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IpMIDI + Waves Soundgrid + additional DAW

hi Synetos:

After running cubase(Digigrdi lv1), how much buffer is suitable for programming and large projects.
I have been at 256 and can't be lower anymore.

That kinda depends on you and your overall chain.

If I am running 96k, I can run with 256. But, when I am tracking live instruments or vocalists, I run as low as I can. When just mixing or using midi only, It doesnt matter so much.

So, unless you are overdubbing and playing in live via keyswitches, then you can run whatever latency level you can tolerate. I am okay up to 8-9ms, but after that, I dont like it.
 
You can use any ASIO interface. I used to use my RME Raydat. Install its driver like normal, but then choose Soundgrid Driver for ASIO audio in your DAW. You have to configure your interface in the soundgrid studio setup, and route the patching, etc.

I installed Soundgrid Studio on Windows 7. But it needs windows 10 to run.
 
usjjhhhbxedhQUOTE="Synetos, post: 4348322, member: 12403"]
So...I tried a "what-if" idea today and it is just tickling me how well it is working.

I have been using VEP for a while now, but I started to wonder if I really needed it. It is kinda clunky in my setup and doesn't do the audio inputs for offloading plugins as well as I would like.

In my VEP setup, I run a master and 2 slaves. It got me thinking, why cant i do what VEP is doing without using VEP?

Here is what I tried:

I have Cubase 10 on my main DAW and also on a slave machine. It could be Reaper or any DAW I want. I just happen to have 2 copies of Cubase 10 Pro.

  • I setup Soundgrid on both machines and assigned 128 channels of audio to each machine and then "patched" them via SoundGrid Studio. Basically, audio I/O between the machines.
  • Then I installed ipMIDI on each computer and setup 20 midi ports (that provides me with 360 midi channels).
  • In my master DAW, I created a midi track and set the input to just be my A88 midi keyboard. I set the output to the 1 channel and port on ipMIDI. Basically, I play my keyboard and it now sends the midi data over the ipMidi connection to my slave.
  • On my slave, I setup a VST instrument and set the audio output to a stereo audio channel that is mapped to my main DAW via soundgrid studio
  • On the DAW master, I created an audio input using the connections from the slave.
  • I just play the midi keyboard, and I get the audio produced on the slave on the audio channel i created in my DAW.
  • I can now record the midi, play it back over ipMIDI connection to my slave and return the audio (even record it). No added latency! This is unreal!
  • I did the same thing using an audio effects send for a Reverb channel. No added latency!
Trying to offload CPU hog plugins into VEP has not worked very well. This might just be an awesome alternative.

This might be most useful for FX processing, and basically not needing a SoundGrid Server to offload plugins...and...not be limited to just soundgrid compatible plugs. I need to pound on it a bit more, but my initial results are very promising.

I actually think this might give me better workflow. Yes, I will be limited to 256 physical audio channels in Cubase, but that should be more than enough for what I am doing. Not doing mockups with 1000+ instruments. I suspect one could do this with any Audio over IP solution, Dante, etc.

I am curious if anyone else is doing something like this?
[/QUOTE]

Is it possible to send midi true the soungrid network?

Or else what are these new midi ports used for?



When i open my daw ableton live 10.
I see two new midi devices in the setup page.

One is called: StudioRack
I expect this to be the midi port to controle the eMotion st mixer?

The other one is called: SG Device I/O
I hoped this would be midi over the soundgrid network


Now comes the weard part.
When i send midi from one computer to the other...
No midi is received on none of the channels or midi ports

Audio works fine!
I wished i knew this some years ago.


I have a working setup with:
Soundgrid Studio 9.7.99.191 Build 102296
Soundgrid Driver 9.7.99.1159
eMotion St 9.7.99.185
 
Is it possible to send midi true the soungrid network?

Or else what are these new midi ports used for?



When i open my daw ableton live 10.
I see two new midi devices in the setup page.

One is called: StudioRack
I expect this to be the midi port to controle the eMotion st mixer?

The other one is called: SG Device I/O
I hoped this would be midi over the soundgrid network


Now comes the weard part.
When i send midi from one computer to the other...
No midi is received on none of the channels or midi ports

Audio works fine!
I wished i knew this some years ago.


I have a working setup with:
Soundgrid Studio 9.7.99.191 Build 102296
Soundgrid Driver 9.7.99.1159
eMotion St 9.7.99.185
No. Soundgrid Midi is just for soundgrid hardware. You need another way to send midi over ethernet, or midi devices. I used IPMidi. There are others out there.

BTW-I no longer use this method in my setup. With VEP 7 and running eMotion LV1, SuperRack, and a Waves Soundgrid Extreme server, I dont need to worry about it anymore
 
I have a setup working with several computers (windows 10) on the soundgrid network, in conjunction with rtpMIDI.

