DS in Standalone question/help

[pshannon]

Master Flowstone people,

Is there a way to select the internal sound to play through a flowstone module without using Cubase FL etc? E.G. I want to play windows media player mp3 or any other stand alone app that produces sound and routes it through a Flowstone module for effects. The "DS in" will have line in/mic etc. I am also on a machine without ASIO and I was not trying to make it work through my ASIO hardware, which I could most likely make work with mixing. Any help would be great.

Regards,

Patrick

BTW I meant to post awareness of audio router and windows 10 has some routing capability built in. Can Flowstone do this without another tool? If it can't I will accept the answers.

Github Tool for Audio Routing: https://github.com/audiorouterdev/audio-router
Windows 10 Audio routing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVkzGe82o5Y

[kortezzzz]

If I understand correctly, what you're trying to do is to stream an external audio source into your exe app. Unfortunately, it won't work with FS built-in midi-audio menu option which is appears in the exe export menu. To enable DS sound inputs separately, you should build your schematic using the "DSinselec" primitive which enables the access to your computer's built-in sound card. I've asked lately on the slack forum if it's possible to add this separating feature into the new flowstone development so the exe file would be able recognizing any DS or virtual audio input streams (like VB's virtual audio cable) and route their output to any DS or asio output. Trog's answer was that it's theoretically possible, but it would force MyCO to work much harder since the meaning of this move would actually be developing a dedicated built-in ASIO driver inside FS with a complex routing mixer like ASIO4all or the one that is used by "VB audio" (which I would love to see!). So for now, we are stack into this option only. Take a look at the attached schematic.

[pshannon]

If I understand correctly, what you're trying to do is to stream an external audio source into your exe app. Unfortunately, it won't work with FS built-in midi-audio menu option which is appears in the exe export menu. To enable DS sound inputs separately, you should build your schematic using the "DSinselec" primitive which enables the access to your computer's built-in sound card. I've asked lately on the slack forum if it's possible to add this separating feature into the new flowstone development so the exe file would be able recognizing any DS or virtual audio input streams (like VB's virtual audio cable) and route their output to any DS or asio output. Trog's answer was that it's theoretically possible, but it would force MyCO to work much harder since the meaning of this move would actually be developing a dedicated built-in ASIO driver inside FS with a complex routing mixer like ASIO4all or the one that is used by "VB audio" (which I would love to see!). So for now, we are stack into this option only. Take a look at the attached schematic.

The audio source would be on the same computer. So if I decide to open windows media player on the same computer and open an mp3 song. Currently it will only play through the speaker output instead of forcing it play through FS first to create sound effects like a preamp. FS would output the music to the speakers. In my mind there is only 4 ways to route sound through FS. Play the mp3 song from your daw, line in from external source, install the 3rd party internal routing software(not tried) or create an mp3 player inside FS. I did use the example mp3 player demo from FS sample section. It works, but extremely limited. There is no way to fast forward or rewind and some songs with higher bit rates won't work at all. There are more limitations and this why I was thinking of a better plugin prim that would support directx media/audio. The ability is already built into windows to tap the framework. If you wanted to make an awesome DJ style app, it would be extremely limited without a could mp3 music functionality. I kept wondering if the wav player had more functions and just convert an mp3 file to wav, but that is kind of a approach that might fail during conversion or how slow would it be? Thanks for your thoughts and upload.

[kortezzzz]

I had exactly the same questions when I've back then started building a karaoke machine for a local singer. He needed a software which you can stream karaoke's mp4's audio into it, so he could sing with the streamed audio while the audience see the lyrics on a big screen and sing with him. In that case, my goal was streaming the external video's audio into the exe somehow, so the compromise I've came up with was streaming the audio source from "virtual DJ" via virtual audio cable to asio4all driver that was controlled by my exe software. This hack worked well, since asio4all has a complex built in aduio router, but the only drawback left was the inability of streaming the full session into a second DAW for recording everything, since asio4all mutes any other asio driver while it's on. So, other interesting options can be:
1) Hoping that "VB audio" will fulfill their statement to build a 3th party asio driver with a complex routing system that can allow any audio app stream any input to any output (including virtual cables!)
2) MyCo will come up with an advanced video\audio primitive in FS4
3) MyCo will come up with a dedicated built in asio driver for FS4 similar to the one that VB audio plans
3) FL studio will expand their FL asio's inputs and output to at least 4 and add loopback feature

IMO Options 1 and 2 are the most realistic, although I don't have an idea how solidly, if any, flowstone gonna run an advanced video\audio streaming primitive with the rest of the schematic that includes effects, graphics and other stuff.

