Can't select separate audio interface in the VST: will be enabled in later update!

I’ve had a few audio related issues causing Rack not to load (removed all unnecessary audio devices) and I’ve finally got it running. However, I have one issue left:

Before I got the standalone version to run I already could start the VST, but with 1 caveat: I could n’t select an audio driver (it had already selected DAW as engine, and no other options are shown)

By now I’ve fixed the standalone version, and I can select all my audio interfaces in either Wasapi, ASIO or direct sound. I still can’t select an audio driver in the VST audio module, it still only allows DAW.

Any suggestions?

I may have got the wrong end of the stick here but I’m pretty sure that no DAW would allow hosted plugins to address the audio driver directly rather than mediated by the DAW?

I don’t think a DAW can prevent you from doing whatever you want, but I think you are right that vcv vst, like most vst, will only output audio to the daw, not directly to an audio device.

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Sorry, I forgot to explain the use case:

The magic thing that the VST promised is that I can have my DAW use sound card 1, and have the VST use my other soundcard, in Windows, without Asio4all. In my case: Ableton Live 11 is using Focusrite Scarlet 8i6 (which is my default audio card), and the VST should use my Expert Sleepers ES-8, which serves as the bridge to my hardware eurorack.

Now, I haven’t seen this is any videos yet, so I am starting to think that I’m crazy, but I am 1000% percent sure a few people, including myself, have asked on multiple occasions whether this would be possible in the VST, and Andrew assured us several times that this would indeed be possible.

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Here’s the thread I am referring to, where Andrew himself tells me this should be possible:

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I got that impression at the time too and I still believe that was the original intention but perhaps he ran into insurmountable problems trying to implement that - it would certainly be far from straightforward. As it stands now the DAW audio driver is the only one you can access through the VST. If you want to route CV etc back and forth to hardware, you need to do it via the DAW.

One workaround you might be able to do is use your ES-8 as the interface for your DAW (which allows you to pass CV in and out of it) and use a couple of the channels on the ES-8 to send audio out to your Focusrite for monitoring.

I see. I hadn’t thought of that. In the standalone I can now have two audio interfaces but I had not considered the VST.

Yeah, this was my use case already in VCV 1…

Would be cool to know whether this was indeed dropped, and if there’s any chance we might see this feature reappear in a later version.

And indeed, I can fully imagine this being quite a headscratcher, but it was one of the most enticing features promised

Indeed. About 6 months ago I bought an RME digiface which is just 4 x ADAT in out. I can run Es-3s and ES-6 off that but it also allowed for low latency audio loopback channels which gave me good sync and multi-track audio between my DAW and VCV before Rack 2 VST came out. I thought I probably wouldn’t need it anymore when Rack 2 was finally released but it has turned out to be incredibly useful even now because of this lack of access to other drivers from within VCV. I connect one pair of ADATS to my older Audient ID22 interfece which I use for monitoring and recording from its pair of very good Mic Pres.

If access to additional drivers does not end up materialising at some point, I’d highly recommend this as a good alternative.

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If I understand your use correctly this would n’t work with the VST, right?

Yes, not directly with the VST because nothing works with the VST except the DAW driver. What this does is give me is lots of CV capable routing in/out from the DAW which makes using the DAW driver for VCV stuff quite practical. The DAW just acts as the middle man.

With 4 x ADAT in out I have:

2 x ES-3 for 16 Audio/CV channels out

1 x ES-6 for 6 x Audio/CV in (could add an ES-7 for 2 more)

1 x Behringer 8200 AD converter for 8 line ins from hardware synths

and 8 channels of in/out to my old interface for monitoring, a couple of high quality Mic Press and a few loopback channels if I need them.

So if I want to send CV out from the Rack VST to hardware, I first send it to the DAW where there’s an audio channel that has that as the input and the output as one of the ES-3 channels. And vice versa for receiving CV/audio into the Rack VST from hardware.

Would like to use the ES-9 as a separate audio interface in VCV VST as well. That would save a lot of hassle with using other ways to use VCV and lose some reliability.

At least you now can use multiple audiocards in VCV standalone and if you have shared drivers you can use your main audio interface together with your DAW of choice and VCV standalone. Or you can use the outputs of soundcard1 to put into some spare inputs of soundcard2 with or without a mixer in between.

Use a hardware or software midi loopback for syncing also is possible. My personal experience that it not always works very well and you may get microstutters. Too bad Propellorheads dropped their Rewire support and it requires a license fee as well. I don’t now about Ableton Sync though.

That’s what I found with software loopback as well - also quite a lot of latency. I found the hardware loopback on the RME Digiface to be significantly better.

Yeah physical audio I/o from soundcard 1 to 2 was my Rack 1 use case, but I was especially looking forward to this specific feature, as it would allow me to use the VST.

Ok, but it doesn’t have that feature, ok? We done discussing that?

Uhm, no?

Don’t mean to be a hassle, or insinuate that Rack 2 is anything less than monumental. However, I paid 99 bucks for this specific feature (as others might) that was described by Andrew on multiple occasions, so I’d like to know whether it is on the backlog or dropped.

I’ll take it up with support, but it is of interest for everyone who considers buying the Pro version.

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Good News! The feature does exist and will be enabled some time from now:

"Ah yes, that makes sense. It looks like that feature has been forgotten about after it was disabled in the Rack Pro 2.0 build. We can re-enable it soon after stability testing in a future release. It will likely not work with ASIO but should work with all other drivers.

Andrew Belt"

(I checked with him whether I could quote him)

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Oh wow that’s excellent news indeed! a lot of people, especially ES-8/9 owners will be very happy to hear this.

Even in my setup with the Digiface it would save a lot of tracks in the DAW that are just used for routing hardware audio/cv in and out to Rack.

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VCV Rack’s prime use case, imho, is as central hub in a hybrid (soft+hardware) setup.

Other softwares my be able to compete, but this specific feature allows us to use this hybrid setup as a VST in your DAW, which makes it completely unique. Really looking forward to giving this a spin, some time in the future.

Good news indeed.

Never expected this would be high on the priority list but that it’s on there is good to know. From a commercial perspective this also is a unique selling point as MerkDak mentioned.

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