Get The Most Out Of Reamote

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by guitarfrenzi

References:

http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv...d-studio-0601/

http://www.aes.org/events/125/audiop...on.cfm?code=T2

-----------------------------------

I've been watching the subject of audio/video over Ethernet for the last 3 years (and dreaming) and were on the home straight.

It's not a limitation of Reamote that latency is an issue. Ethernet was not designed for audio and video and the approaches to date have been work arounds.

Once the new standards are finalized, it should be a simple matter of flashing the switch/router...no new hardware required.

We'll then start seeing audio/video interfaces that are interfaced via ethernet in addition to Firewire USB3.0 etc...

A truly networked multimedia home/studio....awesome

I guess Reamote will get a rewrite to take advantage of IEEE 802.1 AVB

Ethernet is certainly a limitation when it comes to latency for real time audio recording. That said, I have never need more horsepower than a single machine provides to track a full band @ 96/24. What application are you guys using this for that needs the extra juice?

I am looking to gather the extra juice for mixing to run SIR and other effects and so far so good buts its very early in the testing

[simplecarnival]

I just stumbled across the ReaMote stuff and am thinking about trying it. However, this particular comment...

Originally Posted by labyrinth

I was using ReaMote for a while, but the latency is way too much for most effects. Reverb and delay (non-tempo kind) can sometimes sneak by ReaMote's delay, but that's really it

...is a bit worrisome.

Before I try setting up a second machine, I'd first like to ask if what I'm looking to do can indeed be done.

In a typical working ReaMote mixing situation, if I am running impulse reverbs with SIR on the slave computer, will there be a delay between the signal I'm sending to the slave reverb and when the reverb starts?

In other words, do the effects act the same as if they were on the host computer (i.e. no additional "predelay" is added before a reverb effect)?

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by simplecarnival

I just stumbled across the ReaMote stuff and am thinking about trying it. However, this particular comment...



...is a bit worrisome.

Before I try setting up a second machine, I'd first like to ask if what I'm looking to do can indeed be done.

In a typical working ReaMote mixing situation, if I am running impulse reverbs with SIR on the slave computer, will there be a delay between the signal I'm sending to the slave reverb and when the reverb starts?

In other words, do the effects act the same as if they were on the host computer (i.e. no additional "predelay" is added before a reverb effect)?

I think he is talking about running in realtime while tracking. I can't see where it would be any issue in mixdown situation where you have to deal with the various latencies of the effects being used anyway. Thats what PDC is for. Of course there is latency or "predelay" as you call it. That would be true of SIR run locally as well though

[simplecarnival]

Originally Posted by TheArchitect

I think he is talking about running in realtime while tracking. I can't see where it would be any issue in mixdown situation where you have to deal with the various latencies of the effects being used anyway. Thats what PDC is for. Of course there is latency or "predelay" as you call it. That would be true of SIR run locally as well though

OK, thanks for the explanation. I'd only be using ReaMote for mixing anyway, so it looks like it'll be worth the time investment to get it going.

[hamish]

Originally Posted by TheArchitect

I think he is talking about running in realtime while tracking. I can't see where it would be any issue in mixdown situation where you have to deal with the various latencies of the effects being used anyway. Thats what PDC is for. Of course there is latency or "predelay" as you call it. That would be true of SIR run locally as well though

This is correct.

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by simplecarnival

OK, thanks for the explanation. I'd only be using ReaMote for mixing anyway, so it looks like it'll be worth the time investment to get it going.

And it will be very little time at all. It took me all of five min to configure it one I found the notes in the manual.

[simplecarnival]

Originally Posted by TheArchitect

And it will be very little time at all. It took me all of five min to configure it one I found the notes in the manual.

Ah, but I have to resurrect/put together one of my old computers that I thought I would never use again! That's going to be a time investment -- just finding where all the parts are!

But ReaMote looks really cool and should prevent the headaches I had on the last major mixdown project I did. I'll report back with my progress... eventually!

[simplecarnival]

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon digging up parts to make a working Frankenstein of a computer. And when I powered it up, I found it's... a 366 mHz Celeron.

Other problems prevented me from getting a hard drive working on the machine, so I put it aside. I'm not optimistic that a processor this slow/old will help much with impulse reverbs.

