I have been trying for ~ 2 weeks to get smooth playback from VDL2.  I have done a lot of searching on this site and asked many people questions, but I am finally breaking down and asking here.  Here is my info:

dell inspiron 6000
1.40 GHz processor
1.24 GB RAM
SigmaTel C-Major audio card
Sibelius 4
VDL2
Using MIDI Yoke NT virtual midi cable
Only running the snareline lite instrument

I have tried a huge variety of latency settings in both Sibelius and VDL2, turned Direct From Disk on and off, and nothing seems to help.  I have been told I might just need a new sound card.  Also, the CPU usage and RAM usage is not getting any where near 100% during playback.

I found many posts here about installing the ASIO4ALL drivers.  I tried to do this, but ASIO4ALL doesn't show  in the list of output devices in VDL2.

[url=http://www.snarescience.com/exercises/eights240.mp3][u]Here is an example of the playback I am getting.[/u] [/url]

Can you tell us what your Sibelius settings are?  Meccanico?

[quote author=drumcat link=topic=1608.msg7684#msg7684 date=1173584500]
Can you tell us what your Sibelius settings are?  Meccanico?
[/quote]

expressivo: mecanico
rubato: meccanico
rhythmic feel: straight
use reverb: unchecked


Send reset controllers during playback: checked
Send bank high: checked
Send bank low: checked
send program changes: checked.

Thanks for your help!

I can't help but wonder a few things.  See if you can help me with this...

First, you're using the snare lite instrument.  Which sample is that one?  I can't tell...

And that may be one of the roots of your problem.  How are you recording this, Audacity?  I get the feeling somehow that your SigmaTel is running at the wrong sample rate or something.

How about human playback?  The tempo is a bit wandering...  is that off?

Thanks for posting a reference to the audio file. Very helpful to get a sense of what you're hearing.

Based on what I heard there, it doesn't sound like you're even playing back through VDL2. I think you might be triggering sounds from your onboard soundcard or something. Which would probably expain why your CPU meter isn't raising. If you position the VDL window in a position where you can see if the LED meter (on the right of the player) is showing any activity, that would be one way to tell.

Thanks for listing your computer specs. Now, take it one step further and list what you have set in the following locations:

VDL>File>Setup>Soundcard (list what you have set there, as well as any other options to choose from)
VDL>File>Setup>MIDI (list all available options, and which ones are set to ";on"; or ";off";)
Sibelius>Play>Playback and Input Devices (list what's available under 'playback devices', and which is highlighted blue)
Sibelius>Play>playback and Input Devices - under ";input device"; list what's available, and what's selected.
Sibelius>Play>Mixer - Select your snare track - what is set under ";device"; and ";Channel"; settings?

The playback is definitely running through VDL2 as is evidenced below:

[img]http://www.snarescience.com/style/VDL2-screenshot.JPG[/img]

[quote author=Jim Casella link=topic=1608.msg7701#msg7701 date=1173644868]
Thanks for listing your computer specs. Now, take it one step further and list what you have set in the following locations:

VDL>File>Setup>Soundcard (list what you have set there, as well as any other options to choose from)
VDL>File>Setup>MIDI (list all available options, and which ones are set to ";on"; or ";off";)[/quote]

[img]http://www.snarescience.com/style/VDL2-screenshot2.JPG[/img]

Ok, I found where the ASIO choice is available. :) Those are the options I have available.

[quote]Sibelius>Play>Playback and Input Devices (list what's available under 'playback devices', and which is highlighted blue)[/quote]

Here are all of my sibelius settings:
[img]http://www.snarescience.com/style/sibelius-screenshot1.JPG[/img]
[img]http://www.snarescience.com/style/sibelius-screenshot2.JPG[/img]
[img]http://www.snarescience.com/style/sibelius-screenshot3.JPG[/img]

The input device page shouldn't really matter because I am just doing the input by hand on the computer keyboard.

Thanks for all the screenshots. Again, very helpful in diagnosing your situation. I see you have your snare tuning set higher, which is probably why the audio file you posted earlier didn't strike me as obvious sound from VDL. Perhaps it was, and the tuning just masked that.

