VI's, Mac Minis, Rax,Wormhole2 & MidiOverLan..it works!

[rpmusic]

For anyone interested, I'm in the midst of replacing all of my Gigastudio PC's with Mac Minis. I decided since FX-Teleport wasn't available for Mac yet I would use an alternative. My VI set-up is as follows:

•VI Extended

•Mac G5 2Gig Dual Processor (PPC) w/Digital Performer

•4 Mac Minis w/2 Gigs of RAM (presently just 1 installed)

•Rax Software by Plasq ( http://plasq.com/ ) host on the Minis

•Wormhole2 (network audio routing) by Plasq

•MidiOverLan ( http://www.musiclab.com/ ) Network midi routing

•Gigabit switch for netwoking all of the computers together


I currently still have all of the Gigastudios up and running becayse of writing schedule but tonight I inserted the first Mac Mini (Strings) into the mix. Rax, Wormhole and MidiOveLan all performed beautifully!!!

I have 3 additional Minis arriving on Tuesday so by Friday I plan to have all PC's replaced and all sound cards, midi interfaces, cables, etc. GONE!

The Rax Interface is very straight forward and opening up an instance is pretty straight forward. All controls are very accessable (assigning MIDI channels etc)

Wormhole2 is very very easy to use...I just inserted it into an audiotrack in DP and presto (well, almost presto), I have audio from a slave Mini. You have to play around with the buffer to adjust latency but once you have done that there is no decernable latency at all.

MidiOverLan took me a bit to get my "hands around" as the pdf manule was definitely NOT written by a musician! [:D] But once you understand the concept of a virtual midi "rack" it makes sense and is very easy to connect everything.

All to say, this set-up is so far working! It looks like the 4 Mini's will serve well as VI "farms" and hopefully once they are all hooked up it'll work as well as it is right now...

I'll keep ypu posted next week!

[Jerome]

Hey Rob,

how did you setup your slave's samples? ie. how do you switch between articulations or samples from within Digital Performer? Are you using keyswitches, or something else?

Jerome

[rpmusic]

Hey Jerome
That's still an unknown at this point. Obviously, one library per computer is my only option, but I'll see if I can get all the "instances" I need on each computer. I guess transfering licenses to get the maximum amount of sounds per computer will have to be an ongoing experiment. Meaning. maybe putting "Strings II" on with with "Percussion" and "Harps" since they don't require as much space in RAM...

My other option is to keep one Gigastudio available for smaller articulations that I might need if I run out of space on a Mini.Not an ideal solution but hey, gotta make it work no matter what it takes right.

I did start to load up a few string instances last night and it seemed that I might get a fair number to create a flexible ensemble with a lot of articulations and legato performances. So, that was encouraging.

I'm talking out loud here just necause I really don't know how it'll all play out yet. But once again, I'll keep ypu posted!

[timkiel]

Hey Rob

I'd be interested in how much latency you're getting with wormhole as I had heard it was pretty high and not suitable for live use. If this is not the case let me know!

Cheers

Tim

[rpmusic]

Hey Tim

I have no latency issues at all...and honestly it's performing beyond my expectations (so far...)

I've just loaded this in:

Channel 1:
VI-Perf-Universal (KeySwitch B0)
VI-Perf-Legato-All (KeySwitch A0)

Channel 2:
VI-14 Articulation Combi

Channel 3:
VA-Perf-Universal (KeySwitch B0)
VA-Perf-Legato-All (KeySwitch A0)

Channel 4:
VA-14 Articulation Combi

Channel 5:
VC-Perf-Universal (KeySwitch B0)
VC-Perf-Legato-All (KeySwitch A0)

Channel 6:
VC-14 Articulation Combi

Channel 7:
DB-14 Articulation Combi

Everything loaded fine...I seem to initially have all articulations, which is actually better that what I'm presently using! Go figure!

And once again, no latency issues...I set the buffer setting on the G5 at "450" and everything is good. I keep looking for the "kink in the armor", but so far so good!

[Jerome]

So, will you be using one track per articulation in DP?

Jerome

[rpmusic]

Yes...but this is a HUGE improvement over the myriad of channels (or tracks) that I'm currwntly using! This is basically 7 tracks.

I'm really interested to see how much more I can load before I run out of room. I still need chromatic runs and such, so we'll see.

[Jerome]

Oh, sorry I didn't notice you were loading the "Articulation Combi". So you're basically switching samples with keyswitches, speed, etc, right?

Jerome

[rpmusic]

Yup...right now that seems the way to do it. I'm sure that once I completely switch over I'll discover other possible ways of setting this up to maximize the headroom..

[Nick Batzdorf]

Why is Wormhole not giving you latency?

It's supposed to, because it was giving me totally unusable latency when I tried it. [:)]

MIDI Over LAN has always worked, but I'm confused why Wormhoie was such a failure for me.

Okay, I'm going to try again...

[rpmusic]

Not sure Nick? BTW, since Wormhole didn't work for you, what did you end up using?

I'm sure that once FX-Teleport is available I'll switch over, but in the mean time...

[Nick Batzdorf]

I'm using audio interfaces on all my machines.

[magnumpraw]

rp, have you given it an extensive work session test or just an initial set up and hit some notes test? Reason I ask is that I tried to use wormhole as well once and had everything working fine, but as I actually worked for 4-5 writing, the latency would slowly increase??!! I'd have to restart DP to get it back to normal and then the same thing would happen again. I'd also get random dropouts.

Let me know if you've been using it for hours at a time and are still stable.

[Nick Batzdorf]

That problem should go away if you clock the two machines together just like you do when you're using audio interfaces - which is easier said than done with multiple machines that don't have audio interfaces.

[magnumpraw]

umm... how is that accomplished with wormhole?

[dpcon]

Nick, do you know how people are clocking multiple machines with no interfaces as in Jerome's now famous 8 mac mini's?

[Jerome]

dp---

in the Mac Mini's situation, clocking is done throught the s/pdif input.

Jerome

[Nick Batzdorf]

To explain further: at one point I was able to get AUNetsend/Receive to work, but the two machines kept drifting just as magnumpraw described. Max from FX-T explained that I needed to clock the two machines together digitally in order to avoid the problem. He was right, and it solved the problem nicely. Unfortunately it didn't solve the unusable latency problem.

Now, that doesn't mean FX-Teleport needs a separate sync connection - it locks to the ethernet port, as any audio-over-ethernet program absolutely should. I'm biting my tongue to avoid going farther and saying that it's absolutely retarded if it doesn't, because it would be very rude to say something like that and I'm always politically correct.

But if that's what's going on in magnumpraw's system, that's the solution - and of course unless both machines are Macs with built-in optical ports, it's no solution. If you have to add an audio interface to get a digital input...

[magnumpraw]

yeah, that's what I wondering. I didn't know of anyway to clock the computers without an interface and if you've got an interface, what's the point of the Audio over LAN?

[dpcon]

@Jerome said:

dp---

in the Mac Mini's situation, clocking is done throught the s/pdif input.

Jerome,

If I come from a mini into my spdif in my MOTU 308 (which is clocked to my master) then the spdif automatically clocks to the 308: I take it this is what you're saying.

Nick,

You are saying that clocking is (or should be) automatic when coming over LAN but latency is still a show-stopper?