Native Instruments Crash Course

There are well-documented discussions online about the new Native Access registration tool by Native Instruments. Many of them concern the fact that Native Access without exception crashes on systems with multiple monitors. I have experienced this myself, and so far the only workaround has been to disconnect all external screens when Native Access is in use. This is of course highly impractical and leaves users with problems solely created by Native Instruments.

But this is not all.

Recently Native Instruments has released two new plugin packs: Mod and Crush. The reasonably-priced packs include effects often used in modern EDM productions, when they are going for a more edgy analog feel. This idea is applied also in the plugin GUI as one can see. It is no accident that they have been given a look resembling guitar pedals:

The problem is however that what I see instead of GUI is a blue screen: both plugin packs crash my Win 7 64-bit multiple-monitor systems instantly when launched. 

On one monitor – laptop only – the plugins work as soon as I don’t try to mess with the controls. They are almost unresponsive from the start, but any attempt trying to move the knobs results in BSOD, as it is called.

In comparison I loaded eight random plugins by other vendors with heavy GUI load on top of each other and activated them all: no problemo.

Considering the earlier Native Access example, it looks like Native Instruments design department is in serious crash course with many people’s setup. It doesn’t matter if a registration tool or a plugin looks cool if it is unusable. These are audio tools, not 3D animation demos.

What I look for in audio setup primarily is stability. As long as Native Instruments follows a different path, I will access other alternatives.

“Failed to play test tone”

The error message above is definitely unsettling since it basically means your computer just lost its voice. And I mean all voice: there was no audio whatsoever coming out.

After I encountered that very message, my first thought was it must be serious. This thought was only strengthened by the fact that restarting computer did not help. I then turned to the digital hive mind and sought answers online.

There were dozens of detailed forum posts about people dismantling their workstations, reinstalling Windows, restarting Windows Audio, disabling enhancements, testing drivers etc. All those stories had basically the same result: nothing helped.

Ok, I thought. A lot of knowledgeable people had tried a lot of things in vain – there is no sense for me to do the same.

I started reasoning the issue literally from my own viewpoint. I’ve lost my voice too, and it may be a sign of a serious illness. Much more often we are of course talking about coming up with the flu or something less drastic.

Why can’t the damn thing play the tone? I recently set up another USB audio interface. I played the test tone via it and there was the sound again. But when I launched Ableton, my master interface was still silent.

While restarting I had unplugged all USB cables from the computer, but I had not unplugged the other end: the cable from my master interface. Why should I do that?

Because none of those earlier forum posts describing unsolved issues had a word about it.

Despite having Ableton project open, I unplugged my mixer/interface: the same USB cable carries also the I/O master audio signal. As I replugged the interface, it blasted out the plink telling me that something had just been unplugged (the interface itself).

At the same time it casually told me that its voice was back. Sometimes it’s just the flu.

External hardware FX: cases Cubase and Ableton

For natural reasons most blog posts are about their writer’s expertise, and rightfully so. When there is a lesson to be given, someone with adequate level of knowledge is definitely the right person for the job.

Rarely does the writer openly present his or her case from the viewpoint of how stupid the person has been. I will now do exactly that. After all, those lessons are the most memorable and may even save time and trouble would the reader encounter something similar. I will also add the necessary images to clarify my case.

The starting point was the following: I wanted to use my Korg Kaoss Pad 3+ as an external hardware effect in a DAW, but I thought this was not possible.

The reason for this was that using an outboard effect requires its own audio input and output in the audio interface (such as M-Audio, Focusrite, Alesis etc.). My interface is embedded in my mixer, Allen & Heath ZED 10FX, a really sturdy and well-designed device. There is only one pair of stereo input and output for audio routing though, so I had no way of using KP3 as a track FX with just that one pair.

Here’s the rare bright spot in my thinking: I almost bought a new interface with plenty of I/O, but only almost. Instead I took a look at my old interface, the M-Audio Audiophile USB. Like my mixer, it is equipped with one pair of inputs and outputs.

I was absolutely convinced that using two different audio interfaces simultaneously was not possible in a DAW running on Windows 7.

Apparently this is not true.

I got the KP3 working as a track effect in two hours in two DAWs, Cubase and Ableton. The following of course goes for any outboard hardware effect, but for continuity’s sake I will use KP3 as an example.

