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[Wesayso]

Hello all,

Long time user of JRiver going back to version 17. I've been using JRiver as my DSP center for correcting and adjusting audio for my home made speakers. I've written a story about it on this forum quite a while ago: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=105889.0.

Anyway, for the longest time I've been using Windows 7 Pro and JRiver in 32 bit mode. Just recently I've upgraded to Win 10 Pro 22H2 and JRiver 30 in 64 bit. That meant choosing a different equalizer for my trickery (mid/side EQ etc.). After testing a few options I chose DMG Audio's Equilibrium.

With this new equalizer plugin I've managed to hit a wall in terms of available memory/space within JRiver, or something like that.

If I run Equilibrium at high FIR settings, like 64K length filters for all instances I use, I noticed some strange behavior. One of my other plugins simply stopped functioning.  I could restore that plugin's functionality but all it did was stopping another simple delay plugin from functioning.

At 32K windows it does all I want to do. However, after hitting the above situation, I cannot restore things to it's former working condition, as my Voxengo delay plugin never started working again. If I used JRiver's native delay within one of the two native Parametric Equalizer banks I got the exact same result; no delay.

I could not restore this zone by reducing settings. Not after a restart, not by deleting the host plugin Metaplugin and rebuilding. All settings show up fine, but when I run a test with output to disk, the delay does not work anymore.

The only way to restore my original settings to a working condition was by starting over in a new zone, and copying old settings that still used a slightly different setup.

-Is there some way to purge the settings that are not in use, so I can restore the DSP settings within the zone that I over-taxed?

Obviously, when I use too high settings, I can't return to a previous working state right now.

-Is there any way to enlarge the space available for DSP in future JRiver versions? I have no idea what brick wall I bumped into, aside from that it is within JRiver. My PC isn't the limiting factor here. Running at 12% on a 6 core Xeon E5-1650v4 with only a fraction (7.5 GB) of it's 32 GB memory in use.

If the Delay option within JRiver itself stops working, even after reducing the DSP load, it has to be a limit or sticky old settings within JRiver itself.

Adding a new zone and making an exact copy works, but as I do experiment a lot, I'd rather be able to restore a zone I'm working on. The stuff I do within the DSP kernel works wonders for me. So I'd really like to be able to keep on experimenting. I know Equilibrium is quite something with it's settings, especially when you run 8 to 9 instances, 6 of those in higher settings. I use Metaplugin as the internal VST host, I've been using that one for years on end. My old Equalizer was less taxing obviously, but does not have a 64 bit version. It was quite old and discontinued so it needed to be updated. I've bought Equilibrium as it impressed me with it's features, and it really does work wonders for me. But I have many more plans for experiments, that involves stuff like adding 2 more channels (6 in use right now). Knowing where this inner limit is or at least being able to clean up unused settings/space would help a lot.

Wesayso, a.k.a. a crazy DSP user.

[badger]

Couldn't you set the "working condition" as a Preset?  Maybe I'm not fully understanding your situation?

[mattkhan]

Anything in the logs stand out?

Have you tried building it back to step by step til it fails? If so, does it fail at the same point every time?

[Wesayso]

I do have a preset saved of the working condition.
What I worry about is that I started with a working setup, but using another equalizer vst. I delete those instances, replace them with the new Equilibrium vst. But as I encountered a glitch, and could not back down settings to get it working again, I wonder if starting with the old settings is ideal. Do I keep old links lingering unseen to stuff that has been deleted?

Is there any way to circumvent this? Like: saving a preset, adding a new zone and retrieving that preset? Does that clean up the space available? In other words, does that leave me with the used components only?

Example: to reset my zone that showed these hick-ups, I've deleted my VST host Metaplugin. Shut down JRiver, start it back up again and re-install Metaplugin, it immediately shows all of the previous installed components. Including the behavior I had before. A non working delay, while the GUI of that specific plugin still shows the correct values. Even removing that plugin and trying to use the standard delay function within JRiver's Parametric Equalizer banks did not lead to success. So once I'm over a certain threshold, there's no regaining proper functionality.
So that keeps me wondering how to make sure I'm not taking up any extra (and valuable) space. Using only what's in the current visible plugins etc. Not hindered by old or previous settings. It's quite tricky this way.
We're talking about a delay of 0.26 ms (for 88.200 sample rate) that's being used as anti-cross talk. If it's not functional, you'll notice in listening tests, right? But... it's part of a more complicated solution and includes mid/side EQ and other helper functions, which now means I need to check every tweak I do. As I have or keep JRiver open it might still work, while after a shut-down and startup it may be non functional the next time. That's not a pretty working condition, hence my need to get a more solid working solution.

