Bidule/Jack

[agentry1]

Hi, I've been searching through the forums for a while now and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I hope someone can help.

I'm looking to do something pretty simple. All I want to do is host my VIs outside of DP to get around the 4GB 32-bit limit DP has. I know VE Pro is probably the way to go for many reasons, but it's a little out of my price range at the moment.

Anyway, I've got Bidule set up and Jack up and running, but I can't seem to get much audio back into DP. I have Jack set to have 32 outputs, but when "Digital Performer" pops up in the "Receive Ports" pane, I only have "in3" and "in4" listed. I would think I would see "in1" through "in32" here, right? What am I missing?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I don't know that Bidule is 32 bit (and don't really understand all that means except it's faster). One thing with Bidule is you have to run the host first and Bidule second. Strange, but Bidule has to see the host for you to go into Rewire mode.

If you don't see the rewire option in Bidule, that's the problem. It might take deleting the Bidule plist to clear that if it is, in fact, the problem. But again, if you don't see the Rewire option and cannot setup audio outs in DP for a track, Rewire is the likely culprit. Once you get it working, SAVE THAT SETUP! Make it your default.

When I use Finale, BTW, it doesn't matter if Finale runs first or not. The ports get reported to Finale every time. I haven't checked it in DP for a while but should be doing a project using it in the next week and can follow up.

[agentry1]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I should have mentioned I want to run Bidule in standalone as opposed to ReWire.

[agentry1]

Solved...found it in another post after more searching. Oddly enough, you have to set up Aux tracks in DP with the input set appropriately ("Jack Router 1-2, Jack Router 3-4", etc) in order for them to show up in Jack. They will not appear in Jack until you create an aux track for them. Weird.

[NazRat]

Have you tried Soundflower? Check it out here: http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/

You can select it in DP hardware setup as an additional interface (command-click) and use IAC for MIDI.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I tried is many years ago when it was still novel. I like the added features in Bidule. There is a massive amount of processing (with little overhead) in that app. I would wager most people have not even scratched the surface - myself included. But I have solved a lot of my DP "issues" especially on my lowly G5 7,3.

[Tripi]

I use a very similar setup with DP / Bidule / Jack as you are describing. I have 32 mono outputs from Bidule using Jack. In DP, I made a v-rack with 8 kontakt and 8 play AUX channels to returns the audio from Bidule. Just make sure you have both your audio interface and Jack selected in the Hardware Setup screen in DP. I also found that it's very useful to create the interapplication MIDI ports inside BIdule, and then have DP recognize them when Bidule is running. I didn't think that DP needed to have an assigned AUX track before you could connect to Bidule (through Jack), but I usually start with my template that has all of that stuff.

[mjmoody]

What's Jack?

I have an Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro from 2007, and I'm trying to figure out a way where I can run audio tracks as a Sequence in DP, but also control some VIs from a MIDI Controller live without many sound problems (clicks, pops, etc.). I'm wondering if bidule could help, because I have heard you can route items in unique ways.

I don't really under stand the "Core 2 Duo" concept or any of the more recent (4 core and more) setups that I have heard about, however.

Wondering if bidule could help in a live setup, and I have no idea what "Jack" is in the current discussion.

John

[cuttime]

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[Armageddon]

Try AudioFile Engineering's Rax, much better than Bidule. I tried Jack and could never figure out the routing (also, it only works for audio, not MIDI). The version of Jack I was using also "took over" Core Audio, meaning, it would render DP useless while it was engaged.

[Tripi]

Jack does support MIDI now (I haven't tried it yet), but I still believe you are better off going with the virtual MIDI connections from Bidule. When you load a project in Bidule, DP will recognize the virtual ports and re-connect everything. You could use DP's inter app MIDI for that matter too.

As far as taking over core audio in Jack..... it does.... if you have HOG mode turned on. It's designed to prevent clock changes from other applications. Turning it off will let you share core audio with any other devices. Although, it's still best to have DP on an audio interface seperate from the one Jack is using. I usually put Jack on my built in digital in/out audio. Then in DP, you will see your audio interface and jack listed as two seperate interfaces.

Hope that clears some of that up. If you're interested in some Bidule templates to get you going, let me know.

[PMortise]

Try AudioFile Engineering's Rax, much better than Bidule. I tried Jack and could never figure out the routing (also, it only works for audio, not MIDI). The version of Jack I was using also "took over" Core Audio, meaning, it would render DP useless while it was engaged.

I've been using Bidule for awhile now with Jack. The routing certainly wasn't intuitive to say the least.

How are you getting audio from Rax into DP, and how's the latency?

[Armageddon]

How are you getting audio from Rax into DP, and how's the latency?

It's ReWire and the latency is extremely low, at least on my machine. Plus, it's set up like a typical DAW mixing board, rather than Bidule, so you just open an AU or VST VI in a track, drop in your plug-in inserts, if you want, set up your panning, fader and output just like you would inside of DP. You can also set up sends, or load audio files into tracks instead of VIs and use it as a sub-mixer. Ever since I snagged the demo, I forgot all about Bidule. In fact, considering how much better Rax is than Bidule or Vienna Ensemble PRO, or Wave Editor is than Peak, and that both programs cost less than $80, I think it's kind of weird more people aren't using them. At least give the demo a shot (I think works for at least a couple of weeks with no limitations) and see if it works for you.

[Tripi]

I've never tried Rax, but I'm curious if it has the same limitation as Bidule in REwire mode? That is - only able to use one core of a multi core machine. As simple as Rewire is in Bidule, the huge drawback is only being able to use a fraction of your processing power (at least on my 8-core machine). I can't remember if this was a limitation of Rewire or Bidule, but I suspect its a Rewire thing. If that's the case with Rax also, it seems to be a very difficult thing to work around, and it's the reason that most of use Jack with Bidule..... so we can use all of our multi cores. This is especially important when you're hosting big instruments like Trilian or Omnisphere in Bidule. I have one of each + 10 Kontakt instruments and 5 Play instruments. As beefy as my computer is, it would never hang with just using the single core to play back all of these instruments at once.

[mjmoody]

Is it possible to route Digital Performer to use one core of a Core Duo MacBook Pro, and run Rax or Bidule to open the VIs but use another Core? Also, how do you find out which "core" is being used by any of these programs. I am trying to figure out ways of using Digital Performer AND some VIs in live settings with as minimal cracks and pops as possible. If Digital Performer is only doing audio tracks (no VIs) then there are virtually no pops and cracks in the playback. I have found that if I open my preferred VIs in standalone or with Jumbalaya or something, they seem to work well - but it seems to be too much memory for my computer to operate both DP and the VIs without pops and clicks. I know very little about "Cores" and such, but it seems like if DP could be operated from one Core and the VIs operated from another Core it might be "clean" enough to play in a live setting.

John