jkleban


Damn Ken...

An EE... you should be designing these things for us from a REAL USER point of view.

Than we can all complain about you hehehehe

Jim

 
Haha...I have plenty of people willing to complain about me....stand in line ;-) I have degrees in Electrical Engineering and Chemistry but ended up being a software engineer/architect for my entire career. Still always was real into music though. I would have been a horrid pure EE for a living.
 
I have isolated the problem down to the VS-Expand option in the driver config menu of the Control Panel. If that is on then all hell breaks loose. If I shut that off then I don't get the digital pops. The problem is that if that is shut off then I can't see my second set of Octa-Capture ports from the ASIO driver. It was NOT that way in the V1.0 firmware/driver combination. That option did NOT exist even. The documentation claims it is just status monitoring but I claim the docs are most definitely incorrect on this.
 
I had a theory that allowing multiple output sources in the mixer menu might be overloading the Octa's at 96K but that is most definitely NOT the issue at all. Active or muted inputs/outputs have no bearing on the problem. I also hooked up a second SP/DIF cable to go from the output of the second Octa back to the input of the first just to see if somehow that was now required but I got the same clocking noise and distortion I had when I originally determined this was a real bad idea back when I first got these two units.
 
My next step is to replicate the project that I know causes the problems but put it at a 44.1 Khz sample rate and see if that makes a difference or not. I suspect it will and that this was never properly tested. Right now I am on DVD 9 of my 12 DVD Ivory 2 Upright Piano's installation so that is on hold.
 
Ken

So, I get it the problem is not with a standalone Octa-Capture, but when it's used with a VS unit?
 
Inquiring minds want to know.  I'm a retired Computer network manager and worked as a NASA programmer on the Apollo project, and was an amp tech in Nashville.

fireberd


So, I get it the problem is not with a standalone Octa-Capture, but when it's used with a VS unit?
 
Inquiring minds want to know.  I'm a retired Computer network manager and worked as a NASA programmer on the Apollo project, and was an amp tech in Nashville.

My setup is two Octa-Captures together where the second Octa-Capture is used to provide me 8 more ports for expansion. This is one of the documented features of the Octa-Capture and why I bought it in the first place. It used to work in the V1.0 firmware perfectly. The latest update broke it. I don't have issues running one unit alone although I think the latency increased with the latest release.


I don't know if the same problem exists for a VS-700  using an Octa-Capture as an 8 port expansion. Somehow I suspect that works fine cause that would likely have been tested. Pure speculation on my part and I would love to hear from anyone running the V1.5 driver/firmware combination with a VS-700 and Octa-Capture strapped together.


More testing today. I will post results as soon as I get them.


Ken

Fireberd... man, I love the sound of Pedal Steel but not necessarily in the country aspect (which is cool) but more rock stuff where a pedal steel was used sort of like an effect.... Jerry Garcia's pedal playing with Crosby, Stills and Nash stuff (Teach Your Children)... then Jerry's side project, New Riders of the Purple Sage (even though this is country rock)...

It is just an amazing sounding instrument to me... which I knew how to play one....

But, back OT.... so, Ken, do you think it is safe to upgrade my Octopus in that I am only using ONE unit?

Jim

Jim,  I'm more traditonal (older) country but last summer I tracked a Pedal Steel for a studio in New Zealand on a Dylan song (You Ain't Goin Nowhere).

If you like the current stuff, check out Robert Randolph and his pedal steel.  Doesn't sound anything like country rock.

Back on subject, I would like to know if it's safe for a one octa-capture unit too.

fireberd


Back on subject, I would like to know if it's safe for a one octa-capture unit too.

That makes three of us!

OK folks here is the latest results from my experiments. Sorry it took so long but I got an emergency call to fix a network. I knew I should have taken that tin foil hat off....it attracts problems ;-)

My latest experiment was to replicate my problematic project that was running at a 96 Khz sample rate and see if I had the same issues with the Octa-Captures set at 44.1 Khz. My hope was that if it worked fine at 44.1 Khz I would sacrifice what is really an unnecessarily high (for me) sample rate to be able to run both units together as before. Oh the fun and joy converting a project over to a new sample rate. I will spare the horror in this particular thread and just get to the conclusions.

The same problem occurs at 44.1 Khz as at 96 Khz. I get awful popping and clicking indicating frame drops and/or clock slips between the Octa-Captures with the VS-Expand option selected. I could mask this by putting my buffers up to 256 which would give me an 18 ms latency number but that really was only masking the problem. Anything less than 256 buffers at 44.1 Khz with VS-Expand selected in the driver options of the ASIO Control Panel caused badness.

When I uncheck VS-Expand I lose my ability to see my expansion Octa-Capture ports. The problems I was having with the audio go away completely and I can run the exact same project without any dropouts with 64 buffers. I have a very fast CPU so the additional interrupt overhead did not make a meaningful difference in this scenario. I never got a single core above 35% or so. Note that the two Octa-Captures ARE still sending data over the SP/DIF port because I have configured them from the panels to have VS-Expand enabled. My master Octa-Capture sends all the audio to the slave Octa-Capture which is in turn hooked up to my amplifier. This is different from the driver mode setting of VS-Expand. I am going to guess that the Windows driver ultimately will be the faulty software for this setup. I know this is very confusing. Flatly, Roland blew it on this one.

So, for those interested in upgrading to V1.5 I would say you are perfectly OK as long as you do not have to link your Octa-Capture together with another Octa-Capture through the SP/DIF port. If you have to link your devices I would say stay away from V1.5 like the plague.

I hope this has been helpful.

Ken

Just out of curiosity Inaheartbeat, How is your OC connected? An add in usb card or off the motherboard? I think I read in the documentation to use the motherboard's usb.

HTH

Guitarpima


Just out of curiosity Inaheartbeat, How is your OC connected? An add in usb card or off the motherboard? I think I read in the documentation to use the motherboard's usb.

HTH

Right off the motherboard for both of them. I have what is effectively a very high powered laptop as my DAW.


Ken

Ken, I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to keep us all up-to-date on your Octa-saga.  I've been waiting to update my single OC setup, but have been very hesitant to do so because of all the trouble you have been having.

Did you ever get anywhere with Roland in terms of having the 1.0 firmware as an option?  The would certainly make me feel more comfortable with my pending upgrade.

I can't imagine there's anything in particular I can do to help, but if you have a contact at Roland and would like me (us) to send notes asking them for a little more support on this, I'd be happy to do so.

Please keep us posted!

Ed