Free VST Host problems?

[Kevin_B]

I tried running Addictive Drums in VSTHost (a free VST Host program) and while it opened and sounded good, it had terrible latency (maybe quarter-second) and for some reason, it was only accepting the snare input from my Alesis Trigger IO. All inputs were working in running BFD Lite, so I know it's not a hardware problem.

Is there a better free VST Host program, or am I cursed by latency and other problems unless I buy Cubase or another "Professional" VST Host?

[Relayer]

It's not the host, it's your soundcard. Set the number of audio buffers as low as you can - 128 is good. As for only hearing the snare, have you mapped your kit to Addictive Drums (which is hard-mapped)?

Steve

[Kevin_B]

I don't think it's my soundcard because there isn't as big a problem in BFD Lite.

I'm not sure what you mean by "hard-mapped" though.

[Relayer]

Suit yourself - I can't imagine how a VST host could cause latency, but I guess anything is possible. By hard-mapped, I mean that the MIDI notes can't be changed in the software like with BFD or S2. You have to map your kit to it or use a MIDI mapper. The map for Addictive Drums is in the User Area at the XLN website.

Steve

[Sabre]

The only latency issue I've ever encountered was a driver issue, and had nothing to do with either the hardware or the software I was using.

When the host was configured to use the WMAUDIO (Windows) sound driver, I had horrible sound lag, but when I swithced it to use the ASIO (ASIO4ALL in my case) audio driver, everything worked perfectly.

[Joe_K]

Each hosting package should be able to choose which Audio Driver is installed on your system to use. They also typically have a control panel with buffer adjustment settings (or access to the driver's own control panel). So, you really have to know what driver is in use and what the buffer setting is before confirming or ruling out the VST host as the cause of any latency. As said above, it is almost always due to the audio hardware or the driver choice/options.

You want to use the ASIO driver (install one if it is not there), or, in some cases on Windows, a WDM driver may work fine also. You'll want the audio card's native drivers, but if the manufacturer doesn't make one, then you can try ASIO4ALL, a generic driver. After you know you are running the proper driver, find the audio buffer settings. A typical safe buffer setting is 256, but also try lower settings until you find the sweet spot on your system.