Mu.lab strangeness!

[fceramic]

Hi,

Just got Mulab mainly as a host for Record so i can use some of my remaining plugins.

Heres some major issues:
I had a huge problem with Redline Monitor. It for some reason makes everything a lot louder and clips the audio.
This does not happen in Live 8.

Mutools does not handle mono midi. When playing a mono instrument in Reaktor the legato note will silence the previous note with a nasty clicking sound.

Latency while rewiring is more than half a second! Mulab doesnt have ANY audio settings. All I can do is pick a driver.
No buffer size, bit rate, input/output nada nothing! Pretty insane.

It also makes Record freeze at start up half of the time. I have to force quit Record and then restart mulab, since I cant reopen it.

Please tell me im wrong, but my first impression are not great.

Lots of great features, but sadly useless when there's no audio settings.
I've used Logic and Live for many years now so I do know that these are Mulab's own issues.

[pljones]

Hi,

Just got Mulab mainly as a host for Record so i can use some of my remaining plugins.

Heres some major issues:
I had a huge problem with Redline Monitor. It for some reason makes everything a lot louder and clips the audio.
This does not happen in Live 8.

That sounds like you've set it up as a send and forgotten to mute it. Effectively you've doubled the signal level.

Mutools does not handle mono midi. When playing a mono instrument in Reaktor the legato note will silence the previous note with a nasty clicking sound.

If it's Reaktor making the noise why do you "blame" MU.LAB? A "mono" instrument is meant to only play one note, of course.

Latency while rewiring is more than half a second! Mulab doesnt have ANY audio settings. All I can do is pick a driver.
No buffer size, bit rate, input/output nada nothing! Pretty insane.

Of course not. As I'm sure you're aware, these are features of your audio driver, not your audio application. Although, when I look at my audio settings, right there under "Driver Name" is "Sample Rate". If I click the "Control Panel" button I get everything my audio driver has to offer.

It also makes Record freeze at start up half of the time. I have to force quit Record and then restart mulab, since I cant reopen it.

I can't help on that one, sorry - not heard anyone else with serious problems.

Unfortunately you've not stated versions of anything such as MU.LAB or your OS or what hardware or drivers you're using, so it's difficult to consider what your problems might be caused by.

[MuTools]

I had a huge problem with Redline Monitor. It for some reason makes everything a lot louder and clips the audio.
This does not happen in Live 8.

I downloaded Redline Monitor and indeed hear that it makes things louder.

I have no idea why, but as this does not happen with other VST plugins, i'm convinced it's a plugin issue.

Seems to happen in Logic and Live too, cfr http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3974405

Please also check support from 112dB.

Mutools does not handle mono midi. When playing a mono instrument in Reaktor the legato note will silence the previous note with a nasty clicking sound.

Mono midi? Never heard of that. Can you please elaborate.

Latency while rewiring is more than half a second!

MU.LAB does not add any latency when rewiring.

If the latency is half a second, then it will be everywhere and it would mean you're working with a buffersize of 22050 samples at 44100 kHz samplerate.

This sounds unrealistic.

Mulab doesnt have ANY audio settings. All I can do is pick a driver.
No buffer size, bit rate, input/output nada nothing!

True on OSX.

You're the first to make a FR of this.

Added to the whishlist.

It also makes Record freeze at start up half of the time. I have to force quit Record and then restart mulab, since I cant reopen it.

Downloading Record demo for OSX. Will give it a try. Huge download though, will report later.

[fceramic]

I'm the first one to request audio settings for a Rewire host?? How come?

I got an Apogee interface with normally rock solid drivers and mulab's latency and CPU spikes are all over the place! I just cant use it as a Rewire host because of how it handles buffersize.

When Rewired into Logic most of my Record project run without any problem, because I can adjust the buffersize!
When I open the same project in Mulab its instant clicks, pops, skips and crackles.

Please explain how Mulab handles buffer size, cause right now I have absolutely no clue. Does it adjust automatically?


I think Mulab could be the ultimate Rewire host but right now its useless, at least on Mac.


BTW I do really like Mulab. Think its very intuitive, clean and sleek!

[Bonteburg]

Here's a little workaround Jo told me about for a persistent audio recording glitch I had (also on OSX!).

Go to MULAB -> Settings -> MULAB.txt and type in the line

"AudioFileStreamBlockSize=1000" (or any other number, minus the quoation marks).

MU.LAB defaults to 500 (you can't see it in the .txt file) and the greater the value you enter, the more stable it's supposed to become.

I don't know if BlockSize = buffer size but it helped a lot in my case! Maybe it will help with your Rewire trouble, too.

[MuTools]

I'm the first one to request audio settings for a Rewire host?? How come?

I got an Apogee interface with normally rock solid drivers and mulab's latency and CPU spikes are all over the place! I just cant use it as a Rewire host because of how it handles buffersize.

MU.LAB simply uses the recommended buffersize which is reported by OSX/the core audio driver.

Most core audio drivers also come with a control panel (OSX -> System Preferences) where you can adjust things.

Which Apogee interface do you have?

When Rewired into Logic most of my Record project run without any problem, because I can adjust the buffersize!

So do you increase the buffersize?

From which value to which value?

At what samplerate?

When I open the same project in Mulab its instant clicks, pops, skips and crackles.

Please explain how Mulab handles buffer size, cause right now I have absolutely no clue. Does it adjust automatically?

Yes, cfr info above.

[MuTools]

Here's a little workaround Jo told me about for a persistent audio recording glitch I had (also on OSX!).

Go to MULAB -> Settings -> MULAB.txt and type in the line

"AudioFileStreamBlockSize=1000" (or any other number, minus the quoation marks).

