Anyone use the analog outs and just Ti over the USB link?

  • So, I wondering if instead of putting audio through the USB, does it help if you put it through it through the analogue outs instead?


    Does it help with the communication: i.e keep everything in synch, avoid dropped notes, help the arp work in time and generally lessen the load of the USB connection by removing the audio load over the USB?


    Any thoughts appreciated as considering trying this but it involves buying a desk obviously..


    cheers, simon

  • You'll have to disable the delay compensation for the VC in your DAW, because although while playing live or recording it will play normally, when playing back MIDI the DAW will play ahead of time to compensate for the delay of the USB connection. Besides the analog outs, the S/PDIF out is also a good idea if you want to avoid sampling noise.

  • I haven't tried it yet and had to pack my studio away for a week while it's being carpeted.


    However, my thoughts are you can use Virus Control for Ti whilst still using the analogue outs. Why wouldn't you be able to do this?


    Flabberbob (or anyone) could you confirm this is possible please? Sure I did it once already..


    And Flabbebob you say if I still use VC but with analogue outs I have to disable the delay compensation in Logic? How do I do that please?


    Cheers for the advice

  • I hope your studio is in a well ventilated room (e.g. not a basement), I just can't stand the smell of a newly carpeted room. And now to business...


    You have 2 ways of sending the part to the analog outs: one is the "D" button which stands for direct monitoring, and the other is selecting one of the 3 outs as the destination of the part which you can do from the common tab or by command+clicking the said "D" button.


    The problem is that I don't think there is a way to disable delay compensation for a single VST in Logic. You can switch to live mode which will make it play just a tad earlier, or you can just go back and forth between VC for designing and copying sounds to ROM and pure MIDI (external instrument plugin) for playing.

  • I use my Virus this way... works more reliably than using USB Audio via Virus. I think the amount of data going through the USB port as well as Midi data is half the problem people are having with sync issues too, and Analogue outs are just fine for me, as long as you use a low noise good desk, or SPDIF outs even... but you are limited to 1 X stereo out instead of 3 X Analogue outs.but it depends on your requirements.


    VC works fine using Cockos Reaper DAW for me this way too, so long as you select Direct monitoring & Live mode... 8)

  • muzikman2008 - do you experience issues around latency? Does the Virus play slightly ahead in live mode as Flabberbob said?


    I dont have latency issues as i dont use my virus like most people. I send midi via USB from Reaper via USB, (sync is perfect) i can open VC in reaper using a template to control the Virus either in real time or just for programming and saving patches, and using the librarian in VC.


    Midi is then taken from Virus Thru port (physical) to then sync my other gear such as Alesis SR18 drum machine, which syncs in time with the metronome in reaper perfectly. I record the analogue outs of virus into my Edirol UA-1000 USB2 Audio capture Rack, which returns via USB to my DAW using Rolands own ASIO drivers set at 10mS. This delivers next to no latency (or unoticeable at least.) for me.


    I could also rout the Edirol (physical) Midi out to the Virus (physical) midi in too if i wanted, and just control VC over USB, and record each part on a seperate track in Reaper, i find it easier to record seperate "Audio" tracks instead of midi, unless i really need the flexibility... but im not normal, and look for other ways of doing things if i can :D


    I never use the Virus USB Audio outs as it is unreliable sometimes (as most people say) for reasons i gave above. USB1 can easily get overloaded with data, and should be kept to a minimum the amount of data you send thru it in my opinion anyway... if its just midi... it should be fine... but audio is a bit like "how long is a peice of string?" it depends on how many tracks, processing power of PC, Quality of USB hardware/software drivers, bla bla... the list goes on... Virus should have been USB2 in my opinion... but hey ho... it is what it is... and people will complain until Access introduce USB2 i suppose.


    Having said all that, The Viirus is a great sounding, versatile synth, which is why i bought it.. im not fussed with PC control of a synth much either, would be nice if it did work 100% all the time but i still feel its mainly down to how people set up their PC/Mac etc.


    Just use the Physical midi ports and ignore USB if its driving you nuts!... make music not headaches! lifes toooo short! :thumbup:

  • Thanks Muzikman2008 and Flabberbob, appreciate you taking the time to reply here.


