Topic: Cheesy Beans?

Cool Beans

Last edited by Raphalation (30-01-2018 16:09)

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Short answer is yes, you can use an audio interface and have it dedicated to pianoteq, and use the onboard sound for Chrome or other apps.

That's how mine is set up more or less.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Yes, I know exactly what you mean, and my USB audio interface DOES allow ASIO and normal Windows applications to work simultaneously, and it is a very useful feature.  The internal audio interface, for which I use the ASIO4ALL driver, does NOT allow this.  I don't know how common it is for external audio interfaces to provide this functionality - best to ask the manufacturer before making the purchase, or make sure you are able to return it if it doesn't work etc.

Not sure how Macs & Linux behave in this regard.

Greg.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

skip wrote:

Not sure how Macs & Linux behave in this regard.

Very easy in Linux for multiple sound sources using the built-in audio of the computer motherboard, or a PCI audio card or external audio interface, using either PulseAudio, Jack or ALSA, all very common or included with virtually every Linux distribution.

Last edited by Stephen_Doonan (27-09-2017 23:41)
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Linux, Pianoteq Pro, Organteq

Re: Cheesy Beans?

If you need to use ASIO4ALL with the amp+DAC, I suspect it would not work. I remember FiiO having their own ASIO driver - not sure whether it's still available, but maybe that would work, but best to ask.  And if you do decide on a Scarlett, still best to ask them first. FYI, I'm using the M-Audio Fast Track Ultra, but it's out of production.

Greg.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Raphalation wrote:

So basically if it has its own ASIO driver then you're good?

No, that's not what I meant, exactly. If it has it's own ASIO driver, there is more chance that it will work, but to be sure, I'd ask the manufacturer.

Greg.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Raphalation wrote:

Right I see! Thank you very much for explaining.

Lastly, would there be much difference between getting an audio interface such as the Focusrite Scarlett vs an ordinary amp/dac?

Thanks again.

You're welcome.  Sound wise, probably no difference, unless one was of a substantial difference in quality than the other.  Probably best to get something that is designed primarily for performing musicians though, due to the latency issue. I.e - we want something that has been thoroughly tested with real time audio.

Greg.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Raphalation wrote:

I would like to be able to listen to audio from other sources (i.e. from Chrome, media players) at the same time as using Pianoteq. At the moment once Pianoteq is open no other sounds can play until I close the application and restarting said sources.

The only way I found to get around this was to use virtual audio cable and set ASIO4ALL to play through that instead of the default Realtek high definition audio, however, this caused latency so isn't an option.

Would using a sound card solve the solution? Even having to alternate having the headphones being plugged into the sound card vs inbuilt would be an improvement as it would save me having to restart the applications all the time.

Thanks for any help, this is a really annoying issue!

Raphalation

Hi Raphalation,
If I understood it correctly, you can get this using flstudio ásio codec.

To do it you can install the demo version and in pianoteq choose FL studio asio.

I think it will serve your pourpose .

Hope it helps

Re: Cheesy Beans?

According to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicM...r_program/ the FLStudio ASIO driver is a bridge to the Windows WASAPI driver in shared mode. If that's correct, I can't see how it could be any better than just selecting the Windows Audio driver in Pianoteq, because it's my understanding that "Windows Audio" is in fact the WASAPI driver in shared mode.  I find that using the shared mode isn't TOO bad, but it has more latency than the exclusive mode, which is labelled "Windows Audio (Exclusive Mode)" in Pianoteq. As an aside, it's good that Pianoteq supports WASAPI, because it obviates the need for ASIO4ALL.

Greg.

Last edited by skip (28-09-2017 03:38)

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Getting a proper audio interface over amp+DAC will usually yield in much better performance of ASIO drivers. So yes, it is usually more expensive, but also usually totally worth it

Hard work and guts!

Re: Cheesy Beans?

I'm normally a Linux user, but I just tried Pianoteq 6 under Windows 7 Pro (which I can dual boot to).  How do you guys stick this Windows thing ? :-)

Latency using so called DirectSound was not worthy of the word and was more like the delay at landing at a busy airport - it was seconds long !

