Route audio between computers and between applications in two exciting new features of Symphony 64: SBus and VBus. In “SBus & VBus: Tutorial” learn how to setup each including connections and software parameters.
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Video Transcript
In this tutorial, we will go over connecting and using two groundbreaking features of the new Symphony 64 card. VBus, and an exciting new feature called SBus. The new Symphony 64 card now has two PC-32 ports on it allowing you to configure your audio work station in exciting new ways. Each port can have up to 32 channels of I/O connected to it. Or, you can connect up to 32 channels to the first port, and use the second port for SBus.
“SBus allows you to send up to 32 channels of I/O back and forth between two Mac Pro computers or a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro, all on a single cable. You can store your entire sample library on a secondary Mac Pro leaving the drives, ram, and cpu on your primary computer free for just recording audio tracks. Or, you can make transfers from other audio applications located on a separate machine. Throughout the tutorial, we will refer to the two computers as the primary and secondary.The primary computer in our case will have Logic on it. The secondary computer will have all of our stand alone synths, sample playback software, and libraries. It is best to first connect your interfaces to the port labeled 1-32 and make sure that everything is working properly before moving on to SBus.”
“Remember, that in order for SBus to work, you must have at least one interface connected on the first port. Now you can connect the port labeled 33-64 on the primary mac pro to port 1-32 on the Symphony 64 card on the secondary Mac Pro. Remember, you will need to install the Symphony 64 driver on the secondary computer as well. To trigger the samples on the secondary computer, you will need a midi connection. The easiest way is to use a single ethernet cable and the MIDI overLAN software. However, feel free to use any method you like for MIDI.”
“In the primary computer, open “audio midi set up” located under applications, utilities. Change the symphony source from card 1 port 1, to card 1 , port 1 and 2. This can also be set in Maestro, but it is important to know where to change it in Audio MIDI setup as well. You can also connect to a Symphony Mobile Card on a MacBook Pro, making it your secondary computer. You may need to update the software and firmware if you have an older version Symphony mobile card. Please check the Apogee website for the latest updates and instructions.”
“In Logic, open Options- Audio-I/O labels. And option click on the first input listed under Provided by Driver. Now, 1-32 will be listed as Symphony in 1-32 and 33-64 will be listed as SBus in-1-32. You will notice in Logic there are 64 inputs. Channels 1-32 are for any I/O that you have connected to the first port and 33-64 will be used for SBus connections. Even if you only have a single Rosetta 800 connected using only the 1st 8 channels SBus will still be exclusively on channels 33-64. Now it’s as easy as sending the SBus out of one computer, to the S-bus in on the other computer.
VBus allows you to route demanding stand alone software instruments directly into logic or any core-audio based application instead of running them as plug-ins. The result is a much more efficient use of ram.VBus is also ideal for transferring audio from application to application. You can seamlessly send sessions back and forth, right inside the box.”
“Using VBus,is as easy as assigning an input, and an output.First, activate how many channels of VBus you would like to use in the Maestro control panel.You can select up to 64 channels of VBus. Now that you have selected the amount of channels, simply select the VBus output in the application you want to send audio from, and select VBus input, in the application you are sending audio to. It’s that simple.”
October 16th, 2009 at 10:18 am
This is dope True inter-app audio transfer another reason for a Mac purchase. And Apogee hardware.