    I'm going to purchase an Allen & Heath Zed R-16 desk as I will have a few new bits of outboard to plug in e.g Moog Slim Phatty along with a drum machine and of course the Virus to avoid sending audio over USB.


    So I'm slightly puzzled about the latency issues and how it will all be handled by Logic 9. Few questions as I think my brain is getting there slowly with your help in working through this:


    Part 1) Staying with the Virus for now, assume I have the Virus set up as it is right now using VC with everything going over USB - both midi and audio fed in/out of Logic.


    But I then go into 'Common' in VC and change from USB out for a part to 1 of the 3 the physical analogue outs.


    I then connect a jack/s from the Virus into the A&H Zed desk. So I'm still using VC but a physical analogue out now.


    Flabberbob, you are saying that the Virus part will now play back out of synch and a little ahead as Logic previously delayed/correctly synched the USB audio signal with everything else correct? You say there's no way to disable the plug in latency on Logic for a single plugin.


    The Logic 9 manual confirms the same:


    As Logic Pro has no direct control over the audio outputs of external devices, plug-in latency compensation cannot work for MIDI tracks that trigger external sound modules. If you activate full plug-in latency compensation and insert latency-inducing plug-ins, external MIDI signals will be out of sync with the delayed audio streams.


    And then it offers the solution:


    Logic Pro allows you to circumvent this issue with the External Instrument plug-in: Insert it (as you would insert a software instrument plug-in on instrument channels) to route the audio outputs of your external MIDI devices to the inputs of your audio hardware—and monitor them through Logic Pro. This allows you to compensate for the delays of any audio streams coming from MIDI devices during playback.


    And this is the previously posted link containing a quick tutorial about how to set all this up:


    http://audio.tutsplus.com/tuto…ment-plugin-in-logic-pro/


    So this would hopefully seem to be a way for us new Mac users - or indeed anyone - to still use VC and get good audio quality if we have a desk or device with enough inputs to use the physical analogue outputs?


    I'll let you know how I get on as soon as I can try it but if someone could confirm the above makes sense that would be great.


    ------------------------------------------------------------


    And now for the bit that is a little beyond me at 6.30am...


    Part 2) As I will be using an A&H Zed R16 it has a Firewire connection so that it integrates well with Logic/DAWs and basically controls the Logic mixer, plus it has transport, midi controls etc.


    Soundonsound review of it here: http://www.soundonsound.com/so…s/allenandheathzedr16.htm


    It has a few buttons on the individual channel strips that allow you to route the signal in various ways.


    One button is to send that channel's signal (oh, let's say a Virus Ti..) to a Logic channel so you can apply plug ins to the analogue signal from the desk. The signal that then appears from that channel on the Zed 16 desk would be the Virus plus whatever plug in you had applied in Logic, say a reverb.


    So in the above example you would get the Virus physical output with a reverb from the Logic plugin all neatly integrated. Which is what VC lets you do - except we're avoiding the Virus audio issues of audio getting a bit funny over USB.


    So that's really clever frankly, and I spose what I'm wondering is if given how the Zed 16 works as described in Part 2 here, do I still need to do Part 1(above) of setting up the Virus in Logic as an external instrument?!


    I spose I mean to say that because at the touch of a button the A&H Zed desk integrates with Logic plugins and would route the Virus through plugins does it automatically compensate the plugin latency itself independently of how you set up any instruments?


    Or does the Zed desk need all instruments to be already pre-synched prior to hitting the button which allows the Logic plugs ins to affect the channel strip signal?


    Hope this makes sense and welcome any thoughts on any of this.