I tried WindowsAudio and that was better but still awful.

Naturally I tried ASIO4ALL and that put me back in Linux territory.

All of this with the in-built sound system on the PC (which is beefy Xeon, so not a processing power issue).  Windows is just an awful OS  for this purpose.  No wonder people started using Macs for audio work !

One weirdness is that Pianoteq windows reports a Performance index of 90, whereas Linux reports 65.  But both happily run at 256 polyphony and there's no obvious difference to my (untrained) ear.

But geez, that Windows sound system sucks.  I wouldn't waste money on an audio card for it.  Get an OS better suited to audio and start from there.

StephenG

Re: Cheesy Beans?

sjgcit: did you try the exclusive mode of Windows Audio? I find that mode works just as well as ASIO4ALL, and fine for playing - I don't need it to be any better. Hey wait a minute - WASAPI was introduced in Windows 8.

Greg.

Last edited by skip (28-09-2017 10:41)

Re: Cheesy Beans?

I didn't try the Exclusive mode for WindowsAudio, but then I don 't see the point of that.  The whole point of linux audio is that it mixes fine with whatever I need it to - i.e. it's works with Pianoteq and other applications simultaneously.  DirectSound and WindowsAudio should do that, but don't (well, they do it incredibly badly).

If I'm going to loose the "shared" part I may as well use something I can trust (which is not WindowsAudio or indeed Windows-anything !) and is designed for purpose, which is ASIO4ALL.

And ASIO4ALL is free, so why not use it ?

StephenG

Re: Cheesy Beans?

You don't have the exclusive mode on Windows 7 I don't think. WASAPI was introduced precisely to do what ASIO does (amongst other things). It's "free" too - it's part of Windows! (as of Windows 8)

I agree that the shared thing is a bit of a nuisance.

Greg.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Correction:yes, it seems WASAPI is in Win7 afterall - sorry.

It doesn't solve the shared thing but does avoid the need for ASIO4ALL.

Greg.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

WASAPI does have shared mode even in W7. I had no problems using WASAPI in Pianoteq and playing Youtube at the same time on my W7 laptop... with built-in Realtek audio...

Hard work and guts!

Re: Cheesy Beans?

EvilDragon: is your latency good enough in shared mode for serious playing? It's not on my system - only exclusive mode is good enough.

Greg.

Re: Cheesy Beans?

It was ages ago that I used W7, but I played just fine via WASAPI, even though buffer wasn't 128 but 256. I didn't do any mad Liszt or Chopin, though, for that you really need the lowest latency possible, of course.

Hard work and guts!

Re: Cheesy Beans?

EvilDragon wrote:

I didn't do any mad Liszt or Chopin, though, for that you really need the lowest latency possible, of course.

well, not too low i think...
i run at 12ms w 1152 samples @ 96000Hz.
if i recall correctly, the average concert grand action has about 11ms physical latency, so this much works well for me.
tangentially, what sort of options do folks like for boosting sampling vs latency?  does more cpu heft weigh-in here, or is it more about the DAC and associated drivers?

Matthieu 7:6

Re: Cheesy Beans?

Well the same buffer size at higher sample rate will produce lower latency. A 512 samples buffer is twice as fast at 96k vs 48k, naturally.

In general I run everything at 48k (at buffer size of 128 with my new RME UFX+, which I am extremely happy with) because a lot of other plugins I use would just be too CPU hungry at 96k (Diva, Omnisphere...). Plus I honestly don't hear much of a difference personally.


Also note that what the ASIO driver (or your DAW) displays as latency isn't the whole figure. That is just latency to process one audio buffer and output it. What's not calculated in that number is DAC latency (time to convert digital signal to analog), your MIDI controller input latency, and latency of whatever protocol your audio interface is using (USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, with TB obviously being the best as it's talking almost directly to the CPU via PCIe).

Last edited by EvilDragon (28-09-2017 15:52)
Hard work and guts!