Amp Sim with Reaper and M-Audio Fast Track

[Schaine]

hello,
since i'll be moving into a shared flat to study, I wont be able to play my guitar through my Tube Amp all day.

So i looked for a way to play through Headphones without having to buy something new.

I found out that there are VST Amp Sims that you can play through a VST Host (reaper).
Since i already use Reaper for recording and mixing, i thought why not and gave it a try.

What i did.
Made The fast track audio interface the input and output device.
Plugged my guitar into the guitar-input (1/4-inch) in the fast track
added new track
added VST sim Amp to effects (tried diffrent reaper-VSt effects aswell, so it isnt the VST problem)
enabled "record monitoring"
armed track for recording (tried it both ways)

But there is no sound. I only get sound if i turn the direct monitoring of my Fast track on. But of course, this is regardless of reaper and has no effects.

So I'm asking, how do i get this to work, to have real time effects on the recording input. It also doesnt work with the Microphone input of my fast track.

And here comes the more complicated part. I gave up on Reaper and downloaded AmpliTube (Standalone virtual amp). And it doesnt work either through that Guitar-Input of the INterface, but it does somewhat work for the microhone input of the interface. So i guess next to the problem with the reaper-real Time, i also have to tell AmpliTube (or reaper then aswell i guess) to use the Guitar-Input, and not the mic-input. Any idea how to do that? So far i always recorded with microphone in reaper. I tried to use the Guitar input to simply record as usual in reaper, but it gets no sound. So i have to tell reaper to use the other input of the Fast track to make this work, too.

Thanks for any help, i know its a pretty specific problem, but I need help

[Fex]

Originally Posted by Schaine

Made The fast track audio interface the input and output device.

You must have done this in Options > Preferences > Audio > Device.
But did you also do it for the track's record input?

[Lokasenna]

I think Fex is right - right-click the Record Arm button and make sure that you've selected the right input for your guitar.

[Schaine]

Hey, i got it to work by instaling ASIO4ALL. Forgot to do that since last system upgrade. Now i get the sound i want, but...

Latency is no fun. If i turn down the buffer in ASIO to 64 and check "hardware buffer", its still impossible to get a good timing.

I read online that latency should not be an issue with modern CPUs.

I have a really new Quad Core, my interface is a M-Audio Fast track. Could that be the problem? It wasnt too expensive, but its said to be OK.

Also, ASIO always messes up my Output signals of Windows. I need to be able to have youtube and reaper running through my Fast track, but as soon as ASIO is in place, it always routes the Youtube (Browser) signals to something else (internal soundcard). Any way to do that?

Thanks for the help so far.

[bluzkat]

Originally Posted by Schaine

Hey, i got it to work by instaling ASIO4ALL. Forgot to do that since last system upgrade. Now i get the sound i want, but...

Latency is no fun. If i turn down the buffer in ASIO to 64 and check "hardware buffer", its still impossible to get a good timing.

Raise your buffer settings to 128 and see if that helps.

Are you running Windows 8? If not, try this utility and see what the results are.

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml.

Remember... this program does not work properly in Windows 8.

Good luck.

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by Schaine

What i did.
Made The fast track audio interface the input and output device.
Plugged my guitar into the guitar-input (1/4-inch) in the fast track
added new track
added VST sim Amp to effects (tried diffrent reaper-VSt effects aswell, so it isnt the VST problem)
enabled "record monitoring"
armed track for recording (tried it both ways)

Originally Posted by Schaine

Hey, i got it to work by instaling ASIO4ALL. Forgot to do that since last system upgrade. Now i get the sound i want, but...

If you haven't already, install the ASIO driver for the Fast Track. You do not need Asio4All, as it is for sound devices which do not have an ASIO driver, such as your onboard sound. If the Fast Track ASIO driver is installed, check in Reaper preferences that:

'Audio system' is set to 'ASIO'
'ASIO driver' is set to 'Fast Track'
The inputs/outputs are enabled

You will need to experiment with the buffer size in the M-Audio (or Avid) panel, which can be accessed by clicking 'ASIO Configuration'. If it is too low, you might not get any sound, or you might get sound artifacts such as dropouts or garbled sound. Start at 256. After everything is working ok, you can try lowering the buffer setting. Direct monitoring should be turned off before closing the panel.