    I woke up at 4am thinking about this and now off to be shattered at work for the day.. :wacko:


    cheers, simon

  • RE: (1) The external instrument plugin comes in place of the VC plugin. You cant have them controlling the Virus together since the VC hijacks the "synth MIDI" port for its own use. Since the external instrument plugin was made to be compatible with all possible devices it has only the bare essentials, meaning that if you want to control the Virus parameters from the Logic you have to send MIDI data to it yourself.
    RE: (2) You should view the R16 as a pipe. A very clever and flexible set of pipes, but still, whatever comes in, comes out the other end (plus some added latency from the R16 itself, but I guess you hardly feel it, or it is compensated by Logic if it regards it as a soundcard). If you put through it something that is already out of sync, it won't fix it.
    The bottom line is, if you use VC with physical outs, during playback the sounds will play a little sooner from the physical outs, because Logic is compensating for the MIDI to audio round-trip over USB. During recording, Logic cannot guess what notes you are about to play so it send it exactly as you play it, and you will not get the sound before its time. Come to think of it, you can add a plugin that just introduces delay (without modifying the audio itself) to the Virus audio outs track in Logic. Bypass it when you are recording, and use it when playing back. You can calculate the amount of delay needed by playing the same MIDI track through Virus and another virtual instrument, and delaying the virus using the said plugin to sync up with the virtual instrument output.

  • RE: (1) The external instrument plugin comes in place of the VC plugin. You cant have them controlling the Virus together since the VC hijacks the "synth MIDI" port for its own use. Since the external instrument plugin was made to be compatible with all possible devices it has only the bare essentials, meaning that if you want to control the Virus parameters from the Logic you have to send MIDI data to it yourself.


    Oh bugger, there was me thinking I'd got it licked! I'm with you now thanks.


    RE: (2) You should view the R16 as a pipe. A very clever and flexible set of pipes, but still, whatever comes in, comes out the other end (plus some added latency from the R16 itself, but I guess you hardly feel it, or it is compensated by Logic if it regards it as a soundcard). If you put through it something that is already out of sync, it won't fix it.


    Yeah Logic will view the R16 as a soundcard and will compensate as a result. But as you say it needs to have the External instrument plugin on the Virus and not VC so it goes in in synch.



    The bottom line is, if you use VC with physical outs, during playback the sounds will play a little sooner from the physical outs, because Logic is compensating for the MIDI to audio round-trip over USB.


    Yep, got that.



    During recording, Logic cannot guess what notes you are about to play so it send it exactly as you play it, and you will not get the sound before its time.


    But during playback it knows the notes that will be about to be played and if you have External instrument plugin it can therefore delay the notes being played (to synch in with other things with plugin latency).


    Now, this is interesting as you basically have summed up a half formed idea I had at stupid o'clock this morning when I woke up about a workaround:



    Come to think of it, you can add a plugin that just introduces delay (without modifying the audio itself) to the Virus audio outs track in Logic. Bypass it when you are recording, and use it when playing back. You can calculate the amount of delay needed by playing the same MIDI track through Virus and another virtual instrument, and delaying the virus using the said plugin to sync up with the virtual instrument output.


    Yes, I was thinking along the same lines here. Mainly around the possibility of using a plug in on the Virus channels whilst using VC to just introduce latency that Logic then slows down the Virus audio output by.


    Of course a delay of some sort would do this as you say, but I wonder what would be best and what settings? You wouldn't want to degrade the audio in anyway, just leave it unchanged and simply delay the sound starting by a few ms.


    I guess there's only one way to find out and have a play around.


    Unless it's easy and works well sounds like a nice suggestion for Access to develop a plug in :)


    Feels like some progress in my understanding here so thanks again for your thoughts Bob, much appreciated.


    cheers, simon

  • Will post all the calculations shortly so you can use VC with analogue outs as it is completely doable and got it sussed now.


    Just haven't the time to post it properly as trying to build a studio and put it back together so I can try the theory out in practice!

  • FlabberBob,


    Can I just clarify and ask a few questions?


    from what i have read on this thread, i can use the usb for Midi and SPDif for audio and still use VC. is that correct?
    If so, How do i set this up in my DAW and VC. I use both Logic 9 and Cubase 6.


    System;
    iMac 27" Core i7
    Focusrite Saffire pro 24 dsp (has SPDIF in and out)
    Virus TI2


    Any help appreciated mate


    Chris

  • Update


    Sussed it out sending audio to SPDIF in cubase. seems to work a lot better from what I can see.


    Still doesnt let me use VC in 48KHZ mode though :cursing:

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von scientificharmony ()