No audio with Roland J-6

[electricfish]

Hello.

My attempts to receive audio (Waveform 12) with Rolands J-6 connected via USB have been unsuccessful.

I can see the MIDI notes and it shows the level of the device but cannot seem to get audio.

Currently, I am using a Mackie Onyx Producer 2/2 but the J-6 is using USB for communication.

Any assistance or advice would be helpful.

Thank you.

[mikoatkvr]

I'm guessing that the USB port on the J-6 only transfers MIDI data, or does it pass-through both MIDI and Audio this way with other DAWs ?

If the latter, then you might have to set up another track to receive Audio from the Track that the J-6 input is going to originally.

Check in >Settings > Audio device and you can enable the Audio from there as well as keeping your main soundcard AFAIK, then obviously choose this input to the left side of the track

[electricfish]

Thank you for the advice.

Still not receiving any audio, but I can control VSTs with the device.

Listed in the J-6 owners manual it states, "You can transmit and receive audio and MIDI data by connecting a USB cable from your computer or mobile device (smartphone
or tablet) to this unit."

[Peter Widdicombe]

I suppose the MIDI is working fine for you, so you do have the unit connected and powered up BEFORE you load Waveform? Do you SEE on the computer, and additional USB-Audio device in the computer when it is powered on and connected? If so, then it should show up as an audio input device.

[electricfish]

Thank you for the reply.

[fde101]

Waveform only allows one input and one output audio device to be selected, as is the case with most DAWs.

As there is probably not much reason to send sound from the computer back to the J-6, this should be fine for capturing audio from the keyboard while listening through your primary output device, but if you need to capture a microphone at the same time, you will probably need to aggregate the input devices, or run an audio connection from an output of the J-6 to a separate input of your main audio interface and capture it from there.

If you are on a Mac, you can create an aggregate audio device using /Applications/Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup - as far as I know Windows does not have any similar option built-in, but there may be 3rd-party solutions. Not sure offhand about Linux either though I would imagine there is something out there to do it if you take the time to set it up.

[electricfish]

Thank you. Interesting indeed.

This is information I was unaware of (creating an aggregate audio device).

Slowly moving from DAW/VST's to hardware and learning all the fun stuff piece by piece.

iPad is on the way but until then it seems I will run a 3.5mm to 1/4 cable to my audio interface as I am using a laptop running Windows ATM.

Cheers!

[Peter Widdicombe]

Not strictly true. You can have multiple output devices; just like you can have multiple input devices.

I just did an experiment. Windows 10, Waveform 11.5; ASIO for output.
Output devices:
- PC speakers (realtek) set to default
- USB headphones

I took a simple test sequence I had done some time ago, and set all tracks output to default audio output, and the audio guitar track through amp simulator, to the Plantronics headset.

Drums, piano coming out of PC speakers. Guitar track coming out of the USB interface headphones.

Now, to be fair, it didn't work initially. For some reason, Windows, upon seeing the headphones plugged in, had set the system audio down to 0; so I had to go additionally to the system mixer to push that volume back up. However, Waveform was quite happy allowing output to different audio devices; at least when using ASIO4All.

[fde101]

Waveform was quite happy allowing output to different audio devices; at least when using ASIO4All.

Evidently ASIO4All supports device aggregation, so I suspect that is what you are using without having realized it: https://asio4all.org/device-aggregation/

[Peter Widdicombe]

Huh - I guess I had been using the ASIO to reduce latency; and for so long I had assumed it was a "feature" of Waveform, and not just the audio interface.

So ASIO has the capability of using multiple USB interfaces, making it "look like", say, one of those MOTU boxes with 16 outputs...

I suppose this carries over with audio input as well? Without ASIO, you must select, in audio properties, which one of several devices you want as your AUDIO input as well, EITHER internal sound card (or USB mixer); or USB Juno device, in the case of this thread, if not using ASIO ?