PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Hello Scopers!

I'm new to this forum (and to Scope hard/software), but this looks like the place to get help.

I've just installed SFP, and it sounds great - I've had a play-around with the synths and they sound buff, same goes for effects and signal processing. However I'm completely new to the whole Scope thing and a few things have come up in my preliminary 'finding my feet' tweaking - for example, if I change the latency setting or sample rate to anything other than the default, my computer crashes. Mouse won't move, keyboard doesn't work, I have to do a hard power-off. When I turn the PC back on, it all looks fine until Scope loads itsself, and then crashes again. I've tried booting into safe mode, but Scope won't load from there, and won't uninstall from safe mode either, leaving me with a dead windows installation. I've done 2 clean installs of windows in the last couple of days, and the same problems keep coming up - changing sample rate, latency settings, and even switching to classic view all do the same freeze thing. Has anyone else experienced similar problems?

Thanks in advance for any help.

p.s., if anyone could point me in the direction of some good threads for total beginners to Scope (in particular, routing options with Sonar 6, which I'd like to be able to use as basically a multitrack audio playback device, with all channels going into Scope mixer, and maybe one or two soft-synths like Session Drummer running in Sonar, also going into Scope mixer), I'd really appreciate it.

Basically I'm fortunate enough to work for a company that has given me a copy of Sonar 6PE, and a Scope Pro + Plus card. It was probably a bit stupid to install both of these things together in the space of a couple of weeks, as I now have to learn how a new DAW program works, at the same time as learning how SFP works, at the same time as learning how they can both work together. Have I bitten off more than I can chew?

Thanks again, and sorry again for the lengthy post.

Chris

oh yeah, this might help, if anyone could be so kind as to offer advice:
P4 3.2ghz (HT enabled - problem?)
2gig dual channel ddr2
ASIO drivers in Sonar

welcome Chris

it's not as difficult as you picture it - though I haven't much ideas about Sonar specific stuff, but some 'simple facts' apply on all sequencers.

In particular that the software is kind of glued to the audiocard (and it's so-called drivers, like ASIO) - meaning you cannot simply change something fundamental on the fly. Some software may be more forgiving than other, but the usual way is to shut down the software - reconfigure the hardware - startup the software and tell it the new setting (by respective dialogs or whatever).

dunno what you messed in Windows, the card's software (SFP) can, but doesn't have to 'autostart - there is a tab in SFP's settings dialog (Projects).
In your case it should be enough to move or rename the SFP folder to prevent this, or remove the scope drivers from the system directory (or prevent the 'service' in case it loads as such - I don't have XP, oops)
There isn't much 'installed' except a few registry entries, the SFP folder and those system dlls.

In fact it may be an easier approch to first get familiar with SFP and Sonar independently (for the first steps). Assign the latter a standard multimedia driver like onboard sound (if available).

Regarding SFP it's fairly simple and straightforward - the PDF manual has some comprehensive instructions, it IS worth a look
If you're familiar with the representation of physical IOs and software IO and how those are connected (in the routing window) then it's more or less a no-brainer.

Difficulties (as you've experienced...) are usually in the way the sequencer software integrates these (foreign) software modules into it's own processing.
ASIO is a particulary unstable (and unforgiving!) item if (and only if) you (or a crashed program) supply it wrong parameters.

cheers, Tom

Hi Astroman,

Cheers for the speedy reply! It looks like rewarding learning curve, and you're right that I should learn how these things work separately, before diving in at the deep end. I'm about to do what I hope will be my last install of windows before everything works together (ha ha), and there are a couple of specific things I'd like to know:

Install order - Scope drivers, then software, then DAW? Or DAW, then scope drivers & software? I ask this because the Scope installation seems to be rather fussy about where the XTC VST plugins are installed, but I think it makes sense to install Sonar when all drivers are in place, so it detects the hardware correctly the first time it loads.

I think can get my head around the routing, though it's a bit fiddly since you're only given a tiny bit of mouse space to hover over before you see the scissors or the little jack-plug pointer in the routing window. Assuming Sonar is running alongside SFP (not in XTC mode), would it be a case of routing Seq. Output 1->Mixer input 1, Seq. Output 2->Mixer output 2... etc., so that playback of audio and soft-synths in Sonar can be processed in the SFP mixer? Or am I missing something? Also, would it be possible, in the same sort of setup, to have a MIDI channel in Sonar controlling a synth in Scope? How is this achieved?

Thanks to anyone who can help, or point me in the direction of some resources for people who know DAWs, but aren't familiar with SFP.

I should probably just read the manual and stop bothering you kind people, but it's actually quite difficult not to skip past bits that I assume I know, before finding out that there's some vital piece of information somewhere buried in all the fluff. I think lots of people must have this problem with instruction manuals...

Cheers!

if you don't wanna use XTC mode (which you normally wouldn't if you mix in SFP), then you can ignore about anything it asks in that context (at least I did wo problems)

the routing basically works like this:
what you want to send to the sequencer to record -> Asio destination (channel)
what's supposed to come into SFP from the sequencer -> it arrives at an Asio source
usually your (SFP) mixer sits in the middle, connected to a 'Analog Destination' which is the physical output of the card -> to your monitors.

as long as you deal with analog sources and virtual synths/fx in SFP there is NO Latency at all (given you monitor via the Scope mixer).
The stuff is written (given you use the mixer's direct outs) to file about 1 time the Asio latency (according to your ULLI settings) later.
It doesn't have to bother you in that case at all, as it refers to the WRITING process only.
It does of course if you send something (via Asio) to a VSTi for processing, as the latter will receive it 1 latency unit later, process it and send it back to SFP, where it arrives another Asio latency unit later.
So if your (Asio) latency is set to 7 ms, this will make 14 from Scope to the Sequencer and back - obviously (there's no time warping yet)

the same rules apply to Midi, but there may be a slight confusion regarding the terminolgy between physical and virtual midi ports.
The latter are sequencer source (from) and destination (to), but in the respective Windows panel they are named Midi 1..n, which is similiar to 'cardname' Midi 1..n

be aware of unwanted loops (midi through in the sequencer), as it can easily happen - Win XP doesn't like that at all (as it doesn't like active sensing) and it crashes on overflowing buffers.

cheers, Tom

chriskorff wrote:.. I think lots of people must have this problem with instruction manuals...

well, the problem is that people have false assumptions about their abilities, are self-focussed to an asylum-grade (almost), find it generally uncool or can't accept the look into a manual as it makes them feel 'inferior' to what marketing hype suggested...

cheers, Tom (20 years of customer support)
btw the SFP manual is more of a picture book than a 'classical' manual