5.0

244
Synchronization
Putting the network online
After each computer’s name you will see whether it is online
or not. When a computer is online, it will receive transport
and timecode signals, and its sequencer application can be
started and stopped by remote control. If it is off-line, it can
only be started from its own keyboard – it is effectively an
independent machine, although it is still on the network.
Ö Note that any computer can control any and all of the
others – VST System Link is a peer-to-peer network and
there is no absolute “master” computer.
However, most users do like to think of one machine as the master (in a
one person/two computer network, this would be the machine you actu-
ally sit behind most of the time).
For now, let’s put all computers online:
1. Activate the Online checkbox in the VST System Link
panel for all computers.
2. Check that the system is working by pressing Play on
one computer – all computers should start almost instantly
and play perfectly in time, with sample-accurate precision.
• The Offset setting allows you to adjust whether one ma-
chine will play back slightly ahead or behind the rest.
This is normally not needed, but occasionally with some hardware you
may find that the lock is a few samples out. In that case you can adjust
the lock with the Offset value. For now, leave it set to 0 – it will most likely
be what you want.
• The Transfer Bits setting allows you to specify whether
you want to transfer 24 or 16 bits. This allows you to use
older audio cards which do not support transfer of 24 bits.
VST System Link sends and understands all transport
commands, so you can play, stop, fast forward, rewind,
etc. the entire network from one computer without a prob-
lem – try it! If you jump to a locator point on one machine,
all other machines will also instantly jump to that locator
point. You can even scrub on one computer and have the
video and audio on another computer actually scrub right
along with you.
Using MIDI
As well as supplying transport and sync control, VST Sys-
tem Link also supplies up to 16 MIDI ports, each with 16
channels. You set this up as follows:
1. Use the MIDI Inputs and Outputs value boxes to spec-
ify the number of MIDI ports you need.
The default value is 0 MIDI In and 0 MIDI Out ports.
2. Create a MIDI track in the Project window and open
the Inspector (top section).
3. If you now pull down the Input or Output Routing pop-
up menu, you will find the specified System Link ports
added to the list of MIDI Inputs and Outputs.
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 246).
The “Use Selected 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 “Use Selected 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
!
Make sure that all computers have their tempos set
to the same value, otherwise your synchronization
will be seriously skewed.