User manual

436
Synchronization
This allows you to route MIDI tracks to VST instruments
running on another computer, as described in the applica-
tion examples (see “Using one computer for VST instru-
ments” on page 437).
The “Active ASIO Ports for Data only” setting
If you are sending huge amounts of MIDI data at once,
there is a small possibility that you might run out of band-
width on your VST System Link network. This will manifest
itself by notes “choking” or timing becoming erratic.
If this happens, you can devote more bandwidth to MIDI
by activating “Active ASIO Ports for Data only” in the VST
System Link Setup panel. When this is activated, the VST
System Link information will be sent on the entire channel
instead of just one bit, more than enough for all the MIDI
you could ever hope to use. The downside is that you can
no longer use this ASIO channel for audio transfer (do not
connect it to a speaker!), thus leaving you only 7 channels
of audio in our ADAT cable example. Depending on how
you work this might be a reasonable compromise.
Hearing the network audio
If you are using an external mixing desk, hearing your audio
really isn't an issue – just plug the outputs of each com-
puter into the desired channels on the external mixing
desk, press Play on one of the computers, and you're
good to go.
However, many people prefer to mix internally inside the
computer and just use a desk for monitoring (or maybe not
use any external mixer at all). In this case you'll need to se-
lect one computer to be your “main mix computer” and
send the audio from your other computers into this.
In the following example, we assume you are using two
computers, with computer 1 as your main mix computer
and computer 2 running two additional stereo audio
tracks, an FX channel track with a reverb plug-in and a
VST instrument plug-in with stereo outputs.
1. First you want to set things up so that you can listen to
the audio playback from computer 1.
In other words, you need an unused set of outputs, e.g. an analog stereo
output, connected to your monitoring equipment.
2. Go to computer 2 and route each of the two audio
tracks to a separate output bus.
These should be busses connected to the digital outputs – let’s call
them Bus 1 and 2.
3. Route the FX channel track to another VST System
Link bus (Bus 3).
4. Route the VST instrument channel to yet another bus
(Bus 4).
5. Go back to computer 1 and check the corresponding
four VST System Link input busses.
If you start playback on computer 2, the audio should “appear” on the in-
put busses on computer 1. However, to mix these audio sources you
need actual mixer channels:
6. Add four new stereo audio tracks on computer 1 and
route these to the output bus you use for listening, e.g. to
the analog stereo outputs.
7. For each of the audio tracks, select one of the four in-
put busses.
Now, each computer 2 bus is routed to a separate audio channel on
computer 1.
8. Activate monitoring for the four tracks.
If you now start playback, the audio from computer 2 will
be sent “live” to the new tracks on computer 1, allowing
you to hear them together with any tracks you play back
on computer 1.
For more information about Monitoring, see “About moni-
toring” on page 20.
Adding more tracks
OK, but if you have more audio tracks than you have VST
System Link busses (physical outputs)? Then you just use
the computer 2 mixer as a submixer: Route several audio
channels to the same output bus and adjust the output
bus level if needed.
Note also that if your audio cards have multiple sets of in-
put and output connections you can link up e.g. multiple
ADAT cables and send audio via any of the busses on any
of the cables.
Internal mixing and latency
One problem with mixing inside the computer is the la-
tency issue we mentioned earlier. The VST engine always
compensates for record latencies, but if you are monitor-
ing through computer 1 you will hear a processing delay
while you listen to signals coming from your other comput-
ers (not on your recording!). If your audio card in computer
1 supports ASIO Direct Monitoring you should definitely
turn this on – you'll find the setting in the VST Audio Sys-