Starting a New Extended VST Connect Session

VST Cloud VST Connect
,
1

This audiobook project will begin tomorrow, between here in Santa Monica and San Francisco. Will involve a test session to work out any kinks, and then about four 6-hour sessions to record the manuscript.

Connections have already been tested, both are wired, not WiFi, and robustness of said connection in our test session a couple of days ago was 100% both on the studio and Performer side, at least to begin with. We did not go on for an extended period. Interface on my side is an Apollo Twin X Quad, using the built in talkback mic; the Performer side interface is a Scarlett Solo (we tried a Zoom U-22, but results were unsatisfactory for a couple of reasons, and because it’s well past end of life the client and I agreed that it would be less troublesome to just work with something current, and she went out and got the Scarlett. May all clients be that easy to work with).

I’m posting this here, not to be redundant, nor to be shouting down a well (though sometimes if feels that way! :innocent:), It’s my sincere hope that users and devs alike MAY find something useful in my “work journal”.

Thus far, I have encountered a number of what appear to be duplicable issues with MY equipment, and as I’ve noted in other posts, these issues and my equipment have changed significantly since I started doing VST Connect sessions, but the issues remain largely the same. I’d be interested in knowing if other “extended session” users have encountered similar problems and/or behavior. Please chime in!

And if my posting is annoying to you or feels irrelevant, don’t hold back on that, either. It’s not like I’m starved for attention here, or have a whole lot of spare time for such reporting; I truly am just trying to help identify areas where the GREAT functionality of this software might benefit from some adjusting.

So… away we go; doing another test drive, this time with the Scarlett tomorrow morning and then beginning recording in earnest on the 20th.

I know we’ll get through it, just as we did with the previous project (which I turned in a week ago and sounds great!), but here’s to getting the gremlins out of the workflow…

Chewy

3 Likes
2

Feb 13

The test drive went pretty well, after figuring out the order of Scarlett Solo inputs. Not being familiar with the interface, had to download the manual; this particular box has some fairly cryptically arranged inputs-- the HiZ is input1, the Mic input is input2, and 3 and 4 are loopback channels. After trying for about 10 minutes to figure out why I wasn’t getting any sound out of input 1 (like for every other interface I’ve VST Connected with) had to download the manual to figure all of that out, after which I got my signal (input 2, of course), and everything was pretty much seamless.

So… we’re starting our main recording on the 20th, and I shall return with notes. Even though it’s an audiobook and there’s no music (I’m cracking myself up here).

Until then… fingers crossed!

Chewy

2 Likes
3

And…

Today’s (short-- 3 hrs) session was nearly flawless.

No problems with diminishing connection quality.
No problem with lost downloads

There WERE a couple of anomalies:

  1. Local video “flashed” frames at session’s onset. That seemed to take care of itself over time, and was not an issue after a few minutes. No effect on recording.

  2. There was a small handful of connection glitches (red light flash, audible dropouts). I will check to see how that is manifested in the downloaded files, and will report.

But for the large part, no real issues today! Which makes me very happy. Will be starting up again tomorrow morning…

Chewy

3 Likes
4

I wish you the best of luck for these sessions. I really want this platform to work. Except for your post, it mostly seems like a “Ghost Town” around here.
I had so many problems with my session attempts that I can’t find anyone to even try it now. Without the pandemic as motivation, everyone wants to go back to in person sessions and that is CLEARLY OPTIMAL. But frankly, I’ve had better luck doing Skype sessions and having the talent FTP the files afterwards.
I will continue to monitor this thread, as I would really like to get back to using this system.

2 Likes
5

Day 2 (Feb 20) session just ended.

We’re doing fairly short days, but pushing the equipment pretty hard!

I’m pretty much ecstatic to report that I’m experiencing very few of the issues that we encountered in previous projects. I have no idea why that might be, as the setups are, aside from make and model of interface on the Performer end, pretty much identical.

The weirdest part of it today: yes, there were about three times in the 4-hour session that there were audible glitches on the Studio side, and they were reflected in the Local files. BUT… what’s different today is that the Performer HD files did NOT have the glitches. This is a first for me; in previous projects the glitches were inexplicably (to me, and if I understood his response in other correspondence, @musicullum as well ) reflected on the Performer side too. I am going to be monitoring this phenomenon carefully as the project continues, but am really happy about the way things worked out today.