It works awsome!
 
usjjhhhbxedhQUOTE="Synetos, post: 4348322, member: 12403"]
So...I tried a "what-if" idea today and it is just tickling me how well it is working.

I have been using VEP for a while now, but I started to wonder if I really needed it. It is kinda clunky in my setup and doesn't do the audio inputs for offloading plugins as well as I would like.

In my VEP setup, I run a master and 2 slaves. It got me thinking, why cant i do what VEP is doing without using VEP?

Here is what I tried:

I have Cubase 10 on my main DAW and also on a slave machine. It could be Reaper or any DAW I want. I just happen to have 2 copies of Cubase 10 Pro.

  • I setup Soundgrid on both machines and assigned 128 channels of audio to each machine and then "patched" them via SoundGrid Studio. Basically, audio I/O between the machines.
  • Then I installed ipMIDI on each computer and setup 20 midi ports (that provides me with 360 midi channels).
  • In my master DAW, I created a midi track and set the input to just be my A88 midi keyboard. I set the output to the 1 channel and port on ipMIDI. Basically, I play my keyboard and it now sends the midi data over the ipMidi connection to my slave.
  • On my slave, I setup a VST instrument and set the audio output to a stereo audio channel that is mapped to my main DAW via soundgrid studio
  • On the DAW master, I created an audio input using the connections from the slave.
  • I just play the midi keyboard, and I get the audio produced on the slave on the audio channel i created in my DAW.
  • I can now record the midi, play it back over ipMIDI connection to my slave and return the audio (even record it). No added latency! This is unreal!
  • I did the same thing using an audio effects send for a Reverb channel. No added latency!
Trying to offload CPU hog plugins into VEP has not worked very well. This might just be an awesome alternative.

This might be most useful for FX processing, and basically not needing a SoundGrid Server to offload plugins...and...not be limited to just soundgrid compatible plugs. I need to pound on it a bit more, but my initial results are very promising.

I actually think this might give me better workflow. Yes, I will be limited to 256 physical audio channels in Cubase, but that should be more than enough for what I am doing. Not doing mockups with 1000+ instruments. I suspect one could do this with any Audio over IP solution, Dante, etc.

I am curious if anyone else is doing something like this?

Is it possible to send midi true the soungrid network?

Or else what are these new midi ports used for?



When i open my daw ableton live 10.
I see two new midi devices in the setup page.

One is called: StudioRack
I expect this to be the midi port to controle the eMotion st mixer?

The other one is called: SG Device I/O
I hoped this would be midi over the soundgrid network


Now comes the weard part.
When i send midi from one computer to the other...
No midi is received on none of the channels or midi ports

Audio works fine!
I wished i knew this some years ago.


I have a working setup with:
Soundgrid Studio 9.7.99.191 Build 102296
Soundgrid Driver 9.7.99.1159
eMotion St 9.7.99.185
[/QUOTE]

This way of working is very good, I am almost like this too,
Just exporting multi-tracked , it will take more time..:)

eMotion LV1 11
 
I have mutated my setup even further. Forever tweaking...I guess :)

While my original idea for this thread worked, what it really did was get me thinking outside of using a single DAW, and the limitations to make it work for every studio situation. Needs for tracking, VST instrumentation, and mixing/mastering, are all different. I either end up with multiple version of a project, and constantly tweaking my DAW, or I find the least common denominator...which tends to not be the best solution for each situation.

AS of now, I am still running eMotion LV1 V11 to control my Soundgrid setup. I actually prefer it to SoundGrid Studio V11.

I have found the StudioRack Native to be just as useful as StudioRack SG, with less annoying undocumented features for using it with Cubase. The part the doesnt work well for SGS v11, is the I/O naming. Constant struggle with naming changes in my templates. Very frustrating.

I also like running SG host on a dedicated computer, separate from my DAWs. No need for that being overhead on my DAWs.

StudioRack v11 latency, even with a SG extreme server, measures out to be about the same as local host for latency. At least in my experience, you dont need a SGS to take advantage of the lower latency. Maybe you do if you have a wimpy DAW, but since I am running on a OC 7980XE, my native mode latency is just as good as the SGS. I also have the ability to route things out to LV1 or SuperRack and back into the DAW if i wanted, with a similar RT latency.

As I said earlier, one of the major changes I made to my workflow is making better use of two DAW's.

I decided to dedicate a recording DAW just for live studio recording/tracking. I set it to 64 samples, and that puts my RT latency to about 5ms. That is useful when I am playing back guide tracks for the artists, while tracking.

My recording DAW is a 5960x OC at 3.8GHz. Plenty of power for studio recording. I dont really even need any effects on this machine, as the studio musicians are using the effects in LV1. Simple, super clean, and very low latency.

