New Plug-In: Blue Cat's Connector

[Blue Cat Audio]

Connector can usually deal with different buffer sizes (some hosts actually use variable buffer lengths over time), you simply have to adjust the length of buffer of the receiving instance, as explained here.

Of course, you may want to use the same sample rate and buffer size to get the lowest latency.

[Tj Shredder]

That does not explain Midi drop outs caused be a different audio block size of the two hosts… At the moment they have to be absolutely the same…

[jackoo]

Hi, this looks extremely interesting.
Just a theoretical question: If I were to run some sample libraries on another computer (let's call it server), this machine needs a low latency ASIO soundcard, although this is in theory discarded, as the audio would be re-routed to the client?

I was wondering if I could use "servers" without a dedicated soundcard...

In some of your example you show patchwork as a server; but this needs to be connected to an actual asio soundcard, right? even if sound card would never be connected to a 'speaker'...

Or another way around: let's say I put ASIO4ALL on the server, and it's built-in soundcard can't handle a low buffer size, so if I connect that directly to a speaker I hear noise / cracks / dropped samples. Would connector send the audio stream just fine (even if the server's soundcard can't keep up with it)?

[Blue Cat Audio]

That does not explain Midi drop outs caused be a different audio block size of the two hosts… At the moment they have to be absolutely the same…

Does the receiving instance display any drop outs when using different block sizes? Also, are you using the same audio interface in both apps? Results may indeed vary depending on how the drivers and apps are written.

[Blue Cat Audio]

Hi, this looks extremely interesting.
Just a theoretical question: If I were to run some sample libraries on another computer (let's call it server), this machine needs a low latency ASIO soundcard, although this is in theory discarded, as the audio would be re-routed to the client?

I was wondering if I could use "servers" without a dedicated soundcard...

In some of your example you show patchwork as a server; but this needs to be connected to an actual asio soundcard, right? even if sound card would never be connected to a 'speaker'...

Or another way around: let's say I put ASIO4ALL on the server, and it's built-in soundcard can't handle a low buffer size, so if I connect that directly to a speaker I hear noise / cracks / dropped samples. Would connector send the audio stream just fine (even if the server's soundcard can't keep up with it)?

Right now you need a low latency audio interface on both. We are however currently testing an ASIO slave driver as well as a built-in slave mode for our apps that let you use them without any driver on the "server" side.

[Tj Shredder]

That does not explain Midi drop outs caused be a different audio block size of the two hosts… At the moment they have to be absolutely the same…

Does the receiving instance display any drop outs when using different block sizes? Also, are you using the same audio interface in both apps? Results may indeed vary depending on how the drivers and apps are written.

Both would use the same interface (MotU UltraLight mk3 hybrid) I could not see dropouts, as I don't send any audio in that connection I don't know why I should. Midi is dead slow compared to audio...
For the other (audio) direction I saw on/off connection instead of dropouts (which resulted in heavy stuttering of course...).

[Blue Cat Audio]

Both would use the same interface (MotU UltraLight mk3 hybrid) I could not see dropouts, as I don't send any audio in that connection I don't know why I should. Midi is dead slow compared to audio...
For the other (audio) direction I saw on/off connection instead of dropouts (which resulted in heavy stuttering of course...).

The plug-in will actually display drops-outs even with MIDI. That's how you know if the connection is stable or not.

If you are using the same audio interface then it's not surprising that you need the same buffer size. Even if you use different buffers in both apps, what happens behind the scenes is that the audio driver uses a single buffer (probably the largest) and calls the app with the smallest buffer size several times in a row for a single audio clock tick. In this case it will likely cause lots of timing issues, so Connector cannot synchronize between these apps.

[jackoo]

Hi, this looks extremely interesting.
Just a theoretical question: If I were to run some sample libraries on another computer (let's call it server), this machine needs a low latency ASIO soundcard, although this is in theory discarded, as the audio would be re-routed to the client?

I was wondering if I could use "servers" without a dedicated soundcard...

In some of your example you show patchwork as a server; but this needs to be connected to an actual asio soundcard, right? even if sound card would never be connected to a 'speaker'...

Or another way around: let's say I put ASIO4ALL on the server, and it's built-in soundcard can't handle a low buffer size, so if I connect that directly to a speaker I hear noise / cracks / dropped samples. Would connector send the audio stream just fine (even if the server's soundcard can't keep up with it)?

Right now you need a low latency audio interface on both. We are however currently testing an ASIO slave driver as well as a built-in slave mode for our apps that let you use them without any driver on the "server" side.

That's great to hear.
I'll be watching for news on that front! If you manage to get that, it makes it really attractive for me.
Many thanks for the reply.

[chagzuki]

Haven't tried this yet, I think I'll wait until it's a bit more mature. Back in 2002 there was FXteleport, essentially doing the same thing: the way that worked was such that if there was no network connection the main host would just load the plugins locally within the wrapper, so your projects could be run both with and without network offloading. Does this have the same functionality?

[Blue Cat Audio]

Connector is actually a bit different: it's not a plug-in that loads plug-ins remotely. It is "just" a plug-in capable of streaming audio and MIDI between several applications on one or several machines.

[Blue Cat Audio]

The Connector introduction offer has been exceptionally extended until tomorrow... Don't miss it!

[Blue Cat Audio]

Just wanted to let you now that a new preview of Connector 1.1 is available to existing Connector owners!

What's new in Connector 1.1 preview:
- Windows ASIO Slave driver preview for Connector: install the driver and use it in any ASIO-compatible app to stream audio to and from it directly from the Connector plug-in.
- Added a MIDI activity meter for send and receive.
- Fixed loud sample value that could happen randomly upon first receive.
- Fixed unexpected 1 sample latency upon reception.

Enjoy!