I’m guessing that the quality of the connection has something to do with this; my status bars were consistently at full throughout the session, as they were yesterday. Again, this is a departure from previous projects where the levels would drop over the course of the daily session, only restoring to full value with restart.

I don’t know enough about the internet or the inner workings of VST Connect to come to any conclusions other than that I’m grateful everything is working, but what I CAN say is that this session is geographically nearer (about 400 miles) than my last two sessions (3,000-ish miles). But… on the other hand, an earlier session from only 100 miles away was pretty fraught with diminishing quality and connection issues.

Every one of these projects have been conducted with adequate broadband spec on both sides, so… whatever quality issues might exist within those parameters are beyond my understanding.

Bottom line today (and yesterday): Everything went really well. Mysteriously well. Or, maybe the mystery is in why the previous projects did NOT go as smoothly.

Back at it in the morning, fingers crossed.

Chewy

3 Likes
6

So, you didn’t go for six hour sessions. What did you save in shortening the session 2 hours?

That is weird to have problems on the performer’s side! The entire reason I swirched to just directing the sessions on skype was because the performer’s side was “safe!” They’re connection to the internet was irrelevant since the recording was being done there. My problem was always finding my VST Delivery folder EMPTY (85% of the time from dropped connections) or I had one or two incomplete files (from weak connection flow during the performance). Trying to get 5 strong, uninterrupted minutes to do a song was a nightmare! It was so hard to focus on the performance, as I was always terrified of that red light coming on during that period.

I’m glad that your sessions are going well. Like Audio Movers, VST Connect seems well suited for single player and especially spoken voice projects. Trying to track a band (all in the same place) never yielded any usable files for me.

I wish you continued success with this project.

7

Thanks for your updates. I’ve lately been following this thread as the VST Connect category of the forum seem to mostly have old discussions. I’m keen to know how VST Connect is performing nowadays, as I’m planning to get the Pro version sometime in the near future. My use case is quite different though. I’m a media composer and I was planning on using VST Connect to host preview sessions for directors/other clients. I’ve tried some video streaming services but it always resulted in dropped frames and audio/video sync issues. I also couldn’t get Audiomovers ListenTo MIDI Stream/MTC Sync to work.

The local video load feature of VST Connect Pro is just what I was looking for. The client can load the video locally on Performer on their side and I can stream cues directly from my Cubase session syncing perfectly with the video over there. Seemed really promising until I started seeing people having a really hard time getting it to work. Plus they don’t have a trial version of the VST Connect Pro. I wish you the best with your sessions and hope that you have a positive experience overall. Will be following your updates.

Cheers.

2 Likes
8

Nothing but time.

The author/reader in this case has a newborn, and everything we’re doing schedule-wise is based on availability, so instead of our (my) typical 6-hour stretch we’re doing four, but adding extra days. All totals out the same in the end and has nothing to do with VST Connect performance/behavior.

As referenced in earlier threads-- I’ve had issues not unlike what you’ve experienced. I can report that THIS project has been the most trouble-free I’ve had, ever. Will try to evaluate the variables that may have affected this after the project ends.

Next session starts in 5 minutes… reboot (always) and away we go…

Chewy

2 Likes
9

And Day 3 is now complete.

Short and blunt: it wasn’t the greatest day.

Started out with solid connections; Speed Test indicated that we had solid connections at both ends. But… as the day progressed, starting about 45 minutes in, the connection (on the Studio side, per the status bars) began to degrade. This has been typical for previous projects, and as reported earlier in this thread, I was gratified and a little surprised that the issue seemed to have gone away for this project. Not so.

These connection issues, for whatever reason, led to enough red lights and associated glitches that we stopped, restarted both of our computers and signed on again. I rebooted my modem as well.

Connection was excellent at first after rebooting, but again degraded after about 15 minutes. Not as badly as before rebooting, but led to a couple of glitches over the course of an hour.

So, there’s that.