I've encountered this type of silent failure after replacing the Voxengo Sound Delay with DMG's Track Control, which can also function as a delay. Right after insertion it was working as intended. After shutting down and restarting JRiver the delay no longer worked, while DMG's Track Control still showed the right value. That's tough to build on, making me think there is a pretty hard limit and I'm close to it. For the first time in all the years of using this program I've encountered such a limitation.

@mattkhan good point about the logging. I did not think about those. I never needed it in 10 years of using JRiver. I started using it in 2012, and I guess that is a good thing. Never would have thought JRiver had boundaries (lol).
I'll see if I can tax the settings to find a fixed limit. Both with the current zone and one based on a clean zone with a preset loaded into it. Just to see if a preset stores info of in-use settings etc only. Which would function like a purge command that I'm looking for if that is true. Another solution would be to only use Equilibrium in key instances (where I need the linear phase) but I'd be reluctant to have to settle for that. If I find enough room/freedom within JRiver's DSP section to do what I want to do, by cleaning up old unused references etc. I could probably do whatever I needs to be done.

A glimpse of what I use:


It's to controll 2 line arrays, using mid/sed EQ on mains plus anti-cross-talk, 2 subwoofers and 2 ambient channels which also feature separate mid and side information plus reverb. As the room has absorption on all the big early reflections I create a virtual space that's more ideal than the real room is. It works very well, actually better than well. If I can keep all settings correct.

The room in layout:


It isn't hard to imagine it's taxing on the available internal space. Even though in the above picture the convolution, another instance of Equilibrium and the second bank of parametric equalizer isn't tiched, it is in normal use, as well as Volume Leveling.

I've been running this type of stuff for at least 7 years without problems, but with the new Windows Operating system, the move to 64 bit JRiver and a new 64 bit equalizer I do run into problems. Yet, that equalizer, DMG Audio Equilibrium, is a vital part for me as a substitute for my previous 32 bit equalizer. I did try Fabfilter Pro 2, it can't match the clarity of Equilibrium.

[mattkhan]

Example: to reset my zone that showed these hick-ups, I've deleted my VST host Metaplugin. Shut down JRiver, start it back up again and re-install Metaplugin, it immediately shows all of the previous installed components. Including the behavior I had before. A non working delay, while the GUI of that specific plugin still shows the correct values. Even removing that plugin and trying to use the standard delay function within JRiver's Parametric Equalizer banks did not lead to success. So once I'm over a certain threshold, there's no regaining proper functionality.

you need a developer to comment really as I'm just guessing, some bits aren't entirely clear to me though from reading through.

For example

when you say things don't work, what exactly happens? you can change the parameters of some EQ in MC (not the VST) and sound still plays but the delay is ineffective or playback simply no longer functions? is the delay added before or after the VST or is done inside the VST?

If you create a new zone and load exactly the same VST configuration into it without any MC DSP configured, does it now work?

do you have some alternative VST host you can try with the same VST configuration to determine if that host has a problem or not?

basically trying to help narrow down whether the problem is in the VST, is in how MC functions as a VST host, in MC DSP itself (or is some combination of the above)

[Wesayso]

Thanks for thinking with me, much appreciated!

I'ts hard to explain, if you look at the schematic I posted, There's a delay on the left part of the schematic, that's the anti-cross talk.
The delay is set to 0.26 ms, it causes a slight ripple in the frequency response. There's also a reverb, at a very low level, which starts about 7.5 ms behind the main pulse.
When I set the Equilibrium EQ's, the top ones in a row, 6 of them, to 65K pulse length in FIR, the above does sound very good.
When I revisited a day later, something was different. Still had sound, but something was missing. I recorded a single dirac pulse with the output set to disk writer. There I noticed the reverb was gone. The delay was still functional. I deleted the reverb VST instance and re-installed it. Next measurement showed the reverb to be functional, but the delay didn't do anything. The GUI of the delay plugin still showed 0.26 ms. The delay function was ignored. I removed it from the schematic and added the delay in JRiver's Parametric Equalizer ahead of the Metaplugin instance. Nothing changed. Delay was still ignored. Not matter what I did or changed, it shows up in the GUI, but it does not work. There's still sound though, which made this hard to trace. You can't know what to rely on without recording it to disk.

