then I'd have a different channel in SAC grab it from SAW and output it to an output channel. Then I'd physically connect the output channel to a different input channel and have a different SAC channel accept it as input.

    The idea was that I'd do this over and over, in and out of the system, until I had used up all my output channels and recorded 16 copies of the same thing. The result would be 17 input channels and 16 output channels, as well as the equivalent within SAC and SAW, exercised simultaneously for as long as I chose to supply that one input signal.

    The 'wiring', with the exception of looping the output channel to an input channel, is the way I use SAC as a virtual mixing board for SAW so, without thinking it through, I jumped to that scenario. But, of course, it doesn't work - because there is no playback from SAW while recording is occurring. The signal chain stops after recording the first track. I considered using Aux's to force the signal to a physical out and picking them up on a different input - but there's only six Aux's so that won't use up all my outputs.

    This must be a common task. What do you use to stress test your DAW?

  4. #44

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Quote Originally Posted by John Ludlow View Post
    I'm wondering how you all do stress testing. I'm at that point now and I had a plan. I'd run a single signal into SAC channel 1 perpetually. Then I'd have SAW grab it from SAC and write it to disk. Then I'd have a different channel in SAC grab it from SAW and output it to an output channel. Then I'd physically connect the output channel to a different input channel and have a different SAC channel accept it as input.

    The idea was that I'd do this over and over, in and out of the system, until I had used up all my output channels and recorded 16 copies of the same thing. The result would be 17 input channels and 16 output channels, as well as the equivalent within SAC and SAW, exercised simultaneously for as long as I chose to supply that one input signal.

    The 'wiring', with the exception of looping the output channel to an input channel, is the way I use SAC as a virtual mixing board for SAW so, without thinking it through, I jumped to that scenario. But, of course, it doesn't work - because there is no playback from SAW while recording is occurring. The signal chain stops after recording the first track. I considered using Aux's to force the signal to a physical out and picking them up on a different input - but there's only six Aux's so that won't use up all my outputs.

    This must be a common task. What do you use to stress test your DAW?
    I in no way know what the heck I am talking about and would refer to the developer Bob.
    But what I have been doing is run SAC at 1/32 and the highest sample rate in my case 48k and bit depth of 24, with the highest active input and output I can get.
    Then try to massage the system to get more I/O at the same time being stable.
    I hope Bob has a more tried and true method for SAC users as well as SAC / SAW combined.

    Warren
    Warren @ The Masters Tracks

  5. #45
    Join Date
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    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Quote Originally Posted by John Ludlow View Post
    I'm wondering how you all do stress testing. I'm at that point now and I had a plan. I'd run a single signal into SAC channel 1 perpetually. Then I'd have SAW grab it from SAC and write it to disk. Then I'd have a different channel in SAC grab it from SAW and output it to an output channel. Then I'd physically connect the output channel to a different input channel and have a different SAC channel accept it as input.

    The idea was that I'd do this over and over, in and out of the system, until I had used up all my output channels and recorded 16 copies of the same thing. The result would be 17 input channels and 16 output channels, as well as the equivalent within SAC and SAW, exercised simultaneously for as long as I chose to supply that one input signal.

    The 'wiring', with the exception of looping the output channel to an input channel, is the way I use SAC as a virtual mixing board for SAW so, without thinking it through, I jumped to that scenario. But, of course, it doesn't work - because there is no playback from SAW while recording is occurring. The signal chain stops after recording the first track. I considered using Aux's to force the signal to a physical out and picking them up on a different input - but there's only six Aux's so that won't use up all my outputs.

    This must be a common task. What do you use to stress test your DAW?
    1. If your using SAC as the front end to SAW, then the recording process is a LOW cpu priority task. Meaning SAW studio is not the bottleneck. If your using 7200 RPM drives or SSD's your not going to have any problems with SAW Studio reading or writing data to the storage device.

    2. Unless there is specific circuitry or functions to disable a channel that doesn't have a live signal on it (as far as I can tell the RME RayDAT card doesn't do this, processing channels without actual audio signals on them is still processing audio through the engine. Its still an active channel. Large signals don't require more processing than small signals. CPU load doesn't go up as function of the loudness or gain of the channel, just the raw number of channels, EQs, Gates, etc that are active.

