AMP in the Real World

A place to discuss AMP - Audio Mixing Platform (http://www.ampmix.net)

Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby Jeffsco » Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:56 am

that explains why...for example...Waves puts a lot of effort into integrating itself into certain models of Digital Mixers. It seems to me that most will enable you to use them but certain models and series work flawlessly.

You'd have to work out and integrate every plugin and every plugn version as it progressed to ensure seamless operation. That's a LOT of work.
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:16 am

Bob P,

You could always touch base with Charlie Richmond at Richmond Sound Design. Their Soundman Server is able to agregate ASIO devices somehow. But they are the only ones I know of that have done that and done it at the application level as opposed to some wrapper or the like that typically adds a fair amount of latency such as ASIO4all.
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http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/
SAC details and goodies at: http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/SAC.html
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby Craig » Sat Jul 18, 2015 7:10 pm

BobP wrote:>> "Any chances of a VST implementation?"

I'm not going to say NO, but honestly, there are many more things that are on my list ahead of looking at it.

"Why?" you say? :-) Here's why:

I run the AMP host on a separate PC, as I recommend for everyone. This gives you the best stability, as it seems that graphic updates are the major source of CPU hiccups. VSTs are designed to be controlled _only_ on the host they are running. How would you then control the VST parameters "live", if you are only at your GUI PC?


BobP,

I appreciate your honest and thorough reply. I realize that I'm nothing in the grand scheme of things - just a bar band making a few $$. So I'm not really your target audience, but here's my $.02 anyway:
I'm not using two PC's to run any software. Is it more stable/robust? I'm sure it is, but at the end of the night, I don't want another thing I have to lug out and it's another point that can fail. Currently SAC is running just fine for me on one PC and has also been very stable. I'm just not really happy with the progress on it and didn't care for the recent quality customer service on the other forum.

BobP wrote:I don't think sac's way of doing it is very good, and I don't want that reputation for AMP - that it's a "gimmicky interface". The big difference between the "big boy" mixers and sac is that their interface is refined, and everything works. There's no "adjust the parameters, right click this, shift click that, Send parameters, etc etc..." stuff. AMP's current plugins, meager as they might be, all work from any GUI, and respond in real time, just as you would expect.


When it's used the way I use it, SAC's way is fine. But I'm not adjusting VST's from a remote. I set them up in advance and forget them. Since I'm in a static environment, I have the luxury of being able to test everything first to make sure it is stable. I never need to adjust from a remote and if I need to do any tweaking, I do it from the host.

BobP wrote:This sort of ties into another interesting post I say on "another" forum... I do *not* want AMP to be a program that requires all sorts of fiddling just to get it working. You should be able to boot, and mix. Sure, there are a LOT of customizations you can do, and in that regard, it's no different from any serious digital mixer. There's a lot more that you CAN do, but not that you NEED to do.


Those are no doubt good goals to have, and I've heard AMP achieves them very well.

BobP wrote:So back to the subject at hand: I don't want to implement something that is a poor design from the start. If there is a way we can get that graphic interface (or -some- sort of interface) to the GUI that will adjust VST parameters live in real-time, then I'm for it. But if it is a hack, I don't want to cheapen the product.


If it were ME designing it, I would make VST ONLY adjustable from the host. I'd make it so you could only remove VST's from a remote. But that only serves MY purposes, I'm sure others would want more. But to me, it seems like a decemt compromise.

BobP wrote:What is it that you want to accomplish with the plugins? Remember that while AMP is in "Beta test", it is *not* in "Feature Freeze". There's lots more stuff on my radar before version 1.0, and what you want may be on the list.


Autotune, crossover duties, distortion, multiband compression, chorus and other modulation FX. We use a lot of automated special FX with SAC currently.

This all being said, I'm still probably going to buy into the beta just to see what it can do. I'm really excited about the possibilities but can't give up what has become some of our signature FX.

