Old 03-19-2019, 10:31 AM   #1
joesh
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Default Strange VSTi behaviour - no sound

I'm having some strange behaviour with VSTi that I added to Reaper, and, which last year were working fine - its in a school, so I'm only using Reaper from time-to-time. For some strange reason the built in Cockos VST(i) are all working fine, however, the others don't seem to be responding, but why?

- And as always, in 'Preferences', I made sure the midi keyboard devices are enabled.
- I've tested to make sure the midi is going into the track, which it is as the little red lines bounce up and down to show they're being received.
- I've checked through and tried out the various soundcard possibilities too, just in case, but nothing at present seems to help.
- I tried out the Cockos: ReaSynth and that worked just fine.

One thing that is interesting is that (as an example) the MT-PowerDrumKit (Manda Audio) should sound all by itself. However, even when I test one of their drum loops I don't get anything either..!

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated as I have a class of kids waiting with baited breath.

FYI: It's a Windows 10 system.
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Old 03-19-2019, 08:28 PM   #2
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strange... since you say you get sound from the cockos synth OK

I that to mean you have you track set up OK... monitoring on and the record button armed? ...and you see midi input on the meter...

sooooo.... what vsti's do not give you any sound? name a few plz

are they the only FX on the track?
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Old 03-19-2019, 11:08 PM   #3
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Hi Hopi,

I mentioned one in my question (MT-PowerDrumKit (Manda Audio)), but another couple of examples that I tried were "TAL NoiseMaker" and "4Front Bass".

I hope that helps.
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Old 03-20-2019, 02:40 AM   #4
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I assume the VSTi`s graphic window is showing up & in the case of MTPower drums2 there is visual confirmation that the drums are getting "hit" by the MIDI you are sending it? What happens if you just mouseclick on the drum pads in the graph? Still no noise?
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Old 03-20-2019, 03:32 AM   #5
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No, no noise.

I've tried installing Asio4All hoping that might solve the issue. However, I can't get Asio4All to show up in the Device Manager's Driver section...! I'm browsing round the web for solutions, but so far everything I've tried doesn't lead anywhere.

I've just tried some of the Cockos VSTi and they didn't work either, but that might be because I'm switching the setting - left, right and centre.

Help (or suggestions) would be much appreciated. By the way we're using the latest version of Reaper (x64).
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Old 03-20-2019, 09:46 AM   #6
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OK Back to basics. By the sound o fit, you are doing this with the built in sound card in your computer as an interface. NOT a good idea.

ASIO4ALL is at best a kludge, pretending to be a multitrack audio interface when its connecting to a regular sound card.

Have you actually read the first part of the free user guide that tells you how to set your computer up for multitrack recording? Worth a few minutes reading. If you dont like reading manuals, have a look at the free Video tutorials at reaper.fm, where you`ll also find the User Guide download.

One thing you haven`t actually said is if the VSTi interfaces (screen with picture of VSTi) are showing up and if you can see the drum heads and cymbals move when you click on them. I just loaded it into a project and as well as making drummy noises, I can see the drum heads and cymbals visibly respond when I click on them. Do yours?

Another thing you don`t actually say you have tried is: If you go to Options/Preferences/Audio System/ what IS showing in the drop down box? What you should be seeing is WASAPI (usually the best option if your sound card supports it) Direct Sound and Wave Out. If you installed ASIO4ALL correctly this is also where you should see that, but again I don`t recommend you use it unless nothing else works.

If all else fails, you might want to try installing a new, portable version of Reaper. This is available as a checkbox option when you first download and run the installer. The reason for this is that it will install a fresh version of Reaper with everything set to the factory settings without affecting your original reaper install, which will still be there. That way you can find out if you accidentally messed a setting up trying to fix this.

One last but very important thing: Any time you fool around with the locations of your VSTs and VSTis, in the reaper plugins/vst menu, dont just do a "rescan", do a full "clear/rescan". This toop is important because if reaper decides that a plugin is faulty it will deliberately write it out of any future scans. The only way to get the plugin back in business is to clear the cache - which includes plugins marked as dodgy - and THEN rescan. Hence the clear/rescan option.

Good luck.
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Old 03-20-2019, 10:46 AM   #7
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oh audio interface [sound card] .... hmmm well IMO the first thing to do is get a real one... and NOT to bother with whatever is built into your computer since it will not be an ASIO audio interface...

there are some fairly cheap ones ... you can tell us your budget and get suggestions
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Old 03-20-2019, 02:36 PM   #8
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Thanks for that really nice (and complete) update.

Firstly, I forgot to answer the question about the drum VSTi, and the answer is yes, it does show it's being hit - with the mouse as an example.

Secondly, I'd love to use a real sound card, but the school isn't going to pay for 14 external sound cards for these computers. So, as you can imagine I'm working round it. Last year I did the same project and it worked fine, all the VSTi were working 'hunky dory'. However, this year there seems to have been some problems, in this case videos wouldn't show on the video window until I changed the output settings in Video/Rex/Misc to allow YUY2 to be the default output, strange but I don't know why!