Your settings all look correct. The one caveat here is ASIO4all. As you'll see in your VDL soundcard window, when using ASIO4all, you aren't allowed to adjust your output latency, and this could be the culprit for jerky playback. To adjust latency for ASIO4all, I think you have to click that ";ASIO Config"; button, which (I think) should launch some sort of parameter control for ASIO4all. I don't know much about ASIO4al, but the setting you'd want to increase will be called [b]audio buffer[/b], or [b]latency[/b]. Try at 512 or 1024. Once you go back to the VDL Soundcard window, you'll see that the latency has now been set to a higher number due to this adjustment. This is good. Raising the latency here will allow audio to be processed with a little more headroom, and could improve performance.

Ulimately, using an actual soundcard that supports ASIO will be the way to go, but in the meantime if you can coerce ASIO4all to fake out your current soundcard, there's a chance you might see some improvements.

VDL is compatible with DirectSound and Multimedia (MME) drivers, though they typically don't perform as well as ASIO. There's some info about this on the FAQ at:
https://www.tapspace.com/support/faq/index.php?sid=77040&lang=en&action=artikel&cat=4&id=33&artlang=en

When I use ASIO4ALL as the VDL2 output device, I don't hear any sound, even though I see the monitor on the right side of VDL2 going up.

Does this have to do with the ";out"; in the ASIO configuration being ";unavailable";?

[img]http://www.snarescience.com/style/asio.JPG[/img]

[quote author=snarescience link=topic=1608.msg7744#msg7744 date=1173830998]
When I use ASIO4ALL as the VDL2 output device, I don't hear any sound, even though I see the monitor on the right side of VDL2 going up.

Does this have to do with the ";out"; in the ASIO configuration being ";unavailable";?

[/quote]

I would suspect this is the case. I can't say for sure why though as I don't know much about the ASIO4all thing. You might try setting it as your default output device under the Sounds and Audio Devices control panel in Windows. Somehow I'm remembering that ASIO4all doesn't like allowing more than one source for its output though. Have you checked with the people who developed it yet?

I am back!  I tried to get help in the asio4all forums but received none.  I did some searching and found this bit of advice from another forum:

[quote]settings->control panel->sounds and audio devices->hardware->sigmatel c-major audio->click ";properties";.

Now, open ";midi devices and instruments";, select ";wdm based devices"; and click properties.

Now, select ";do not use midi features on this device";, apply the changes and asio4all should be working![/quote]

I did this, restarted my computer, and finally I got skip free playback!  This was sweet music to my ears. :)  The only problem now is that I cannot
hear any other normal sounds on my computer.  And the biggest problem of all - I can't record the audio output!  I tried to choose the correct input device in audacity but it records nothing at all.  Any ideas?

Thanks,
Ryan

Ryan - great news to hear you've made some headway. I think it's great that various forums can provide such helpful guidance. I've learned more this way than any semester class could possibly offer.

I don't think I'll be much help for your current dilemma, but it may be worth noting that certain drivers or devices may be a little fussy on whether or not they want to allow more than one application have access to the audio system. This could theoretically account for your VDL sounds, windows media player, itunes, basic xp sounds, etc. It might be worth some looking around in the various settings within the Sound/Audio Devices control panel within Windows.

Using asio4all is a good solution if you're not yet able to spring for a more legitimate audio card. I'm not sure if the problems you're having are a result of asio4all or your actual soundcard, but your problems may be the unfortunate circumstance of coercing lower grade hardware/software toward higer end performance. Such performance should be much more automatic when using acutal soundcards that support ASIO for real.

Ryan,

I've had something like your current situation happen to me before, and here is how I got around it...

1) Start your recording program and start recording nothing.
2) As you are recording, start VDL2 and Finale.
3) After loading your samples, stop recording, then try to do thing as usual.

I know this sounds strange, but I think it might be a workaround for what Jim was mentioning (i.e. the soundcard allowing access by only one appilication at a time).

Let us know if this offers any aid with your current problem.