apulSoft WormHole - Cross platform Network Audio Streaming!

[ezeeboogie]

Anyone know if it will run over a Firewire network? My two PCs are linked in this way at the moment and it would be great to use this to spread the workload...

[jones-y]

Anyone know if it will run over a Firewire network? My two PCs are linked in this way at the moment and it would be great to use this to spread the workload...

Yes, according to the manufacturer's FAQ.

[jones-y]

Some questions:

does it also connect two WinXP pc´s?
or only mac2pc?

Any combination of Mac OS X machines and Windows XP machines. You can have twenty Gigastudio machines, each streaming 8 channels of audio directly into your sequencer's mixer.

what is the advantage over a plein midi connection between the two pc´s, and sound over a mixer? (e.g. using the second pc like a hardware synth loading a vsti in minihost or energyXT)

Less money to spend on audio interfaces, midi interfaces, and outboard mixers.

Additionally, you can get by with less inputs on your main audio interface (the one connected to your primary or host machine), further keeping costs down.

[jones-y]

Secondly, I don't know how this plugin handles offline rendering, but if it's anything like FXteleport, it will allow you to render your networked audio offline, just as you would with any other plug. Does anyone know if this is the case?

Rendering would have to happen in the host. Which basically means you need to do a real-time bounce of each track. Of course, you could just leave it all live, and have total recall. For example, you would have one song file from your sequencer, and one file from each of the networked computers' Chainer...

By the way, you need to use a host on the network computers that can chain plugins, because wormhole presents itself as a VST/AU plugin. In other words, you insert the VSTi and all other desired VST effects, then put one instance of wormhole as the last plugin to send the resultant audio over he network.

[jones-y]

Interesting stuff.
I already tested FxTeleport with great success and this appears to be a valid competitor.
I am not able to test now, I'll play in the weekend with it.
In the meanwhile can you clarify me:

- does it require sound hardware on all the computers? I tend to suppose not (as with FxTeleport). But can't argue that for sure from manual: in more places references to the latency due to asio drivers. This let me unsure

No. You can use ASIO4ALL. I'm not sure, but it seems like an audio interface would cut down on the latency though. Which would make it redundant, but I could be wrong, because I don't have an audio interface on my fiancee's PC to test it.

- it's not at all an host itself (unlike fxteleport). That is each machine must have also an host. (BTW not a fault to me: even with the very good working fxteleport i prefer to load vsti inside chainer and load chainer in fxteleport due to the more solid vst hosting of chainer)

Correct. Its a plug-in (VST/AU) You insert it at the end of the chain.

- each machine knows nothing about the other, they just see each other streams? (unlike fxteleport which lets now the client the vsti installed on the server: thus inside Cubase I load a vsti as if it's local while indeed is remote on a different cpu).

Thank u. Bye

Correct again. wormhole broadcasts its stream to a certain IP address on a certain channel. if there's not another wormhole on the computer owning that IP, can configured to receive that channel, the audio the first wormhole is sending will go to dev\null.

[jones-y]

This is GREAT! Exactly what I've been looking for. I want to integrate Logic on a PC (or on a Mac if I have to) with Cubase. Meaning that I want to use the Logic effects and synths from Cubase. Now, this thing will stream the audio _and_ midi to Logic and back to Cubase? And the thing loads as a VSTi?

WormHole doesn't do MIDI. I had to use MIDIoverLAN CP. Big drag, as that product is sort of expensive (especially when compared to WormHole...) All in all, I had three simultaneous processes running over my network. Remote Desktop Connection, to beam in the Video, Wormhole, beaming in one stereo channel of audio (that's all the demo gives you), and MIDIoverLAN CP beaming out the MIDI.

But... if you just want to use your second machine as an FX host, you don't need to send MIDI (unless you want to send automation.

Now, what is the latency of this? Is it limited by the network? If I set up a gigaethernet, will it utilize the maximum bandwidth and minimize latency, or are there other bottlenecks?
I mean, I've tried Freewire which sends audio between Cubase and Logic (on the same PC) through VST, and there I got like 500ms of latency. How well does this thing perform?

Sounds exciting at any rate !

//Tomas

On my test setup (see page 1) latency wasn't so hot. I didn't measure it, but I couldn't play a drum track in real time. But I attribute this to the speed of the second machine (P3 600) the speed of the network (100 mBit) and the latency of the soundcard on my main machine.

I'd suggest you download the demo and give it a try, it only took me about an hour to get it all set up.

[jones-y]

Just to clarify, I don't work for apulSoft, I just praise the ground they walk on...

[whyterabbyt]

Have you tried the free TobyBear or smartelectronix (jason) MIDI-over-network stuff with it?

[jones-y]

Have you tried the free TobyBear or smartelectronix (jason) MIDI-over-network stuff with it?

I didn't know it existed! Is it cross platform?

[whyterabbyt]

Hmmm, good point, dont think so.

[jones-y]

Ahhh okay, the VSTNETMIDI plugs. Just found them. Yeah, they won't do the trick for me since my main machine is a Mac, but they might just work for others.

Also as a note, on OSXAudio, the developer, Adrian, posted that his beta testers noticed more latency on the network when using MIDIoverLAN CP to send MIDI. So it may make more sense to buy cheap MIDI interfaces, if your computers are co-located.

I think he's working on it, and I have asked him a couple of questions concerning it, so hopefully he'll get back to me soon.

Here's the link, if anyone is interested:

http://osxaudio.com/forums/viewtopic.ph ... sc&start=0

[maxlef]

and what about delay compensation ? it won't work across platforms, i guess....

[jones-y]

and what about delay compensation ? it won't work across platforms, i guess....

I doubt there's any way to automatically account for delay in a setup like this.The host sequencer has no idea where this audio stream comes from, and no idea how long it takes it to get from here to there, or there to here, or any combo of those.

[griels]

and what about delay compensation ? it won't work across platforms, i guess....

I doubt there's any way to automatically account for delay in a setup like this.The host sequencer has no idea where this audio stream comes from, and no idea how long it takes it to get from here to there, or there to here, or any combo of those.

Which is all the more reason that FXMAX should produce FXTeleport Mac pronto - the PC version is fully PDC compliant.

[lalo]

and what about delay compensation ? it won't work across platforms, i guess....

I doubt there's any way to automatically account for delay in a setup like this.The host sequencer has no idea where this audio stream comes from, and no idea how long it takes it to get from here to there, or there to here, or any combo of those.

Which is all the more reason that FXMAX should produce FXTeleport Mac pronto - the PC version is fully PDC compliant.

Hi!
do you mean the wormhole pc version is PDC ready?
lalo