Thx again to Riban for making this sound card work with Z.
Please feel free to correct me if this is not the way or the place to raise issues in regards to external hardware!
Now i’m working my way into the soundcard, contemplating ins/outs and such. I was away for a while,and before that i found this: [quote=“riban, post:20, topic:10655”]
control of its compressors and eq all in the Audio Levels screen
[/quote]
have full integration of this USB audio device with control of its compressors and eq all in the Audio Levels screen
[/quote] to work, but with a little instability in regards to trigger the “MIX/Level” encoder to change to the Audio Level screen. Now when i’m back at the desk and have updated to the latest Vangelis i can still access thje Audio Level screen (with the same instability when pressing the MIX button - sometimes some flickering occurs and sometimes nothing happens), BUT the Audio Level screen does not have any of the controls for the Tascam anymore - only the headphone level. I can totally be doing something wrong i know, but can anyone explain or help please
I’ve made an audio chain, all inputs are visible as Audio In options in the chain, and seems to work. Now I’m only connected through the front ports (1-8) because there i have hardware volume knobs, but even at minimum level (which i would guess should be 0), the input to the Tascam goes through to main mixbus, or is at least present in both headphones and speakers. But still the knob is somehow working because when i turn up the volume on the knob the output is raised.
Yes that did it thx. But then follows more possible newbie questions, sorry (but really - i do not need attention right away).
There is now available EQ and Compressor controls. How would you adjust the gain for channel 10-16, which has no physical knobs?
And why is the sound present when input knobs are turned all the way down?
Should i connect the Tascam to my PC and fiddle with the Tascams internal channel routing? I might have messed up something there some years ago when i last had this SoundCard connected… - Ill try that anyway, and report back tomorrow
There is no software gain control of any input, only the mic preamp gain controlled with the hardware knobs.
There is an internal mixer that allows attenuation, pan and phase reverse of each input before it hits the mixbus but this is of no use to us.
There is output routing that decides what is fed to the outputs. This is offered in the webconf control parameters could be exposed to the zynthian UI is you want but you can also just make the adjustments you want in webconf:
Go to HARDWARE->Audio.
Enable “Advanced view”
Click the button under “Mixer Control”.
Scroll down to find, “Line Out 1”.
Select “Output 1”.
Repeat for other outputs selecting their corresponding outputs.
Click OK at the bottom.
As you change each value in webconf it will change the soundcard configuration. This is retained after restart.
I found it. There’s a lot of settings, but they make sense. My case right now is that i’ve hooked up my PC sound output to the tascam on chanel 15&16. And when trying to pan left and right correctly - i’v discovered that panning left works well, but panning right does not. The audio stays centered when the slider is full right!
Another thing related to the same user case (PC sound to Tascam). The only way i have found to “kill” the PC sound and hinder it from arriving to the main bus is by sliding the (in my case) Line 15&16 (just above the LineOut settings) all left, or off course i could mute the PC on the PC. Which when i think of it is quite easy (one button press ) ). But i have a feeling that having the line level controls available in the Zynthian UI would be an improvement still.
This however is a very small matter for me, the panning issue is of greater importance, but right now i’m just using PC sound to play along with for some bass practise so left/right is of no great concern for that.
Does this mean that after pressing the “ok” button below the settings it is saved, or should i also save after being directed back to the main Hardware/Audio settings. Because when doing that i am prompted for a reboot!
I’ll have to (maybe again) express my happiness with the Z and the people behind it. The overwhelming work that is put up, and the forum where there is so much interesting threads to dive into and so much swift and efficient help handed out, whenever one is stranded on the shores of desperation and bewilderment.
The output routing is asserted on the webpage POST action. This is definitely triggered by SAVE (which also flags reboot required) but may also be triggered by other actions. (I am not connected to a zynthian today so can’t test.)
You talk about your PC so it is not clear how you expect Tascam connected to zynthian to work. With the Tascam US-16x08 connected to zynthian as the main soundcard, and outputs 1-8 connected to Line 1-8 (as described above), each output acts as a mono destination or half a stereo pair, as chosen in the audio output routing. Select your outputs as stereo, not dual mono.
Similarly, for stereo inputs you must select stereo pairs. (I am not connected so can’t check but from memory, we don’t offer stereo inputs but instead infer that consecutive inputs act as stereo pairs.) Ensure that just those 2 (consecutive) inputs are selected to just one input chain then they should act as a stereo pair of inputs with pan, phase, fader, etc. acting as expected. If not, then please provide a snapshot and explaination of the issue.
I’m testing with no chains so there is no snap. But still the audio coming in on 15&16 are present. Maybe its all something that is “inside” the Tascam and that Zynthian has little controll over?
webconf looks like this:
Output settings:
Line settings:
If you save webconf audio it should configure “Line Out 1 = Output 1”, "Line Out 2 = “Output 2”. Your config is wrong for zynthian use.
By setting Line Out 1/2 to Master Left/Right you are using the US-16x08 internal mixer which is not how I expect the unit to be used with zynthian. I expect it to act as a 16 input (with DSP EQ & Compression per input) and 8 output audio interface.
From Tascam manual / website this is the audio routing within the device.
Input mute, solo, pan, phase & level only work in the internal mixer to the internal stereo bus. The diagram is a bit confusing, I think because there is a bit missing from it.
I have tascamgtk running on the zynthian (via VNC) which shows 3 extra buttons:
Mixer True Bypass - DSP Bypass in webconf. This enables/disables all DSP and should be asserted. I have inverted the description in webconf so that it better reflects behaviour and it makes more sense to me to have an “enable DSP” rather than “bypass DSP”.
