Just an update...have just hooked up 5 MAc Mini's, Lots-o-Instances and everything is working great!

The one thing that I discovered that seemed to make the difference from an audio side is having DP installed on each computer. Even though I'm not using DP to host (I'm using Rax), I did set the "Core Audio" inputs and outputs via DP and that seemed to make all the difference in the world. I really don't have a specific reason for this but I just know that when I was initially experimenting with this system (before the Mini's arrived) I was using my MacBook. It happened to have DP5 on it and everything worked great. I then got the 1st Mini and the audio was extremely eratic. I then installed DP (merely to have a different playback engine) and immedialtely it asked to assign the outputs. Once that was done, I've never had another issue as far as latency, eratic audio etc.

I have no idea why this has made a difference. Maybe someone out there smarter than I can give me a reason. But hopefully this will help others that are trying to use WH2!

Ah, here's the thread. Well, I started a new one - sorry about that.

It's not working for me at all between two G5s. Half a second of latency.

@Nick Batzdorf said:

It's not working for me at all between two G5s. Half a second of latency.

I second that. Wormhole 2 gives me unacceptable latency - 3 Mac G5s, no intel Macs. Perhaps its an intel thing? And I really really wanted it to work (because after trying it endlessly I ended up buying two of M-Audio's new 4ADAT lightpipe boxes instead.)

Well, after a couple of weeks of battleing....I finally have to "raise the white flag" and call it a day. Wormhole2 does not work. I have not had a latencey issue but a "clicks and pops" issue when syncing up machines. I constanly had to "check and uncheck" the sync box on my host machine to what ever Mac Mini that lost "audio sync" to get it to stop "clicking and Popping".

I felt like I was so close!

I emailed Mark at Plasq and this was the reply:

"Hi there Rob,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you; I had to ask Adrian (the creator of WH)for some help on this one. This is what he had to say:

"I think this is not going to work, and I coded WH2.

Sync is a function that lock multiple channels together when they are transfered from machine A to machine B. It's like having one big multi-channel connection. However there is no way sync could keep channels on multiple machines locked.
As the machines couldn't know about sample positions on other machines.

Sync can only work if one machine/app is the sender and one machine/app the receiver.

If you use WH2 with that many machines, you'll get tons of network travel negotiating connections, and you won't be able to sustain a low latency connection.

The only way to deal with latency in such a scenario is to use loops and have all audio leave the main host. In that case there won't be sync and you'll probably have to run the loop with quite some latency to get things to work."

Hope this is helpful? Or at least makes more sense.

All the best,
Mark."

So there you have it....unfortunately this is not a viable solution anymore. Guess us Mac guys have to wait or FX-Teleport (which I got an email form Andy at FX in which he wrote: Hi Rob,

We really hope to ship it early next year. Be sure to sub to our news update
at www.fx-max.com (if you've not done so already [:)] ).

Best,

Andy).

So there you have it. But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Rob

Thanks Rob. I'd be happy if I could get it to work with one machine.

Mark responded to an email I sent him by saying I should lower the buffers in Wormhole, which I may or may not have done when I tried it. That's my next test when I get a chance.

Hey Nick,

What worked for me was setting the buffer on the host (G5) at 256 and the latency on the slave (Mac Mini) at 0. And believe it or not, no latency what so ever.

The thing that makes me wonder abour this program is that I had all 5 machines running at one time...no latency...it was just an issue of the pops and clicks after a moment or two.

So close, and yet so far a way! A real bummer! C'mon FX-Teleport!!! It can't be ready soon enough! But at least it sounds like they are right around the corner with it.

Hope this helps!

Well, as you say, it turns out that it does work pretty well on one slave machine if you set Wormhole's buffer to 0 on the sending machine and - realistically - about 600 samples on the receiving one (I was getting crackles at lower settings and lots of voices when I played a harp). That gets the latency down to a reasonable level - still noticeable compared to an audio interface but not out of the question.

I'm going to have to try it with four of them (for eight outputs) and see how that does. It's good to see that it might work with for one slave machine.

This test was with...dare I say EWQLSO Platinum Pro on the slave, which is the toughest test of all since it has all those release samples ringing and eating up voices.

So I have a few questions.

I am currently running Logic 6.4.3 (MOTU 240[H] to host my VIs and EX24s but after 5 string VIs and 4 woodwind VIs logic is out of juice.

I have a dual 2.5 G5 maxed out with 8 gigs of ram.

Can I run RAX along side of logic and squeeze out a few more instances of VI?

I was thinking of loading DP on this machine and using that as a host when I stumbled on this thread.

I use DP as my sequencer (MOTU 82[H] on my main mac and Logic as the slave

thanks

VI uses it's own ram pool, which is external to the sequencer it's running under. Once you reach about 3GB of samples, you can't load more on that computer (except if you use the Stand Alone trick, which has its own limitations).

