Solution for Those that Want it: Sending all system sounds + music to audiolense convolver

[mccarty350]

Have you made any progress in getting your system stabilized and working? What route did you take?

 

[Ofer]

Hi @mccarty350,

Thanks for asking ,yes I have, for a while now it is working, nearly, flawlessly. My savior was HLC. It is the only solution that is reproducibly stable. HLC let me route (virtual wiring) all the channels. More importantly it works perfectly with the RME ASIO drivers. You can checkout my posts and see.
The nearly is because my interface is fire wire and good old windows dropped the support for FF so I need to use legacy drivers that occasionally crash for 2-3 seconds. Hopefully an upgrade to RME UC that is USB based is coming soon.

 

[mccarty350]

HLC = Hang loose convolver?

 

[Ofer]

HLC = Hang loose convolver?

yes

 

[2234rew]

There are bugs but it works.

I have already been through your exact method and all known Windows methods.

In the end, much easier and more reliable to use macOS and get @Mitchco's HLC + free BlackHole virtual driver.

The experience is way way way better

That is bizarre, I swear, windows audio is full of such madness.

yes, other than for work, I will never have Windows in my personal life for audio & video ever again

And JRiver on Windows adds lip sync delay , it is not a (near) zero latency convolver

So not suitable for me for video with audio convolution - lip sync distracting

 

[moedra]

I use HLC inside of its own desktop host - the one it installs. I use my Audiolense filters inside HLC via the cfg file, so it can switch the filter sample rates on the fly if they change.

In HLC host,
Audio device type: ASIO
Device: VoiceMeeter AUX Virtual ASIO

In Banana,
On the first virtual input, turn off A1, turn on B2
Set A1 output device to sound card. In my case it is my Solid State Logic ASIO Driver

Now, anything I want to send through the convolver, such as Windows output, Tidal, etc., is set to VoiceMeeter Input.

I have one computer on which the ASIO driver doesn't work, so I just use the Windows Audio driver with VB-Audio Hi-Fi Cable for this one and everything works fine. The setup is basically the same. The driver for HLC is Windows Audio. The Input is VoiceMeeter AUX Output. In Banana the audio device on A1 is KS: VB-Audio Hi-Fi Cable. The first virtual input on Banana is still set to B2 (A1 is turned off).

You can also use Kushview Element to do the same thing as the HLC host with the same setup configuration.

 

[Ofer]

I use HLC inside of its own desktop host - the one it installs. I use my Audiolense filters inside HLC via the cfg file, so it can switch the filter sample rates on the fly if they change.

In HLC host,
Audio device type: ASIO
Device: VoiceMeeter AUX Virtual ASIO

In Banana,
On the first virtual input, turn off A1, turn on B2
Set A1 output device to sound card. In my case it is my Solid State Logic ASIO Driver

Now, anything I want to send through the convolver, such as Windows output, Tidal, etc., is set to VoiceMeeter Input.

I have one computer on which the ASIO driver doesn't work, so I just use the Windows Audio driver with VB-Audio Hi-Fi Cable for this one and everything works fine. The setup is basically the same. The driver for HLC is Windows Audio. The Input is VoiceMeeter AUX Output. In Banana the audio device on A1 is KS: VB-Audio Hi-Fi Cable. The first virtual input on Banana is still set to B2 (A1 is turned off).

You can also use Kushview Element to do the same thing as the HLC host with the same setup configuration.

What audio interface do you use? what is the advantage of VoiceMeter over VB-Audio?
I use LoopBeAudio and found it much better for then VB-cable, especially for multichannel audio but also more stable.

LoopBeAudio - A Virtual Audio Loopback Device

 

[moedra]

What audio interface do you use? what is the advantage of VoiceMeter over VB-Audio?
I use LoopBeAudio and found it much better for then VB-cable, especially for multichannel audio but also more stable.

LoopBeAudio - A Virtual Audio Loopback Device

What audio interface do you use?
I have several, including an SSL 2+ and a Sound Blaster X7. While I love the X7, for some reason its ASIO buffer is "apparently" larger than 2048, because I get a warning saying so every time I select it in Banana. I do not remember how to change this buffer size, but in its current state the ASIO driver will not load as the output device.

What is the advantage of VoiceMeter over VB-Audio?
VB-Audio is the developer. VoiceMeeter is their software. There are three versions of it: VoiceMeeter, Banana, and Potato. It's basically a digital audio mixer/router. Cable and Hi-Fi Cable are also software from VB-Audio. Simpler, but neither of these route ASIO. For that you need ASIO Bridge, but I haven't had much luck getting that one to work properly. Banana works like a dream.

I will look at LoopBeAudio and see what that's all about.

 

[mccarty350]

Moedra, I just picked up an X3 for 8 channel to replace my Asus Xonar U7 MK II (that I lost in a lightning strike that destroyed a lot of my equipment unfortunately) and it works after some fiddling as well for 8 channel and seems to have a better SNR than the Asus. I am however having to use ASIO4all as the creative ASIO driver is garbage.

You know Moedra you aren't the only one that has had issues with ASIO bridge. For something that should be so simple it's totally unintuitive to set up. I've successfully set it up...then circled back a few months later and forgotten how I got it to work successfully. I should just document how it works in one note so that I don't forget.

 

[moedra]

Moedra, I just picked up an X3 for 8 channel to replace my Asus Xonar U7 MK II (that I lost in a lightning strike that destroyed a lot of my equipment unfortunately) and it works after some fiddling as well for 8 channel and seems to have a better SNR than the Asus. I am however having to use ASIO4all as the creative ASIO driver is garbage.

You know Moedra you aren't the only one that has had issues with ASIO bridge. For something that should be so simple it's totally unintuitive to set up. I've successfully set it up...then circled back a few months later and forgotten how I got it to work successfully. I should just document how it works in one note so that I don't forget.

I have figured out what's going on with the X7 ASIO driver. I had the buffer too large, as I had been warned, but I didn't know how to adjust it. I figured out that the setting isn't referred to as a "buffer". It's a time in ms, and when I changed it to 10ms everything loaded up and works fine.

 

[mccarty350]

That's something good to know, there's always some strange anomaly to surmount. Nothing can be easy.

 

[ShadyHarbinger]

I use VAC (Virtual Audio Cable) with HLC. It is much better than LoopBeAudio. Faster, much more feature-rich, also costs $30 only. For example, you can configure any bit depth (8-32) and sample rate (5000-192K) in any combination both for input and output.

 

[Ofer]

I use VAC (Virtual Audio Cable) with HLC. It is much better than LoopBeAudio. Faster, much more feature-rich, also costs $30 only. For example, you can configure any bit depth (8-32) and sample rate (5000-192K) in any combination both for input and output.

Can you provide a link? Is VAC also a windows kernel like loopbeaudio? The thing I like about LBA is that it is very stable because it's a windows kernel.

 

[ShadyHarbinger]

Can you provide a link? Is VAC also a windows kernel like loopbeaudio? The thing I like about LBA is that it is very stable because it's a windows kernel.

I cannot link directly yet because of the policy but here it is: vac.muzychenko.net/en/description.htm

It is very good. You literally can configure everything. If there is a problem you can check its log and you will know what is the problem. Even if the problem is related to the client.
Very fast, very stable. Looking at the help file everyone will know why: he is a professional, highly experienced developer who thinks of everything and knows Windows Audio API so deep and well I cannot believe it. It is a true low-level kernel driver. (I am a developer too and understand the technical blah-blah there.)