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Author Topic: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?  (Read 1629 times)

Lkdog

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Have Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 which does up to 192kHz.
In the Focusrite Mixing settings the sample rate is set to 44 kHz.

In DSP settings in MC I have the Device set as Default Audio Device (Direct Sound).
If I set the device to anything else (Focusrite USB ASIO, or Focusrite WASAPI, or Focusrite Direcet Sound- I get no sound.

Here are the DSP settings I had. Appreciate any guidance. It says in the Player that the input is 192KhZ on this song, and the Output is 192kHz.


Problem I am having right now is it is playing DSD files. It asked to downsample them from 352 kHz to 176kHz with SSRC whatever that is. All of the DSP settigns from 96KHz on up changed to 96kHz.
Kind of confused.


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wer

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #1 on: December 24, 2020, 08:00:19 pm »

A few tips:

Unless you are wanting to downmix multichannel audio to 2 channels, those Output Format settings accomplish nothing at all.

Never use DirectSound; it resamples all your audio. If you're not getting sound using WASAPI, you have a broken audio driver or perhaps some some other incorrect settings that need to be fixed. Nothing that's in your screenshot affects that.

Turn on bitstreaming for DSD if you want to play DSD files directly. Look in Options->Audio
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Lkdog

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #2 on: December 24, 2020, 08:24:01 pm »

A few tips:

Unless you are wanting to downmix multichannel audio to 2 channels, those Output Format settings accomplish nothing at all.

Never use DirectSound; it resamples all your audio. If you're not getting sound using WASAPI, you have a broken audio driver or perhaps some some other incorrect settings that need to be fixed. Nothing that's in your screenshot affects that.

Turn on bitstreaming for DSD if you want to play DSD files directly. Look in Options->Audio

Well, something isn't right. JRiver does not play nice with this device. I have all updated drivers for the 6i6.
Will only play regular and DSD files when I select Default Audio Device (Direct Sound) as the device.
It down samples the DSD to either 176kHz, or 96kHz. Actually says 2 different things.

I have other apps that I use this device with and have no issues and can use ASIO drivers, or others if needed.

I don't do serious listening from the Local Player (I stream to another DAC in my main stereo) , but it would be nice to get it to work better on the local computer player
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wer

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #3 on: December 24, 2020, 08:47:46 pm »

Other than standard things (update driver, reinstall driver, try different driver versions) I can't give you anything specific for your Focusrite problem; I don't have one.

However, Matt, one of the developers, has a Focusrite DAC (a different one I think) so he may be able to advise you if he sees this.

ASIO will also provide accurate playback, but with DirectSound everything is going through the Windows mixer. If DirectSound is the only interface that works at all for you, something is definitely broken.  I would strongly suspect your driver. You could try the things I mentioned above, or reboot, or wait for someone with your DAC.

I've heard that DAC has problems with clicks and pops when changing sampling rates, but I haven't heard about total inability to function as you're reporting. But supposedly you have to use some Steinberg software to enable multiclient access.  Have you tried googling jriver focusrite 6i6?
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Lkdog

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #4 on: December 24, 2020, 11:08:48 pm »

Thanks. Good idea. There are a few threads found when doing a search. I will see what I can find.
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JimH

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #5 on: December 25, 2020, 08:21:39 am »

If you use ASIO, it could be a 32 bit driver that will only work with the 32 bit version of  MC.
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dtc

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #6 on: December 25, 2020, 10:50:26 am »

I do not believe your DAC supports DSD playback. Therefore, you need to convert DSD tracks to PCM.  MC will do that for you as long as you do not have Bitstreaming set for DSD in Audio options. Since you do not need to send native DSD, you should be able to use WASAPI. 

First, in DSP Studio - Output Formating, put 176 KHz in the >768 Khz conversion line. That tells MC to conver DSD to PCM, but the 176 KHz sample rate is not actually used. DSD to PCM conversion in MC converts 1x DSD (2.8 MHz) to 352 KHz and 2x DSD (5.6 Mhz) to 705 KHz. Your DAC will not play those rates, so you need to convert them to either 176 KHz or 88 KHz or 44 KHz.   Your screen shot shows that you are not doing any conversion for 352 or 705 KHz. In those lines, put in either 176 KHz or 88 KHz or 44 KHz.  It is best to use a multiple of 44 KHz when doing DSD to PCM conversions.  Also, in Tools - Options - Audio make sure the option to use Sox for Resampling is checked.