For studio HP monitoring, I am using LV1/MyMon. It works fantastically. I run 3 cue channels from my recording DAW, right into LV1, for click and any guide tracks needed for the artist. By using MyMon, and LV1, the musicians basically have no latency, and they can do their own cue HP mix with their phones.

When the tracking is done, I can edit/comp tracks to my hearts content. It can be a giant mess, and I don't care. I dont have to hide it, or make a new project to put the comp'd tracks into. I can save it as is, in case I need to come back to it to add or redo a track. When the comp'd tracks are finished, I just use Cubase feature "import tracks from project" from my recording DAW, into my main DAW, over a shared network project drive.

Since I am not using my Main DAW to record live performances, I can do all my VST tracks and effects for the project without so much concern about absolute low latency. I am fine with 128-256 samples for VST work, and even higher when it comes to mixing, since latency is far less important at that point.

On my main DAW, I am still flipping back on forth between VEP, Cubase disabled tracks, and Cubase track presets for VST instruments. I guess I am still trying to find my "flow". VEP is becoming less and less. I suspect I will eventually move away from it for good. It is liberating to have a clean project template, and then just load up the instruments as I use them via disabled tracks or presets. These are some of the great features I love about using Cubase.
 
I have a setup working with several computers (windows 10) on the soundgrid network, in conjunction with rtpMIDI.

It works awsome!
Trying to implement rtpMIDI now on pc's. 1 DAW / 3 servers. But if I have more than 63 midi ports activated in rtpMIDI, Nuendo 10.3 will no longer start, it hangs up on "Initiate Midi All" Do you happen to know if I'm bumping into a limitation of ports in Windows or Cubase/Nuendo? rtpMIDI seems to allow me to make all I want, its just that something else does not like that many midi ports it feels like. The limit is much higher in VE Pro, but I'm shooting for lower latency. Surprising how difficult it is to get info on this subject!
 
Trying to implement rtpMIDI now on pc's. 1 DAW / 3 servers. But if I have more than 63 midi ports activated in rtpMIDI, Nuendo 10.3 will no longer start, it hangs up on "Initiate Midi All" Do you happen to know if I'm bumping into a limitation of ports in Windows or Cubase/Nuendo? rtpMIDI seems to allow me to make all I want, its just that something else does not like that many midi ports it feels like. The limit is much higher in VE Pro, but I'm shooting for lower latency. Surprising how difficult it is to get info on this subject!
With experimenting with different computer ports I've been able to get beyond 63 midi ports. I hope this works out, I don't have the MADI hardware in yet to test with audio, I'm just seeing that the vsti's are triggering and meters showing audio.
 
With experimenting with different computer ports I've been able to get beyond 63 midi ports. I hope this works out, I don't have the MADI hardware in yet to test with audio, I'm just seeing that the vsti's are triggering and meters showing audio.
For anyone interested, rtpMIDI in a large 80+ midi port setup is not working well, the timing on the midi signals can't be guaranteed here, or at least I don't know of a way to do it that is worthwhile. I did get more more audio buses back to the DAW but worth nothing with differing latencies among the midi ports. If anyone is having success doing it, I'd love to know how.
 
The delay is mainly caused by the DAW buffer, right?
I don't know the source of the delays. They are greater than when just using VE Pro for everything, i.e. midi and audio and container for the instruments in its mixers. Also, the delays aren't consistently the same across the server computers and possibly not even from channel to channel of a single server. While it might in time all be solvable, unless I come across a solid solution quick, I'm putting the RME MADIface units (2) and a Digiface (1) up for sale. It feels like it is way too bleeding edge to be comfy relying on right now.
 
I never had weird midi sync issues, so I cant really offer much other than what my troubleshooting process would be if it were happening to me.

Things I would look at are as follows (just thinking off the top of my head here):
  • What else is using CPU cycles on your DAW? Are you getting CPU spikes?
  • You can try turning off Realtime virus scanning, or anything else that might be an issue.
  • Many ways to tune a Windows 10 PC for DAW. Have you done that stuff?
  • How you are plugged into you switch is also a possible issue. Is it Gigabit? How many computers? Are you hitting internet from the same network adapters, etc?
  • Tune network adapter settings, updating drivers, network cables, etc.
  • What is the time code master? Is everything slaving to it for sync?
  • You are also using a free RPTMidi software. I used IPMidi, which I paid for. Maybe there is something with midi driver not syncing with DAW?

There are lots of things to try and chase down. Much of it comes from years of IT experience. I do not know you level of skill with fixing PC/network/software things.

Maybe VEP is a simpler solution? Not sure why you would sell you audio interfaces? RME is good stuff, and unlikely it has anything to do with what you are experiencing.
 
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