vArranger Forums

Hi Dan, guys,

I've been making some adjustments to the wiki manual
http://www.varranger.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
and hope someone can have a look to see if I've made any silly errors or have misunderstood anything.

Or, indeed, improve it further (or back, if that's appropriate, though I think it OK as far as is goes so far)

This is a little bit of an aside, as I hoped to sole a different issue, but..

I looked at the Windows port of the "jack audio" package, in my case hoping to link vArranger on Windows to my music PC running Linux.  Jack has network-based tooles allowing data over Ethernet.  In principle it could also expand the number of MIDI inputs.

At this point Jack doesn't see vArranger and vArranger doesn't see Jack, so it will not work.  But it might be something worth considering.

Another tool that might help the specific desire for extra MIDI port is "mididings", a Python-based MIDI/OSC router, processor and scene manager.  As it's Python-based, it _probably_ runs OK on Windows, though I've not tried it.  It may have the same issue as Jack.

Quote from: Dan on December 02, 2015, 09:09:13 AM
But Windows 10 is still my preferred Windows OS.

I've heard other positive views for Windows 10.
I guess I'll soon need a new PC for that, as I have to keep 8/8.1 for testing.

FWIW, by way of balance, I use Ubuntu Linux, but strongly dislike their "Unity Desktop" and always switch to a Gnome or similar desktop.

I always turn of "bling" and special effects, I always turn off sounds and on Windows I always turn off "hide well know file extension", which I consider a serious security hole.  I like my computers to just behave and do what I tell them! :-)

It's shocking that I chose a Windows-based product.  That happens pretty rarely.  But it does happen.

Actually, the Notepad is Win8.1 and that is truly horrible!  But I have to have it on some machine for testing applications. The other dual-boots all have Win7, which is usable.

Mostly Windows works OK, but personally I find it very frustrating and limiting. It suits other people well.  I could explain some of the irritations, but this post would just turn into a troll and I have no desire to do that.  I have my personal preference, YMMV.

Yes, Windows works and I don't hate it (well, OK, maybe I hate 8, 8.1 and 'Metro').  More to the point, vArranger works nicely on it.  For what I want right now, that's fine.

So the smileys are (mostly) appropriate!   


I'd _like_, though, to use vArranger on the Studio PC, with all the other stuff that's Linux based.  In the interim, I'm exploring ways to transfer MIDI and/or OSC between them.

FWIW, my personal history is long-ish.  I started programming around 1970, by post, using paper tape.  Later I used a Nova-3 and a microNova, and some event-driven embedded stuff. Then MS-DOS and DR-DOS, then Unix about 1980. Unix was a revelation!  Then we also used Digital research's Gem and then Win3.1.  Gem was much better (IMHO) than Win3.1, but the IBM connection won that battle.  Windows became reasonably stable and usable at Win2k. I never liked XP or Vista, so my next Windows was Win7.  Meanwhile Linux appeared somewhere in the 90s and I started with the 0.99 kernels.  I've used it ever since, and a few other Unixen like QNX and SCO.  I can do things with Unix that Microsoft can still only dream about .. 35 years on from when I first met it.  I tolerate Windows in part by having Cygwin on it, though that's a bit clunky relative to the real thing.

I _am_ getting pretty irritated with MS pestering me to upgrade to Win10.  Getting my (EFI) notepad to dual boot was a pain and the 8.1 upgrade that MS bullied us all into broke the dual booting, so I had the pain all over again.  Win8.1 also didn't restore the missing menu that they implied it would.  I worry that Win10 may also trash the dual-boot and I hate unnecessarily repeating tasks.

Ah ... actually the one that's in use by default is the Focusrite ASIO.
ASIO4ALL also works fine as I explicitly tried that. I'll stick with the above.

I do the minimalist version on my boat. Sometime via a Bluetooth speaker, sometimes via headphones.

I have yet to find a PC that gives a good, clean, signal from the standard outputs for a PA, especially when powered by the 220Vac.

I'll get the Focusrite ASIO.  ASIO4ALL pre-dates my use of the Scartlett on this notepad.   I recycled it from my studio PC when I bought a Saffire Pro40 for that.

Thanks for your help, Dan.  It's been brilliant.

Those were good questions.

Windows 8.1.
Focurite Scarlett 2i2
Ah...

I _was_ using "DirectSound"

ASIO               Works well and is quicker still. negligible  latency.
WASAPI           Very distorted, hardly works at all, awful.

Needless to say, I'm now using ASIO.

I know I have ASIO4ALL v2.
I don't know if that's the ASIO attached to the 2i2, but I suspect so as I can't tell the difference between the two entries.

Hi Dan,

I had installed it, but it hadn't appeared in vA yesterday.  It's there now, so  maybe it needed a reboot or something.

The vA synth is indeed much, much, quicker than the MS one.  I would guess the latency is now similar to with Pianoteq.  It's perfectly usable.  My brain can handle the modest delay and compensate.  Excellent. Thank you.

"Intel(r) Pentium(R) CPU 987 @ 1.5GHz x 2" (64-bit)
Sandybridge.
4GB

It's about a 10"/250mm diagonal touch screen, 1366x768.

I plan shortly to try MIDI playback via my Korg.  Coffee first :-)

From experience elsewhere, I know can be sensible to turn off the WiFi.  I haven't done that yet, though was hoping I might be able to network MIDI with my music PC.  A cable its always an option.

The latency is presently very high .. probably 1/2 second.  With Pianoteq on Linux via Jack it's around 45ms, which is not great but is tolerable.  Actually, I haven't tried to tune that and should. I can probably improve that a little.

Hi Dan, Bachus,

I tried both vA2 and the vAsynth and both were halted with some kind of memory violation.
I may try again.

My history is that I started with Unix, have often been obliged to use Windows but always found it frustrating, and I move back to Unix/Linux whenever I can.  I use Linux for nearly everything. The only exceptions are a couple of tools that just aren't available (yet?) on Linux.  Usually when I swap to Windows, it's after some time away ... the last two occasions on my notepad were after around 6 weeks each time. That usually means 20 minutes of updates before I can do anything :-(

I'm an idealist first and a pragmatist second.  I'll do things the "right" way first if I can (in my opinion, anyway), and a way that works if I can't. If I have to use Windows, I'll use Windows. Most of my workstations are dual-booting. The only workstation exception is my music PC, which is AVLinux only.  All my servers are Linux only.  I personally find Windows very frustrating, especially 8 and 8.1 (which are absolutely maddening!).  I'm told 10 is much better, but am wary yet of another round of irritations.

Wine can be very frustrating.  Some stuff runs just fine, some stuff never does.

At the moment, my notepad running vArranger is far too slow.  I'm hoping that's because I'm using the Windows built-in Synth.  I'll try running it with my Korg or Kawai as the sound engine.  Hopefully without having to generate sound itself, vA will be quicker.  I thought it would likely be OK as that notepad happily runs Pianoteq and Hydrogen simultaneously with no delay worth worrying about.  Apparently not.  Ho Hum.

What's shocking?

Well, I've just ordered vArranger ... which runs on Windows.

That's shocking because I use Linux almost exclusively for everything.

Perhaps one day, Dan, you can rescue me by making a Linux version.

In the mean time, I'll try with Wine and Play-On-Linux, but use Windows if I must.

Kind regards,
                      Gordon.