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Have you researched the use of “cURL”. There are a couple of examples Here
Leif simply doesn’t recommend VM and, if problems occur that can be traced to a VM environment, he will not attempt to fix them. However, there is nothing to stop you from trying BA1 in a VM. If it is successful, perhaps you can share your experiences?
In the menu group installed in BA1, there is a shortcut to the VAC control panel. If you can open that, and SEE the installed cables, there’s definitely nothing wrong with BA1. Breakaway reads the registry to compile a list of inputs, so you might be able to search the registry via REGEDIT and find the relevant entries. It won’t solve your problem, but it might give you some evidence to bounce back to Radio Boss.
I’m purposely staying out of this discussion, because you seem to have your own “self-help” group going, which is a good thing. My advice is not to diversify into other areas until you get one stream working exactly as you want.
The whole point of VSTs is that they should all have their own functionality. It is not up to BA1 to provide overrides if they do not exist within the embedded program. Take that issue up with the developer of the VST.
There is a specific reason why Leif uses 32 bit VSTs. This is because they run in their own thread, and, if they crash, it doesn’t take BA1 with it. Stability is super important in unmanned radio environments. I believe that Mr Klorox mentioned the name of the 32 bit VST you need in an earlier post.
You can enable/disable VST in BA1, either by pressing the “button” or sending the web interface a cURL command in a batch file.
If you point all of your sources to the same VAC, they will all work with the one core. Alternatively, you would need separate cores for each source.
Useful information, WilleHelm.
However, so much of this is affected environmentally, and even by your PC specifications, so it is always a “balancing act”. I’d like to write the perfect “Tuning Tool”, which would take Performance Specification (CPU/RAM/HDD/Cache/Sound Card etc) into account and display the exact buffer sizes to use.For now, we just have to fine tune as best we can.
As you have discovered, a bit of tweaking can make a difference to the jitter. However, the trade-off is latency. More buffers equals more time taken to fill them. If you are playing music videos through BAE, you may notice that the lip synch is off compared to the audio. If that isn’t an issue with you go with the lowest jitter. If you can’t adjust anything to get the lip synch back, you may have to sacrifice a bit of jitter for smaller buffers. So long as you don’t hear any dropped frames or artefacts, it should be fine.
A lot of music is recorded in the studio with higher bit depths of 24 or 32 bit, but typical audio devices only play back using 16 bit depth. The “Red Book” standard for CD quality/WAV files is 44.1 kHz/16 bit.
Like you, I like the sound card, playback software and BAE to all be aligned to the highest common denominator, but this may mean that your music is being upscaled multiple times. If you play predominately CDs or WAV files from CD at 44.1 kHz and only the odd recording sampled at 48 kHz, you are forcing your soundcard, BAE and playout software to upscale every track, and they will only be blank frames anyway, because there is no additional information to insert in the extra samples.
I suppose two active cores, one for all the audio sources which do not need VST processing, and one with VSTs configured would work. Or VSTs configured for both cores, but disabled by selection in one. It seems a giant sledge hammer to crack a nut, but it would work.
Hi “schamass” (Erik), and welcome to the forum.
As I say in my (rather lengthy) response above, the issue really is that you can’t inject any other INPUT into Ots, as the only configuration options are at the OUTPUT stage. If you could squirt the Reaper processing in after Ots decodes the music, but before any DSP, then the final mix passed to BAE (or directly to audio devices) would include the music PLUS the SFX.
The only option afforded to us is to capture the
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from Ots into VAC and re-process this in BAE. I don’t know Reaper at all, but I am surprised that you can’t “see” VAC as an output option. If you could, then it should be easy to create a “Y” cable, where both Ots and Reaper drop their output into the same VAC and then BAE could process the entire mix.
I also own a BA1 licence, and have used exactly the same concept in my main studio
As I said, I am doing just that in my studio. My turntable cartridge output goes to a tube pre-amp, and that output goes to an ADC. The resultant digital signal is dropped into the same virtual cable as Ots, because the ADC driver “sees” the VAC as an output option. Therefore, I could (but don’t) play both Ots and a record at the same time, and both would go through (in my case) BA-One processing.