So this leads me to a second question about ReaMote. If I were to get a fairly powerful multi-core modern computer as a ReaMote rendering machine and left my current music computer as-is (It's a 3 gHz single core Celeron), would that be a worthwhile approach to take?

(I'd like to avoid buying a new system and re-configuring everything to work as my "main music computer" again.)

[hamish]

Originally Posted by simplecarnival

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon digging up parts to make a working Frankenstein of a computer. And when I powered it up, I found it's... a 366 mHz Celeron.

Other problems prevented me from getting a hard drive working on the machine, so I put it aside. I'm not optimistic that a processor this slow/old will help much with impulse reverbs.

Your 366 mHz celeron won't run impulse reverbs, guaranteed, but it may still be worth setting up if you keep your pIV as your master. This is what I do, for the reasons below \/

Originally Posted by simplecarnival

So this leads me to a second question about ReaMote. If I were to get a fairly powerful multi-core modern computer as a ReaMote rendering machine and left my current music computer as-is (It's a 3 gHz single core Celeron), would that be a worthwhile approach to take?

(I'd like to avoid buying a new system and re-configuring everything to work as my "main music computer" again.)

My main master is a 1.8 Ghz PIV, for a few reasons, I carry it around a lot and it's more solid than many new multi-cores. Because it's old and clunky it is not a target for a thief.

Because I use it for work its my "main music computer", even though it only has a slow 32GB hard drive.

With a network adaptor it can handle the network traffic of a mix easily, as long as the plugs are on one of my mult-core desktop slaves.

Using desktops for slaves is a great way to go, except you have to run the Ethernet cables into cupboards or through your ceiling. I have my main reamote slave in a shed on a 35 Metre cable through the ceiling. I set that machine up as a dedicated slave, it has no audio drivers installed for example. It even has no plugs installed, (except the cockos and JS) it gets most of the plugs off the NAS (see posts above)http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=16067&page=2

Now back to the pIII machine, it may be useful for certain old VSTi or FX that give you a bad 'denormal' (CPU hogging) bug on your P4 master. The PIII doesn't have the denormal problem, so offloading that effect can be useful. See what bubbagump says here http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php...23&postcount=2

[simplecarnival]

Thanks for the info.

Now back to the pIII machine, it may be useful for certain old VSTi or FX that give you a bad 'denormal' (CPU hogging) bug on your P4 master. The PIII doesn't have the denormal problem, so offloading that effect can be useful.

I've never run into any bad plugs -- or, if I have, I've immediately removed them from my system!

I'll need to kick around the idea of getting a second computer. I thought I was done buying gear for a while! Thanks again.

[FoamieOmie]

I use Reamote with a PIII laptop as a slave. It is optimized like my music PIV with only audio use in mind. Reamote works fine for me, so far using these fx chains:

1: Realoud
ReaEQ (using one from version 2.44 after reading another thread that it's what works witht he latest version of REAPER)
Omniverb

2: ReaEQ
Glaceverb
Classic Master Limiter

and 2 instances of per item fx using Reapitch (also using ver, 2.44) and ReaEQ.

Slave uses 24-25% of CPU and rendering to .mp3 on main cpu went from .9 speed to 1.4 speed.

Hope this info helps.

[jaimematic]

Hi Hamish. Thanks for a very useful thread. I've been using Reaper for a while now and decided to try out ReaMote due to my computer's shortcomings. The thing I haven't been able to find out in the forums is whether or not I can run the second version of Reaper off a thumb drive on my slave machine. I realize that the drive is slower than a regular drive but I'm curious about it's possibilities. The other thing I'm curious about is whether I need to buy a second license in order to install Reaper on a slave machine.
I'm sorry if this info is somewhere else but I couldn't find it.

[inthepipeline]

A maybe slightly off topic question.

After hours of working out how to make my PC as quiet as possible I finally knocked a hole in the wall and put it next door, by the digital drum kit.
I have a dual monitor setup with the main monitor duplicated at the PC, whilst the other 2 are in the control room, which is now nice and quiet.
I can control the PC from 2 locations by using 2 identical remote keyboards and mice on the same TX channel.
For the first time I can record very dynamic sounds in the control room without significant background noise.

My question is this:

If I use reamote to enable extra processing on my older music PC, will enabling 'remote desktop' on both machines use a significant amount of bandwidth over LAN, or in other words, is it likely to interrupt Reamote?

