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Synchronization
• If your audio hardware has a mixer application allowing
you to adjust the levels of digital inputs and outputs, make
sure that this mixer is disabled or that the levels for the
VST System Link channels are set to ±0
dB.
• Similarly, make sure no other forms of DSP (pan, effects,
etc.) are applied to the VST System Link signal.
Notes for Hammerfall DSP users
If you are using RME Audio Hammerfall DSP audio hard-
ware, the Totalmix function allows for extremely complex
signal routing and mixing in the audio hardware. This can
in some situations lead to “signal loops” in which case the
VST System Link will not work. If you want to make abso
-
lutely sure this will not cause any problems, select the de-
fault or “plain” preset for the Totalmix function.
Activating VST System Link
Before you proceed, you need to make sure that VST Sys-
tem Link is set as the timecode source in the Project Syn-
chronization Setup dialog and that the desired Sync
options are activated, see
“Timecode Preferences” on
page 307.
After setting up the inputs and outputs, you now need to
define which input/output will carry the actual VST System
Link information.
The VST System Link networking signal is carried on only
one bit of one channel. This means that if you have an
ADAT-based system which normally carries eight channels
of 24-bit audio, once you activate VST System Link you will
have seven channels of 24-bit audio and one channel of
23-bit audio (the least significant bit of this last channel will
be used for networking). In practice this makes no discern
-
ible difference to the audio quality, since you will still have
around 138
dB headroom on this channel.
To set things up, open the VST System Link panel:
1. From the Devices menu, open the Device Setup dialog.
2. In the Devices list to the left, select the “VST System
Link” entry.
The VST System Link settings are shown to the right of the Devices list.
3. Use the ASIO Input and ASIO Output pop-up menus
to define which channel is the networking channel.
4. Activate the Active checkbox at the top left of the panel.
5. Repeat the steps above for every computer in the net-
work.
As the computers are made active, you should see the
Sending and Receiving indicators flashing on each active
computer, and the name of each computer should appear
in the list at the bottom of the pane. Each computer is as
-
signed a random number – do not worry about this, it is
just so the network knows internally which one is which.
• You can double-click on the name in bold (which is the
name of the computer you are currently working on) and
set it to whatever other name you wish.
This name will appear in the VST System Link window of every computer
on the network.
Ö If you do not see the name of each computer appear-
ing once you have made it active, you need to check your
settings. Go through the procedure above again and
make sure that all ASIO cards are listening to the digital
clock signals correctly, and that each computer has the
correct inputs and outputs assigned to the VST System
Link network.
Receiving and Sending
indicators