Success in Dinosaur-Land!

[Gary_101]

... but of course a few configuration issues!

A few questions about configuring, my Windows 7 -64bit OS ... my chosen apps I'm going to try to learn are the stripped-down ("light") versions of Cubase and Sonar (Cubase 5.01 LE and Sonar X1-LE). These two will for sure suit my audio & midi needs.

There are 3 levels of config: Windows system level, Scope project / software settings, and Sequencer settings; all of which need a little figuring out.

• WIN7 SYSTEM: in the "device manager" - what are the optimium settings? NUMBER OF DEVICES, I normally set for 6, which I believe is the number of WAVE DRIVERS (both Source & Dest modules) that you can therefore load in Scope? Correct? I rarely need more than 6 stereo channels. Then, "MAX CHANNELS" ... would that be "2", as in "stereo" for each of the 6 drivers? (am I even close?
• WIN7 SYSTEM: also has an "output preload" slider from "small" to "big", currently set in the middle. Should I leave this be?
• WIN7 SYSTEM: Preferred bit depth. 16 / 24 / 32. I chose 24. I do most of my work in 16, but am doing more and more video sound-tracks pieces, which are usually 24/48, so I thought I'd chose the higher one, thinking it would 'include' 16 bit no problem. Does the higher settings "tax" either the Scope or the Windows system more? Should I stay @ 16 if most of the current work I'm doing is at 16?
• WIN7 SYSTEM: finally, POWER MGMT: allow standby ... ALWAYS, or WITH BACKGROUND PROJECT, or WITH NO APPLICATION USING THE HARDWARE (I chose the latter). Then, "reset board if idle", (checked).

then, the SCOPE SYSTEM ...

• SETTINGS > ULLI > basically 5 choices, from lowest to highest latency. I assume that the higher latency settings (bottom choice) would tax my PI / PII cards the least? I do often run just under DSP overload, so best to leave it this way if it will tax the system. I don't notice any latency problems.
• STARTUP WARNINGS: occasionally I get these: cannot find DSP file MVC STS 5000 VxD ... for all the samplers. I think GaryB may have mentioned that the samplers would not be available if I am running a 64-bit system.

And then, the ASIO thing ...

I've avoided Cubase for years because I have a mental block against "ASIO" for some reason. I've therefore chosen the somewhat friendlier SONAR interface for most of my musical endeavors over the years. It seems to work fine with the WAV drivers. But, having said that, I'd like to master the ASIO 'mountain' and get it working properly. Will ASIO also work with SONAR?

• So, in SCOPE, I'm confronted with "ASIO" which loads as "ASIO-32 DEST 64" ... which kind of baffles me. I read the Scope Manual, and it baffles me even further. I'm really not a rocket scientist, I just want to make music. I work mostly in 16 bit, and I generally use 3 to 6 stereo audio tracks at the most. Can anyone please tell me which ASIO drivers I should load in SCOPE if I am trying out CUBASE 5 LE? (I'll leave the ASIO out of my SONAR projects, unless I'm told differently ..)
• SOUNCARD DEST / SOURCE ... I never got these working in eihter of my old XP machines, and they don't seem to work in WIN7/64 either. Are they not supposed to route your "sound card" signals in and out of your SCOPE devices? (I've tried 'routing' my "playback" device in the WIN7 control panel to one of the SCOPE DEVICES (registered as "SPEAKERS - Sonic Core Pulsar2 - ready"), and still, no signal. Is there any redemption for this, or is it a perk that never percolated? thanks!

that was a long diatribe. *whew*

thanks for any help to an evolving Dinosaur.

Gary

[dante]

Apart from the config stuff, but I'd imagine choosing Scope speakers in Windows control panel won't work unless you have a Scope project running that contains WAV SOURCE components whose signals are somehow routed (direct or via a scope mixer) to one of your Scope hardware outputs thats attached to some sort of monitoring.

[garyb]

correct Dante.

win7 audio settings really aren't important, except for unchecking "reset board if idle". power settings should be NEVER. Scope cannot standby.

ULLI is set to what you want, whatever works. i use 4ms @44.1k

ASIO is what you want to use, even with Sonar. windows audio drivers are b$. Sonar pushes them because they hate Steinberg and have a deal with microsoft. use ASIO! for Cubase, or any app that can use floating point math, i use ASIO2 flt-64 source with an ASIO2 64 dest. for Sonar or other apps which only use integer math, i use ASIO2 32-64 source with the same ASIO2 64dest.

soundcard source/dest modules are leftover from a failed experiment by Creamware in v3. ignore them. all you need for windows sound is wave source and dest modules. you may need to try the different Scope speakers in the windows sound settings to find the correct pair. they work.

the STS error is caused by-
1. run Scope "as administrator". to do so, right click on the Scope icon and choose "run as administrator". you will get a warning window asking if it is ok for Scope to make changes to your system. you must answer "yes". this allows Scope access to system resources like ram. to make Scope always open in this mode, right click on the icon and choose "properties". on the "shortcut" tab choose "advanced" and put a check in the box for "run as administrator".
2. STS does not work in 64bit.

instructions for setup are here:
http://forums.planetz.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31345