Jamstix on OSX, the final hack (ARCHIVED)
Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 1:34 pm
I found another trick to use when syncing Reaper with your OSX DAW, its not mentioned in the tutorial.
Basically reaper has the ability to insert a time sync track, and stripe that track with LTC time code. So do that in reaper. it will create a time sync object on a track. Double click that to edit the parameters of the LTC timecode, how long, etc. THen right click on the track to render it. This will create a WAV file somewhere.
Go find that WAV file and import it into your OSX DAW. (in the future you can reuse this. I made mine like 15 minutes long and it should work for any project now).
Now send this track from your DAW to jack router. Go back to reaper and setup a new project, insert jamstix. From the Options menu go to external time sync confg and config it to take LTC from the jack router channel you specified above. Make sure the frame rate is the same as what you encoded it with originally (and also make sure your OSX DAW is using that frame rate).
hit play on Reaper and it will wait. Hit play on your OSX DAW and reaper should start playing in sync with your host. I found its accurate within about half a smpte frame or less, which is about 1/60th of a second. Not bad.
This will then let you operate in your main DAW and use the transport controls from there.
The tutorial I provided earlier has you using the transport controls of Reaper and having the OSX DAW slave to reaper. This makes it possible to slave the other way around.
Which way is better? I don't know yet. I do think this way is tighter sync because the sync is going through Jack instead of IAC midi, but it uses considerably more CPU resources. That might be tweakable by playing with some of the options in Reaper, Im not sure.
Also, if your purpose is to record a midi track out of jamstix into your OSX DAW, then it seems that the midi coming out of Reaper should drive the timing, so that the midi notes will land in your OSX DAW at pretty much the times they are supposed to, even if the sync is not tight, the recording of midi notes would be. if you don't understand what I just said, ask me PM.
Anyway, just wanted to throw this approach out there, I do think its probably tighter sync this way, so if you're trying to playback jamstix together with other tracks on your OSX DAW, this would be tightest.
Something to try...
Basically reaper has the ability to insert a time sync track, and stripe that track with LTC time code. So do that in reaper. it will create a time sync object on a track. Double click that to edit the parameters of the LTC timecode, how long, etc. THen right click on the track to render it. This will create a WAV file somewhere.
Go find that WAV file and import it into your OSX DAW. (in the future you can reuse this. I made mine like 15 minutes long and it should work for any project now).
Now send this track from your DAW to jack router. Go back to reaper and setup a new project, insert jamstix. From the Options menu go to external time sync confg and config it to take LTC from the jack router channel you specified above. Make sure the frame rate is the same as what you encoded it with originally (and also make sure your OSX DAW is using that frame rate).
hit play on Reaper and it will wait. Hit play on your OSX DAW and reaper should start playing in sync with your host. I found its accurate within about half a smpte frame or less, which is about 1/60th of a second. Not bad.
This will then let you operate in your main DAW and use the transport controls from there.
The tutorial I provided earlier has you using the transport controls of Reaper and having the OSX DAW slave to reaper. This makes it possible to slave the other way around.
Which way is better? I don't know yet. I do think this way is tighter sync because the sync is going through Jack instead of IAC midi, but it uses considerably more CPU resources. That might be tweakable by playing with some of the options in Reaper, Im not sure.
Also, if your purpose is to record a midi track out of jamstix into your OSX DAW, then it seems that the midi coming out of Reaper should drive the timing, so that the midi notes will land in your OSX DAW at pretty much the times they are supposed to, even if the sync is not tight, the recording of midi notes would be. if you don't understand what I just said, ask me PM.
Anyway, just wanted to throw this approach out there, I do think its probably tighter sync this way, so if you're trying to playback jamstix together with other tracks on your OSX DAW, this would be tightest.
Something to try...