FAQs: AudioPort Universal

»Can I use AudioPort Universal with my Tascam GigaStudio instruments?

Yes, we have tested AudioPort Host with GigaStudio and it works well. In fact, this is one of the key reasons we decided to offer the program as a stand-alone and not just for our own DVZ RealTime instruments libraries. However, Gigastudio standalone cannot be brought directly into AudioPort Host; it requires a "VST Wrapper" which you can get in the form of a program called Giga VST Adapter; see the next FAQ.

»I have the stand-alone version 3 of GigaStudio. Can I use this with AudioPort, or do I need the Giga plug-in?

Normally you would need the VST plug in. However, the company FX-max has made a VST adapter for Gigastudio 2.54 or Gigastudio 3. If you use this wrapper, then you can place the Stand-alone version you have inside AudioPort and it will work as you wish.

Giga adapter adds from $69 (for one computer) to $49/per computer (for 4 computers) to your cost of doing business, per FX-max's price list, but it does give new life to your Giga libraries along with the ability to tie those PCs to a Mac without audio interfaces on each PC.

»Can I use AudioPort Universal with my Kontakt instruments?

Yes, APU works well with Kontakt 3, 3.5 or 4. You can use up to two of the 16-port Kontakt plug-ins within a single AudioPort Host, although the actual number of streaming instruments you can successfully run from one AudioPort Host will depend upon the capability of the hosting computer.

»Can I use AudioPort Universal with my Spectrasonics instruments?

Yes and No. We have not yet done extensive testing. Stylus RMX works well, Atmosphere and Trilogy do not.

»Does AudioPort Universal provide audio & MIDI connectivity? Or do we have to buy The Nerds' ipMIDI or MusicLab’s MIDIoverLAN CP for the MIDI connection?

AudioPort Host sends digital audio to AudioPort plug-ins. Our software does not come with MIDI control, but the VST plug-ins you instantiate within AudioPort Host can communicate via MIDI over Ethernet using either ipMIDI or MIDIoverLAN CP. A right-click of your mouse on any instantiated plug-in within AudioPort Host allows you to make this assignment once you’ve installed ipMIDI or MolCp on the host computer.

»I am using MIDIoverLAN CP and having some problems... MIDI dropouts, connect issues, etc. What's wrong?

If you look at MusicLab’s MIDIoverLAN CP user forum you will see there are a number of issues with MolCp version 3.3 platinum, and some suggested corrections. We have found that version 3.2 is more stable for use with AudioPort Universal (in fact, MolCp version 2 works very well, and if you have or can get a copy give that a try.)

»Can I use hardware MIDI? Is AudioPort listening on any system-level MIDI port?

AudioPort Host will work with any MIDI driver you have installed on the computer on which it's running. So, for example, if you connect a MIDI keyboard to that computer and the computer has a suitable driver for the keyboard, then you can link a sampler or synth VST plug-in within AudioPort Host to the keyboard's MIDI.

»Is it a VST or VSTi plug-in?

It is a VST plug-in (and also an Apple Audio Unit plug-in; on a Macintosh you have your choice).

»Can I insert AudioPort plug-in on an Instrument track, Audio track or Input track in Cubase?

Instantiate the AudioPort plug-in as an effect on a stereo audio track. The audio track must be input enabled.

»What versions of Cubase does AudioPort work in?

APU works with either Cubase 4.5 or Cubase 5; it does not work with earlier versions of Cubase.

»Will AudioPort run on a Windows XP 64-bit, Vista 64-bit or Windows 7 64-bit OS?

AudioPort Host will run on a Windows XP Pro 64, Vista 64 or Windows 7 64-bit computer, in 32-bit mode. It will run as a 64-bit app and take full advantage off the available memory if you add an inexpensive utility called jBridge. And of course the host runs on XP, Vista and Windows 7 32 bit operating systems. While we offer AU and VST AudioPort plug-ins to bring audio into Mac sequencers, the AudioPort Host will not run on any Mac OS, and VST plug-ins for PC sequencers. Note: the AudioPort Universal PC VST Plug-in will NOT work on any 64 bit OS.

»How many audio channels can I send from one sample-playing computer to my sequencer using AudioPort? I want to instantiate three virtual instrument plug-ins and use 8 stereo outputs from each of them. Is this possible?

A You can run one AudioPort Host on a given sample-playing computer, and it has 32 discrete audio output channels. There are various ways to use these channels. Please download this brief AudioPort tech note (pdf file) to see how you can accomplish this APU Tech Note 20091223. You will need a recent version of Adobe Acrobat or Acrobat Reader to view the file.

»How many instances of the AudioPort Host can be run on a single system?

