PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums RealBand And here we go again....

Eddie if you want to mix as if you were mixing on an old school mixing desk, that can be done, but using software it really requires a control surface, not a analog mixer that has only audio connection to the software. Something like this http://www.musiciansfriend.com/computer-audio-interfaces-convertors/m-audio-projectmix-i-o The problem you will run into is that route can rapidly get expensive, especially if you want 16 channels. 8 is easy, and some units do expand. A typical mixer, or interface will only send audio to a sound card, or computer, and receive it. It has no ability to move the faders, and controls of the software to mix. So this is where control surfaces come in play.

I understand the frustration, and the fact you have a lot invested in the gear, and it does not do what you wanted. You bought the mackie board, the motu interfaces, and such, but none of these are control surfaces, and you are doing things kind of the hard way.

Take a deep breath my friend, and step back a bit. Figure out what you want, do the research and get the equipment you need, sell what you have, and upgrade if you so choose.

The other Option is to step back and lower your expectations a bit, like the rest of us do, and learn a process that is available to you. We all want the experience to be as easy as possible, but most can't afford to go out and buy a home studio setup that rivals capitol records. Put aside that RB is acting up right now, no software you buy is going to give you this capability with out a hardware element involved. Plus eddie as you and I both know you get a tad wound up, and jump light years ahead. Remember the sessions where we worked on your system online, it was not big things that were stumping you, but small adjustments.

It might seem like you left the system for the night and came back and it failed, but something changed, maybe not from you, but something like the screensaver, or powersaver settings are interfering. Sometimes when I come back to the computer and wake it up, it will struggle to start up for a bit, if you then add the pressure of trying to use RB it might lock up on you.

Just to defend Eddie a tiny bit I have to say this. What he wants to do with the analog mixer is not unusual. I used to do it, my friend does it and many others who want to run their signal through an analog desk for the effect. So let's stop bugging him about this.
I also said that this is going to be a complex system and it is however the biggest problem with the setup is the operator.He can not except the fact that even though he's an IT tech he doesn't know everything.Computers and audio have been and still are sort of a black art. If you have a temper and let little things bother you you are going to lose this fight with your computer. Trust me I've been doing this a long time.So have others.

Eddie, I think you should forget software recording and get something like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AKAI-DPS-16-Mult...=item1c21869bef

I've had one of these for about 4 years now. 8 analogue inputs for live recording and it can mix 16. I paid $600 for mine used, now it's $300. I know newer ones by Akai, Roland and Korg can handle 12-24 tracks of live recording and cost from $800-$2,000. They can do everything you want right inside the unit itself, no computer necessary but for me at least I convert my Akai tracks to wav's as one multitrack file and import it into Adobe Audition where the tracks are automatically separated for mixing. The new units can do a direct transfer into your PC via USB. I think some of these units can act as a control interface via midi too so you get a lot of bang for your buck.

And you have all those beautiful physical sliders and knobs to play with.

Bob

What kills me if is that I know if I was there, I would make the thing do what Eddie wants (its easily done with a multi-out card) and MME would have absolutely NO affect on the situation.

Simplify it in your head. You want to send 16 outs to mixer (enable 16 outputs in RB output driver section)

Route each track to which of the 16 outs you want (using right-click on track and select 'port')

Play song and make sure it plays to mixer.

Route wires from mixer (your mix) back to input 1/2 on Motu unit.
Enable these inputs in drivers section (and only these inputs so they are default)

Hit record; RB should play the song out those 8 outs to Mixer. Mixer sends it back to Motu input (which records it) onto a new blank track.
If you hear the original tracks in the recording, it is an issue with the MOTU unit routing the outs back to the in.
The (often) complex missing part is the device mixer; you have to make sure all those tracks going thru the Motu on their way out are not getting routed back into the input side accidently. This happens when 'monitor mix' or similar is used in a soundcard mixer applet.
If you hear your new mix in the recorded track, the routing is correct.

I'm sure you can get the MME drivers set up again. The access violations are likely due to changes made to settings. If MME works, it'll work for this application. If you need ASIO to hear those outputs, then you'll have to go that route.

Some more updating to fill in puzzle pieces.

I put the computer together a few weeks ago. It has a 3.2gh Intel dual core, with 2gb of DDR2 RAM. It uses standard VGA drivers for video as I am using onboard video in lieu of a video card. 16mb or RAM dedicated to video. Also no NIC, thus no NIC drivers, and no interrupts of the the CPU for internet access or polling email. The only card on the mobo is the MOTU PCIx card.

The hard drive has Windows, the MOTU drivers, Real Band, and nothing else. No anti virus program or spyware program, as it will never go on the internet. There is a screen saver enabled, but no power saving. And just for the record, I have 6 PCs in my house and the only time any of them get powered off is when the neighborhood power goes out. They all run 24/7, without issue.

