5.12.0.50: Adding 2nd pair of speakers does not work

Answered
0

Installed 5.12.0.50 under Win10 and setup calibration as “Plugin”.
During setup I could measure my main monitors successfully.
Now I want to measure a 2nd pair of monitors and this doesn't work.
The steps:
- started SoundID reference
- Add new preset
- Create a new speaker profile → Resume previous Measurement? → NO
- Get Started
- Select your speaker configuration → 2.0 Stereo
- Checklist → all 3 points ok / selected
- What Audio Interface are you using?
   I can only select “other interface” as I have no Avid MTRX
  Here the issue is, that I do not get any interface selection menue…
- Select your microphone input channel
  Here the issue is, that the pulldown menue is empty…

Why does Sonarworks neither remember the last interface settings nor allows me,
to choose the proper driver/port from a list?

7 comments

0

Andreas do you recall having any issues during the first measurement? The input channels may be missing because the Measure app has auto-blacklisted the device following a crash.

You can check the blackest file and edit it to remove the device from the blacklist as shown here: [WIN] Blacklisting ASIO drivers in the Measure app.

Let us know if this resolves the issue, thank you!

0

I had no crash during the 1st measurement.
Below the content of the blacklist file.
There is an entry for the RME MADIface driver.
Is it sufficient to remove this entry?
Or can I remove the whole file which I do not need at all?!

<AudioDeviceBlacklist>
    <ASIO>
        <BlacklisteDevice>
            <Id>{5DF2FB66-BA5E-4FDB-80F7-2DEF3E64303C}</Id>
            <Title>Traktor Kontrol Z1</Title>
            <Note/>
            <Mode>0</Mode>
        </BlacklisteDevice>
        <BlacklisteDevice>
            <Id>{EDFDF0DC-622C-41C3-B369-8F9F4BE6A46C}</Id>
            <Title>Traktor Kontrol S8</Title>
            <Note/>
            <Mode>0</Mode>
        </BlacklisteDevice>
        <BlacklisteDevice>
            <Id>{0160EC1D-448D-48DC-B550-CA3DAF60C87D}</Id>
            <Title>Traktor Kontrol S5</Title>
            <Note/>
            <Mode>0</Mode>
        </BlacklisteDevice>
        <BlacklisteDevice>
            <Id>{AD6BF676-4E04-4BE2-8BAE-500554A62A86}</Id>
            <Title>Traktor Audio 2 MK2</Title>
            <Note/>
            <Mode>0</Mode>
        </BlacklisteDevice>
        <BlacklisteDevice>
            <Id>{52EBAE30-47E4-483F-B87B-770314306005}</Id>
            <Title>Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver</Title>
            <Note/>
            <Mode>0</Mode>
        </BlacklisteDevice>
        <BlacklisteDevice>
            <Id>{F0918C00-B056-4087-88DF-817F245868B2}</Id>
            <Title>ASIO MADIface USB</Title>
            <Note/>
            <Mode>0</Mode>
        </BlacklisteDevice>
        <BlacklisteDevice>
            <Id>{B979B4A6-691F-4490-9C62-7811B5A3AEF5}</Id>
            <Title>Steinberg built-in ASIO Driver</Title>
            <Note/>
            <Mode>0</Mode>
        </BlacklisteDevice>
    </ASIO>
    <WASAPI/>
</AudioDeviceBlacklist>

0

Perhaps it was a silent crash (app just not opening and crashing silently, or something similar), as the only auto-blacklist mechanism in place is for Measure app crashing.

In any case, simply remove this section from the blacklist file:

 

0

Sorry gents, but it is a bad design to put something (and silently) on a black list.

What should be the purpose to black list a driver? In most if not all cases this will be a temporary problem.
And putting something automatically to a blacklist, so that it does not have any chance anymore to load, is not helpful.

It creates a real problem, that the ASIO driver can not load anymore.