Switch the Fast Track input (on interface back panel) to guitar input.

Create a new Reaper track, and enable recording and monitoring for the Reaper track. At this point, you should hear your dry guitar sound with either a barely perceptable latency or no perceptable latency. Adjust the input gain on the Fast Track for a healthy signal. If you have no dry guitar sound at this point, or if the latency is very perceptable, recheck the above steps.

Add you amp sim to the track. You should now hear your guitar being processed by the amp sim.

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by Schaine

Hey, i got it to work by instaling ASIO4ALL. Forgot to do that since last system upgrade. Now i get the sound i want, but...

Latency is no fun. If i turn down the buffer in ASIO to 64 and check "hardware buffer", its still impossible to get a good timing.

I read online that latency should not be an issue with modern CPUs.

I have a really new Quad Core, my interface is a M-Audio Fast track. Could that be the problem? It wasnt too expensive, but its said to be OK.

Also, ASIO always messes up my Output signals of Windows. I need to be able to have youtube and reaper running through my Fast track, but as soon as ASIO is in place, it always routes the Youtube (Browser) signals to something else (internal soundcard). Any way to do that?

Thanks for the help so far.

The Fast Track should work fine. It should not be the problem, unless something is broken.

When using Asio4All (which you do not need), the audio driver will not be released to other applications, such as your browser, which is why you are seeing the behavior that you mentioned. When using the Fast Track ASIO driver instead (which you should be using), everything should work as expected.

[SamuelC]

This all works fine, however latency will be the key here.

Even when I am on heaphones ( guitar straight into Daw via Firewire interface into Amp sim) I can still feel latency because the vibrations from the hands travel faster to your brain before the computer amp sims spits it out to my heaphones.

I usually run my interface at 48 samples so I don't go nuts.

Some people do not feel the higher latencies, for me though USB is still not there with low latency except the Presonus Boxes ( ie locking down the USB clock to 1 ms)

Latency is the real pain in the butt with virtual amp sims.

One day we will get every interface locked down to 1 ms clocks.

For now only Presonus is doing it.

That will be my next interface ( as far as USB)

Rock On!!

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by SamuelC

This all works fine, however latency will be the key here.

Even when I am on heaphones ( guitar straight into Daw via Firewire interface into Amp sim) I can still feel latency because the vibrations from the hands travel faster to your brain before the computer amp sims spits it out to my heaphones.

I usually run my interface at 48 samples so I don't go nuts.

Some people do not feel the higher latencies, for me though USB is still not there with low latency except the Presonus Boxes ( ie locking down the USB clock to 1 ms)

Latency is the real pain in the butt with virtual amp sims.

One day we will get every interface locked down to 1 ms clocks.

For now only Presonus is doing it.

That will be my next interface ( as far as USB)

Rock On!!

Small latency is definitely perceptible, depending on what is being played and how it is being monitored, but I think that the op is likely seeing a big latency due to not having the interface asio driver configured properly.

On the subject of small latency, thunderbolt is looking promising. I only see two thunderolt interfaces available so far, but it is being reported that roundtrip latency is around 3ms.

[Schaine]

Hey thanks people
IN the end i gave up on fixing the latency after no matter what i did, that little difrence killed it for me. Since i play to backing tracks, i would have to hit ne note a little earlier than the actual beat every time to make it sound perfect.

Instead, i pulled out my old Multieffect-pedal, which has some preamps and ofc effects on it, linked it between guitar and interface, and enabled direct monitoring. No latency, and the sound is acceptable at least for distorted/overdriven sounds. Clean sounds a little bit boring since it lacks the depth of real speakers.

So i guess this is my solution, thanks for all the input guys!

Have a good day!