I managed to build 2 working zones with the Equilibrium set to 32K. I tried to add a Home Theatre (which uses less tweaks) that also has the anti-cross talk. Everything worked except the delay. No matter how I tried, with two different plugins or JRiver's own delay option... so it isn't clear when this trouble starts. I tried different ways to build it, even by changing a working zone for Home Theatre, I did not manage to add a third working instance.

As I still have a copy of JRiver 29, 32 bit on this PC, I build up the exact same thing to see what happened. I have it fully operational without any glitch up to 65K filter length in Equilibrium. Go figure.
If this truly works, I'm going back to the 32 bit environment. Reluctantly, but right now the 32 bit version isn't an option with this intermittent behavior. I'm not planning to run an impulse test before each listening session. 

[Wesayso]

Just to be clear: I do not need the 65K filter length, that's over the top. But I do need a rock solid result, which seems to work in the 32 bit environment.
Somehow there is a difference between these two modes. If it is the plugin host or JRiver is hard to tell for me. I do not own or know another comparable VST hosting program. I tried Plogue Bidule in the past but it didn't work for me. I could revisit it to see what it brings.
I'll try and build up the Home Theatre part too, in the 32 bit environment and report back. It will take some time to test it all. Including output to Oled TV.

I hope there will be a logical explanation, I really wanted this move to 64 bit to work.

[Wesayso]

I've managed to setup 3 different zones within JRiver 32 bit, all working like intended.
I did run into similar trouble when I tried the first time within JRiver 29. Aside from being able to go all the way up to 65K filter length, the 32 bit version can indeed encounter similar problems. With a bit of care (or luck) I could probably do the same in JRiver 64 bit?
Still no real clue what's causing my troubles. I do realize I'm asking a lot from the software.

[mattkhan]

I wonder if there is any way to conclusively point at jriver or the vst? I guess you would at least need another vst host to do that. The fact that even delay in MC stopped working though is particularly strange. My guess is this is impossible to debug without being able to recreate in a debug build of some description but I don't develop mc so that's just a guess.

[Wesayso]

I was able to do the same in the 64 bit version, 3 zones, no idea why though. I'll keep an eye on it and check after each change or update of components. Thanks for the help, much appreciated. Changing the VST host was next on my list of things to try.
If I have to guess, now that all instances (in different zones) from the old equalizer (fabfilter) are removed, it seems to have helped clear up my troubles.

[Wesayso]

After much more research I found out that the Lexicon PCM plugins were giving me this trouble. Ran a lot of demo's of other comparable plugins and moved on to a Relab lx480. In the 32 bit environment the Lexicon plugin still works as before.

In time I'll probably sell off the Lexicon bundle and move on. It is a great reverb bundle and it does work well in regular DAW environments etc.

[eve]

After much more research I found out that the Lexicon PCM plugins were giving me this trouble. Ran a lot of demo's of other comparable plugins and moved on to a Relab lx480. In the 32 bit environment the Lexicon plugin still works as before.

In time I'll probably sell off the Lexicon bundle and move on. It is a great reverb bundle and it does work well in regular DAW environments etc.

So to be clear, these issues were traced eventually to the Lexicon stuff and not JRiver or plugins in general?

They're fantastic plugins, I've just never used them in JRiver. Back in the day they used to be pretty unbeatable for a specific kind of high fidelity but 'fake' (maybe, sterile is a better word) reverb (I don't know how to describe it really) 

[Wesayso]

It looks like it. But it could still be an incompatibility between Metaplugin 64 bit and Lexicon's PCM bundle. As I do use Metaplugin as a VST host. Which makes it much harder to find the true cause of such behavior. I did try using bridged 32 bit versions but to no avail (*).
I've replaced the Lexicon VST plugins with a different reverb VST (it was hard to find something that matches the clean sound of the Lexicon).

(*) = In a separate 32 bit JRiver setup (JR29), I still have a functional setup even though I use a Lexicon VST plugin from the PCM bundle.

It really is an excellent sounding plugin bundle, I do feel sad it doesn't work for me anymore for this job.

[JimH]

Some work was done very recently on VST to fix a problem with another plug-in.  It's worth trying the very latest builds of MC30.

[Wesayso]

Thanks for the heads up! I'll surely try, as I liked the results I got with the PCM bundle very much.

[Wesayso]

Finally found some time to test JRiver as the host for the Lexicon PCM Native Reverb Bundle: problem solved! No more loss of settings and functioning properly. I needed to re-route a lot to be able to do what I did before, but as long as it works...



I've contacted support at Metaplugin to see if they can fix this, luckily I know a way around this if it doesn't work out.