Issue with ES-9 and VCV integration with audio modules

I have been successfully using my ES-9 with VCV Rack for almost a year now but out of nowhere I started having issues. I normally am able to select my ES-9 as a device on a Audio-16 module and be able to both send audio in, and signals/audio out, through that one module. Now out of nowhere I’m only able to do one thing per module. I have to have two audio 16 modules now, one selected as ES-9 Out to send things to my rack, and one selected as ES-9 in to send audio from my rack into VCV. Can anyone familiar with ES-9 and VCV integration help me out? I’m sure it’s something to do with the ES-9 configuration tool but I cant figure out what setting that would be.

Perhaps your bug is related to this:

Note: Using multiple Audio modules is experimental and may crash Rack or render unstable audio.

Stoermelder has an Audio 64 module, maybe worth a try?

Are you on MacOS? I am and a similar thing happened to me, very confusing. It turns out that Apple likes to release OS updates that turn one audio device into two audio devices - one for input and one for output. Crazy, I know, and definately a bug in my world but hey, it’s Apple. So go into your system settings, find the ES-9 audio device, and see if it is now two rather than one device. If it is, make an aggregate device (e.g. “ES-9-united”) from the input + output ES-9 devices and voila, normalcy is back.

Yuk! Which Mac OS update causes this issue of a single device suddenly appearing as seperate devices for in snd out?

Yuk indeed! Well, I can’t list the exact updates, but it happened to me on Sierra (10.12) so I figure this could have happened multiple times. I’ve frozen my system for a long time on Sierra so I can’t point to other updates, but if it happenened once it can happen again. On the last update to Sierra it’s still multiple devices, so they never fixed it.

image

Oh I see - I don’t remember having any issue like that on Sierra or any system since - currently on Catalina. I thought you were going to say it was something new in Big Sur. Does your interface have a driver? might be that needs updating?

Have you tried right clicking the device in Audio Midi Setup and clicking configure device?

Never installed external drivers for any gear in my Mac since thing otherwise just work. Nothing to configure on right-clicking, no way to force them to be one device other than making an aggregate device, which I do and that works just fine. Is Catalina a good stable system? Because I’ve been toying with giving it one last update, probably to Mojave, but maybe it should be Catalina instead?

Yes I have found Catalina to be very stable. I find all the Mac OS’s generally end up pretty stable - it’s just the very latest that tends to have some issues when it first comes out. I normally update to the latest about 6 months after it first comes out - but have held off longer with Big Sur (although I have recently installed that on my laptop and no issues so far) - still on Catalina with my main iMac.

1 Like

It’s what Apple recommends.

“You can create Aggregate Device to increase the number audio inputs and outputs available at the same time. You can also use an Aggregate Device if your application doesn’t support separate input and output devices.”

Yeah, it’s a solution, which means there’s a problem, and I would contend that they created the problem. If their idea is that a physical audio device can only have inputs or outputs, but not both, and therefor they have to split it into two devices, I call that crazy, and it was working perfectly before they changed it. At any rate it’s the weirdest change to happen with an OS update, and quite user-hostile if you ask me.

2 Likes

I’m having an issue getting my ES-9 to work with VCV Rack Pro in my DAW.

I’m running audio an oscillator from my Eurorack into an ES-9 input. If I load an Audio module in standalone VCV Rack, it works as expected [see first screenshot].

But if I do the same thing in the DAW version I get no signal (on either the scope or audio) from the ES-9 [see second screenshot].

I’m on a Mac Studio 2022 running Ventura 13.2. I’m using Ableton Live 11.2.10 (ARM version) and the AUV2 version of the VCV Pro plugin.

Any thoughts on the problem? Thanks!

You can see next to “Device:” that when running standalone both inputs and outputs are available, wheares in the DAW only outputs are seen. This might very well be an Ableton limitation, I don’t know. Since you’re on macOS, try and make an aggregate device with all the ES-9 in/outputs, then select that one in the DAW and see if that works.

Thanks! I hadn’t noticed that the DAW was only showing outputs.

I made an aggregate device that has inputs and outputs, but it still won’t work.

In the DAW, none of the Core Audio devices show any inputs available. So it doesn’t seem like an ES-9 issue.

image

Does anyone know:

Is this an Ableton limitation?

Does this only happen with ARM version of Ableton?

Does this only happen with AUV2 DAW plugin?

Is this the old Microphone permissions thing perhaps?

If your DAW has no core audio inputs available I suspect that your DAW does not have permission to access the ‘microphone’, which in this case means any audio input.

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy Tab

Click on the Microphone in the list on the left. See if Ableton has permission to access it, If not add it to the list of allowed apps. If it already looks like it has permission, deselect it then select it again.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s it. I checked and Ableton was permissioned for my microphone. To be sure, I unselected and reselected as you suggested. But the problem is still there.

I’m a bit mystified actually, how you are running Rack in the ARM version of Ableton. Rack and it’s plugins are Intel/x64 format and last I heard Ableton, unlike Bitwig, is not able to run plugins of other architectures. Until now the advice given to people in here, has been to use the X64 version of Ableton on Apple Silicon machines. It will run under Rosetta2 like Rack and its plugins. Are you running the ARM preview version of Rack in it? So you only have Core and Fundamental plugins available? If that’s the case you could have found a bug in the ARM preview of course and in that case you should probably write to support@vcvrack.com.

I am using the Universal (not the Intel-only) version of Ableton Live 11 (so not using Rosetta), but not the ARM beta of VCV Rack. The VST and VST3 versions of the Rack plugin are not available in the Universal Ableton, but the AUV2 plugin does work and all the usual modules are available (not just those with ARM builds).

But I agree, maybe this combination is causing the problem and I should go back to using the Rosetta version of Ableton to see if that fixes it.

Thanks!

Yup, that solved the problem. I installed the Intel-Only version of Ableton (as opposed to the Universal version) and loaded the VST3 Rack plugin. The Audio-16 module now shows the 16 inputs from the ES-9, as well as the inputs of other sources.

Still not exactly sure what the problem is. I wanted to check if I still saw the same problem with the AUV2 plugin in the Intel-Only Ableton, but it crashed every I time I tried to load the AUV2 plugin. So I can’t really tell for sure if the problem is with the AUV2 plugin or with the Universal build of Ableton (or some interaction effect).

2 Likes

Interesting. Could be a bug with the AU of Rack Pro. I would definately write to support and describe all your findings.

1 Like