If Reaper could see the VAC, you should be able to do the same, so that may be a limitation of Reaper.
I also use a VST in BA1 to correct the RIAA curve on records, and you are right, there is no way to
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route through a VST, other than to enable/disable the VST. I use an Auto Hot Key (AHK) program I developed which lets me do some tricky things, one of which is to enable or disable VST at the press of a button. BA1 has the ability to send commands via the web interface if you have the management package.
If I accidentally leave the RIAA curve VST on, all of Ots music also gets corrected, whether needed or not. In real life, if I am playing records, I simply disable the VST at the start of the session, and of course, Ots is either not playing, or is paused, so only one sound source goes through BA1.I agree that a manual would be of great benefit, and I have offered to contribute to that. What I can tell you is that 32 bit VSTs ONLY are supported, and there is a section where you “point” BA1 to the VSTs and they then show up in the list. There is also a global on/off switch which will bypass all VSTs if switched off.
This is virtually a repeat of my comments on the Ots forum.
If you install Ots out of the box, it will automatically grab the default Windows output device for the processed signal to go to your ears. You have no INPUT option at all. This is because Ots generates the raw audio directly from the selected track at the KERNEL level. It then passes it through the Ots Graphic Equalizer settings and on to the Dynamics Processor settings, before handing it to the selected Windows output device.
So the path is something like – Audio codec > EQ > DSP > selected Ots output device . The first three steps in this process cannot be separated, because the paths are locked into the Ots program.
The way that BAE works is to define a Virtual Audio output device (Virtual Audio Cables or VAC) which is visible to Ots as a selectable output device. This captures the output from Ots DSP stage (which should be turned OFF to avoid double processing) and routes it through BAE’s own DSP, and then on to the selected output device. Now the path is – Audio codec > EQ (Flat) > Ots/DSP (Turned off) > BAE Virtual Audio Cables as Ots output > BAE/DSP > selected BAE output device
You are trying to inject SFX into Ots to piggy-back along with the music, but there is nowhere that you can insert them, because there is no defined INPUT point in Ots. Nor is there an input point option in BAE, other than VAC, which should be visible to other programs, such as the one you are using for effects.
VAC is not fussy where its music comes from, and it is possible to define the one cable in multiple programs. I think that I mentioned this in my studio setup, where I have Ots and the output from a phono preamp/analogue to digital converter defined simultaneously. This means that I can play Ots and also play a record and both would be heard at the same time, because they share the same VAC. I can’t see why you couldn’t do the same thing, assuming that VAC is visible as an output device in your effects program.
Breakaway Audio Enhancer’s big brother, Breakaway One, has the ability to add VSTs, so it would be possible to add the effects VST into BA1, and mix all your SFX at the pre- or post-DSP stage. You still don’t get the input option you want in Ots (and never will), but you get it at the later stage once Ots has passed the signal on to VAC.
Now the path would be – Audio codec > EQ (Flat) > DSP (Turned off) > BA1 Virtual Audio Cables as Ots output > VST/SFX > BAE/DSP > selected BA1 output device if you want the SFX to be modified by the BA1 preset
Alternatively Audio codec > EQ (Flat) > DSP (Turned off) > BA1 Virtual Audio Cables as Ots output > BAE/DSP > VST/SFX > selected BA1 output device if you do not want the effects double processed.I’m not sure if this is what you are looking for, but there is a “logs” folder at C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Local\BaRemote\logs.
Presets are “in the ears of the beholders”, so it depends on the genres you play and the sound that you are looking for.
I can comment on using turntables, because the worst way that you can use them is on a traditional desk or table top, simply because the very sensitive stylus can easily pick up any vibrations and therefore create a feedback loop. My radio station has the turntables hinged to a solid brick wall and suspended by chains, and this dramatically reduces resonance and feedback. I have seen other stations with a layer of thick felt, then a solid concrete block (like a paver), and then the turntable on spring legs.Obviously, if the studio monitors are cranked too high, this will exacerbate the situation.