    So as long as there is an audio interface connected and the channels are active you can run up 16 or 24 or 32 channels without actually supply 16/24/32 live signals, because the channels are in fact live they still supply audio in the form of low-gain noise.

    3. Test the system using single buffer-size settings 1/32, 1/64, 1/128 etc. The system either has time to process all of the active channels in that designated time/slice or it doesn't.

    Start at 1/32 and move up until it isn't dropping buffers. Pretty much any modern system really should be able to handle 1/32, although there maybe occasional buffer losses.

    It absolutely should be 100% stable at 1/64. If not, than there is a process running that is stomping on the engine, or the audio interface drivers are poorly written.

    If your using audio interfaces from RME, MOTU or even Behringer that have current drivers, you can really just focus on system processes that are stomping on the audio engine as all three of those brands have stable audio drivers.
    ---------------------------------------
    Philip G.

  6. #46

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Quote Originally Posted by John Ludlow View Post
    I'm wondering how you all do stress testing. I'm at that point now and I had a plan. I'd run a single signal into SAC channel 1 perpetually. Then I'd have SAW grab it from SAC and write it to disk. Then I'd have a different channel in SAC grab it from SAW and output it to an output channel. Then I'd physically connect the output channel to a different input channel and have a different SAC channel accept it as input...
    One thing I do is to run a physical input source to either channel 1, or channels 1 and 2, while assigning it/them also to up to 48 channels/inputs (input 1 to all odd and input 2 to all even channels). I assign the odd/even channels by highlighting each set - 1-47 and 2-48 - and saving that highlighted set as a group, with a third group highlighting all 48 channels.

    For my simple needs, I also put a reverb or two and a delay in up to 3 return channels and assign them to output 1.

    I then click on the 48 channel group and engage all channel processing - fader and pan, gate and/or comp, at least 2 aux and eq sections. All parameters should be set to something other than their default, including all bands of eq. This assure that I am taxing each channel and each parameter.

    I also click on each odd and even group and pan them hard left and hard right for stereo sources (like the radio in my old boom box).

    I test the load in SAC this way, while receiving an active source input and changing f-keys and parameters around often and rapidly. If all is steady, I open SAW and activate the link to SAC. Import all 48 channels as a group and start recording. I then proceed to go back and forth between SAW and SAC and do the f-key, parameter changing routine some more.

    For my needs, this is as much stress testing as I generally need, but the same basic process could be applied across multiple monitor mixers, moving between scenes and any other sort of manipulations usually needed to perform live situation tasks.

    At least this is how I was advised to stress test some years back. It seems to work for me. It's important to note that all channel strip settings must be moved off their defaults in order for SAC to be stress tested. Also, one reason I change f-keys and jump between SAC and SAW during the testing is because a good deal of the glitching I have encountered centered around screen redraws and the graphics card processing in general, which can really stomp on the audio.
    Last edited by UpTilDawn; 07-13-2019 at 09:37 AM.

  7. #47

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Quote Originally Posted by cgrafx View Post
    1. If your using SAC as the front end to SAW, then the recording process is a LOW cpu priority task. Meaning SAW studio is not the bottleneck. If your using 7200 RPM drives or SSD's your not going to have any problems with SAW Studio reading or writing data to the storage device.

    2. Unless there is specific circuitry or functions to disable a channel that doesn't have a live signal on it (as far as I can tell the RME RayDAT card doesn't do this, processing channels without actual audio signals on them is still processing audio through the engine. Its still an active channel. Large signals don't require more processing than small signals. CPU load doesn't go up as function of the loudness or gain of the channel, just the raw number of channels, EQs, Gates, etc that are active.

    So as long as there is an audio interface connected and the channels are active you can run up 16 or 24 or 32 channels without actually supply 16/24/32 live signals, because the channels are in fact live they still supply audio in the form of low-gain noise.

    3. Test the system using single buffer-size settings 1/32, 1/64, 1/128 etc. The system either has time to process all of the active channels in that designated time/slice or it doesn't.

    Start at 1/32 and move up until it isn't dropping buffers. Pretty much any modern system really should be able to handle 1/32, although there maybe occasional buffer losses.