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by inthepipeline

A maybe slightly off topic question.

After hours of working out how to make my PC as quiet as possible I finally knocked a hole in the wall and put it next door, by the digital drum kit.
I have a dual monitor setup with the main monitor duplicated at the PC, whilst the other 2 are in the control room, which is now nice and quiet.
I can control the PC from 2 locations by using 2 identical remote keyboards and mice on the same TX channel.
For the first time I can record very dynamic sounds in the control room without significant background noise.

My question is this:

If I use reamote to enable extra processing on my older music PC, will enabling 'remote desktop' on both machines use a significant amount of bandwidth over LAN, or in other words, is it likely to interrupt Reamote?

There is really no need to control the slave. Once its turned on and the slave started ( I added it to the start menu on mine so it starts on boot.) there is no need to touch it. Everything is controlled from the master.

That said, RDP is pretty light compared to something like VNC. It will certainly have some impact but I have never used while running Reaper because there is no need to.

[hamish]

Originally Posted by jaimematic

Hi Hamish. Thanks for a very useful thread. I've been using Reaper for a while now and decided to try out ReaMote due to my computer's shortcomings. The thing I haven't been able to find out in the forums is whether or not I can run the second version of Reaper off a thumb drive on my slave machine. I realize that the drive is slower than a regular drive but I'm curious about it's possibilities. The other thing I'm curious about is whether I need to buy a second license in order to install Reaper on a slave machine.
I'm sorry if this info is somewhere else but I couldn't find it.

Not a problem. No need to buy an extra licence for the slave machine. Running from a thumb drive I haven't done, so give it a go and report back!

In the pipeline + architect: I haven't setup remote desktop, but I am considering it for the case of an old lappy with no screen.

[inthepipeline]

Tha Architect,

Thanks for the reply. i'll have to try it since I now have:

main machine: AMD quad core, 8gig RAM
Backup machines: 3 x Dual core Athlon, 4gig RAM each.

Ooh, I feel BIG processing coming on.

*I*

[jaimematic]

Thanks Hamish, I'll give it a go and report back.

[keyman_sam]

Originally Posted by hamish

Hello to all in Reaperland

I got really excited when I found out about Reapers LAN implementation, and I started to test it soon after getting competent in the basics.

After dealing with some early issues, I have now found that I can use Reamote to get serious performance improvements in the realtime domain.

Because searching with keyword = reamote brings up mainly old, dead threads I wanted to start a new thread for Reamote specific Tips and Tricks.

I hope this thread can become a handy addition to the information on the wiki manual. http://www.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/ReaMote

Regards Hamish (I think I want to call it "electric ladyLAN" ....)

If you have a laptopt with wireless capability should you use an ethernet cable to connect the laptop and the PC? So, peer to peer or peer to LAN?

[hamish]

Sorry Keyman, didn't notice your post there! I usually get an automatic email for may subscriptions?!

Anyhow, I'd always use a cable. get a cross-over, although a long one so you can put the PC somewhere it's out of the way and you cant hear the fan.

If pipelineaudio or any LAN whiz who uses the DUX XP SP3 (no firewall) OS can explain to me how to set up a remote desktop I'd appreciate it. I tried for a few hours, and realised that I need 'LAN for Dummies' or windows networking for dummies, please save me $20!!!

hamish

[biggator]

How are you guys using this even at mixdown?

I set it up as an experiment - fired up perfectly with little tweaking.. but the latency is unusable. I'm trying to run SIR on the remote machine (which is working perfectly) - but at 120bpm, there's about a full 1/8 note delay before the reverb kicks in.. and no, it's not the predelay setting in SIR.

I've tried a handful of plugins, all with the same amount of delay.. tweaking the host config didn't seem to make a difference.

FYI - this is on a full wired gig-e network.. <1ms latency.

[hamish]

Over a 1 Gb/s network ReaMote can get close to real time, but the best I have done is 25 ms which is still more than an 1/8th note at 120 bpm. It's more of a way to hear a mix with lots of effects that would otherwise stall your master (mixing) machine.

To reduce delay you can reduce the number of blocks (the network latency slider)

You can also reduce the render send-ahead, which by default is 1000ms.

