vista and m audio fast track ultra ? help please!

[Mike Daniell]

I could try trace versions if you think that would help you. Don't know what that entails.......!

I'll email you details over the weekend.

[Eric Snodgrass]

Eric Snodgrass wrote: "So for some reason the logic of this M-Audio set up is that no matter what the stereo pairs assigned in the Physical Device column in the Editor, in the last column (labeled Outputs), choose 1, 2. That should make the output pair work".

Hi Eric,
Does this though mean that you are restricted to just one stereo out.... or were you getting outputs from 3-4 as well, despite them being called 1-2?
Very difficult to set up that...!!!

I cannot try that on my set up as I have gone back to 10.7.7 and all seems normal..... don't really want to wreck that state at present

Mark[/quote]I am not restricted to a single stereo pair. For some reason the M-Audio driver needs to be set up with a Physical Device chosen as a stereo pair (and any stereo pair chosen in the Physical Devices column will do - for me it is 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 as stereo pair choices), but for any stereo pair chosen in the Physical Devices column the output chosen in the Output column for each stereo pair MUST be 1-2. Doing that has allowed me to use four separate outputs on the card. I think the program is seeing each stereo pair as having multiple outputs, possibly due to the M-Audio drivers.
Because of this I am able to use multiple outputs separately, including the SPDIF output of the card.
I'm running this card on an older machine running XP SP3 and SCS 10.8.2. I am also not using the latest M-Audio drivers for the card due to the age of the OS and the machine. I am using the drivers appropriate for my set up.

[TheSpyHusband]

Just wondering if anyone is still having issues/problems with the M Audio Fast Track Ultra using Vista/Windows 7?

Our theatre club has just purchased SCS and I recommended they buy Fast Track Ultra to go with it as many forum users had said it would be suitable. I found this thread after discovering the club's laptop runs Windows Vista! I'd like them to eventually purchase a dedicated laptop for SCS, which will no doubt be using Windows 7.

I installed the Fast Track Ultra tonight and was hearing audio through it ok, although I've not had a chance to try out the multiple outputs as yet. I might try out the advice that Eric posted above as that seems to be a good workaround.
Our productions quite often use a combination of FOH, DS and US speakers so I'm quite keen for this to work from the off and our up-coming Christmas pantomime will have a fairly busy, complicated sound and music plot.

Should I persevere with the Fast Track Ultra, or get the club to send it back while its still within the return period and buy another sound device from another manufacturer?

[Eric Snodgrass]

Just wondering if anyone is still having issues/problems with the M Audio Fast Track Ultra using Vista/Windows 7?

Our theatre club has just purchased SCS and I recommended they buy Fast Track Ultra to go with it as many forum users had said it would be suitable. I found this thread after discovering the club's laptop runs Windows Vista! I'd like them to eventually purchase a dedicated laptop for SCS, which will no doubt be using Windows 7.

I installed the Fast Track Ultra tonight and was hearing audio through it ok, although I've not had a chance to try out the multiple outputs as yet. I might try out the advice that Eric posted above as that seems to be a good workaround.
Our productions quite often use a combination of FOH, DS and US speakers so I'm quite keen for this to work from the off and our up-coming Christmas pantomime will have a fairly busy, complicated sound and music plot.

Should I persevere with the Fast Track Ultra, or get the club to send it back while its still within the return period and buy another sound device from another manufacturer?

Test it first, and soon. What I found on my M-Audio Delta 1010LT, after my previous post in this thread, was that I was indeed getting audio out of the separate stereo pairs, but the panning was not working, especially on pair 3 and 4, regardless of the settings of the program and the driver.
I must add that I am running this on an older computer running XP SP3. The M-Audio drivers are older to accommodate that, and that might be my problem. I have not tested this card or newer drivers with SCS on another computer.
That is why I recommend testing it thoroughly before dismissing it.
Besides, Vista is a dying OS. Upgrading to Windows 7 is inexpensive, especially compared to the prices MS used to charge for XP when it was first released.

[TheSpyHusband]

Well, I've run a short test - I just used about 20 cues from a previous production. Everything worked as it should! Of course, I'm having to use the ASIO driver because of M-Audio's issue with WDM, but all audio was sending to the outputs I told it to send to. I also tried panning and it did it correctly.

I'm in a bit of a dilemma now, as I don't seem to be getting any of the issues that others have mentioned... yet. Perhaps this M-Audio situation only seems to happen to certain people. Other than the version of Windows, is there anything else on a PC that could be a contributing factor?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm intending to use SCS for our panto. The system will get a thorough testing during our rehearsals with the full show cue list which includes musical numbers/dances that are a few minutes in duration. There's also a complicated slapstick scene involving a 'beautification' machine for the Ugly Sisters that will be playing out various noises in quick succession with overlapping fx etc. What I'm wondering is, with a more intensive cue list than the one I did the quick test with, is SCS/the sound card more likely to fail? Or, does that not affect it whatsoever?

