Routing audio in and out of Rack in Windows

VCV Rack
#1

I am struggling a little with audio on my new Windows laptop; I didn’t realise how much pain CoreAudio removes on my Mac.

I don’t have an external audio card and am enjoying the joys of ASIO4ALL, with an interface that looks like it has not been updated since the 1990s :wink:

On my Mac I use Soundflower and Loopback to route audio wherever I want it and am very happy to use standalone applications without the DAW overhead.

Trying to set this up on Windows I have spent a day fighting with Virtual Audio Cable (https://vac.muzychenko.net/en/index.htm) and VB-Cable (https://www.vb-audio.com/Cable/) but I cannot make them work like Soundflower/Loopback works on a Mac.

I can route audio with them to ASIO4ALL where they appear, but when I route audio into Rack I cannot have my cake and eat it, that is, if I route audio in from another application, I get no output on my headphones. If I route audio out then wherever else I go the same happens, unless I disable the virtual cabling in ASIO4ALL I cannot get any audio out of whatever I am using.

Am I doing something wrong or is there no way of getting Soundflower like functionality in Windows ??

#2

Nothing quite so pretty as Soundflower and Audio Hijack, I’m afraid. Virtual Audio Cable is as close as it gets that I am aware of.

2 Likes
#3

You could try this software from Dante, which is a professional industry standard.
I think they have a working demo?
https://www.audinate.com/products/software/dante-virtual-soundcard

3 Likes
#4

Thanks. Another bit of Dante software, ‘Via’, does the job nicely :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#5

They provide excellent stuff and are embedded in many hardware devices. My guess is the MOTU i have, is using their stuff too internally.
Glad it worked for you :+1:t4:

1 Like
#6

is there any reason you need asio? i just use wasapi and the bridge with reaper and it works great.

#7

Ableton doesn’t appear to support WASAPI.

#8

how braindead is that?

1 Like
#9

Quite.

https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=228482

#10

i shall call it disableton from now on.

and i cannot recommend reaper enough!

6 Likes
#11

I have spent so much over the years on Max4Live devices …

That said, I am intending to investigate Bitwig 3 when it next goes on sale, so I might be selling off all that stuff. Rack does a lot of it now !

1 Like
#12

bitwig does look interesting, especially with the new modular stuff. i may have a play around with it if that stuff works in a demo version.

but vcv rack and reaper sufficiently cover my music making needs for now.

4 Likes
#13

That is exactly what i have done after 10 years Ableton.
I sold my license as Ableton is not progressing in a fresh manner.
And waiting for the Bitwig 3.0 release to buy.

2 Likes
#14

I have an Ableton Live lite key lying around that i haven’t used yet. I always wanted to try “simpler”, the sampler who looks like super fun for sound design. But other than that Reaper does what i need it to so far, so maybe i’ll stick to it for a while.

#15

I was kind of excited for Bitwig, but I don’t do the online activation stuff. It looks like Reaper’s linux versions are getting re-evaluated though. They have an experimental build mentioned on the download site.

#17

I can only recomend Reaper, too. For 60$ it’s a steal, its extremly lightweight, very flexible with
channels and routing (convert a stereo track to 64 channels ? no problem), and it comes with
ReaRoute (optional install virtual ASIO I/O) which is quite handy to get audio and CV transfered between
VCV-Rack and Reaper.
Bitwig is nice, too, but less flexible with channels ( = stereo only), and routing between tracks takes a
bit of geting used to (set another track/device-on-other-track as input AND add the audio-receiver device …). But it works fine with WASAPI and the VCV 0.6 bridge device (you can only send 4 mono channels of audio or CV per VCV-Bridge VST (1+2 on the main stereo in, 3+4 on the sidechain channel) from Bitwig to VCV-Rack. Rack -> Bitwig you can use all channels of bridge , just use the “add missing chains” in the plugin multi-out-chain selector (and do some re-routing) :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#18

i am always surprised to find out that the much more expensive daws are not as flexible and fully featured as reaper.

#19

Reaper and ReaRoute for me. And CopperLan for routing midi.

#20

Reaper is also one of a very small list of DAWs that lets you delete notes by right clicking them :wink:

Almost all of them on the market make you go through extra steps, except FL, LMMS and Reaper…

1 Like
#21

Bitwig also does offline activation. I just did this a few days ago.