There was also the issue of (holds up guilty hand) of user error which leads me to another situation I think is improvement-ready. It went like this:

In the process of downloading and naming files (I do this in process, grabbing the remote files at the end of each chapter, and then naming them in a way that’s useful for me before recording the next one, I accidentally undid (command-Z’d), unintentionally removing the downloaded HD file from the Project page. After searching for it on the Performer computer, and encountering the not-the-same filenames in the Performer Audio folder, but realizing that we could identify them by date and time, I realized that the file had not actually been deleted, and it still existed in the project pool. This was great, and no harm done. However, when we’re doing these sessions, I’d be willing to wager that nine times out of ten the person on the Performer side, especially a narrator rather than a musician or band with an engineer to help them out, would be as baffled by the arcane nomenclature as my talent today was.

I think it would be a good idea to make the remote files more identifiable by name. I realize that others have suggested this in various posts, but… here it is again.

In regards to the connection issues: I understand that there’s little that can be done about the quality of a connection under various home/remote circumstances, and that a wired-to-wired connection is the best-case scenario for VST Connect as it stands. But…

Considering that many computers don’t even have Ethernet connections built-in these days (I use dongle-based adapters, myself), is there no way to protect a connection through whatever available means, to make the lock between VST Connect and Connect Performer more robust under various conditions?

This is WAY out of my wheelhouse, but for those of us who do a lot of work from the road it would be of great advantage to have some kind of process in play that would keep connections from being so unpredictably fraught, and making that work with a solid WiFi connection.

I realize this may be dreaming, and have no idea what it would take to make something like that work… but here we are.

As far as today is concerned, ultimately, despite my own butterfingers and the frustrating connection situation, no files were lost, and all is ultimately well.

Day 4 is tomorrow. I’ll be back…

Chewy

2 Likes
10

Day 4

Started with the standard Speed Test, with my download/upload solid at 200/100mbs

And…although we got through the recording for the most part, things were not great over here today.

Once again, as in previous projects, the Event Control meters showed initial strong, 100% connection at the session outset. And the Performer side status stayed locked all day.
But the Studio side was a different story. It did not take long before the meter started jumping around between about 85% and 25%, with several instances of going even lower, low enough for the red light to blink and for glitches and dropouts to happen. Have not had a chance to examine closely to see if those dropouts occurred in both local and remote files, but will; it’s been a long day.

So… we got through the session in good time, with three or four annoying restarts to reset the connection. As in previous projects, this is what I noticed:

  1. Studio side connection degrades over time, regardless of the condition of the connection with the ISP.
  2. Stopping recording and then starting again seemed to give the Studio connection a reset of some kind. It wasn’t always better, but would maintain the level of connection, for the most part, and then would degrade over time as we recorded.

To clarify, if I was getting glitches, dropouts and the red “led”, and then stopped recording and started again (creating a new file on the same track), chances were about 50/50 that when I restarted the recording the connection would be solid, to start out with – 90% to 100%, but after 20 minutes or so of recording, the Studio connection would degrade, the meter would jump around and I’d get the red led and associated dropouts. The other 50% of the time, it would simply be a wretched Studio connection, and I’d immediately stop and try again, with 50/50-ish results. With some stopping and starting, I could eventually get a solid Studio-side connection.

What is really curious about this, and I know I’m being redundant here, is that the robustness of the Studio connection in these cases does not seem to be tied to the quality of the internet connection as reported by Speed Test. It’s just hit or miss, and I don’t know anything about the variables of internet transmission, so any conjecture beyond mere experience and observation would not be of any real value. But I’m hoping that there are people monitoring this thread that actually DO understand such workings, and might have ideas about how to make the VST Connect/ Performer union more stable.

To re-reiterate–

  • NOTHING has in any way changed on my setup since commencing the project.
  • ISP connection speed has been tested before and during the project, and has been stable.
  • As review of this thread will demonstrate, each day has been a different adventure in recording reliability.

Things have been workable, but not optimal. What I mean by that is, yes, we got all of our work done, and we’re even a little ahead of schedule. And VST Connect Pro has made that possible, for which I’m grateful.

What I’m not crazy about is the having to start and stop, and the resulting multiple files that get created in the timeline when all I want is a single, contiguous chapter-- yes, bouncing is not difficult, but in terms of keeping track of uploads and downloads between the Studio side and the Performer side in the Manager section, especially when creating lots of long files for batch outside processing (noise reduction, etc), it would be nice not to have to do extra housekeeping due to inconsistent connection. Especially when dealing with nervous authors and often heavy material.

