...it is just handy to be able to play a file, clip or whatever outside of Vegas while working on a big mix. I've noticed this about Vegas and I can see how it can be slightly annoying.

I will occasionally audition some material from another source to see if it will work in the mix, ie; pads, textures, atmospheres, soundworlds, etc. If I then want to include it in the mix, I will import it into the Vegas session. Obviously the ability to run other apps along with Vegas is an important feature. I haven't tried it with Vegas 4 yet but I've been able to do it Vegas 3 as long as the apps aren't assigned to the same I/O on my soundcard.

drbam

I just tried this on my laptop setup. I was able to play a song in windows media player along with a track in V4 with no problems. This was using the same outputs on both. I switched between the "microsoft sound mapper" and "Wave classic driver" in Vegas and didn't have a problem in both cases.

Are you using the ASIO driver in Vegas?

You can also audition other files from within Vegas in the explorer window.
That's how I always do it. I never felt the need use another app for this.

Dave

Works for me and my Delta 1010 fine. I can play stuff thru Winamp etc wither with same or different outputs using the ASIO drivers.

Doesn't strike me as being particularly useful tho.

Only time I use it is recording Gigastudio outputs to a track in Vegas. Although I have to send the Gigastudio outs to different 1010 outputs so I don't end up re-recording the vegas output...

Jason

Dang, I tried to reply last night to Spitt, but I guess it didn't go through. Anyway, Cosmo and Drbam hit the nail on the head - that's exactly the purposes I use it for. It's just nice to check out a song you want to try to mimic the sound of, or check out an effect you might want to add to the mix, etc....

Rednroll, I tried using ASIO and WDM and both fail as I described. Since it works for some of you, maybe this is a MOTU / Sonic Foundry problem. Anyone else with a MOTU experiencing these problems?

I tried using SoFo's explorer (as doctorfish suggested) to play other audio and it works, but one thing I like to do is play MP3s randomly with Winamp and record myself playing drums or guitar at the same time. Then I can go back and listen to how good or horrible my drumming/guitar was. Since I haven't tried it yet, I can't say whether this will be a problem or not...

But, I did some more testing with playing multiple audio sources and here is what I found: With V4, if I turn the master bus down or WinAmp down, I can play both simulatneously. When I raise one level or the other too much, it starts to sound like rice crispies. In V2, I can crank either, or both, as much as I want and it still handles it without problems. It almost seems as though V2 sums it's internal tracks as well as any external audio tracks outside of Vegas. Regardless of what is happening exactly, it seems like the summing/output of sound has gone down a notch with version 4. Any comments from Sonic Foundry?

Alan

We have no control - or make any attempt to control - how an external app plays audio. We never have in any version of Vegas.

If you could "define" rice crispies, that would be helpful in figuring out what you are actually hearing.

We have no control over how a audio card or Windows "shares" audio streams. If you are getting odd behavior when playing a third party app while also playing in Vegas, the results are out of our control. ASIO is NOT a shareable driver model. With knowing exactly how this other app is configured or how your MOTU hardware is set up, I really don't know what to tell you could possible be the cause.

Peter

"Rednroll, I tried using ASIO and WDM and both fail as I described."

Have you tried "Microsoft Sound Mapper" or "Classic Wave driver"?

I defined "rice crispies" in my first post - crackles and pops.... you know, kind of like what rice crispies do. :-)

Anyway, I tried the Windows Classic Wave Driver and that solved the problem. Multiple audio sources played simultaneously without problems. I can also click and make the windows "you screwed up bell sound" and it rings through clearly without crackling or making popping noises.

Are there any drawbacks of using the Windows Classic Wave Driver instead of the MOTU 324 driver? After reading the help, I'm a bit confused as to which ones are ASIO drivers and which ones aren't. I can select the MOTU 324, WCWD, Direct Sound Mapper, and Mircosoft Sound Mapper...

Thanks,

Alan

MOTU 324 is the ASIO driver. It works fine with my 4.0b .

geoff

But can you play additional audio sources also without problems? Or do normal windows bells pop/crackle the sound?

What setting are you using on your MOTU console?

Alan

Once again, the problem is that ASIO does not like to share well. When you select the MOTU 324 as your output device, you are selecting the ASIO drivers. Since the Windows default sound source is also the MOTU (you didn't say otherwise) the card is trying to be used by both the ASIO drivers and the Windows system sounds (the bells and whistles that Windows makes.) Because these sounds are not typically 44.1/16 bit, it forces Windows to have to "adapt" the audio or reopen the drivers. They are also VERY high latency causing the "rice crispies".

The reason why the rice crispies stop when you use Wave Classic or The Mapper in Vegas is because both the system sounds and Vegas are now sharing the same driver. WDM drivers are designed to be multiclient and Windows tosses in both a -6dB pad and ~ 30ms of latency to achieve this.

If you really want to use system sounds and play through a second app while playing in Vegas, I would recommend that you get your self a second audio card and assign that as your Windows default audio device. That way you can stick to using the MOTU hardware for Vegas and let the bleeps and blips of Windows play out of the "sound card".

If not, then you will be forced to use the Wave Classic Drivers in Vegas to address your MOTU. This will fundamentally prevent you from using the input monitoring feature of Vegas and you will generally have to work at a higher latency in Vegas.

Peter

Thanks Peter, that's a great explaination. I'm still learning all this stuff and it's nice to get detailed responses like that. I think I'll stick with the ASIO (MOTU) driver when recording, and only switch to the classic driver if I want to do anything else like I described in one of my earlier posts.

Thanks again,

Alan

That is why we provide as many driver models.

Note also, you may be able to adjust the buffer size used by the MOTU to over come the rice crispies. You can adjust this either externally (when Vegas is NOT RUNNING) or from with in Vegas on the ASIO advanced page. If you set your MOTU ASIO buffer size lower - to say 256-512 samples - then you may be able to get Windows to play nice.

Peter

Peter,

Makes sense, different drivers for different purposes. I'll try to experiment with the buffer settings and see if I can't find a happy medium...

Thanks again,

Alan