Now, someone mentioned "seeing" the MOTUs. The interface works fine. The audio port setting panel sees all 8 interfaces on both of the MOTUs. I have tested all 16 outputs with a short test song I wrote with an 8 bar section put on 16 channels of Real Band. Track one is bar 1-8, track 2 is bar 9-16, and so forth. Track one and two are set to outputs 1 and 2, with track one panned hard left and track 2 panned hard right. That follows through for all 16 tracks. As I play the song through, I see the channel one light on MOTU 1 flash for 8 bars. Then track 2. Then 3, and so on. When it gets to track 9 in Real Band, it switches to the second MOTU, and does the same thing with outputs 9-16 as it did with outputs 1-8. I ran that test many times. It responded that way (correctly) every time.

Then I tried the ASIO drivers. 15 outputs were fine. The very first track, which was routed to MOTU unit 1 and panned hard left, was overdriven to the point where I feared it would blow a speaker. I then switched routing so that track was not on MOTU unit 1 output 1 (though still in track 1 position in the Real Band song) and the overdriving followed the track. I then tried the ASIO4ALL and the result was exactly the same. So that means that whatever is in track 1 was being overdriven with any ASIO driver. But that is no big deal. I have never gotten the ASIO drivers to work before and didn't care then so I don't care now. (Now from that paragraph, remember mainly that Real Band saw all 16 outputs on the 2 MOTUs.)

Now on to the night I went ballistic. Actually the night before. I went upstairs, loaded Real Band, worked for 5-6 hours. Successfully. Mixing everything on my Mackie, recording it off in stereo to another computer running Adobe Audition using the original M-Audio interface I used to use. All is well. It got to be about 1am, and I had to get up for work at 6:45, so I called it a night.

(Pause here to note that I did not suddenly get the urge to dismantle and reassemble a running system. I didn't download new drivers, I didn't change Real Band's audio port configuration, I didn't run Windows updates, I didn't scan for virus.... I just walked down 12 steps, took a right, let the dog out, and went to bed. The only thing I even touched upstairs was turning off the 2 powered Wharfedale monitors, which of course has zero to do with the computers.)

The next day I went upstairs, nudged the mouse, turned the monitors back on and hit play. And I got a memory exception error. Okay. Only strike one. Cleared the error, which made the transports in Real Band non-responsive. I went through the task manager and shut down Real Band. I rebooted the computer. When I started Real Band back up, Real Band had lost my MOTU configuration so I had to reconfigure it all. Working from a cell phone photo I had to the prefs screens, I set it up exactly like it was when it worked. I loaded my sample song, not even the song I was mixing, but that 16 track x 8 bar testing track that I used to successfully test. I hit play. I got a memory exception. I did the same things again. 7 times I did that before I stopped and decided whether I would get the original hard drive that has BIAB/RB on it and throw the thing through the drywall or not.

I come back to the same question, spoken from the computer geek side of the equation. If there is an issue with my setup, doesn't logic say that the original setup would NEVER have worked? And from a geek perspective, "something" does not exist in my world. There is no "something changed". Short of someone breaking into my house and sneaking up there to make changes to my system, nothing changed. "Something" doesn't change by itself. Changes have to be made by someone. And while I MAY accept that Windows updates can at times cause problems, those updates would have to come down through a network connection. This computer does not have a network connection.

And that sums up where the frustration comes from. Had it never worked, I would surrender and say that it just isn't going to work out. However, I was mixing down the 4th song of this project, on the 5th day of use, when it started giving me errors. Does it not follow logic that if I had a setup issue it would have surfaced on day one, song one?

My issues are two. Why I suddenly started getting a memory exception, and where the latency suddenly came from (on day 5) that is causing the playback to stutter when nothing else in being done on the computer, meaning no mouse movement, no keyboard activity, no internet activity, no anti virus running in the background suddenly kicking in to start a scan.....

My trumpet player with his Mac G5 runs three of the same MOTU units with Protools and spent an hour on the phone scratching his head with me because he has no issues at all, and his G5 runs at 700mh. I am at 3.2gh. I am totally baffled.

I got this far...and stopped.

Quote:

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Some more updating to fill in puzzle pieces.
I put the computer together a few weeks ago. It has a 3.2gh Intel dual core, with 2gb of DDR2 RAM.

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Sorry to be blunt but, you need more horse power than that to run these audio applications without issues. Are those dual MOTU's internal cards, good god?? Now I know someone will pipe in that they are running on an old P-III, with a 512K of Ram but, if you want to do what you are doing it just seems to me that we are overlooking the 800 lb gorilla in the room,.....well, Nuff said.

Can we do a quick poll on our individaul DAWs in terms of processor and RAM? I'll start:
Intel P7 - 6Gb Ram - this system rocks and is very stable....

