Simple Savihost question

[tmoody]

I'm very new to all this, so please bear with me. I have a Roland Aerophone AE-05, and I've purchased the SWAM Saxophone bundle. I've installed ASIO4ALL on my computer, which is a Lenovo T470 Thinkpad. I'm able to use Savihost to run the SWAM sax, but there's too much latency for it to be usable. I believe the ASIO4ALL is supposed to fix that, but for some reason it's not happening.

1. When I run the program and navigate to load the sax module, under the "Devices" tab, "Asio Control Panel" and "Asio Channel Selection" are grayed out. The ASIO control panel also does not appear in the system tray, so there's no way to access it. I have no idea why. And the "navigate to" brings me to my other question...

2. It's my understanding that if I put a copy of Savihost in the same directory as the VST that I want to load, and then rename it to match that VST, just substituting the .exe extension for the .dll extension, double-clicking on that renamed file should run Savihost with the named VST automatically, and I can then create a desktop shortcut to do it all in one step. It seems simple enough, but for some reason it's not working. That renamed copy of Savihost still opens up a dialogue box and asks me to navigate to where the desired .dll file resides. Then it works, of course, except for the ASIO issue mentioned above, but I'd like to get it to happen in one step, as it's meant to.

I feel like both of these are simple errors caused by some detail that I'm overlooking, but I'm at a loss to figure out what it could be. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[zzz00m]

I'm very new to all this, so please bear with me. I have a Roland Aerophone AE-05, and I've purchased the SWAM Saxophone bundle. I've installed ASIO4ALL on my computer, which is a Lenovo T470 Thinkpad. I'm able to use Savihost to run the SWAM sax, but there's too much latency for it to be usable. I believe the ASIO4ALL is supposed to fix that, but for some reason it's not happening.

1. When I run the program and navigate to load the sax module, under the "Devices" tab, "Asio Control Panel" and "Asio Channel Selection" are grayed out. The ASIO control panel also does not appear in the system tray, so there's no way to access it. I have no idea why. And the "navigate to" brings me to my other question...

2. It's my understanding that if I put a copy of Savihost in the same directory as the VST that I want to load, and then rename it to match that VST, just substituting the .exe extension for the .dll extension, double-clicking on that renamed file should run Savihost with the named VST automatically, and I can then create a desktop shortcut to do it all in one step. It seems simple enough, but for some reason it's not working. That renamed copy of Savihost still opens up a dialogue box and asks me to navigate to where the desired .dll file resides. Then it works, of course, except for the ASIO issue mentioned above, but I'd like to get it to happen in one step, as it's meant to.

I feel like both of these are simple errors caused by some detail that I'm overlooking, but I'm at a loss to figure out what it could be. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

1. Double check that you have ASIO4all installed correctly. https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/ar ... r-windows/
If you have another audio application on your computer, see if you can configure that one to use ASIO4all.

2. That always works for me. Try it with a few other plugins. Maybe if you resolve #1, the Savihost issue will take care of itself.

[tmoody]

Thank you. I uninstalled and reinstalled ASIO4ALL, this time ticking the "off-line settings" box, then restarted the PC. The result was the same, however. ASIO does seem to work with other audio applications, just not with Savihost.

[zzz00m]

Thank you. I uninstalled and reinstalled ASIO4ALL, this time ticking the "off-line settings" box, then restarted the PC. The result was the same, however. ASIO does seem to work with other audio applications, just not with Savihost.

You will need to select the correct "Wave" output port option under the "Devices" menu in SAVIHost before your ASIO options become available in SAVIHost.

[tmoody]

You will need to select the correct "Wave" output port option under the "Devices" menu in SAVIHost before your ASIO options become available in SAVIHost.

You the man! That worked, and I might've spent a long time before I stumbled on it.

Any thoughts about the other problem: getting the renamed copy of Savihost to auto-load the right .dll file? This seems like some sort of generic Windows thing. It's not a huge thing to navigate to the right subdirectory every time I use Savihost, but seeing how it's supposed to work makes me want to get it to work that way.

[zzz00m]

You will need to select the correct "Wave" output port option under the "Devices" menu in SAVIHost before your ASIO options become available in SAVIHost.

You the man! That worked, and I might've spent a long time before I stumbled on it.

Any thoughts about the other problem: getting the renamed copy of Savihost to auto-load the right .dll file? This seems like some sort of generic Windows thing. It's not a huge thing to navigate to the right subdirectory every time I use Savihost, but seeing how it's supposed to work makes me want to get it to work that way.

Glad you found the ASIO!

Have no idea about the file association thing. It works as advertised here. Make sure you spell the plugin name exactly as the DLL is spelled, or it might not match it up based on the name. A misspelled name seems to trigger a file search dialogue, but it doesn't appear to be case sensitive.

As long as you are placing SAVIHost in the same folder with your plugins, and renaming it correctly, it should work.

[tmoody]

Glad you found the ASIO!