You can only run one AudioPort Host per computer. One license allows you to send out digital audio from up to four of these AudioPort Host computers at once, and to run a fifth computer on which you instantiate the AudioPort plug-ins to receive digital audio from the AudioPort Hosts.

»Will the AudioPort Host work with 64-bit VST plug-ins?

Yes, if you purchase and install jBridge.

»What is the lowest latency that you have been able to get out of the audio transfer between systems?

We've measured as little as 4.6 to 4.8 milliseconds on a fast computer (Intel Core 2 Quad 3.6 GHz) running nothing else, two audio channels, and with a dedicated Gigabit LAN that was not going through a router – just fixed IP addresses and a Gigabit switch. Adding more audio channels and/or more network traffic (e.g., not on a dedicated LAN) can increase the latency.

»I know that I can't send audio from my Mac to the AudioPort Host on a Windows PC via AudioPort. But I can do it via regular Audio I/O, then transfer the audio processed on a VST filter in AudioPort Host back to my Mac via AudioPort?

No. AudioPort Host is NOT intended to accept incoming digital audio, but only to output digital audio that's created within it.

If you have a synth, sampler or other virtual instrument VST inside AudioPort Host on a Windows PC, it can send audio out to AudioPort plug-ins on another PC or Mac system, but it's not made to work in reverse.

AudioPort Host can run a VST effects plug-in that processes the on-board created sound, and it should work with a VST plug-in that relies upon an associated DSP card (something like a UAD card and plug-in combination) although we have yet to test plug-ins associated with external cards. Remember though that any DSP card is doing number crunching, but the audio itself would travel only from AudioPort Host to AudioPort Plug-ins via Ethernet.

»Is it possible to send from One Mac to another? Or is this just PC to Mac?

Audio Port Universal sends audio from a PC to a PC or from a PC to a Mac. The Host does not run in OS X and so it does not send audio out from a Mac. Please also read the following FAQ.

»Is it possible to run AudioPort on an Intel Mac, and send the audio over Ethernet to another Mac?

No… and yes. You can’t run AudioPort Host (the digital audio ‘sending end’) in Mac OS X at this time, but you can boot the Intel Mac in Windows XP, Vista or 7 using Boot Camp (Parallels may work, though our preliminary tests indicate there may be unacceptable latency). Then you can launch AudioPort Host and send digital audio to another Mac (Intel, G5, G4 or even a fast G3 chip) or the same mac's parallels partition which is booted in OS-X; this is where you can use our AU or VST version of the AudioPort plug-in. We’re compatible with OS 10.3.9 and higher, but if you also want to use MusicLab’s MIDIoverLAN CP, you’ll need to use OS 10.4.x or higher.

»Your web site shows a diagram with a master MacPro Sequencer/DAW running AudioPort plug-ins and a PC farm running AudioPort Hosts. Would a master MacPro and a MacPro AudioPort Host farm work also?

Yes... but only if the MacPros running AudioPort Host are booted in Windows XP, Vista or 7 (preferably not Parallels, but actually Boot Camp set for a cold boot in Windows). This farm of computers would be running AudioPort Host in Windows to host VST instruments and/or effects.

Another MacPro (or several) of course can also be booted in Mac OS X and used to run a sequencer or DAW that has the AudioPort VST or AU plug-in instantiated to receive the digital audio being sent from the AudioPort Hosts.

»How many computers can I run this on?

One license will allow you to run up to 4 AudioPort Hosts (you can only instantiate one of these per Windows computer) sending digital audio to one computer (PC or Mac), in which you can instantiate as many AudioPort plug-ins as you like for receiving the digital audio.

You can buy more licenses if you want to set up a larger Host farm or use multiple destination (sequencer/DAW) computers. At some point the network or the receiving computer may bog down from too much traffic, so the expansion is not unlimited.

»Can I automate a plug-in which is on the PC AudioPort host through my Mac Sequencer or DAW?

AudioPort Host can accept MIDI commands if you use a third-party program like The Nerds' ipMIDI or MusicLab’s MIDIoverLAN CP. So assuming you install one of these programs on your Mac and your PC, and assuming your sequencer or DAW can output suitable MIDI code to “talk to” the VST plug-in running in AudioPort Host on the PC, then yes, you can send commands that way. In fact we do this with our own DVZ libraries.

»Does AudioPort Universal work as an RTAS plug-in within Protools 8? Or would I have to wrap it with a VST-to-RTAS Adaptor (wrapper) from FXpansion?

We have run a few tests using FXpansion's latest RTAS-to-VST wrapper around AudioPort Universal's VST plug-in on a PC in Protools 8 with mediocre results. We have yet to test it on a Mac. As they say in the car ads, “your mileage may vary,” and at this time we can’t recommend such a solution.