What I needed was the following:

1. audio interface one with pair of I/O (often called 2×2), in my case Allen & Heath mixer

2. another audio interface with pair of I/O, in my case M-Audio Audiophile USB

3. two stereo RCA audio cables (red-white)

4. usb cable for Audiophile (my mixer was already connected via usb)

5. ASIO4All driver (I had it already running, the mixer uses it)

and that’s it. For KP3, I connected the Audiophile RCA outputs to KP3 Line In stereo inputs and vice versa with the two audio cables:

After switching all devices on I installed the Audiophile drivers. From Windows Control panel I checked that my mixer was still the default audio device, but that Audiophile was also up and ready.

 

CASE CUBASE

1. I launched Cubase and opened Device Setup menu. I then opened the ASIO4All Control Panel menu in the left column:

2. I clicked on the wrench icon to access advanced options (this lets you use more than one device within ASIO4All). My master mixer I/O pair (USB Audio CODEC) was already activated so I activated the M-Audio Audiophile I/O 1/2 pair above it.

3. From Cubase’s Devices -> VST Connections menu I created a new pair of input and output buses. Here master/mixer bus is called STEREO IN/STEREO OUT and the new external FX bus using the Audiophile interface is FX IN/OUT. Note that both pairs use the same ASIO4ALL as audio device:

4. I created a new stereo audio track with STEREO IN as input and FX OUT as output. This will route the track audio from Cubase/master mixer to Audiophile/KP3:

5. For demo’s sake I added a wav drum loop on that track (any audio is good, it’s for testing).

6. I created another stereo audio track, but with FX IN input and STEREO OUT output. This track receives the loop with KP3 FX from Audiophile and brings it back to Cubase:

7. I set up an effect in KP3. Whatever effect pedal or such you may have, just enable it. I then clicked on the small speaker icon on my second audio track (this enables the audio playback in Cubase).

And that was it. I could now use KP3 as a track FX on an audio track. I then went on to use a VST synth with the same FX.

8. I created a new empty project and loaded a vst synth (here it is Absynth, but it can be any vst instrument) as a rack instrument from Devices -> VST Instruments menu. This automatically creates the necessary audio and MIDI tracks. From the Absynth audio track in the middle I selected FX OUT as output:

9. I added a new audio track with FX IN input and STEREO OUT output and clicked on the speaker icon. The new track now got its audio from Absynth, but the FX came from KP3.

I then moved on to Ableton to try the same.

 

CASE: ABLETON

Before start it is good to notice two things that to my knowledge happen by default. The first one is that ASIO4ALL lists audio interfaces in a certain way, and the order of that list cannot be changed. Here for example my master/mixer is listed below the added FX interface:

The second thing to notice is that Ableton automatically (as far as I know) takes the first interface available and makes it its master input (1/2). As a workaround I changed the master output pair in Ableton. Thus in the following tutorial my master/mixer IN/OUT is called 3/4 STEREO, and the Audiophile FX interface is FX 1/2.

1. I created an audio track with Audio From 3/4 STEREO and Audio To 1/2 FX. This sends the audio on track to KP3:

2. I then created a second audio track with Audio From FX 1/2, set monitor to In, set Audio To to Master and put an audio clip on the first track. Adding the audio, as far as I know, should take place in Session view, as in the image on the right. That way you will have the clip playing with hardware FX, and by enabling Record Arm, you will be able to record the audio clip with external FX.

3. To use vst synths with external FX, first create a MIDI track and insert your preferred instrument.

Set Audio To to 1/2 FX (your FX interface pair). Then create a new audio track with Audio From FX 1/2 (there’s a mistake in the image, there’s only the Left channel 1 active) and Audio To Master and set the track’s Monitor to In. The audio track now has the vst instrument signal combined with your external FX.

I also tried applying similar FX process to some of my hardware synths so that the synths were connected to my mixer and the FX came from Audiophile interface. I could also record that signal in both DAWs.

As conclusion, not having multiple inputs and outputs in an interface does not stop you from using outboard FX if you have another audio interface with an extra pair of inputs and outputs. I didn’t know this before I actually tried it, but hopefully this will be of help to someone and thus expand one’s production environment.