U BACCH VST3 plug-in not working without Realtime enabled

soundgals · November 22, 2023, 3:18pm

I previously opened a post on this under a different title because I thought the problem was limited to UPnP. It isn’t.

Without RealTime enabled this plug-in won’t work, either directly to the output device or via UPnP.

My previous post was first merged with the post regarding DIRAC, then closed.

This is still a real problem though, for anyone using this highly regarded plug-in.

Since plug-ins will not work over UPnP with RealTIme enabled this means the plug-in won’t work at all via UPnP.

…But also it shouldn’t be necessary to enable RealTime, when not using UPnP.

@Antoine you were going to test this plug-in yesterday afternoon.

Have you made any progress?

Thanks

Geoff

Antoine · November 22, 2023, 4:45pm

Hi @soundgals,

I couldn’t do the test properly, I had to prioritize the test of the iOS beta update before it went public. I should have the time to do the test properly tomorrow.

soundgals · November 22, 2023, 4:46pm

OK, thanks. I’ll await your response here.

Antoine · November 23, 2023, 12:40pm

Hi @soundgals,

Can you check if you have the waveform displaying like this when you are in this configuration?

soundgals · November 23, 2023, 12:46pm

No waveform is displaying for me in that configuration. Thanks

soundgals · November 23, 2023, 7:17pm

In case it helps; when I turn on Audio analysis, I see a long flat line before the actual audio data begins.

This corresponds with what I hear; silence for some minutes, followed by broken up, distorted sound, when I can be bothered to wait long enough.

Perhaps this can give you a clue.

soundgals · November 24, 2023, 6:17am

I also suggest you contact the folks behind the u Bacch plugin. They may be able to help resolve this problem.

Antoine · November 24, 2023, 8:44am

Yes, I guess I need to ask them about this. They probably have some tools to get logs from their plugin

Agoldnear · November 24, 2023, 7:33pm

What does the uBACCH development team tell you about what you are experiencing?

soundgals · November 24, 2023, 11:12pm

Just been testing for the first time on Windows.

The situation seems a little better than Mac. I get playback which is not broken up, except for a couple of brief drop outs when the first track starts playing. By “First track” I mean from when playback commences in Audirvana. Could be the first track of a playlist or album, after first launch or after playback was stopped.

The problem is that the first track is cut-off, with silence ranging from about 20 seconds to 120 seconds or more. Subsequent tracks play fine (the first n seconds are not chopped off) During this silence from the first track (only) the DAC appears to be locked onto the signal.

This appears to be related to the buffer size; but not in any obvious way to me. Increasing the buffer to the max did not significantly reduce the silent/cut off period; but certain values seemed to give a better result than others. I can’t be sure about this though. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with the buffer.

The weird thing is this result was from Windows running on a 2018 Intel Mac Mini, whereas the Mac test was running on a far more capable Mac Studio. As previously reported the Mac Studio had the same cutoff/Silent period for the first track; but then subsequent playback was broken up badly.

I hope this gives you some further clues.

Agoldnear · November 24, 2023, 11:57pm

Please post your debug information here when using Mac Studio… this can be done by finding the Debug Info link on the Audirvana menu drop-down or from the Settings → Help → Debug Info button…

I think running a virtual machine is not a good idea… Why are you not running uBACCH natively on the Mac?

soundgals · November 25, 2023, 6:33am

I will post the debug info from the Mac Studio later today.

I was testing Windows last night running natively on an Intel Mac Mini under bootcamp.

soundgals · November 25, 2023, 8:33am

The situation with Mac Studio is quite different to Windows. With the u BACCH plug-in and Realtime, most of the time there is no sound, no matter how long await. Sometimes eventually the sound comes; but, as previously reported, is broken up.

On Windows there is silence for one to two minutes (could be more) depending on the length of the track. Then the first track requested does start playing; but from that one to two minute point, not form the beginning. So a large part of the beginning of the track is cut-off with silence.

I’m attaching debug info…

Debug info Mac Studio - Realtime off No sound

Audirvana Studio 2.6.1 (20601)

macOS 13.2.1 with 32GB physical RAM

Connected account of : Geoffrey Armstrong

NETWORK
Status: available

SIGNAL PROCESSING:

Polarity Inversion:
	Globally: OFF
	Per track: ON
Effects plugins ACTIVE in offline mode with legacy macOS API
	AU plugin #0: Effect - BACCH Labs uBACCHaudio ()
	AU plugin #1: None
	AU plugin #2: None
	AU plugin #3: None

UPSAMPLING:
r8brain not in use
r8brain filter parameters
Bandwidth = 99.5%
Stop band attenuation 218dB
Phase linear