As always, these posts are not meant to be disparaging of VST Connect or anybody having to do with its development. It is remarkable software, and as I’ve said before, is making it possible for me to do projects that would be otherwise economically unfeasible. Thank you, Steinberg, for that.

It would just be great if this stuff worked more smoothly.

Next session on Monday,

Chewy

3 Likes
11

Day 5 just ended.

Lotta stuff here. Will TRY to keep it concise. Will fail…

Same conditions, same equipment, Speed Test showing full and robust connection.

Started session with full STUDIO connection, but in a first in these sessions, only a 50% Performer connection… Terrible glitches… tried to run for about 3 minutes to see if the connection improved, but… no. Both the reader and I signed off and restarted our computers.

Upon signing back on, had 100% connection on both Studio and Performer sides.
But-- upon attempting to download the first two files (one chapter, with the first file being the troublesome first three-minute section, and the second the remainder of the chapter) AFTER restarting, the first file’s HD version did not download, nor did it appear on the Performer side Performer audio folder for the project. This is a repeat of behavior I’ve noted in previous projects; it’s the first time it’s happened in this one. There was enough stuff not impacted by the glitches in the various takes on the local files that no real harm was done, but certainly an inconvenience.

Then, reflecting on what happened yesterday, with connection stability seemingly random upon starting and stopping, I tried an experiment-- starting and stopping several times until a solid connection was indicated. It went like this, based on the Studio and Performer meters; Performer pretty much stayed at 100% through the experiment. The following occurred over an approximately 30 second period of starting and stopping play in transport.

1. 50%
2. 100%
3. 100%
4. 100%
5. 75%
6. 100%
7. 100%
8. 100%
9. 70%
10. 100%

On the tenth try (100%), I engaged recording, and all went well. Downloaded the chapter when it was read, downloaded the HD file without incident, and then… upon starting the next chapter, all within 20 sec:

1. 25%
2. 75%
3. 75%
4. 100%

Upon reaching 100% on the fourth try, I engaged recording, and things went well, though the connection degraded to about 80% after about 5 minutes of recording. No glitches.

And using that “protocol”, I managed to get through the remainder of the project-- we finished today-- without incident.

The take-away for me today is that:

a) You very much need to have a good, solid connection before recording. (No surprise here)

b) The robustness of the VST Connect/Performer connection is not necessarily tied to the reported quality (a la Speed Test) of the internet connection.

c) Starting and stopping play in the transport is a reliable method of evaluating the robustness of the VST Connect/Performer connection BEFORE engaging Record.

d) If one starts recording with what looks like a bad connection, there will be likely connection issues until play is stopped and restarted.

e) If one starts recording with what looks like a good connection, even if seconds earlier there appeared to be a bad connection, chances are things will go well.

f) (and this is a big f!), files can disappear from the Performer side.

Again, this all is in support of identifying repeatable issues. I am very happy with the way things ended here-- I got my project recorded ahead of schedule; my reader was patient with me through the tech issues, and all worked out in the end.

Chewy

2 Likes
12

Hello Chewy,
thank you very much for your detailed recording diary!
It provides me with valuable information for my next VST Connect sessions!
I think it’s very valuable for all users, including those who want to use VST Connect in the future.
And I also think it can be very helpful for the developers at Steinberg!
Regards
DVance

2 Likes
13

Thanks for the detailed log Chewy. Really appreciate it! :slightly_smiling_face: I’m still on the fence about getting into VST Connect after reading your thread and generally going through the VST Connect category. The app, at least at the moment, seems to suffer from limited attention of devs. And as a result, these reliability issues, intermittent or otherwise, seem to linger on. I think it’s a great piece of software for what it can achieve, as many have pointed out across many threads, but its current and future state seem rather un-predictable. These can be at least partially addressed if the devs chipped in some more info or participated a little more in these discussions or troubleshooting. I understand that they might be focusing on some other software right now(many have said VST Live) but, this makes me wonder about the future of VST Connect.

I came across your other thread where you asked a similar question about future development of VST C to the devs but the thread unfortunately went off topic. I really hope that this software continues to be developed and it will help greatly if the devs issued some communication to put this unease to rest.

