LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

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sbenno
Developer
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Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:30 pm

Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by sbenno » Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:34 pm

Hi moonskin, thanks for the infos.

Way cool that ReaRoute can link LS and Reaper ! :)

We will put it into the Windows HOWTO at least people do have a temporary solution until VST will appear :)
I still run out of notes at time when playing big chords with a large number of stops but generally it's not a problem.
What kind of hardware do you use ? (CPU, RAM, HD RPM (5400,7200 etc) ?
it could be that the limit is given by your hardware, usually LS on Windows is quite efficient, under high polyphony load
I had less dropouts and clicks than using NI Kontakt.
My tests usually consist in playing classical piano midi pieces which use lots of sustain and therefore often push the polyphony to
the limits. my 2GHz dualcore intel laptop usually can deliver 200 voices without too much trouble, the disk is only 5400rpm so
it is a limiting factor.


BTW having not Reaper handy at the moment could you please briefly enumerate the steps that an user needs to
perform in order to route LS audio outs into Reaper via ReaRoute ?
eg .. start reaper, start LS, change these settings etc .. (which version of reaper you used etc)
I'll put your name in the HOWTO credits (if you are not against :) )

thanks in advance
Benno

bartonbrass
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Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by bartonbrass » Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:11 am

I tried a while back to use Rearout and had no luck. After reading these posts I tried again, no luck. I just had a thought my devices must not support asio. ) : I can run Asio4all , but I guess that was a workaround for devices that don't support asio. Oh well

I tried to get linux & MidiTzer running on my 1gig flash drive, I had MidiTzer listed under Wine but it wouldnt load, going to try again.

what would be the best version of Linux to use? I still doubt if I can figure out how to compile all this stuff lol.



Thanks

Jake

moonskin
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Posts: 35
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:33 am

Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by moonskin » Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:36 am

bartonbrass wrote:I tried a while back to use Rearout and had no luck. After reading these posts I tried again, no luck. I just had a thought my devices must not support asio. ) : I can run Asio4all , but I guess that was a workaround for devices that don't support asio. Oh well

I tried to get linux & MidiTzer running on my 1gig flash drive, I had MidiTzer listed under Wine but it wouldnt load, going to try again.

what would be the best version of Linux to use? I still doubt if I can figure out how to compile all this stuff lol.
I had to uninstall ASIO4ALL for LS to even see the ReaRoute ASIO driver. Try that and see how it goes. The only ASIO support needed is already in LS to let it talk to ReaRoute. Reaper's output goes to your normal soundcard driver - that of course will affect latency.

There are others who could best advise you about a Linux version. I have played with Puppy Linux and that is a lot of fun. I've also tried Ubuntu Studio and that was very easy to use and has lots of stuff already installed. But I don't really know whether it was any good or not.

Cheers
Graham

moonskin
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Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by moonskin » Fri Apr 04, 2008 11:42 am

sbenno wrote: What kind of hardware do you use ? (CPU, RAM, HD RPM (5400,7200 etc) ?
it could be that the limit is given by your hardware, usually LS on Windows is quite efficient, under high polyphony load
I had less dropouts and clicks than using NI Kontakt.
My tests usually consist in playing classical piano midi pieces which use lots of sustain and therefore often push the polyphony to
the limits. my 2GHz dualcore intel laptop usually can deliver 200 voices without too much trouble, the disk is only 5400rpm so
it is a limiting factor.


BTW having not Reaper handy at the moment could you please briefly enumerate the steps that an user needs to
perform in order to route LS audio outs into Reaper via ReaRoute ?
eg .. start reaper, start LS, change these settings etc .. (which version of reaper you used etc)
I'll put your name in the HOWTO credits (if you are not against :) )
The hardware is definitely limiting. This machine is a spare for experimenting. That's why I'm not too worried at this stage.

Its quite a reasonable Asus MB with a P4 3.4 GHz CPU and 1Gb RAM. The hard drive is an old 10G IDE I had lying around so that is definitely a problem. I'll put a decent SATA drive in when I can afford it. It's running XP Pro SP2. Soundcard is a cheap CMI using Dogbert's WDM drivers rather than the manufacturers.

I know the hardware is near useless in this configuration for anything serious. The LS window gives me lots of "Max voice thefts per audio fragment reached".

I'll try and describe what I did to get it going. If you can use it somehow then go right ahead. I'm happy to add to the sum total of knowledge in however small a way.

1. Install Reaper (I'm using 2.148). Make sure that when you are asked what components to install you open Additional Items and tick ReaRoute ASIO driver. It is not installed by default.

2. Start Reaper and go to Options -> Preferences -> Audio -> Devices and set it up to use your soundcard drivers (Mine are WDM drivers but you might have something else.)

3. Add a track and record arm it (R button). Also turn on record monitoring for that track with the button with the speaker on it.