Thanks for the info!
-Craig
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby gdougherty » Sun Jul 19, 2015 12:12 am

BobP wrote:
gdougherty wrote:BobP, I'm not a coder and I'm not sure what's required or even possible in terms of communication with VST plugins. I do know that VST automation is possible within a DAW, so it does seem that it should hypothetically be possible to capture value changes from a VST on a remote and pass those along for adjustment on the host as if the automation system were passing updates to the VST.
Like others, the reverbs and other effects plugins that don't require audio feedback into the plugin for display updates are what interest me the most in terms of VST support. Some SAC users really liked their LA-2A emulations and the like but I can live without those assuming the host processing sounds good.


Hey George!

Yes, you are correct.. parameters can be passed. But for the automation hosts, all they know is that a number is changing.. It does not know *what* the number means. So that would mean we would need to create a GUI interface for each different plugin, and map the various parameters to meaningful names and widgets. That's a manual process, so while that could be done for a few VSTs, it's a long ways from "load up any VST you want!"...

Just thinking... I wonder if it might be possible to have the AMP ASIOHost *also* create its own ASIO device, which could then be used for things like LiveProfessor.. hmm.... Anyone interested in helping with some x86 asm code? :-)

Bob

Not sure I follow. I'd assumed the VST UI would be displayed on the remote, the user could manipulate the UI and the changed value would be passed to the host where a patched version would get the values as if automation were passing in the values.
http://softwareaudioconsole.wikidot.com The start of a wiki. It's slow going and there's a ton of info that should be in there yet.
Biggest item is the Command Reference on how to do most actions within SAC. It's 90% of what you need for UI proficiency.

g is for George
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby mattseymour » Sun Jul 19, 2015 3:46 am

Craig, the challenge is that with amp you're always using a remote to control the mix engine, even on the same pc. To allow manipulation of vst on the host would require building a ui for that, separate to the remote gui.

Thing is, it isn't really host and remote. It's client and server with the audio engine being a server to the gui client.
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Re: AMP in the Real World

Postby RBIngraham » Sun Jul 19, 2015 9:46 am

mattseymour wrote:Craig, the challenge is that with amp you're always using a remote to control the mix engine, even on the same pc. To allow manipulation of vst on the host would require building a ui for that, separate to the remote gui.

Thing is, it isn't really host and remote. It's client and server with the audio engine being a server to the gui client.



Matt makes a great point. The GUI on the "host" is really just a simple "windows grey box with blue title bar" look that allows you to set the audio interface, sample rate and number of buffers you would like. There are a few other things in there that allow setting a recording directory and some simple check boxes and such. There is also just a text box so you can see what remotes are connected and such. To attach to this a way to open and assign a VST would be a lot of work I image. (not being a code writer)

I will point out a great benefit to this methodology however. And that is as Joe has pointed out, if you do crash the GUI... that host just keep chugging along. I just crashed the GUI last night while I was working on updating cleaning up some of my custom wdl files. (those are windows you display in the GUI) Even with several screw ups on my part while I figured out what line of code I messed up the host showed 3 dropped buffers at the end of the night.

Also allow me to share a phone call I got last night. My A2 on a currently running show called me and had some questions about tweaking the bands In Ear mixes (it's a theatre show, but it's one of those shows where the band all wears cans or In Ears). I walked him through making the adjustments and he then asked how he should save the settings. (he was used to working with SAC) I explained to him that really he didn't have to do anything as the settings would automatically be saved as they are in the "current" show. (just like a hardware console) But to be safe we backed up the show file. He was then surprised that I didn't tell him to go to the host computer which the A1 uses to mix the show (yes I often disregard Bob P's advice and run the primary show GUI right on the host... works just fine...) so he could save. I said... Nope, you can do all that with ease right from the A2 computer. And in the latest beta (which is not in use in this show) there is even a tool to tranfer files. So I could have had him tranfer a back up copy of the show files to the A2 remote as additional back up.
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SAC details and goodies at: http://www.rbicompaudio.20m.com/SAC.html
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