There are so many tools in the market now but having something native & so tightly integrated into Cubase would be amazing. Talking about tools, @ Chewy_Papadopoulos, have you tried any other players in the game, like ListenTo, SourceConnect etc. for your work? I recently read that ListenTo will be releasing their new app(sometime in Q1 2025) which has local video playback (sync’d with audio stream) capability which is precisely what I was looking for even through VST Connect Pro. I’m quite looking forward to taking it for a spin. All said, thanks again for putting in the time & effort to log your experiences. I hope this draws the attention of devs.

Cheers
VJ

1 Like
14

We repeated that over and over. People just think that “fast is good”, but connection quality has nothing to do with connection speed. For realtime applications, robustness is key.

But if you have a fast connection anyway, you should consider to try recording with Performer audio upstream set to “lossless”. If there are no artifacts when recording lossless, there is no need to “Get HD” at all.

VST Connect never deletes a file on the Performer side. Either record was not enabled, or recording went wrong otherwise, but there is no file deletion.

Thanks for your report, it is very helpful.

15

Thanks for your comments. I worry about being aggressively annoying, but I really do just want to help. VST Connect has been a fabulous addition to my recording options in the publishing world, and I’m very enthusiastic about continuing to use it.

Yes, absolutely on the fast/robustness thing–AND your being very clear about it, both in the user’s guide and here on the forum… I knew I was being redundant there, but just wanted to make sure I was covering as much as I could.

I have no idea why the file disappearance has happened. And I do not in the least doubt that it’s not a function of the app. What I CAN tell you is that record was always enabled, that I have the local file for the part that disappeared from the Performer computer (I do record lossless), and that I’ve experienced the same in previous projects (per my undoubtedly annoying and poorly documented earlier reports). I’ve been trying to pin down reasons why it might be happening… and if it is only I who has run into this, mea culpa.

But with the current project I was especially careful to keep whatever variables I was able to identify as stable as I could. I couldn’t control, nor effectively monitor beyond what I’ve already reported, the stability and robustness of the internet connection-- my consumer-level tools (and general lack of IT knowledge) limit what I’m capable of analyzing in that department.

Thanks again,

Chewy

1 Like
16

Thanks a lot for your kind comments.

But if you record lossless, why would you use “Get HD” in the first place? It doesn’t improve any qualities, also all of your edits (if any) are safe.

17

I look at it as an easy to implement quasi-redundant system.

Always good to have a backup, and that has worked out well for me with VST Connect, as a rule. For example, if I have a sketchy connection and there are dropouts or glitches on my side, there’s a good chance they won’t be represented on what I download from the Performer side.

I know this sounds contradictory to what I was saying about files disappearing on the Performer side. To be clear, I do NOT experience that a lot, and I haven’t come up with a method of reliably duplicating it, hence no bug report from me (it is not lost on me that it could be user error on my side, or some kind of snafu on the other end, and I’m going to continue to try to identify and more clearly describe what may lead to this phenomenon).

There’s also a quantitative and qualitative difference between the HD files on the local vs Performer side. I haven’t tested to see if it’s simply a difference in gain (see attached; “Local Files” are the 24 bit, HD files pre-download; “HD Files” are what I’ve downloaded from the Performer side). Whatever the differences, they’re clearly not identical. Close enough to use with a little adjusting, but not the same.

VST Connect Session Pool
VST Connect Session Pool918Ă—832 196 KB

Working this way has covered me in all but my earliest VST Connect projects, where I didn’t know you could download HD quality locally-- was this available in v4x? I do not remember. But my first VST Connect project, which was pretty ambitious for somebody who had no idea what he was doing, and the people on the other end knew even less (it was in the depths of pandemic isolation, and we were all trying to figure out ways to work without leaving the house), my local recordings were done at lower quality. Managed to make things work reasonably seamlessly even then, thanks to Tonal Match and other little tricks. Am always recording HD locally now. Because… why wouldn’t you? :wink:

Anyway, back to the main point: that’s why I both record HD locally and download from Performer-- it’s not exactly the same as running an independent redundant system, but it’s a lot more convenient.

I should note that the local files have saved me more than once!

Chewy

1 Like