Subject:Problem using SF9 at same time as DAW

Posted by: comradec

Date:1/1/2010 10:06:19 AM

I have Sound Forge 9, which I use as part of a system where my main DAW is Ableton Live 8.

Trouble is, if I select SF9 as my audio editor within Live's preferences, and both are configured to use the same audio interface, I'm unable to use SF9 properly at the same time as Live is open.

If there's an audio clip I want to edit while using Live and I try to launch SF9, a box pops up to tell me that my audio device is in use by another application. I therefore cannot edit audio in SF9 without closing down Live, which is not at all convenient.

By way of contrast, if I open the freeware editor Audacity, it has not problem using the same audio device while another audio application is open.

Is there a way of configuring SF9 to use audio devices at the same as other applications are using them?

Subject:RE: Problem using SF9 at same time as DAW

Reply by: Steven Myers

Date:1/1/2010 1:33:29 PM

This is just a guess, but I think it's a good guess:
Some DAWS allow you to specify whether or not the audio interface can be shared with other programs. Apparently some don't.

My DAW is SONAR, which does, and of course I want that. SONAR even lets me choose which editor I want to use at any given time.

I suggest asking the question on the Ableton Live 8 forum. Maybe there's a config to make it happen.

Subject:RE: Problem using SF9 at same time as DAW

Reply by: jackn2mpu

Date:1/2/2010 8:29:29 AM

You can edit audio in SF with Live open; you just won't be using the same drivers. I'm guessing you're using ASIO in Live and want to do the same in SF. What will happen in your case is SF will run with the standard Windows drivers and not ASIO and you can edit to your heart's content in SF. Don't know how you can get back to ASIO in your case - may have to reboot. I run Sonar as my daw and don't have that problem.

Jack

Subject:RE: Problem using SF9 at same time as DAW

Reply by: ChristoC

Date:1/2/2010 1:13:03 PM

Actually, it's your soundcard which is the bottleneck here - many cards are not multiclient, so the ASIO drivers will only allow one application at a time to use the ASIO streams. Jack's solution to use WDM (i.e. Microsoft Sound Mapper, Direct Sound Surround Mapper, or Windows Classic Wave) drivers for one of the applications is probably your only choice.
Other choice is to get a soundcard which supports multiple ASIO clients (I use SSL/Soundscape cards which make all streams & all audio I/O of all cards simultaneously available to all PC-native audio application at the same time, with all driver-standards simultaneoulsy (ASIO2, GSIF2, MME, WDM, DWave), through a single virtual patch bay & mixer application, with an upper limit of 256 channels ..... but that is a very expensive solution if you are just editing video!).

Additionally, some applications have a nasty habit of monopolizing all available ASIO streams, although they are only using a few.... luckily the Sony applications do not behave like that. There is a way to prevent that by hacking the Registry in some instances.

BTW, if you change Driver (Audio Device type) in your application's Settings/Preferences, you should only have to close & restart the application to use the different drivers.

Subject:RE: Problem using SF9 at same time as DAW

Reply by: Geoff_Wood

Date:1/2/2010 2:13:01 PM

Some DAWs have an option setting to "release soundcard driver when not active application' . You could look for something similar in Ableton .

geoff