KVR Audio

stoobie · Post by **stoobie** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 3:11 pm

I'm using Sonar 2.2 XL on a Dell 5100 Laptop with the following configuration:

* P4 2.6 GHz
* 512 DDR
* 40 GB 5400 RPM drive
* M-Audio Transit set to 24-bit/48Khz with ASIO drivers

Even when I use the highest latency possible, when I insert either SIR or ConvoBoy as a track effect, or as a send effect on a Bus, Sonar simply doesn't move. The audio engine shuts down.

I'm using a Chicago Church IR that I downloaded off noisevault.com.

I should note that I have very few tracks, less than five, and more than 200MB free RAM when this is happening.

I'm using the Cakewalk VST Adapter, which I downloaded just a couple of weeks ago, so I probably have a pretty updated version.

I'm only trying to use this effect while mixing, but do I have to apply it destructively to a track in order to just hear how that track is going to sound with the reverb in the mix? I have a hard time believing that's the usage model.

What am I missing? No one else appears to be having these problems.

Thanks.

dburgan · Post by **dburgan** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:16 pm

With that kind of machine you should easily be able to run at least one instance of SIR, probably several, without dropouts. So, something is wrong. I assume you've already done the obvious and made sure nothing else is running on your computer at the time you are trying to play the audio. E.g. no background processes like web servers, ftp servers, etc.

My first guess would be a denormal problem (P4 gets notoriously inefficient for extremely quiet signals). Try inserting MDA Dither or the anti-denormal plugin from Tobybear right before SIR and see if that helps.

If that doesn't work I'd suspect something to do with the audio interface. Try using the ASIO driver in SONAR. Or, try the MME driver instead. Does the Transit come with a WDM driver? If so, try that. Try matching the sample rate/bit depth - i.e. if Transit is set to 24-bit 48KHz, make sure the audio you are processing in SONAR is 24/48. Or, alternatively, try dropping SONAR back to to 16-bit 44.1KHz. Likewise, try resetting the Transit to work at 16-bit 44.1KHz.

Basically mess with those settings and see if something shakes loose. But you're right, you shouldn't be having those kind of problems.

Hope this helps ...

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 9:22 pm

AFAIK Sonar 2.2 has to be fine-tuned to make plug-ins with large latency work without drop-outs. Sonar instead of buffering this latency thinks plug-in consumes too much CPU and so decides to halt the playback. That's the 'feature' arising from using DX-compatible audio architecture. I guess the latest Sonar versions do not have this problem.

In Sonar 2.2 you may need to adjust the aud.ini file (please read the manual or ask someone as I do not know the exact details).

BC · Post by BC » Mon Jan 10, 2005 1:32 am

I *think* the paramater in the aud.ini file is:
ExtraPluginBuffers=64 or so.

Try that.

stoobie · Post by **stoobie** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 11:37 am

OK, BC, you pointed me in the right direction.

The parameter to change in aud.ini is: ExtraStreamBufs. It was set to 4. I tried setting it to 64, but that didn't work. So I tried setting it to 128, and now ConvoBoy works!

Very exciting!

stoobie · Post by **stoobie** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:53 am

What's funny is that this is noted in the documentation, but I didn't look there until BC pointed me in the right direction. RTFM, right?

What's even funnier is that I write manuals for a living, and I still didn't check the manual.

sinkmusic · Post by **sinkmusic** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:29 pm

hi
i like a lot using SIR impulse reverb.
Today i found and downloaded on the web some nice impulses. It was mentionned that they were for mac (.sit files), and made to work with Audioease's Altiverb.
I thought it would be .aif files, and that i had just to convert them to use with my PC.
instead of that, it was unknown format files, ending .L and .R.
Can i convert these files in .wav format, to use with SIR, or is it just for Altiverb ??
Thank you !

sinkmusic · Post by **sinkmusic** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:31 pm

hi
i like a lot using SIR impulse reverb.
Today i found and downloaded on the web some nice impulses. It was mentionned that they were for mac (.sit files), and made to work with Audioease's Altiverb.
I thought it would be .aif files, and that i had just to convert them to use with my PC.
instead of that, it was unknown format files, ending .L and .R.
Can i convert these files in .wav format, to use with SIR, or is it just for Altiverb ??
Thank you !

stoobie · Post by **stoobie** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 5:12 am

I'll take a guess and say that the files are intended for a Mac, and unlike Windows, Mac OS doesn't require file extensions to know what kind of file it is. In fact, you could assign the wrong file extension while working on a Mac, and Mac OS would just interpret it as part of the file name, not as a file extension, and it would still correctly identify the file type.

On a PC, you can try simply adding .aif to the end of the file name and see if that works. If not, try .wav. If that doesn't work, make sure that you understand in what format Altiverb IRs come. Maybe they have a proprietary format? I have no experience with Altiverb, so I don't know.

CinningBao · Post by **CinningBao** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 12:21 pm

I ended up with some of these Mac IR's and after a few discussions with highly knowledgable types, I discovered the only way to convert them is to find a Mac owning friend and get him to join the seperate L and R files, prior to exporting them as wavs..

I never did find a Mac owning friend so my L and R files are still sitting side-by-side.

Forest 1.L and Forest 1.R - friends for life.

Using SIR and ConvoBoy for Idiots