MU.LAB defaults to 500 (you can't see it in the .txt file) and the greater the value you enter, the more stable it's supposed to become.

I don't know if BlockSize = buffer size but it helped a lot in my case! Maybe it will help with your Rewire trouble, too.

Ah, i'm glad to hear it helped

What value are you using?

FYI: the value is the number of milliseconds the audio stream buffers should be.

It's only related to harddisk streaming i.e. when recording or playing back audio files. It's not related to ReWire.

[Bonteburg]

haven't had a glitch since - I'm using 1000. Keep meaning to do some A/B -testing though.

[fceramic]

Is Mulab multicore? Maybe that's what making it not communicate with Record?

I had problems with Midi routing too today. Seems like Mulab is not suited for Reaktor. Strange clicking noise happen when using Reaktor synths. Some specific layered synths (forced mono, multitimbral) like Digitek has that strange legato problem.
When I tried changing the midi channel there would be no midi at all and when I then changed it back there would still be no midi. Had to restart Mulab.

I got a Duet at my home studio, don't have Mulab at my work studio.
Will try to see where I can change the buffer site in OS preferences.

Hopefully Redline will fix their 1.3 loudness bug.

The heavier the project the higher the sample rate. In Record I usually end up with 1000 something (not good with remember numbers). Though when I compose I use as low sample rate as possible.

BTW tried the demo of some of the PSP VW2 and sQuad and they killed the audio in Mulab. Tho that might just be a coreaudio problem.

Seems like I got all possible issues that Mulab can offer

My main reason for rushing into buying Mulab was three things:
- automatically opens Reason/Record
- mulab takes less than a second to open
- clean easy to use interface

[MuTools]

Is Mulab multicore?

Not yet.

Maybe that's what making it not communicate with Record?

I don't see a relation between that.

FYI: I draftly tried out rewiring Record in MU.LAB 2.7 on OSX and it all seemed to work fine here.

I had problems with Midi routing too today. Seems like Mulab is not suited for Reaktor.

I plugged in Reaktor in both MU.LAB 2.7 as MU.LAB 3.0 (currently in its test stage) and it played fine.

There is a graphical issue using the Reaktor editor in MU.LAB 2.7, but that issue has gone in MU.LAB 3 as MU.LAB 3 uses another strategy for VST editors on OSX.

(You won't believe how chaotic the VST editor situation is on OSX! Thanks to the (irronism:) wonderful VST SDK. Anyway, not your concern, i know)

When I tried changing the midi channel there would be no midi at all and when I then changed it back there would still be no midi. Had to restart Mulab.

Can you please give a detailed description of this MIDI issue.

Seems like I got all possible issues that Mulab can offer

Indeed sounds like that

Lets check things step by step.

[fceramic]

Record works fine, but not when you open projects. Even my template project creates some clicks and pops and has that insane delay.

Reaktor is a complex beast so Im sure some of the ensembles is a bit too much for Mulabs. I used Vortex from Twisted Tools. The audio just stopped after a while.

Record is multicore so it seems pretty logical that there might be some conflicts when in Rewire with a single core app. That might case the unstable CPU spikes, cause like all rewire hosts it is reading the cpu use of Record like it was a plugin. The CPU meter inside the slave is blank.

[MuTools]

Record works fine, but not when you open projects. Even my template project creates some clicks and pops and has that insane delay.

I imported an audio file in Record (rewired to MU.LAB) and press play and things react immediately. Don't know which delay you mean.

Reaktor is a complex beast so Im sure some of the ensembles is a bit too much for Mulabs.

If there are ensembles that are too heavy then they're too heavy for your system, not for MU.LAB.

MU.LAB just does what it has to do: run the plugin.

If there are hickups using a certain plugin, then you're asking too much of your system.

Generally, you can do more on the same system by increasing the audio buffer size.

Does your Apogee audio driver have a control panel?

I used Vortex from Twisted Tools. The audio just stopped after a while.

Did you check the MU.LAB CPU meter? It's in the Transport Panel at the top center of the main MU.LAB window. Did it say "Overload"?

Record is multicore so it seems pretty logical that there might be some conflicts when in Rewire with a single core app.

Nope, it's not logical, imho.

If Record is multicore, then it will use the multiple cores while it is processing, but MU.LAB simply continues as soon as Record is ready processing.

I mean: It are separated things and there should not be a problem.

[fceramic]

Duet does have a control panel but there's no place to adjust buffer size. Its just a mixer.

[fceramic]

It does say overload when the pops and crackles and stopped audio happens.
BUT it's unpredictable and unstable. CPU spikes and freezing happens.

How can Record alone use 50 % less CPU, rock stable and no freezing when not rewired to Mulab? This is not the case in Logic.

Should I try to reinstall Mulab?

[MuTools]

It does say overload when the pops and crackles and stopped audio happens. BUT it's unpredictable and unstable. CPU spikes and freezing happens.

How can Record alone use 50 % less CPU, rock stable and no freezing when not rewired to Mulab? This is not the case in Logic.

To be honnest: I have no idea.

I should have a look at your system, but that's not possible.

While i'm tying this, i have Record rewired to MU.LAB 3 on OSX, i loaded the Memphis Groove.recdemo and it plays fine, both MU.LAB and Record nice in sync.

Ah, ok, i do get soms audio spikes when switching between windows,and when accessing OSX System Preferences... Will have a deeper look into this.

By the way: to avoid MU.LAB to mute its audio engine on overload goto Edit menu -> Audio Setup, set CPU Load Limit to "OFF".

Should I try to reinstall Mulab?

No, i don't see a reason why it would make a difference.