[tulamide]

I never tried exactly what you both describe.

But here's my two cents. Since I use Voicemeeter Banana, my audio life has become a breeze. Whatever situation I'm in, it simply works. Recording a video, while a DAW uses ASIO and a microphone is needed for talking? No problem. The good thing about VMB is that the driver hooks into the system, it should therefore show up ("Voicemeeter VAIO") wherever you select an input. I guess this is true for Flowstone as well?

[pshannon]

I never tried exactly what you both describe.

But here's my two cents. Since I use Voicemeeter Banana, my audio life has become a breeze. Whatever situation I'm in, it simply works. Recording a video, while a DAW uses ASIO and a microphone is needed for talking? No problem. The good thing about VMB is that the driver hooks into the system, it should therefore show up ("Voicemeeter VAIO") wherever you select an input. I guess this is true for Flowstone as well?

Thanks I will try that and see if it works well for me. I just want to the ability to play an mp3 player directly through FS without a DAW so I can capture the audio. I was looking for the most simplest possible way with the lowest cost because this is for a standalone laptop project I was working on to control objects like lights.

[tulamide]

I never tried exactly what you both describe.

But here's my two cents. Since I use Voicemeeter Banana, my audio life has become a breeze. Whatever situation I'm in, it simply works. Recording a video, while a DAW uses ASIO and a microphone is needed for talking? No problem. The good thing about VMB is that the driver hooks into the system, it should therefore show up ("Voicemeeter VAIO") wherever you select an input. I guess this is true for Flowstone as well?

Thanks I will try that and see if it works well for me. I just want to the ability to play an mp3 player directly through FS without a DAW so I can capture the audio. I was looking for the most simplest possible way with the lowest cost because this is for a standalone laptop project I was working on to control objects like lights.

I think, Voicemeeter will be helpful then.
On the output side, it grabs the signal that would otherwise be sent to the soundcard. Now in Voicemeeter you can send that signal wherever you like. One option of course being the speaker output, but you can also route it to an aux channel that will show up as input for other applications.

Just look at page 8 of the user manual for a routing/matrix display: https://www.vb-audio.com/Voicemeeter/Vo ... Manual.pdf

[RJHollins]

Was looking through some of the Voicemeeter specs ...

Anyone know what the Latency is ?

I have used Virtual Audio Cable for a specific need, but its latency was a bit cumbersome.

Thanks for any details!

[RJHollins]

ahhh ... i found it.

[kortezzzz]

Voicemeeter is really great app. But when talking about the functionality with FS, I prefer to see the **independent universal asio driver for wdm audio** from VB audio. They told me they are already on it, so it might come soon. The difference between that and voicemeeter is that with independent asio you don't need the brokerage of any other software. The asio driver has it's own panel (just like asio4all) where you can set any of your DS\asio inputs and output and receive\send them to wherever you want with a solid latency.

So you probably may ask why not just using asio4all? Because it's not stable enough. After few minutes of usage, the sound becomes distorted and\or pops and clicks, no matter what setting you apply at the kernel buffer and the latency. It also mutes everything else. asio4all hasn't been updated for a very long time and this nasty bug never fixed. FL studio asio is way solid but... only 1 physical input\output is huge disadvantage when you need at least 4 input sources and 4 outputs (speakers, send to other DAW). I believe that if VB audio can develop a good solid "any in-any out" driver with, let's say, 8 inputs-8 outputs, they gonna sell it like hot chocolate cakes.