Saving "Driver to Master Bus Assignments"

[alland]

I am using USB soundcard. When I launch Cantabile without soundcard attached then Cantabile warns me - "no sound card" and seems to be losing all "Driver to Master Bus Assignments".

So when I attach my soundcard again, I need to manually attach physical inputs and outputs to master channel properly.

The Manual refers to "Alternative configurations" that should contain information abot sound card, but I cannot get the idea how I can create my own "alternative configuration" that always holds right Master Bus<-> Coundcard assignments.

Thanks for hints

[TiUser]

Which version of Cantabile are you using?

Which USB sound card are you using?

I just checked with Asio4All and Virus TI audio drivers and it looks like master bus assignments remain valid, even if I do changes for the non present TI. All is still as is after a new start of Cantabile - even the unused non present setting.

Not sure what's happening in your case - so let's find out.

[alland]

I use Cantabile Performer edition 2.0.0.2056.
My soundcard is MOTU Ultralite Mk3 and I use MOTU Audio ASIO driver (MOTU native ASIO) that gives me best latency and compatibility with MOTU own Mixer software.

My audio inputs/outputs are not sequentially matched to Master Bus and there is reason for that (can explain my audio setup if it makes any sense in this context).

After starting Cantabile without soundcard it loses previous soundcard <-> master bus relations. When I restart Cantabile with soundcard attached again then just two channels in input (first two inputs) and output (main output L/R) are mapped to master bus first two channels.

[alland]

Well, playing around with Soundcard <-> Master Bus assignment I realised that these assignments are saved and kept in settings.ini file as also User Guide page 94 hints.

Location of settings.ini file is not documented in User Guide but one can find this file in

Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Topten Software\Cantabile 2.0

Vista/Windows 7:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Topten Software\Cantabile 2.0

Now undocumented feature:

In this folder there are two subfolders called "Cantabile 2.0" and "Cantabile 2.0 (Alt Config)"

These folders seemingly have all Cantabile startup information inside that is needed for alternative configuration setup, including settings.ini file. You can make your own "alternative setup" creating more folders and attaching your setup name in parentheses. I made folder "Cantabile 2.0 (Motu)" - I just copied correctly working Cantabile startup settings folder and renamed it.

Now as User Guide p 94 states you can launch Cantabile with alternative "config" key. I my case I just made another shortcut that launches

"C:\Program Files\Topten Software\Cantabile Performer 2.0\CantabilePerformer20.exe" /config:"Motu"

Thank you for help. It would be nice to have also some place in GUI where you can load/save these setups.

[TiUser]

Thanks for the report.

It's still a bit funny that the settings get lost. I use just the standard configuration for both audio interfaces/drivers I have.

As far as I understand you need the alternative configurations only if you want to run multiple instances of Cantabile at the same time while using each instance with a different audio card/driver.

I am still not sure what happened - but if you found a solution - well, then...

[alland]

With my XP system (E-MU 0404 PCI) I cannot reproduce that "bug" - even if I disable soundcard from control panel and start Cantabile - it reports that soundcards/drivers are not available, and lets me choose different driver model. After enabling soundcard again and choosing its driver, all audio card <-> Master bus settings are setained as these were recalled from settings.ini

But my Windows 7 laptop causes loss of settings when I unplug/plug back soundcard. It happens like this:

1) Start Cantabile with attached soundcard and right assignments between soundcard I/O and Master Bus (or creating assignments - they seem to get saved after leaving "audio engine options page".

2) Disengage soundcard and start Cantabile. It starts with latest selected audio driver and complains two times about missing soundcard/drivers ("No MOTU Audio device could be found. Make sure your MOTU Audio device is connected, powered on, and that the drivers are installed") and then Cantabile starts up and complains again "Cant start audio engine as no audio driver selected". All complaints can be dismissed by pressing OK.

3) At that point settings.ini file sound engine section is still intact as it was set up before. When you open Audio Engine options and go to Assign Audio Channels... then you see in dialog box that soundcard <-> Master bus are not anymore correct, it seems that some default assignment has been taken place - two first soundcard inputs are assigned to two first main bus and soundcard main out L/R is attached to master bus two first channels.

After leaving Audio Engine Options page with OK, settings.ini gets overwrited with this assignment. (Leaving with "cancel" audiocard settings are not overwritten)

It does not matter whether during p 3) you have attached already soundcard back or not. If soundcard has been off while starting Cantabile, it loses soundcard <-> Main bus assignments internally (for some reason Cantabile does not read right informatio from settings.ini) and it gets saved (to settings.ini) as soon as you go through the Audio engine options.

Playing around with that I was able to render Cantabile to not respond one time and even once blue screen death...

[Steviebone]

ditto to this behavior in Win7 64. Starting C without soundcard i/o running will cause default settings to be lost and you will have to remap. I will try Alland's alt config for a work around tho.

[Steviebone]

a little bump here...

good to see Brad back around, hope your day job is going well!

I'm still having issues with Cantable losing master bus assignments. This is happening frequently on Win7/64 but also occasionally on XP. (I'm trying to move to Win7 altogether.) I read the bit about the alt config file but I searched hi and low and could not find these files anywhere. Any suggestions as to where else I might look?

And what are the chances of a simple GUI save and restore any time soon? Ive got 34 channels and it's a real PITA to have to keep resetting in the middle of a session. What's more, sometimes there seems to be a domino effect and I have to reallocate channel assignments in all instances of Kontakt after as well... now THATS a real real PITA as I have 93 things to check!

Now, that said, Cantable is a still a real treat and I sincerely hope development can continue at Brad's convenience.

[alland]

Did you find:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Topten Software\Cantabile 2.0
in your Win7 system and no folders in that?

Alternatively you might want to search "Cantabile" from your file system.

Also be sure set "show" hidden and system protected files. Although this should be just hidden, not "system" file/folder