Some mixer setup questions

[szal77]

Hi Bernd,

I’m test-driving PFOA (newest version (3.0.11.13)) on my new secondary machine. Installed ASIO4All to run input and output through ASIO and got wonderfully low latency. Also the decoupling of the internal processing from the UI seems to make things a lot nicer; so far I couldn’t reproduce any hangs I experienced with an earlier version of PFOA on a not-so-fast machine.

But one thing about this setup is driving me nuts… This machine has only one sound device—an on-board Intel ICH7 HD audio chip. And I can’t wrap my head around why PFOA won’t play unless I send one channel to the PFL channel via SND (if I don’t and press Play, the player will show as ‘Playing’, but just sit there and not progress), or, alternatively, route this channel directly to the PFL channel. And while playing ‘through’ the PFL channel I cannot use the PFL channel for its intended purpose (pre-fade listening with the PFL player), because when I open the PFL player the playback from whatever other player is running stops—the PFL player will then play as it’s supposed to. On the other hand, when I route the intended output channel to the PFL channel, I can use the PFL player as intended.

And another thing: I get no sound from the cardwall players—when clicking a card it shows that it plays out, but I don’t hear anything from it.

Here’s an overview of my mixer setup (no external mixer, mic connected to Mic jack):

• DJ A [Player A]: VIRTUAL | 44100 Hz | ? OUT
• DJ B [Player B]: VIRTUAL | 44100 Hz | ? OUT
• DJ C [Player C]: VIRTUAL | 44100 Hz | ? OUT
• PLAY [Player D, Standby, Cardwall I, Cardwall II, MOD/Overlay]: VIRTUAL | 44100 Hz | ? OUT
• OUT: VIRTUAL | 44100 Hz | ? MON
• MICTH [makeshift replacement for mic amp]: VIRTUAL | 44100 Hz | ? MON
• MON [output to stream, recording; running the final DSP]: VIRTUAL | 44100 Hz | ? AIR
• AIR [workaround channel for sending to PFL]: ASIO4ALL v2 HD Audio Speaker 1+2 | 44100 Hz
• PFL: ASIO4ALL v2 HD Audio Speaker 1+2 | 44100 Hz

• MIC1: ASIO4ALL v2 Audio Recording (mixed) 1+2 | 44100 Hz | ? MICTH

If that is of any importance, in the Routing settings ‘Full-Duplex’ is set to be routed to MON.

My question now is: How do I get sound out of the cardwalls? And, can I change something about the setup such that I don’t have to route the output to the PFL channel? Constructive hints will be very much appreciated.

Have a nice Sunday

Sven

[szal77]

You are using the same ASIO device (ASIO4ALL v2 HD Audio Speaker 1+2) for two different mixer channels: AIR and PFL.
I am not sure, what Asio4All is effectively doing internally, however, this is not possible.
You can ONLY use one physical ASIO device for one mixer channel - otherwise you might get funky results - like you experiance.

I think that explains the initial ‘won’t play’ issue. I can live with routing the MON channel to the PFL channel; that way I can play the DJ players and the PFL player at the same time (I tested that, it worked), and the AIR channel is, at that point, superfluous.

I guess the cardwall and your initial 'it won't play' issue are the same.

I don’t think so. With the initial ‘won’t play’ issue, the problem was that the player (DJ player, in that case) didn’t play at all. The cardwall players do play, but I don’t hear the sound.

With the setup I have now, the signal path is essentially the same for the DJ players and the cardwall players: player channel ? OUT ? MON ? PFL. So I have a physical playout. On this machine (which I’m typing on) I have it set up in the same fashion—with the exception that I have MON as a physical output channel, because PFL plays to another sound device, so I don’t have any device ownership issues—, and I can hear the cardwalls fine. OK, granted, I don’t use ASIO on this machine, because ASIO4ALL doesn’t recognize any devices from the Creative sound card.

You need a physical (none VIRTUAL) mixer channel somehow in your mixer chain to effectively play things!
VIRTUAL mixer channel which are not 'connected' to a final physical output device won't play by itself!

See above: all virtual channels are connected to a physical channel at the end of the chain (PFL).

[radio42]

What's the volume of your cardwall?
Make a right-click on an empty space in the cardwall and see the 'volume' in context menu.
Is maybe one of your mixer-channels in the chain muted?
And does the peak-level-meters 'move' when you play a card?

[szal77]

Volume is set to 0.00 dB for both cardwalls. None of the mixer channels in the chain is muted, only the mic input is muted when not in use. Peak level meters don’t show anything when playing a card.

[radio42]

When no peak level meters are moving then the cards are not playing ?!
That all sounds a bit puzzling.
What does happen if you PFL a card?
And what does happen if you route the Cardwall to a different mixer channel?

[szal77]

Oh. My. Goodness. Now I feel stupid… The problem was that I forgot to turn up the gain in the AGC for the PLAY channel *bangingHeadOnKeyboard*… It came to me like a flash when I routed one cardwall to DJ C instead and it played fine.

But now I have a different problem. I deleted the AIR channel (which I don’t need any more at this point), and now the mixer window looks like this ?



No scrollbar, so I can’t reach all channels. What do I do about this? [Edit] Undocking and re-docking won’t help matters.

[meisterpropper]

Make the window wider til you can see the missing input channels. Then you can adjust this.

[szal77]

I did that. But when I put the window back into the tab bar I still don’t get a horizontal scrollbar…

I worked around the problem now by changing the layout and putting the mixer under the playlist window. But that doesn’t solve the problem, it only hides it.

[radio42]

The mixer window has three scrollable areas:
1. the area listing the output mixers
2. the area listing the input mixers
3. the main mixer

Make the whole docked panel bigger, so that you can access all areas.
Then drag the 'splitter' between the output and input area to the left to make the output area smaller.
Do the same with the input area.
Then you can re-dock your mixer window.

[szal77]

That would also just be a workaround. If the window’s content is larger than the window, a scrollbar should come up automatically. Period. [Edit] And this is what it did before I deleted the above mentioned mixer channel. So the question is: Where is the bug that prevents it from doing so after I deleted the channel?