smart mixing on a PC

hi guys,

im following bentosan's smart mixing tutorial and im running into some problems

this is my overall goal: syncing my friends laptop and traktor to my laptop and traktor so we can sync into a master clock on one of our computers.

a) im on a thinkpad and im using jackdmp as opposed to jackpilot and cant seem to get jackdmp to recognize my interface.

my questions are...

1) im using an edirol UA-25 audio interface and im not sure what choice i should make on my interface pulldown tab...the options are...plughw:0, hw:0, default, or dev/dsp

2) is there another jack routing interface for PC that is easier to understand than jackdmp?

3) am i freaking out to lunch on all of this?

thanks in advance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Screwtape

hi guys,
this is my overall goal: syncing my friends laptop and traktor to my laptop and traktor so we can sync into a master clock on one of our computers.

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Just so you know, that tutorial is using the one computer not two, its routing audio from Traktor into Ableton on the same pc - so the article isnt very compatible for trying to sync two copies of Traktor on two different pcs.

Sadly, Traktor cannot sync to a external clock, it can only send its own internal clock out to a program that can receive an external clock(like Ableton). So one of you would have to host the sync and the other person would have to manually sync their traktor by hand to the others :\

So you might as well just be feeding both of your computers audio into traditional 2 channel mixer :(

haha ok...thanks bentosan. that probably saved us hours of trouble shooting.

the other option would also be to just use one traktor...but we were finding that there was a tonne of focus deck changing...that was conflicting when one person was doing his thing and the other was trying to load his decks.

anyway thanks a tonne bento. we'll keep given'r.

Dont use focus then there are many ways around it, i dont use focus at all and i am only mixing with one person on traktor.

can you generate / sync to midi clock from Traktor

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Originally Posted by cmcpress

can you generate / sync to midi clock from Traktor

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You can only generate (send) midi clock. Traktor cannot receive midi clock.

bummer. But theoretically then you could use Traktor to send clock to Ableton?

(not a traktor user...)

Yups.. that's what the smart mixing articles are about on the blog. ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cmcpress

bummer. But theoretically then you could use Traktor to send clock to Ableton?

(not a traktor user...)

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Ya part of my smart mixing article was achieving that sync :)
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hey guys.

ive been trying now to do the smart mixing just as bentos guide suggest.

the only thing different is im using maple instead of midi-yoke cuz i am on a vista machine...and it seems to be working fine.

im following the guide to a tee...but i run into problems during:

a) when my ableton tries to access the side chain compressor in the folder...it causes ableton to crash...im not sure how crucial it is...so i removed the vst compressor from the folder...and restarted belvarios smart mixer and just let it go without the compressor and continue on the guide.

[is there something wrong with the compressor? or my ableton?]

b) following along i get to routing abletons input and outputs...and im stumped again. i set pretty much every input and output on and nothing comes out when i press play in traktor.

[is there another way of finding out which inputs and outputs VAC is using?]

can someone let me know what im doing wrong?

-clearly not smart enough

I am currently setting up a Vista PC myself. So will come back to you if the sidechain compressor VST is compatible with Vista or not.
(My prediction is not. ;) )

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Screwtape

hey guys.

ive been trying now to do the smart mixing just as bentos guide suggest.

the only thing different is im using maple instead of midi-yoke cuz i am on a vista machine...and it seems to be working fine.

im following the guide to a tee...but i run into problems during:

a) when my ableton tries to access the side chain compressor in the folder...it causes ableton to crash...im not sure how crucial it is...so i removed the vst compressor from the folder...and restarted belvarios smart mixer and just let it go without the compressor and continue on the guide.

[is there something wrong with the compressor? or my ableton?]

b) following along i get to routing abletons input and outputs...and im stumped again. i set pretty much every input and output on and nothing comes out when i press play in traktor.

[is there another way of finding out which inputs and outputs VAC is using?]

can someone let me know what im doing wrong?

-clearly not smart enough

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a) I could have sworn i tested it on both XP and Vista, the side chain compressor is crucial to the smartmixing template but not crucial to the audio routing. Just load up a empty file and route the audio like shown in the tutorial if you don't want to use the smart-mixer.

b) Read and go though the sections of the tutorial that go though audio routing - other people have managed to get this working.

ok sweet...i finally got sound to come out of my system... its by no means perfect -- its got cracks...latency and sometimes even reverb/delay...but i got sound!!

it might be useful to some...that if the configurations are correct ableton will highlight the inputs in orange in the midi sync panel in 'preferences' .. yesterday mine weren't orange.

also i tried the side chain compressor on a different version of ableton and it still crashed. so i dunno whats up there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Screwtape

ok sweet...i finally got sound to come out of my system... its by no means perfect -- its got cracks...latency and sometimes even reverb/delay...but i got sound!!

it might be useful to some...that if the configurations are correct ableton will highlight the inputs in orange in the midi sync panel in 'preferences' .. yesterday mine weren't orange.

also i tried the side chain compressor on a different version of ableton and it still crashed. so i dunno whats up there.

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It took me a while playing with the latency settings to get my setup stable, i can tell you it was a pain in the butt. Try running your soundcard in hardware buffer mode, i found that made the audio stable on my setup. When i got my smartcard firewire card though i couldnt overcome the hissing and cracking, which is rather odd. So ive personally changed over to JackDmp for windows, its not as easy to setup but its working for me, if you cant get VAC running stable your only option might be Jackdmp and if you thought VAC was a pain in the butt to setup Audio jack is more of a pain in the butt !

Congrats on getting this working too :)

you can say that again... huge-er pain in the butt... i dunno why its not simpler... right now there is really only 2 settings im playing with... the Asio buffer and the Hardware Buffer offset. (latency compensation set at 0)

and im finding that the higher my asio buffer the higher my hardware buffer has to be so that it runs without jogging and cracking... and because of that my latency is avg. 50 ms when its finally piping out of ableton.

is this a soundcard problem (im using a M-Audio Fast Track Pro) or is it a problem with the 3rd party connection softwares? when you guys say you get latency down to under 5ms...is that in traktor or the combined latency in ableton?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Screwtape

you can say that again... huge-er pain in the butt... i dunno why its not simpler... right now there is really only 2 settings im playing with... the Asio buffer and the Hardware Buffer offset. (latency compensation set at 0)

and im finding that the higher my asio buffer the higher my hardware buffer has to be so that it runs without jogging and cracking... and because of that my latency is avg. 50 ms when its finally piping out of ableton.

is this a soundcard problem (im using a M-Audio Fast Track Pro) or is it a problem with the 3rd party connection softwares? when you guys say you get latency down to under 5ms...is that in traktor or the combined latency in ableton?

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Yup thats the combined latency, keep tweaking the settings to work out whats best for you i cant really offer much advice on this i have only ran it on a couple systems that both needed rather different settings - i found it best having Traktors and Ableton asio4all windows open at the same time side by side to work out what worked :)

If all else fails use JackDmp which is working for me really well :)