Overbridge and Reaper

That would be great. It was a bit inconvenient in the past to record from the DT & DN. Have to wait a few weeks before I can test though.

Hi guys. I’m very pleased to say I can confirm a major improvement with the new version of Overbridge and REAPER, specifically with regards to transport/timeline sync.

On my system, with Overbridge set to Clock and Transport, the DT and DN start almost immediately on hitting play in REAPER, with no glitching. There is though some tempo and pitch variation in the first couple of bars. Still a major improvement, but not ideal.

But there’s a fix for this. Now the DN and DT let you de-couple Clock from Transport in the MIDI sync settings, if you set a machine to only take Transport and not Clock, set No Sync in Overbridge, and then in REAPER MIDI output settings, set to send clock to the DT/DN.

Now you’re using the a) the rock solid Digitakt clock b) transport started and stopped by and synced to REAPER, and c) audio streams through REAPER.

I’ve got this working very well so far; much better than any previous attempts. Sync to timeline is good on my system but it’s not perfect - they are using different clocks after all (I don’t think there’s a way for REAPER to take MIDI clock, right?). The transport and clock on my DN slaves from the DT. My system is an i7 running Win 7 x64.

Hope that helps anyone trying to get this working. Happy to help with any questions if I can.

Ben

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I ended up with some first bar issues again last night. Sometimes track 2 wouldn’t sound, sometimes all tracks were silent. If I started and stopped playback 4-5 times it would all work again for awhile. I’ll see if it’s still happening tonight

I think there’s a plugin for reaper that allows it work as midi slave. I’ll try and find it later.

Not hearing audio, you need to turn off anticipative effects, there’s a buffer enabled by default with reaper, obviously it can’t work perfectly with live input because it needs to rebuild the buffer.

https://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php?p=662072&postcount=10

This works to really tighten it up. Basicly you need to cut and paste that in via these instructions, k, Reapers out clock, not Slave.

The timing seems perfect on mine thought it’s done something weird to the 1st beat.

Again last night, everything normal for a while, then first bar issues again. Tried turning off anticipative fx, no difference. Finally I started a new project and got rid of a few tracks that were muted, but populated with bypassed fx. Seemed to work as expected for the rest of the night. Hopefully that was it

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On this issue, I made a few experiments :

Thanks very much. I used this to help me understand the routing in Reaper to record my RYTM Mk1 using overbridge in Reaper. It frees up a couple of audio inputs on my interface and gives me multi channel drum recording. So great.

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In case this is still an issue for anyone I made a YT video on recording the Digitakt with Reaper via Overbridge 2 as a multi-channel audio file. I’ve also mentioned this thread as it was really useful for helping me learn how, so thank you!

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I’m not sure if there’s a reason to take all of the steps that you did, but I find using the “Insert virtual instrument on new track” option is the quickest way to get Overbridge set up for multitracking. You can also r-click on the plugin in the FX Chain window then select the “Build multichannel routing…” option. I made a quick vid to show what I’m talking about. By quick vid, I mean to watch: this was my first time trying to record a demo like this and the whole deal was a bit of a learning adventure

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Oh wow! The “reason” is just that I didn’t know I couldn’t do it that way, that’s way better!
Really appreciate you making the video to show that, I’ll add a link to your video in the description of my video.
Thanks!
Rich

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I was using this way for ages but it broke with Overbridge 2. I’ve had to reinstall all of my Overbridge 2 utils and finally got everything to work.

I installed the latest version of overbridge ( 2.0.65) last night and the latest digitakt firmware ( OS 1.30B) that came out in February. The sync is massively improved and seems solid and also the DT did not lose its connection to overbridge at all over 3 hours.
The release notes for both these updates specifically mention fixes for sync issues and connection losses, they seem to have sorted it!
I get the occasional ‘false start’ with reaper, when I start the transport and the DT just clicks and doesn’t start, but most times it start and runs great!

I got to ask : what are your audio interface settings, plugin buffer settings and margin ?

I am still struggling to find the best settings within reaper.

Also I still have latency/jitter issues in reaper (unfortunatly).

Does Overbridge plugin appears as “64 bridged” to you in reaper ?
I am using reaper 64, and overbridge is obviously 64, so there is no reason that it should be bridged… strange

My audio interface in an EMU 0404 pci card on Windows 7 which is 64bit running on an old quad core extreme PC. The interface is set to 48 kHz.
Reaper (64 bit) audio is set to 48 kHz 24bit using the EMU Asio driver. Sample rate: 48000, Block size: 256.
Asio config is 8ms (that’s a driver setting, not a reaper setting)

image

Digitakt os is 1.30B, Overbridge version is 2.1.1.2

Digitakt midi is USB, audio is via the audio outs, or usb when using Overbridge, Reaper is the latest version 6.67.

As for your other question, Overbridge does not show as 64 bridged. Only 32bit plug ins show as 32 bridged. Bridging occurs when you use a plugin that is not the same as your DAW (Reaper). This would suggest that you have accidentally installed a 32 bit version on Reaper instead of a 64 bit version.
Might be best to download the latest 64 bit Reaper and try again. Hope that helps.

Also in the Digitakt settings>midi config>port settings, set the input and output to just USB.
In Digitakt settings> System> usb config make sure OVERBRIDGE is ticked.

Sounds like you have multiple formats installed, and the 32bit version is in a folder that’s ‘higher’ in Reaper’s hierarchy that the 64bit version. You could delete the 32bit dll, or do a fresh install and only select one of the vst versions like this

image

Thanks for sharing your config !

And overbridge sync completly works ?

Also about the bridge things, I know what bridging is and that what puzzles me:

  • I use reaper 64 bit (I am not crazy :smiley: )
  • and reaper displays “bridge 64” which is silly… if it was bridging from a 32 bit plugins, it would display ''bridge 32" right ?

@braken : Are you using reaper with OB sync without issue as well ?

@deebeedee and @braken :

I found out about the bridging thing : you can ask reaper to run plugin within a separate process, that is what caused it.

However, On reaper, the latency compensation randomly doesn’t work : with a 256 buffer setting, when I record my digitakt, I sometimes have a latency of about 6 milisecond (which at 44100 hz correspond to approximatly the size of the buffer). Saying in another, It is as if the latency of the plugin was sometimes not compensated at all.

Do you also have this issue ?

Man, it was ages ago that I set up Reaper so I don’t really remember what my latency settings look like. I believe that I allow Reaper to do it’s own compensation based on it’s PDC measurement. I had made manual latency adjustments at one point, but they basically go out the window as soon as you have a different plugin config, and the auto-setting works well enough for me.

The only thing resembling a sync issue I have, is that when I press record it takes a few seconds to catch up (kind of like a record player coming up to speed) and start recording as expected. Once that short catch up period is done, I rarely have to adjust my audio more than a few samples, if at all. Really depends on what else I have going on in the session.

I’ve always left a four bar count-in for any hw recording because I started using Reaper primarily to record guitar/bass, and I needed a second to get from clicking record to hands on the fretboard. It’s habit at this point, but I should probably try to troubleshoot that slight catch-up issue at some point.