AUDIO VOLUME:
Max allowed volume: 100
Replay Gain: None
SW volume control: OFF

LIBRARY SETTINGS:
Sync list: 1 folders
AUTO: /Volumes/WESTDIG2/
iTunes/Music library synchronization: not synchronized
Library database path: /Users/geoffreyarmstrong/Library/Application Support/Audirvana/AudirvanaDatabase.sqlite

Local audio files fingerprinting
Tracks with no MBID: 24085

Remote Control server:
Listening on 127.0.0.1 on port 55122

ACTIVE STREAMING SERVICES
Qobuz: Connected as Qobuz Hi-Fi Sublime+
TIDAL: Connected as HiFi Plus

=================== AUDIO DEVICE ========================

Active method: Local

Max. memory for audio buffers: 29696MB

Local Audio Engine: CoreAudio
Exclusive access: ON
Integer mode: ON
Use max I/O buffer size: ON
Actual I/O buffer frame size: 4096

Preferred device:
exaSound Audio Design exaSound
Model UID:exaSound-N1
UID:exaSoundDevice-N1

Currently playing in standard 32bit float mode
Device: 2ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Signed Float, 8 bytes per frame 44.1kHz

Active Sample Rate: 44.1kHz
Hog Mode is on

Bridge settings:
Sample rate limitation: none
Sample rate switching latency: none
Limit bitdepth to 24bit: OFF
Mute during sample rate change: OFF

Selected device:exaSound
Manufacturer: exaSound Audio Design
Model name: exaSound Audio Design exaSound
Model UID: exaSound-N1
UID: exaSoundDevice-N1
ID 0x4e

10 available sample rates up to 768000Hz
44100
48000
88200
96000
176400
192000
352800
384000
705600
768000
Audio buffer frame size : 14 to 4096 frames
Current I/O buffer frame size : 4096

Volume Control
Physical: Yes
Virtual: Yes
Max volume alert: Disabled

MQA capability
Auto-detect MQA devices: Yes
Not a MQA device, user set to not MQA
DSD capability: DSD via PCM 1.1

Device audio channels
Preferred stereo channels L:1 R:2
Channel bitmap: Ox3, layout:
Channel 0 mapped to 0
Channel 1 mapped to 1

Audio channels in use
Number of channels: 2
Use as stereo device only: No
Simple stereo device: Yes

1 output streams:
Number of active channels: 2, in 1 stream(s)
Channel #0 :Stream 0 channel 0
Channel #1 :Stream 0 channel 1

Stream ID 0x4f 2 channels starting at 1
20 virtual formats:
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 768kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 768kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 705.6kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 705.6kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 384kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 384kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 352.8kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 352.8kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 192kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 192kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 176.4kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 176.4kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 96kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 96kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 88.2kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 88.2kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 48kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 48kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 44.1kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Float 44.1kHz

20 physical formats
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 768kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 768kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 705.6kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 705.6kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 384kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 384kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 352.8kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 352.8kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 192kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 192kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 176.4kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 176.4kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 96kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 96kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 88.2kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 88.2kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 48kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 48kHz
2 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 44.1kHz
8 ch Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32 little endian Signed Integer 44.1kHz

Local devices found : 4
Device #0: ID 0x37 USB PnP Audio Device
Manufacturer: Unknown Manufacturer
Model UID: USB PnP Audio Device:0C76:153F
UID: AppleUSBAudioEngine:Unknown Manufacturer:USB PnP Audio Device:3124000:1
USB Vendor ID: 0x0c76
USB Product ID: 0x153f
Model name: Unknown Manufacturer USB PnP Audio Device
Device #1: ID 0x3d BlackHole 16ch
Manufacturer: Existential Audio Inc.
Model UID: BlackHole16ch_ModelUID
UID: BlackHole16ch_UID
Model name: Existential Audio Inc. BlackHole 16ch
Device #2: ID 0x6e Mac Studio Speakers
Manufacturer: Apple Inc.
Model UID: Speaker
UID: BuiltInSpeakerDevice
Model name: Apple Inc. Mac Studio Speakers
Device #3: ID 0x4e exaSound
Manufacturer: exaSound Audio Design
Model UID: exaSound-N1
UID: exaSoundDevice-N1
Model name: exaSound Audio Design exaSound

UPnP

UPnP devices found : 0

Chromecast

Chromecast devices found : 0

Debug info Mac Studio - Realtime on Sound

Audirvana Studio 2.6.1 (20601)

macOS 13.2.1 with 32GB physical RAM

Connected account of : Geoffrey Armstrong

NETWORK
Status: available

SIGNAL PROCESSING:

Polarity Inversion:
	Globally: OFF
	Per track: ON
Effects plugins ACTIVE in realtime mode with legacy macOS API
	AU plugin #0: Effect - BACCH Labs uBACCHaudio ()
	AU plugin #1: None
	AU plugin #2: None
	AU plugin #3: None