4. Right-click the level meter/input name area on the bottom half of the track panel and you will be able to select the inputs for the track. ReaRoute has 16 tracks available which can be used in pairs for stereo input. Choose the input channels you want to use for the track. (Note that Reaper numbers the tracks 1 - 16 while LS numbers 0 - 15. You'll need this info to match tracks in the sampler output to ReaRoute inputs.)

5. Start LinuxSampler then your preferred front end. (I use Jsampler) NOTE: Reaper must be open first for the ReaRoute drivers to be available.

6. Setup your MIDI inputs as normal.

7. Create an ASIO audio output and you should see the ReaRoute drivers available as the soundcard. ReaRoute looks to LS like a 16 channel soundcard.

8. Create a new sampler channel and load an instrument.

9. Check that the channel routing is correct according to what you set previously in Reaper's track (remembering the numbering). I used LS channels 0 and 1 which correspond to ReaRoute 1 and 2 in Reaper.

Now you should be good to go.

You can add more channels/instruments and send them to the same tracks or add more tracks in Reaper (the same way as above, selecting different ReaRoute inputs) to send your instruments to different tracks.

Each track in Reaper can have its own FX (VST and/or DX) and so can the master.

If you want to use FX sends in LinuxSampler, they can be routed to any tracks you have set up in Reaper.

(I use the FX sends on their own because my virtual organ sends expression information via MIDI 11. This is the MIDI controller I chose in the FX sends and then route that to the Reaper channels rather than sending the main outputs.)

(An additional note to any Miditzer users who may read this. Once setup, you need MidiYoke or similar to get the outputs from Miditzer and into LS. Once you have done this, Open the Miditzer Settings and choose appropriate outputs. I had to close the Settings dialogue to save those settings, then open and close the Settings once more. Miditzer then sends a bunch of MIDI commands that seems to connect all the appropriate MIDI channels properly. Once you have done this, from then on whenever you start Miditzer just open and close the Settings and it will reconnect. You must also make sure that the instruments you set up in LS are on the correct MIDI channel for the rank.)

Hope this helps in some way. Feel free to edit anything you want to use.

Cheers
Graham

bartonbrass
Newbie
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:54 am

Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by bartonbrass » Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:53 pm

Yea I uninstalled Asio4all before trying, Linuxsampler said I had no audio decices.

moonskin
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Posts: 35
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:33 am

Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by moonskin » Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:15 am

Did you have Reaper up and running with a track set to use ReaRoute as input before you started LS? That must be done or the ReaRoute driver does not exist. Try a fresh start by rebooting and set Reaper up first.

Cheers
Graham

sbenno
Developer
Posts: 80
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:30 pm

Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by sbenno » Mon Apr 07, 2008 5:06 pm

Thanks Graham for the useful infos !
will link this posting from the LS Windows HOWTO so other users can chime in in case they have questions or something to add.

bartonbrass
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Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 3:54 am

Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by bartonbrass » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:33 am

I inserted a new track, I clicked on the meters and went to Stereo input. I clicked on Rearoute 1 and 2, I then minimised Reaper, then loaded LS, it shows registered audio output driver asio. I load fantasia and it says can't find any card.

moonskin
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Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:33 am

Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by moonskin » Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:06 pm

bartonbrass wrote:I inserted a new track, I clicked on the meters and went to Stereo input. I clicked on Rearoute 1 and 2, I then minimised Reaper, then loaded LS, it shows registered audio output driver asio. I load fantasia and it says can't find any card.
I just reinstalled my OS today to clean it up. I then reloaded everything and had EXACTLY the same problem. We're talking exactly the same hardware. Same OS and same apps. Even installed in exactly the same order.

I couldn't work out what was going on. Grabbed another freeware app and it couldn't see ReaRoute either.

I uninstalled/reinstalled Reaper several times but no joy.

Finally I uninstalled Reaper and removed its folder left behind in program files along with some other stuff left in it.

Then restarted.

Immediately installed Reaper with ReaRoute again and when it offered to run immediately following the install, I said yes this time - and then I had a ReaRoute ASIO sound card.

So I'd suggest trying the same thing, uninstall and dump everything, restart and reinstall, run immediately and see what you get.

Maybe get down on your knees while you do it. :ugeek:

Cheers
Graham

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dahnielson
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Re: LS Windows, polyphony and virtual organs

Post by dahnielson » Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:06 pm

bartonbrass wrote:I inserted a new track, I clicked on the meters and went to Stereo input. I clicked on Rearoute 1 and 2, I then minimised Reaper, then loaded LS, it shows registered audio output driver asio. I load fantasia and it says can't find any card.
You need to create an audio device (as well as MIDI device) using the device panel in Fantasia. (Unless that's what you try to do already, the excuse my ignorance. :D )
Anders Dahnielson

Ardour2, Qtractor, Linuxsampler, M-AUDIO Delta 1010, Axiom 61, Korg D12, AKAI S2000, E-MU Proteus 2k, Roland R-5, Roland HP 1300e, Zoom RFX-1000, 4GB RAM x86_64 Intel Pentium Dual 1.80GHz Gentoo Linux

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