Computer Output to Stereo Buss - this is the same as Buss Out in webconf and routes the zynthian audio to the US16x08 internal stereo bus, I think all odd channels to left and all even channels to right. This should be asserted in webconf (because its meaning seems inverted) so that they don’t reach the mixbus. I don’t think I worried about it in writing the interface because I didn’t anticipate the use of the internal mixer. Maybe we should invert the label and make it more descriptive, e.g. “zynthian outputs to US16x08 stereo mixer”… but that is a bit wordy.
Mute - Master Mute in webconf probably mutes the output of the internal stereo bus. Inverted logic - I may fix the inversion because it is daft!
I see that adjusting webconf pan only drives US-16x08 channel pan by about 40%. This is probably use of the wrong units (percent / raw / dB) in webconf. I will investigate.
So, if you want / need to use the US-16x08 internal stereo mixer then I think you can but I query why you want to do this rather than use the zynthian mixer? It does offload some of the CPU load but it constrains the flexibility.
[Edit] I confirm that enabling pan to zynthian UI and adjusting zyn controllers does drive pan to full limits (hard left to hard right). If these are desirable parameters then I will add proper scaling, naming, etc.
[Edit] Also, US-16x08 input channels can be linked as stereo and controlled as a single stereo channel strip. I have not implemented this in zynthian control, again because I didn’t anticipate users wanting to use the US-16x08 internal mixer… and there already being many, many controllers.
Thx for the comprehensive feedback. I will look into this after band practice tonight or tomorrow i hope. But shooting quick - i do not think i need the internal mixer of the Tascam. i must admit that im not having a full overview and understanding about all these things work and interact together. I will start with correcting my Line Out settings when i am having my next Zession
I have improved the internal mixer control interface but, as previously discussed, I do not recommend using these unless you really understand the routing and need that functionality. Most zynthians should work fine with the zynmixer and not require offloading the summing to DSP and to do so undermines the zynthian architecture and UI.
A question: I have implemented the DSP control (EQ & compressor) in the audio levels page which is technically logical but is this operationally logical? If you have an audio chain, you may expect to control it’s input compressor and EQ from the chain rather than the input. It may be possible to do this, e.g. there is a LV2 that does that but it may be confusing, e.g. do we dynamically add such control to every chain that has an audio input with DSP enabled and dynamically remove as required?
I think at least i would be fine with using just the Zynthian mixer. It seems more straight forward.
Your question: I do not fully understand some parts, but it seems also more straight forward (operatianally logical) to have the comp and EQ for the input(s) selected for each chain instead of in the Audio Level page.
And do i understand correctly that if i have one chain with two audio in channels (in my case now 15&16) the odd is interpreted as left and the even as right channel? It seems so when im listening - it is definately som kind of stereo i’m listening to
Audio inputs are either mono or stereo, depending on which ones are selected. If an even quantity are selected then they are grouped into stereo pairs and routed to the left and right inputs of a chain. Any odd inputs are treated as mono and routed to both inputs of a chain. This is true of most audio routes through a chain’s processors, with:
Stereo source to stereo destination: each channel is routed as a stereo pair.
Stereo source to mono destination: both channels are summed (mixed) into the mono destination.
Mono source to stereo destination: mono source is routed to both inputs of the destination.
Mono source to mono destination: a simple mono connection.
So your selection of inputs 15 & 16 to an audio chain will provide a stereo input. If you want a mono, e.g. guitar plugged into input 9, then you would only select the one input, e.g. input 9.
The output routing is a little different. We offer mono and stereo destinations. I am reconsidering this as it is inconsistent but there was good reason for this which I will leave for the reader’s imagination to consider…
The point about where the DSP appears in the chain is this… The actual DSP that does compression and eq is in the USB device and acts on the inputs before they reach zynthian, hence it is logical that their control is in the audio levels page. This is where we adjust the soundcard audio configuration. It is called, “audio levels” because traditionally it is the input and output levels that are adjusted but other parameters are in there, for example the official zynthian soundcard allows selection of balanced (differential) and unbalanced behaviour of inputs, etc. The US-16x08 doesn’t actually have level adjustment of its inputs and outputs (apart from the fader of its internal stereo mixer) but it does present all those lovely DSP controls. But if we are considering zynthian as an audio mixer* with chains of processing for each input then we might expect to find the DSP audio processing control in the same place as any other processing for that chain. This may be challenging because the processing is not actually in the chain, well - not within zynthian’s architect of a chain. We could fake it by putting control in the chain but this comes with some challenges:
An audio input may appear in zero or more chains so there could be any quantity of instance of control of the same DSP, e.g. input 1 might feed chains 1, 2 & 3.
A user may select and deselect audio inputs of a chain which may include DSP so adding such virtual control would have to be dynamic, e.g. if a user selects input 1 to a chain then the compressor and eq controls need to be added, preferably only if enabled for that input.
Chains may have any quantity of inputs selected. If you select 4 audio inputs to a chain that all have DSP enabled then we would have to figure out how to present 4 lots of DSP control. I think this is the killer for such a proposal.
There is a LV2 plugin for controlling the DSP but it does not pass audio so would block a chain. This has been reported upstream so could be resolved.
Having explained this here, I have concluded that it is not practical to present the DSP within a chain. We do however have a plan to access the audio levels page from the chain menu so, it may not be too bad. Also, all the controls can be mapped to MIDI controls so you could use a hardware expander to expose the parameters if desired. In the future there may be a more graphical representation of the chain and that might include presentation of the inputs which in turn may offer a more direct and intutive access to the DSP parameters.
I reckon that the Tascam US-16x08 is now pretty well supported by zynthian. We may see this integration appear in the next point release which may be imminent.