I think you might have heard about RME and their driver stability. Rock solid ASIO drivers.
It is kind of ridiculous that the MADIface driver was blacklisted by your software.

If something crashed then believe me it is much more likely that it was your own software.

But by blacklisting the driver you created for me for approx 2h nothing but unnecessary work,
because nothing worked anymore as expected. In short: you created a severe issue by this.

What would be much more helpful, if something really would crash, that you create a pop-up windows that contains all needed information
for the user and that need to be confirmed by the user. Ideally with a button to review and to send the relevant information to your support.
But not to blacklist a good working driver. Sorry, but this is complete nonsense.

If you think you need to blacklist a driver, then this should come from your support department, but only if there is really a reason.
Only in this case you should add it to a blacklist and this blacklist should be dynamically included on every Sonarworks installation.
Or to retrieve it as an update that will be fetched weekly from your servers.

 

0

Can you please confirm removing it from blacklist resolved the issue?

To elaborate on your questions - absolutely, various potential improvements can be made to the blacklist implementation, and they are on the product roadmap backlog. Although we won't be able to make any promises on specific features and ETAs.

This blacklist instance is a rare occurrence, and it is not the case that all RME drivers are getting blacklisted for no good reason. In fact, this is the first time I ever seen an RME driver get blacklisted, so it must have been an ultra-rare edge case. Furthermore, just because a device driver is stable and well-regarded in the industry, doesn't mean it can't have problems with SoundID Reference speaker measurements, as the microphone locating technology has some very specific requirements that are uncommon in other audio production and DSP applications, and may not be an issue in other workflows. 

The auto-blackest mechanism was implemented to avoid continuous Measure app crashes with problematic ASIO device drivers, and it is doing that job quite well. But every once in a while there might be some discrepancy that causes it to blacklist stable drivers too. 

0

Removing it from blacklist solved the issue.
Putting things onto a blacklist makes no sense.
You name it .. possibly a rare edge case .. now tell me what it brings in such a case to automatically blacklist the ASIO driver of my main sound interface on the computer? It brings nothing but frustration, because you are wondering that the interface and the ports are not found/displayed anymore.
Blacklisting is something which is only needed in very rare cases and should then be added manually via a little bit hidden menue.
This way it makes to me absolutely no sense. It caused in this case nothing but completely unnecessary work.

0

Hi Adnreas, 

I totally understand the frustration. There is a reason why it is in place though, perhaps I didn't properly explain the value that this feature brings to most users, so let me elaborate:

The auto-blacklist feature prevents continuous Measure app crashes for problematic ASIO device drivers, allowing the user to proceed with measurements. In most cases, such problematic drivers don't even have anything to do with the device intended to be used for the measurements. For example, a DJ desk that qualifies as an ASIO input device but is not really usable for the measurements (and only causes the Measure app to crash), or other similar devices that don't even qualify as audio interfaces; or generically installed ASIO drivers, such as the “Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver” which is a basically a generic Steinberg driver and not really needed for your RME to function (the Measure app blacklisted that to prevent an issue, which was actually the case in your blacklist file too).

In other words, this feature provides stability to the Measure app, and most times the users aren't even aware of it because the app simply works (while auto-blacklist has prevented continuous crashes under the hood). Again, it can sometimes become an issue in some rare edge cases, but the value it brings to most Windows users is substantial. 

The SoundID Reference software is operating a quite complex marriage between various third-party components, and it has unique aspects compared to other audio production software. For this reason, we have to look for solutions that bring the most value to most users, and some edge-case issues can sometimes take place. For that, we have our knowledge base content available publicly, and our support team is standing by to assist - I was glad be to able to assist, and pin down the blacklist issue for a solution within a day or so. Hopefully, this qualifies as decent product support compared to other audio companies that you may encounter. And yes, this feature can indeed be improved in the future (you have specified several good ideas yourself too), and there are some such improvement tasks on our product roadmap.

Thanks again, and have a great mix!

Please sign in to leave a comment.