So, back at the VSTi problem. I'll uninstall Asio4All as it isn't working, and although it does show up in the Audio Device option, there seems no possibility to connect an input device, it just doesn't show anything. The output options are fine, although I don't know if they work as the VST don't work...!

Lastly, as for the User Guide and stuff, thanks for the suggestion, I'll have another look, maybe I missed something. I've been using Reaper for years, even (back in the day) some of my university sound courses were about using EarSketch and Python scripts on Reaper, so my knowledge is not too bad. And, like everyone, I've followed Kenny's videos from A-Z, great stuff. If you have any other tips though, I'm most interested as I'm going to try and get to the bottom of this. I should add that on 'my' computer at home (a Mac), everything is fine, but the problem is on the school's computers (PCs), so that complicates things - I'm not going to spend my evening there sorting this out.

Big thanks again.
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Old 03-20-2019, 04:02 PM   #9
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no sign of WASAPI as an option? Shame, as that is a reliable good compromise. If you have hits showing AND red lines in the mixer, showing that MIDI is being transmitted properly, your issue is either down to not having record monitoring enabled or that your signal routing thru the VSTi is not set correctly.
Pretty difficult when you only do this on PCs once a year! I just had the same issues in reverse when I bought an Mac Mini Server to do an album for a buddy that HAD to use Logic Pro 9 (!!) Reminds me I keep meaning to sell the Mac...
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Old 03-21-2019, 12:05 AM   #10
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Yes, I know what you mean (about the Mac/PCs). I'm constantly going back and forth trying to remember where such-and-such a menu option is, and so on.

Anyhow, as for the WASAPI I see it's on the computer, but when I select it nothing happens, meaning Reaper says it can't find a sound card - if I remember correctly. Since I don't know anything about PCs, does WASAPI have to be downloaded as a separate sound driver, or should it already be 'there' as part of a PC? Direct Sound and Wave Out are both there.

As for the "record monitoring enabled or that your signal routing thru the VSTi is not set correctly", I'll check again for the routing, but the record monitoring seems to be correct as when the Cockos VSTi work, I hear sound, see the signal, and get those lovely yellow bars moving up and down to show its working on all fronts.

I'll try again today and see what happens (I'm about to head into work), and may post something later this morning.
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Old 03-21-2019, 03:21 AM   #11
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Okay, I've been working on the computers today and it looks as though I'll have to get the IT Dept to help. I discovered that if I work from the Admin account, everything works*. However, once I head back to the (Users) Student account, Reaper doesn't work .... but why?

If you have a good knowledge of networks, maybe someone could make a suggestion(s), I can access the whole system, but please nothing too complicated, I have only limited knowledge of networks. I had a similar problem recently with Python on these computers. It was quite simply that the program wasn't 'pointed' to the right place, which may be the same problem here.

* = Lastly, we no have pretty bad latency, due to working with Wave Out. I can't get WASAPI to be recognised - if you have suggestions - and ASIO is no longer on the computers, which I used last year, and solved the latency problems. I can reset buffers in preferences, but maybe there's a simpler work-around?

Thanks in advance.
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Old 03-21-2019, 01:44 PM   #12
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Default Silly Me ....

Okay, I think I've sorted out the various problems, so just for others information (if they have similar problems).

Firstly, I installed WASAPI, which takes a bit of time, but when I got everything working it was a pleasure to finally have a system with NO latency. Hopefully everything will work following the install. If anyone needs information I found detailed instructions here: https://techsupport.cambridgeaudio.c...API_Set_Up.pdf

As for the VSTi, it was as is often the case, a very small problem which I hadn't noticed. I found that when unzipping the VSTi, within the Reaper Media folder, it had made a new folder named 'vst' with another folder named 'vst' with the vst inside ( vst > vst > all_the_vst). I hadn't noticed this and aimed the VST Plugins browser at the first folder (Reaper Media > vst), the result being that the browser was looking at a folder titled 'vst', but with no VST in. After deleting the outer 'vst' folder, and leaving the other with the vst in (and re-scanning and clearing the cache), everything worked fine.

I hope that helps anyone who suffers the same problem.
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Old 03-21-2019, 01:47 PM   #13
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If it makes you feel any better, I went through very similar experiences trying to use a Mac with Reaper AND Logic!!
Glad you figured it out.
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Old 03-21-2019, 11:10 PM   #14
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Ah, small obvious problems are often the cause, the trick is to find them. In fact my kids at school are always asking me why their keyboards don't work. The answer in most cases is because it wasn't plugged in, or even the volume was turned down.

To add to that, a good friend of mine who owns a professional electronic shop (selling mics, amps, cables, etc), told me that often when (professional) people bring in so called broken amps, it usually turns out to be something simple - ex: loudness button pressed 'on' but by their kids, and they didn't think to look.

Thanks again for your help and suggestion.

Although everything worked fine on some computers when using WASAPI to resolve the latency issue, some computers couldn't find the input devices when I installed WASAPI. This was very confusing so (as an edit here), I thought I'd add in this link for WASAPI problems and work around using 'loopback' as an alternative: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=199153

Hope that helps for others too.

Last edited by joesh; 03-23-2019 at 02:40 AM. Reason: Added some extra information.
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