It'a not a matter of 'someone snuck in and changed things'. Picture this;
You did 87 edits in the previous 5 days of running RB (without reboot) then let it go to sleep. Some memory location got lost. (Exception error expected)
Question is did you change any settings to try to fix it before simply rebooting? In the frustration I probably would have so suspect you may have.
If so, those settings got saved and now you have an issue. I'm not saying this to sound like a pain, but rebooting before every session can save a lot of headaches. I learned that the hard way (but that's in the past on this issue).

Start over. Reset RB to default settings. Rename Realband.INI and RB.CFG files (in C:\Realband) so RB resets itself and rebuilds those files. This resets the program as far as soundcard discovery/settings. Then set up correct drivers in RB for MOTU. See if that helps.

Again; the issue with track 1 input (in ASIO) being overpowering is likely inside the MOTU software mixer (not RB). Been there done that. Look everywhere in MOTU software applet for any routing that may feed the track back in. This part can be complicated in the best software mixer routing, so be patient and look.

That said, what you are attempting should not require ASIO. Staying in MME would be more stable, as long as the needed output/input ports showed up in RB drivers section while choosing MME.
If not it is the MOTU forccing ASIO, not RB. If they are available RB will use MME (wdm) drivers. If they are not available (and the card requires ASIO) then you have to go that route, it should still work.

Give up guys. Eddie needs to figure this out on his own as he's more capable then any of us. Done.

A clean reboot after each session allow the computer to clear it's mind. Letting it run for days with constant edits, and changes, additions, and such can cause a lot of issues.

Look I know that allowing a computer to run for ever can be fine, IF the Big IF you are not asking it to do what it must to function as a freakin' recording studio!!

What goes on in a DAW software /hardware package is so complicated to start with let along not saving and powering down, then allowing the system to fall into sleep mode, or such.

Add to that the complication of having a serious sound card /driver setup like Motu.

If I do not save, frequently i can risk losing everything. Rebooting is similar in nature. It allows the computer to take a nap, and wake up refreshed, find it's instructions again, relearn it's process anew.

I remember Peter Norton's book on computers year ago, explaining boot up. He talked about how boot up was like having to train a secretary to do her job each morning, giving her a set of rules and guidlines to walk thru. This makes the drivers, programs, and processes fresh and uncluttered.

>>>...Do you see why this is so frustrating? I lost a whole night resetting and rebooting to no avail...>>>

I certainly do.

My system is pretty old. I run a prgram called END IT ALL before I start RBand. It kills all the other programs running in the background. I need all my resources free to run RBand.

Dont know if END IT ALL is still available. You can do the same thing in Windows Task Manager

I have used this program for a number of years now and had no problems?.. It keeps on doing it's job! I believe it's in your hardware! NOT the software.

( for what it's worth)

Eddie, I'm really torn here. We've corresponded in the past and I like you yet you can be such a pia sometimes it drives me crazy. Oth, you're not the only friend I've got who's like that either and this is just a forum. Soooo much easer if we were all sitting around having a beer and figuring this out.

I'll say this. I've reported for years now that when I'm heavy into working RB, laying down tracks, doing a lot of midi edits in the piano roll window, moving track, cutting/pasting, doing some audio edits that I have to save/close/reopen every hour to hour and a half because I'll get absorbed in something and then suddenly notice one of many small anomaly's I won't describe here. They're weird, they change but I know when it happens sort of like the dog telling you she has to go out. I know it's time to shut it down and reopen and it's all good for another 90 minutes or so. If, after doing a lot of work, I left RB running for 14 hours I would be totally shocked and amazed if it even did anything. I think I would get a big yellow box saying **** you, leave me alone you inconsiderate ********* I've been sitting here bored out of my gourd all night!! Sorry ladies, somehow I think of RB as female.<Grin> She requires some care and attention. As do they all btw.

Do exactly what Rharv described, and I mean literally. Call him if you have to, he knows what he's doing, reset everything as he said and you should be good to go but also do what I said and don't work it for too long a period of time without closing/reoopening. It just needs to reset itself on a regular basis. Give it some fiber.

Bob

No Harv, I changed nothing before rebooting. It was after the reboot I lost my temper. After rebooting, I started Real Band, and audio drivers section, where for the previous session and several before it listed the MOTU as the outputs, was totally blank. I set it back to how it was. Same thing with the "access violation". 7 times. Reboot, reset, access violation. Reboot, reset.... 7 times. And I never "changed" anything, just put it back like it was.

I have not tried the MOTU card and interfaces with another DAW yet. In an effort to keep that system as pristine as possible I didn't load anything but BIAB/RB. That is next.

Come on down. You are just 4 hours away..... :-)

Road trip with Beer!