Home Forums Breakaway Audio Enhancer Getting BAE to work with Reaper DAW?

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 38 total)
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  • #16553
    mikehende
    Participant

    Hey guys so Eric got my main player OTSAV working fine with Reaper so I will be using Reaper for this purpose. There is one final issue we can use some help with if you won’t mind please. I use Breakaway Audio Enhancer as my pc’s final Output to normalize the volume of every source of music being played on my pc [youtube, Mediamonkey, otsav e.t.c].

    But we are having problems getting Reaper’s Output to play through BAE without distortion. Would anyone here be able to advise/help with final step please? If yes, if you can try Reaper’s trial

    https://www.reaper.fm
    play a track in Reaper through it and get it to play fine through your speakers and tell us your Output config between Reaper and BAE, this would be great!

    #16554
    mikehende
    Participant

    Wait. I am wondering we might be approaching this from the wrong angle maybe. Shouldn’t we be trying to get windows sound driver to play through BAE because if we use BAE for Reaper only then I won’t get my other players to work through it?

    #16555
    MrKlorox
    Participant

    One way non-traditional way to get Reaper’s playback into BreakawayOne is to use Breakaway One normally for pc-wide audio through the pipeline, then load up the Reaper plugin called ReaStream in both Reaper and Breakaway. Make sure you use the right plugin version: 32-bit windows vst2.

    In reaper, put it on the master or monitor tracks and name the stream something. In Beakaway name it the same thing you named it in reaper. This should get the audio from reaper to come out of the VST plugin loaded in BA1’s host.

    For everything else, play normally to the pipeline.

    #16556
    mikehende
    Participant

    Thanks for coming to my rescue again! So you see, I am finally getting this done.
    Yeah basically same as I was told by BAE’s support. I was trying to get it done with BAE as I already have the license but guess I will need to shell out for the BA1.

    I will try the BA1 demo first to make sure. Will report back.

    #16557
    MrKlorox
    Participant

    Oh my mistake. I was thinking this was the BAOne forum. Sorry.

    #16558
    MrKlorox
    Participant

    There used to be a policy for upgrading from BAE to BAO, using some kinda loyalty route. However, I think that involved contacting Leif or Keith, neither of whom appear to be part of this forum anymore. I’d contact the current support emails and ask if they still offer a $15 discount on BAO for people who can prove they bought BAE.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by MrKlorox.
    #16560
    Milky
    Keymaster

    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.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Milky.
    #16562
    schamass
    Participant

    Hi all,
    i am Erik, the guy who wants to help Mike to get his sound system configured. 🙂

    As far as i know, his primary objective is to “catch” all the audio sources that may come up on his PC and send it to BAE as the final sound processing unit.
    In addition he wants to make use of some VST plugins for his main music player, which is OTS.
    That’s why we used Reaper as a plugin host (maybe there were other programs to do this job as well, but Reaper should work too).
    So what we have achieved so far, is to feed the output from OTS to an audio track in Reaper by using Reaper’s “ReaRoute” driver, which provides some virtual channels for audio routing.
    This works perfectly so far… we can playback music in OTS going through Reaper’s FX chain where the VST plugins can be used at will, and then sending it out through the systems main audio out device.

    Unfortunately we can’t select the BAE’s Pipeline as the output device/channel.
    So, that’s the problem we are facing now… how to get the output of Reaper into BAE so that it will also benefit from BAE’s sound processing like any other sond sources of the system too.

    Changing over to BA1, since it seems to natively support VSTs on its own, could probably be an option, but i don’t know if we could separate the channels which will be processed by the VSTs and those that won’t (mustn’t).
    BTW: For the support of VST plugins, i couldn’t find any information in your features list of BA1, nor could i find a manual where this was described. Maybe that’s something you could take as a little improvement sugestion for your web site 😉
    Maybe the use of ASIO (it’s only BA1 that supports it, right?) could also be an option, but since Mike doesn’t own a dedicated sound interface, this might cause some troubles too.
    (We already did some experiments with a combination of ASIO4ALL and ASIOLink Pro, which didn’t go too well).
    Maybe one of you guys have the answer or a sugestion how to get this done…
    Cheers!
    Erik

    #16563
    mikehende
    Participant

    Thanks for the input everyone and I appreciate you explaining things in a better way than I can Erik.

    To clarify, I am trying to avoid having to use any external hardware so trying to get this all done via softwares only, as first option. Should BA1 not work then I will get an external sound card.

    I am not understanding guys on BA1 supporting VST’s. Does this mean BA1 can be a VST “Host” so I can apply vst fx as we are doing in Reaper? If yes then Eric if you are up to it we can try experimenting with BA1’s trial and then would have no need for Reaper, is what I am thinking?

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by mikehende.
    #16565
    schamass
    Participant

    Does this mean BA1 can be a VST “Host” so I can apply vst fx as we are doing in Reaper?

    That’s what i assume. But you should be aware that (eventually) all the incoming audio (not only OTS!) might then have go through the VSTs, if not there was an option to route the source signals separately, which i don’t know at this point.
    If it was possible to tell BA1 to route (say) Pipelilne1 through the VSTs and Pipeline2 (if this exists) directly to the stereo sum… well, then this would be the perfect way to go.
    Let’s wait what the officials say…

    #16566
    mikehende
    Participant

    Cool. No issue really with all audio sources going through the VST’s since I will only trigger my fav vst fx on/off only whenever needed. Matter of fact it would be a good thing so I can apply vst to any of my media players.

    #16568
    Milky
    Keymaster

    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

      output

    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

      selectively

    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.

    #16569
    MrKlorox
    Participant

    So BA1 supports a 5 VST plugin host PER CORE. All at once, meaning you can’t selectively enable certain plugins at a time without unloading the host, changing file paths, then re-enabling it.

    So I’m picturing input> OTS> REASTREAM1> REAPER> REASTREAM2> BA1VSThost> Output.

    This way you can use Reaper as the primary VST host and set up various effect stacks to use that way.

    Or depending on how many permutations of effects, you could get a pass-through core or two instead, if you don’t need BA1’s processing itself (even though it’s PRETTY good).

    #16570
    mikehende
    Participant

    Thanks guys, I guess Erik should understand this technical stuff :). I only need to trigger 2 fx plugins, one reverb and one Delay.

    #16571
    Milky
    Keymaster

    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.

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