Use Audio Path (gear on the upper right of display) to see what MC is inputting and outputting and what changes are being made.

From  looking at the documentation for your DAC, it looks like you may have to user Focusrite's software to set the sample rate to play, so you may have to change that in order to play 176 KHz or 88 KHz - not sure.
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Lkdog

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2020, 12:30:37 am »

I do not believe your DAC supports DSD playback. Therefore, you need to convert DSD tracks to PCM.  MC will do that for you as long as you do not have Bitstreaming set for DSD in Audio options. Since you do not need to send native DSD, you should be able to use WASAPI. 

First, in DSP Studio - Output Formating, put 176 KHz in the >768 Khz conversion line. That tells MC to conver DSD to PCM, but the 176 KHz sample rate is not actually used. DSD to PCM conversion in MC converts 1x DSD (2.8 MHz) to 352 KHz and 2x DSD (5.6 Mhz) to 705 KHz. Your DAC will not play those rates, so you need to convert them to either 176 KHz or 88 KHz or 44 KHz.   Your screen shot shows that you are not doing any conversion for 352 or 705 KHz. In those lines, put in either 176 KHz or 88 KHz or 44 KHz.  It is best to use a multiple of 44 KHz when doing DSD to PCM conversions.  Also, in Tools - Options - Audio make sure the option to use Sox for Resampling is checked.

Use Audio Path (gear on the upper right of display) to see what MC is inputting and outputting and what changes are being made.

From  looking at the documentation for your DAC, it looks like you may have to user Focusrite's software to set the sample rate to play, so you may have to change that in order to play 176 KHz or 88 KHz - not sure.

Thank you all for your suggestions.
I set device to Focusrite WASAPI (have no idea what WASAPI is, but based upon what you guys are saying it has to be better than Direct Sound   ;D  ).
I checked the Sox box.

I played around in DSP Studio with bit rate conversion and also my hardware mixer settings. It would not play at 176khz even if I set the sample rate in hardware mixer of FocusRite 6i6 to 176khz.
It would play 44khz and 88khz. I set them all to 88khz in DSP Studio.

In the Audio path it now says whatever it is Inputting (352, 192, 44, etc) and it then says it is resampling to 88kHz with Sox which is what I set the hardware mixer sample rate at and the DSP studio settings to.

The Output in the Audio Path says 88khz and 24 bit on 192 or less it says (Direct Connection).
On .dsf files (5644 bit rate) it also says 88khz and 24 bit, but (not using enough bits to output the input directly).

I think this is making progress?? LOL.
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dtc

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Re: Am I setting the local DSP settings correct for Focusrite Scarlett 6i6?
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2020, 08:40:30 am »

Sounds like it is doing what you want.  Not sure why it will not play at 176 KHz, but 88 KHz is probably fine.

As to Direct Sound and WASAPI. Direct Sound uses the Windows Mixer which uses Windows built in software to resample everything to a given sample rate. It is generally viewed as a low quality resampler, compared to SoX.  WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API)  is a Windows audio system that bypasses the Windows Mixer, so the program (MC in this case) can send bits directly to the DAC without Windows changing anything.  Most people use WASAPI to send what sample rate data is in the file directly to the DAC without any changes. That is called "bit perfect", since none of the bits are changed by either MC or by Windows. 

Most DACs can accept many different sample rates without making any changes on the DAC. In your case, it seems (although I am not sure of this) that the 6i6 requires everything to be converted to one sample rate, like 44.1 KHz or 88.4 KHz. So, you  need to have MC resample everything to that sample rate.  It is better to use the SoX resampler in MC than to let Windows do the resampling.

Many DACs and mixers like yours use another driver system called ASIO rather than WASAPI. This is a driver supplied by the manufacturer. It typically provides for very low latency, which is an advantage if you are mixing signals.  If you want to use the 6i6 as a mixer, then you should probably use the ASIO driver provided by Focusrite.  Now that you have MC working with WASAPI, you should try the ASIO driver using the same DSP settings.  As Jim suggested, the drivers sometimes do not work with 64 bit software, so if ASIO is not working with the 64 bit version of MC, then you might want to try the 32 bit version of MC.  If you are not going to do any mixing, the WASAPI driver is probably fine.

ASIO drivers are also needed if you are going to send native sample rate DSD (2.8 MHz, 5.6 KHz, etc.) to the DAC. But, since the 6i6 does not support DSD format, this is a mute point.  WASAPI is fine for the DSD converted to PCM as you now have it set up.
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