I am going to push for a new, dedicated laptop for running SCS and a new laptop would come with Windows 7. I'm sure it wouldn't be a problem to source a copy of Windows XP to install on it if 7 was causing a problem with the Fast Track Ultra?

Just another point I should make... for pantomime I don't tend to send fx to different speakers, I just normally send everything through FOH and on the theatre's desk I route the same thing to DS and US monitors for cast foldback - it's usually only for our plays that I tend to send fx on to stage, car horns, weather outside the window, telephone on the set etc, etc. This is normally just a result of trying to make it easier for myself when running the panto sound - it's so busy that I don't want to have to manually keep assigning speakers on the desk. However, with SCS taking care of that for me I suppose I could give it a try. On the other hand, I'm assuming that because M-Audio has bother with multiple outputs I could just use the simple WDM driver that will give me a plain FOH output without causing any problems?

Thanks, Eric, and everyone else for the advice so far, this forum has been really helpful to me. I'll report back any findings I discover during rehearsals. Wish me luck. or, should I say 'Break a leg'?!

[Eric Snodgrass]

I think my issues stemmed from the older computer and older M-Audio drivers, so if I were you I wouldn't worry much about it, especially after testing.
I also wouldn't consider stripping Win 7 for XP. Microsoft support for XP is going to stop soon and Win 8 is on its way. After tweaks, Win 7 has been working just fine for me with regards to audio work. I run live audio through a dedicated computer running Win 7 Professional 64-bit and it has never had a problem.

When I mention "tweaks" concerning Win 7, I mean turning off services and features unnecessary to my applications. These services and applications just suck up CPU resources and add nothing to a system dedicated to audio. Here are the tweaks for both XP and Win 7.
If you want Vista tweaks, check out this list.

[Mike Daniell]

Regarding ASIO output, Gary Tarolli (newlifedrama) has done extensive stress testing of SCS with ASIO outputs as detailed here. By 'extensive stress testing' I mean that Gary ran test scenarios that should not occur during production running of SCS, assuming you follow the recommendation of not running other application programs at the same time as SCS.

If you have sufficient memory on the computer, run your audio file cues from memory by selecting 'pre-load whole file'. See the Help file for more info. btw, I increased a couple of settings for Gary's tests, and I can let you have this version (10.8.6) if required. SCS 10.8.5 will not pre-load an audio file of more than 6 minutes duration, but in 10.8.6 this limit is increased to 12 minutes. In the Options in 10.8.5, the 'Max.No.of File to Pre-Load Whole File' has a maximum value of 20 but in 10.8.6 this maximum is increased to 50.

Alternatively, consider holding your audio files on an SD card as also suggested by Gary. An SD card is a solid state drive so has significant benefits over a conventional hard disk drive. The best solution if you follow this approach is to use the SCS facility to create a Production Folder on your SD card.

[TheSpyHusband]

Well, last week I had the chance to use the system in our rehearsals and it worked flawlessly. I'm sold on the idea of using an SD card, too, so I'll go ahead and pick a card up soon.

The next step is to get a new, dedicated laptop... hoepfully on Windows 7 everything will be fine as it has been on the Vista machine.

Thanks again for all the help and advice. Great forum for a great product!

[TheSpyHusband]

Thought I would update you now that our pantomime is over.

SCS worked flawlessly (almost) during our two week run. I say flawlessly as there were three issues, two of which were human error: trigger happy fingers hitting the space bar too early resulting in fx at the wrong time. Oops! The third issue was the opening music stopping a couple of seconds after starting and then coming back in shortly afterwards at the same point. To be honest I don't think that was an SCS problem. I'm guessing something happened with the laptop but it wasn't me operating that night so I don't really know what caused it. The rest of that night's performance worked fine.

We had 2 dress rehearsals and 13 performances in total running the sound fully from SCS on our Dell laptop, with Windows Vista and the M Audio Fasttrack Ultra, and, apart from the issues above, worked great the whole time.

Next step is to get a dedicated laptop, instead of having to use the club secretary's laptop. I had to configure it to work correctly with SCS and then put it back after the two week run.
Fingers crossed I don't encounter any problems with M Audio drivers under Windows 7.

To sum up, SCS totally revolutionised the way our club does sound. There were fx sequences during the pantomime that would have been impossible to do with MiniDisc and this allows us to have more complicated (but simple to build) soundscapes for future productions.

Thanks, Mike, for a fantastic product. I had been looking at playout systems for our club for months and I kept coming back to SCS for its price and ease of use. I would recommend SCS to any amateur dramatic scoiety looking to upgrade from CD/MiniDisc.

[Fanis Tsirakis]

I was wondering if BASSWASAPI add-on could be the solution to FTU not being able to use multiple outputs under DirectSound driver.

(Quote from Un4Seen Developments Site:)

" WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) is the new audio standard introduced with Vista and WIndows 7.
It is a kind of replacement for DirectSound - which is not going to be further developed by Microsoft.
As such all new sound drivers of modern soundcards needs to support this new API.