Using a wired 1 Gb/s network like you I have had the blocks down to 2 (minimum setting is 'synchronus') and the render ahead to 25 ms.

This setting is a lot more responsive, but may be prone to a click or glitch.


You say you tried 'tweaking the host config', is this what you did? If so then the problem may be a plugin.

Personally I don't use SIR over reamote, and have also found cockos ReaVerb unsatisfactory too. For impulse reverb I highly recommend KeFIR by Piotr 'Habib' Pyrzanowski http://habib.webhost.pl/vst_keFIR.php

... however the latest version is not working with reaper fully, as the bank/presets are not restoring or saving properly. Give it a try though, if you want the earlier version (of keFIR dll) I could email it to you. Send a PM.

best luck
hamish

[biggator]

Originally Posted by hamish

Over a 1 Gb/s network ReaMote can get close to real time, but the best I have done is 25 ms which is still more than an 1/8th note at 120 bpm. It's more of a way to hear a mix with lots of effects that would otherwise stall your master (mixing) machine.

To reduce delay you can reduce the number of blocks (the network latency slider)

You can also reduce the render send-ahead, which by default is 1000ms.

Using a wired 1 Gb/s network like you I have had the blocks down to 2 (minimum setting is 'synchronus') and the render ahead to 25 ms.

This setting is a lot more responsive, but may be prone to a click or glitch.


You say you tried 'tweaking the host config', is this what you did? If so then the problem may be a plugin.

Personally I don't use SIR over reamote, and have also found cockos ReaVerb unsatisfactory too. For impulse reverb I highly recommend KeFIR by Piotr 'Habib' Pyrzanowski http://habib.webhost.pl/vst_keFIR.php

... however the latest version is not working with reaper fully, as the bank/presets are not restoring or saving properly. Give it a try though, if you want the earlier version (of keFIR dll) I could email it to you. Send a PM.

best luck
hamish

Thanks, Hamish -
yes, those are the settings I played with when I said 'tweaking the host'.. ironically - the other plugin I tried was Reaverb.. I'll try a few others I have sitting around and see what kind of results I can get.

[jesussaddle]

Hi. Thanks for this very useful thread. I was searching through the forum to find out if Reamote can help me with mixing down some VST synth stuff. I just need to know if it is possible, over either a gigabit switch or a x-over, to slave the VST synth. Actually, I have 2-3 extra PCs that could be used for this purpose, which would allow me to audition different synths and things while composing. It is possible to do it on one machine, but ideally I'd like to compose using a guitar while I play back some accompaniment. Any recording will likely be a problem, but with Reamote used for softsynths it could offer a solution.

Thanks in advance.

[hamish]

Hope I'm understanding you, sounds like you want to do stuff that is very do-able with reamote.

My experience is that most VSTi that run well on reaper will reamote ok.

The main issue I think is that the latency with VSTi will get more every loop of a sequence, but don't let this worry you, there's always a workaround.

It is in fact possible to track your guitar to live (no freeze) VSTi backing with reamote, despite what others may try to tell you.

I have two ways to do this.

1) If you have only 2 machines: Split your guitar signal (with an analog mixer if you have one, or the zero-latency monitor of your audio interface if you have it, or some pedals may have multiple outs) record your guitar dry and muted on your MASTER machine (the main REAPER project), and monitor using a multi-effects pedal with the approximate tone. Your dry track will be recorded in sync with the reamoted playback. Now you can add your favorite ampsim and tweak the tone along with the rest of the mix.

2) If you have 3+ machines: You can have one set up as a RECORDER with your best low-latency interface and an ampsim. Your MASTER can just use the onboard audo card, as latency is not an issue (assume default REAPER reamote settings, 1000 ms send ahead). Hit play on the MASTER with your VSTi backing, then record on your RECORDER machine project. Then as long as your guitar track has been recorded to a shared folder, you can locate this file over the network from your main MASTER reaper project and import it. The only drawback is you must manually position it, and of course you'll never be sample accurate. Still if you're like me, your guitar playing isn't sample accurate anyway ; )

Don't worry if you don't get this at first read, I suggest just make sure your hardware is ok and then hook it up.

A few months ago I started a list for myself of Free VSTi that are 'reamotable', meaning to post it here... Since then I have moved house, but I'll try to put something up, as this may be a big help for newbies.

hamish