    It absolutely should be 100% stable at 1/64. If not, than there is a process running that is stomping on the engine, or the audio interface drivers are poorly written.

    If your using audio interfaces from RME, MOTU or even Behringer that have current drivers, you can really just focus on system processes that are stomping on the audio engine as all three of those brands have stable audio drivers.
    Regarding #2
    Is they why on older RME cards ie. HDSP9652 you should run with Dither to keep the system active?

    Warren
    Warren @ The Masters Tracks

  8. #48

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Thank-you all for your, fairly-instant, and illuminating replies!

    Quote Originally Posted by cgrafx View Post
    2. Unless there is specific circuitry or functions to disable a channel that doesn't have a live signal on it (as far as I can tell the RME RayDAT card doesn't do this, processing channels without actual audio signals on them is still processing audio through the engine. Its still an active channel. Large signals don't require more processing than small signals. CPU load doesn't go up as function of the loudness or gain of the channel, just the raw number of channels, EQs, Gates, etc that are active.

    So as long as there is an audio interface connected and the channels are active you can run up 16 or 24 or 32 channels without actually supply 16/24/32 live signals, because the channels are in fact live they still supply audio in the form of low-gain noise.
    Wow. That is astonishing to me. That implies that a converter channel without a jack plugged into it, at CD quality, sends 44,100 'nothing happened here' messages every second that need to be caught and interpreted by the DAW. Multiply that by the number of currently unused channels in your system and that's a lot of unnecessary processing. I'm surprised there isn't a "something's-plugged-in" flag for each converter channel.

    But, oh well. That sure simplifies stress testing. There's no longer any need to actually run audio into and out of all the physical channels. I think you're also implying that, for instance, the channel meters are also equivalent in "processing required" all the time since they constantly write, "there's positively zero input" rather than just being painted slack. But, I'm not sure of that. I think it may take more processing to paint a three-inch meter slice than a no-inch one - although I guess that depends upon how it's being done. It might be painting the entire meter space every time slice with either one color or the other too. In fact, maybe it functionally has to. In that case, busy meters wouldn't require more processing than slack ones do.

    I think then what I'll do is take UpTilDawn's advice and run a single input channel into a channel count representing every physical input I have and group them so I can move dozens of channel controls at once. And I'll do things to require ad-hoc processing like pressing function keys, changing hot channels, and raising and lowering gain. Of course, I'll record all those tracks while I'm doing it. And when I get bored with playing Tarzan on it I'll just let it run for a couple of hours. Maybe I'll setup several monitors as well to account for all my outputs. If all that works out, I'll add some signal processing to individual channels and do it again.

    What does the hive mind think about that plan? Have I missed anything?

    I note that Warren uses LatencyMon to report dropped samples. Is that what others use? Is there something free that works just as well? Or is LatencyMon just preferred?

    And - thanks again for your help.

  9. #49
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
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    SF Bay Area
    Posts
    1,509

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Quote Originally Posted by John Ludlow View Post
    Thank-you all for your, fairly-instant, and illuminating replies!

    Wow. That is astonishing to me. That implies that a converter channel without a jack plugged into it, at CD quality, sends 44,100 'nothing happened here' messages every second that need to be caught and interpreted by the DAW. Multiply that by the number of currently unused channels in your system and that's a lot of unnecessary processing. I'm surprised there isn't a "something's-plugged-in" flag for each converter channel.
    There really isn't any such thing as nothing here. All electronics have a noise floor, so there will be some small amount of activity happening unless there is circuitry to explicitly shut it off (like a mute button), and then it would still have to be connected in some way to the digital side to say only output zeros.

    But then how do you decide when the channel is actually off or the source is just not playing anything?

    SAC will also let you patch a single source into any channel strip simultaneously, so if your really want to have active meters you could just plug in an iPad or other music source and patch that into every channel.
    Last edited by cgrafx; 07-13-2019 at 12:57 PM.
    ---------------------------------------
    Philip G.

  10. #50

    Default Re: SAC SYSTEM BUILD QUESTIONS

    Quote Originally Posted by cgrafx View Post
    SAC will also let you patch a single source channel into any channel strip simultaneously, so if your really want to have active meters you could just plug in an iPad or other music source and patch that into every channel.
    Yes - that was what occurred to me as well.

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