WASAPI has a couple of benefits over DirectSound - the major benifit is low latency.
Depending on the quality of the driver of your soundcard you can get to the latency of ASIO.

There are a couple of other benefits, like session management, seperation of shared and exclusive mode, better driver and device management etc.

On Vista and Win7 DirectSound is also using WASAPI in the background, since now all audio stuff is going through WASAPI.
So using WASAPI directly is just more performent and uses less resources. "

Perhaps Mike should consider implement this addon, since DirecSound is not going to be further developed.

Thanks

[Mike Daniell]

WASAPI will be provided in SCS 11. I've run some tests and have partially implemented the code. The main reason this has not been fully implemented yet is that the BASS WASAPI add-on is still in beta.

[TheSpyHusband]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I've experienced a couple of niggles during a show which I'm hoping can be answered here.

I use the M Audio Fast Track Ultra with a Dell laptop running Vista at our theatre group. I tend to utilise all 6 outputs so that I can send audio FOH, DS and US. 99.9% of the time I have no problem with playback. Last week I had two or three heart-stopping moments during the run of the performance - one of which resulted in SCS 'Not Responding' and meant a re-start between cues!

A couple of times during loop fade outs that follow on to another cue would result in the audio stuttering. Sometimes I would get audio playing fine but the on-screen graphics would freeze and it would take a few seconds for it to catch up. The incident that involved the re-start was caused when 2 fx loops were fading out - they faded correctly and the counters counted down the fade-time. The boxes correctly turned red and said 'Completed', but they didn't clear. They froze at 'Completed' and it wouldn't let you fire another cue. That's when I got the 'Not Responding' message.

Being a fairly busy sound plot with some cues requiring fx running at the same time and/or cues in quick succession I set the number of cues to pre-load to 6, and the maximum number of cues to pre-load down to 15 but I was still getting issues. The Fast Track Ultra's buffer is set to the maximum, which I think is 4096 samples. I discovered in the M Audio settings that there is a 'High Performance Mode'. Should I be using that?

I know there is an issue with M Audio/Vista/SCS but I've not really had a problem until now. This was also the first show using the latest version of SCS so I don't know if that has any bearing on the problems? I'm guessing it shouldn't.

Any solutions? Replacing the M Audio interface isn't really an option... at the moment!

[Eric Snodgrass]

This was also the first show using the latest version of SCS so I don't know if that has any bearing on the problems? I'm guessing it shouldn't.

In my opinion it has everything to do with your problem.
I suggest you roll back to 10.9.7. (You can open SCS 11 and use the program to save the current show file as an .scsq file that will work in SCS 10.9.7.)
On my laptop running Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit I use an M-Audio Fast Track Pro as my audio interface. So far I have found every version of SCS 11 to be unusable for shows. Non-working Master Fader issues, ASIO playback issues, non-responsive cue issues - all have happened when I've tested versions of SCS 11.
Now, to be fair, Mike has been made aware of these issues by others on the forum and has made considerable efforts to quickly fix them in each version. His responsiveness to problems is extremely good and one of the main reasons I continue to use his product. From what I understand SCS 11 is a major coding change to accommodate SMS integration and, as with any major coding change, things will be missed or accidentally changed in the programming process (especially with a tiny operation such as Mike's operation).
I will wait for a stable version of SCS 11 and check out each RC as they appear. But until then I will continue to use SCS 10.9.7, which has proven rock-solid.

Oh, and Windows 8 is out now. I recommend you check on upgrading from Vista to Win 7. The upgrade price might come down.

[Mike Daniell]

This was also the first show using the latest version of SCS so I don't know if that has any bearing on the problems? I'm guessing it shouldn't.

In my opinion it has everything to do with your problem.
I suggest you roll back to 10.9.7. (You can open SCS 11 and use the program to save the current show file as an .scsq file that will work in SCS 10.9.7.)
On my laptop running Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit I use an M-Audio Fast Track Pro as my audio interface. So far I have found every version of SCS 11 to be unusable for shows. Non-working Master Fader issues, ASIO playback issues, non-responsive cue issues - all have happened when I've tested versions of SCS 11.

Eric and "ThySpyHusband", plus anyone else having problems with ASIO playback, please try SCS 11.1.3RC3 which I've just uploaded to the Members' Download page.

SCS 11.1.3 uses a new feature that has been added to the BASS Audio Library to provide an "asynchronous file reading/buffering option: data is read from the file in advance by a separate thread". This new feature was included in SCS 11.1.3RC2 and has been tuned in RC3. These versions have been given a vigorous work-out by a number of users and I'm confident we now have a stable BASS ASIO solution.

All being well, the general release of 11.1.3 will be issued in a couple of days time.

[TheSpyHusband]

Thanks for the advice Eric and Mike. We'll be going in to rehearsals for our Christmas show this week so I'll be able to start testing 11.1.3. Agreed that 10.9.7 worked well, so I can always roll back to that if I experience any issues.

Cheers!