If your problem is a CPU one, loading samples in another app won't change much either.

Jerome

well, the only limitation is that the player can't access individual outputs. I actually wonder whether Rax or Kore the problem. Can you run the Vienna Instruments plug-in simultaneously in two hosts on the same machine?

I'll try Kore later today when I get back in.

You know, I enjoy this silly stuff just a little bit too much...

so i decided to experiment.

i can in fact run Logic 6.4.3 with 5 VIs (violin 1, violin 2, violas, celli and basses)
and RAX handling 5 VIs (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and bass clarinet)

RAX doesn't give you an audio output option but it doesn't seem to affect my audio in Logic.

i'm trying different things but it does seem to help splitting things.

Logic would crash when i tried to load that last VI (bass clarinet)
now i can by using rax for the woodwinds

oh, i'm just using the RAX demo as i am trying to decide on whether it'll do what i am trying to do. it's looking very, very promising!! simplicity is nice.

The VST plug-in shows up in Kore when you launch it after loading the AU one in Logic (the AU one doesn't). Kore itself takes up about 20% CPU (which isn't really 20% since there are two processors) and about 62MB, but it seems to work fine. And it certainly solves the output problem.

So I was able to load Vienna Instruments plug-ins in Logic and Kore while running a stand-alone player too.

After having Kore re-scan all my plug-ins, both AU and VST plug-ins show up. You can run AU inside Logic, and AU and VST in Kore at the same time no problem.

...except it looks like there's only one VSL server running, so there goes the memory access benefit. I think, anyway - that's one more thing to investigate.

i'm still testing as well. i also downloaded the demo for Plogue Bidule. Is either RAX or Bidule any better than the other as far as simple hosting goes?
i had RAX up and running in about 3 minutes. Bidule is another story.

i just need a place to hold my VIs.

Rax:
good if you dont care about accessing multiple inputs
Easy UI

Ploque Bidule:
multiple, flexible and assignable outputs
takes a lil more to understand to setup things, but is very very easy once you figure it out



Nick and homebilly, remember that the VI plugin is actually running in the background even if you open it inside your DAW, and will always access the VSL server app for memory access, no matter how many instances you open in various hosts/squencers. Only exception to my knowledge is the standalone VI workaround (renaming copied instances).

Btw Nick, do you say that if you open up multiple VIs inside KORE you will be able to route the outputs of them to multiple channels, ie. having them streamed into Logic from the background?

in reality what i am researching is the future use of mac mini slaves and not havig to use logic. already i have found that using the VIs in RAX leaves me free of Logic until i need something that is not VI as in EXS.

what i can't figure out is if RAX is a pro app or not in terms of level. it seems that my VIs are coming out at a lower volume than the same VIs in Logic. could it be that it is wired for -10 and not +4 before it hits the hardware?

i'll mess with RAX again today taking a VI and playing a sequenced line from my DP mac and then playing it in Logic then RAX to see what the story is.

other than that i am digging RAX. Bidule is a bit of a chore to set up, a bit like Logic.......?, but i want to check it out. if anyone has a template for me to check out i'd love to see it. thanks

ron

Yes Vagn, that's what I thought in my last post: multiple hosts don't help access more memory (although they do make things easier to deal with in some ways).

The answer to the other question is yes - the host routes the player to its outputs. If you're using Soundflower as the audio interface, you have 16 outputs.

@rpmusic said:

So there you have it....unfortunately this is not a viable solution anymore. Guess us Mac guys have to wait or FX-Teleport (which I got an email form Andy at FX in which he wrote: Hi Rob,

We really hope to ship it early next year. Be sure to sub to our news update
at www.fx-max.com (if you've not done so already [:)] ).

Best,

Andy).

Rob

I really hope that FXT will actually be released for mac, but I'm not holding my breath as I received almost the exact same email from Andy last year and subsequent promises throughout this year that they were only a couple months away.
Unfortunately audio interfaces are the only viable solution so far.
Keep your fingers crossed though.

Thx Nick.

Homebilly: u are talking analog when it's actually digital. As long as it's inside the box, the signal will have 0 dBFS as the upper limit, and only when it hits an analog output will it get transformed to the analog specification of the output it's routed to.

So to make it simple, Rax should have no influence on signal level. The output you choose should be the factor determining the signal level, ie. routing it to the built in Mac output will conform the signal to -10dB consumer level.

what i am saying is that when i play the same VI flute in Logic and then in RAX. RAX is considerably softer in volume. they are both going out the same output.

on the RAX forum thread someone else has asked the same question and i have an email in to the plasq guys. the mystery will be solved soon.