Have no idea about the file association thing. It works as advertised here. Make sure you spell the plugin name exactly as the DLL is spelled, or it might not match it up based on the name. A misspelled name seems to trigger a file search dialogue, but it doesn't appear to be case sensitive.

As long as you are placing SAVIHost in the same folder with your plugins, and renaming it correctly, it should work.

Well, it opens to the right directory, but it doesn't load the .dll file. I don't see any spelling differences, and in any case I used copy/paste to enter it anyway. But this is small potatoes. It's just another click to load the VST. I'm just pleased to have it working right. Thanks for your help.

[tmoody]

Actually, not so pleased anymore. Something went awry while I was playing, and Savihost won't run at all anymore--or maybe it's not Savihost. It might be the SWAM engine I'm using. Or ASIO, or something else entirely. Whatever it is, uninstalling and reinstalling everything didn't help. I'm writing it off as an expensive life lesson.

As I think about it, the problem is probably not with Savihost, since the SWAM engine won't run in Cantabile Lite anymore either. So not an issue for this forum.

[zzz00m]

Since you are having so much trouble, one last thing I might try would be to ditch ASIO4ALL and get an audio interface with real vendor supplied ASIO support. ASIO4ALL is just a cheap hack to provide a wrapper for WDM audio. It may cause conflicts in certain configurations.

Decent inexpensive USB interfaces can be found for less than $99, and are recommended for use with all virtual instruments. They are not just for recording. Real ASIO drivers work with lower latency for audio playback and bypass the Windows WDM audio drivers. Plus the audio outputs are much higher quality than the on-board audio in the computer.

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Audio-Inte ... cyCode=USD

[fmr]

Well, it opens to the right directory, but it doesn't load the .dll file. I don't see any spelling differences, and in any case I used copy/paste to enter it anyway. But this is small potatoes. It's just another click to load the VST. I'm just pleased to have it working right. Thanks for your help.

For SaviHost to work, it must be installed IN THE SAME folder of the DLL, and the excutable must be renamed to the exact same name of the DLL.

For example, let's say you have a plug-in named Synth.dll. You have to copy SaviHost to the same folder where that DLL resides, and RENAME SaviHost.exe to Synth.exe. Then, when you double click in it, it will automatically load Synth.dll.

[zzz00m]

He's having trouble with another host too, so it's not just SAVIHost.

[fmr]

He's having trouble with another host too, so it's not just SAVIHost.

It seems he already solved the other problem. He simply didn't knew where to click to configure SaviHost:

I'm just pleased to have it working right.

[zzz00m]

As I think about it, the problem is probably not with Savihost, since the SWAM engine won't run in Cantabile Lite anymore either. So not an issue for this forum.

You should probably try out a DAW as a stable VST host (there are a few free DAWs available such as Tracktion 7 and Cakewalk) and a computer that has been optimized for digital audio. Other commercial DAWS offer trials and demos, such as Reaper.

https://www.tracktion.com/products/t7-daw
https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk
https://www.reaper.fm/

The best way to get started with stable digital audio is to use an external USB audio interface, such as in the example I linked to a few posts back, and configure it in a reliable DAW.

[tmoody]

Is Cantabile Lite not a DAW? In any event, I guess I had the idea that for my purpose, which is using a wind controller to play VST instruments, something simple like Savihost, with fewer moving parts, so to speak, would be preferable. But as I stated above, the problem may not be Savihost anyway.

The USB interface idea is an interesting one that I intend to look into. At the moment, I'm feeling a bit burned from spending $225 for the SWAM saxophone package, which I'm unable to use since last Saturday, so I'm a bit hesitant to drop another $100 for a piece of hardware that may or may not remedy the situation. But then again, there's no refund for the SWAM software, so I do need to try to find a way forward. I just feel like I'm in over my head with this stuff, so I'm really just guessing at things.

@fmr -- Yes, I did place the Savihost executable in the same directory as the .dll file that I wanted to load, and I did rename the executable to be the same as the .dll name, minus the extension. I used copy/paste to do this, to avoid typos. It didn't work. Savihost would open in that directory and show me a dialog box with the .dll in it, but I'd have to double-click that file to get Savihost to open it. And this worked, for a while.

Then, for no reason that I could identify, Savihost would force close after trying to open that .dll file. Then I tried Cantabile Lite, which would load the SWAM plugin into its display, but as soon as I clicked to activate it exactly the same thing would happen. So the fault is either the SWAM engine or ASIO, I guess. Savihost and Cantabile Lite can't make one or the other do something, so it closes. So if the fault is with ASIO4ALL, a replacement should help. If it's with the SWAM engine, well I don't know.

I do want to thank everybody for trying to help out. I know it's very difficult when you can't really see what's going on.

[zzz00m]

Just FYI, all VST host and DAW developers are subject to interpretation of the VST standards published by Steinberg. Those interpretations are subject to some variance, and are not always equal.

So various plugins and hosts are not always compatible, unless published by the same developers. If you search the relevant forums, and see the bug reports, you will soon realize that some plugins just are not compatible with some hosts. It is what it is... the wild kingdom!