TOPIC:

I'm a Beta tester for Dirac Live. I use the Mac S/W version in a Pro Studio. This requires quite a workaround with a few inherent problems due to LineIn's wobbly latency and so on. But overall the results are worth it and it has to be said the Dirac side of the software has never once misbehaved in any way.
So I am attempting to move over to the Hardware Box despite the lack of Mac Control Software. Wish me luck. I am sharing the journey here for obvious reasons.
I have no PCs and very little to no knowledge of them.
I believe John Reekie has succeeded in this quest already using a VM. Also my computer guy assures me I can get the job done using a Virtual Machine, so here goes.
iMac. Latest OSX Yosemite.
I am running VirtualBox for Yosemite. This is not on the Oracle site, but at Mac Update or such.
From the bizarre number of options I have guessed and chosen Win 7 Pro 32. This is on the 30 day free trial for now.
I have downloaded all the various frameworks etc. etc.
Note I couldn't Download Adobe Air in the normal manner. I found a working DL here filehippo.com/download_adobe_air/

Obviously I have been working on this since 1972.........

Yet another dead stop has occurred. The Win VM will not accept the DDRC. It is there in the list of USB devices but greyed. out.
The Dirac S/W cannot Connect.
I tried another USB device, my UMIK-1, which was recognised and connected instantly.
I have turned everything off and on etc. etc. etc. NG Dead in the water.

Sigh, DD

Hi Dan, you are saying that VirtualBox will not let you connect the Dirac box (which one is it BTW?) to the Windows VM?

I'm afraid I have no idea what could be going on there. I have successfully been running DLCT in Win 7 64bit, VMWare Fusion, OSX 10.8.something.

DanDan wrote:

I'm a Beta tester for Dirac Live. I use the Mac S/W version in a Pro Studio. This requires quite a workaround with a few inherent problems due to LineIn's wobbly latency and so on. But overall the results are worth it and it has to be said the Dirac side of the software has never once misbehaved in any way.
So I am attempting to move over to the Hardware Box despite the lack of Mac Control Software. Wish me luck. I am sharing the journey here for obvious reasons.
I have no PCs and very little to no knowledge of them.
I believe John Reekie has succeeded in this quest already using a VM. Also my computer guy assures me I can get the job done using a Virtual Machine, so here goes.
iMac. Latest OSX Yosemite.
I am running VirtualBox for Yosemite. This is not on the Oracle site, but at Mac Update or such.
From the bizarre number of options I have guessed and chosen Win 7 Pro 32. This is on the 30 day free trial for now.
I have downloaded all the various frameworks etc. etc.
Note I couldn't Download Adobe Air in the normal manner. I found a working DL here filehippo.com/download_adobe_air/

Obviously I have been working on this since 1972.........

Yet another dead stop has occurred. The Win VM will not accept the DDRC. It is there in the list of USB devices but greyed. out.
The Dirac S/W cannot Connect.
I tried another USB device, my UMIK-1, which was recognised and connected instantly.
I have turned everything off and on etc. etc. etc. NG Dead in the water.

Sigh, DD

Dan,

We run our setup many times (e.g. tradeshow/R&D) with Parallels without any issues.
We assumed that you installed miniDSP Dirac Live (i.e. showing a minIDSP logo) from your user downloads. If you're using Dirac Live (i.e. downloaded from dirac.com) that software won't discover a miniDSP DDRC unit. Please see the user manual steps on how to activate the unit + software.

DevTeam

Hi Dev Team. Please read my post again. There is detail in it, e.g. the fact that I am running VirtualBox not Parallels.
Again, in my post, the fact that I am a DL Beta Tester, moving from Dirac Live to this Hardware implementation should surely suggest to you that I understand the difference between the two?
Please take these questions seriously or refer them up the chain of command to someone who can.

Slightly annoyed, Dan FitzGerald MIOA MAES

Hi John, thanks for the reply. As you can see, my details are all different.
Yosemite, Win 7/32 etc. The only one which I might be able to change would be to Win 64.
The fact that I can readily connect the VM to the UMIK-1 but not to the DDRC 22A must be telling us something.
Also the DDRC is in the USB Devices drop down menu, but greyed out.
We need a computer expert here!

DD

Continuing this Monthy Pythonesque journey......

Within the 'advanced' VirtualBox Controls I found a way to create a USB 'filter' to specifically recognise the DDRC.
It is now connected, Bingo.
So I got the Activation Key and clicked on the Link.
As I am an existing user I chose that option.
Input the Key, emal and password.......
Incorrect Activation Key.
This despite the fact that I can readily log in, and the site remembers me no problem.
Note that such 'normal' Log In' involves my User Name, not the email, while the Activation Page uses email.
So, stopped dead in the water again.

DD

More shenanigans. Today I tried to Activate many times. It seems this part of the website doesn't know me, although I can freely log in on either OS, using
The User Name and a 4 Digit Password. See attachment 1 below.
So despite the fact of repeated Log Ins I am not myself it appears.
So I try to create a New User. Turns out some people think this User Already Exists...... See 2 below.
So, back to Activation. For no reason other than stubbornness I simply added two digits to the Password.
Bingo, Activated.
All Good. Fired up the DL Calibration Tool. Enter User Name and PW. Did so. See 3 Below, the word activate didn't go black until the new six digit PW was entered. Looking hopeful. But alas, see 4 below, User DanDan not found.

My back has rendered me immobile for the last week, which gives me the opportunity to pursue this journey.
I hope that someone, at some point, will actually read the content of my posts, look at the screenshots, fix the Log In email User 4 or 6 Digit PW issue on the website and in some way compel the Calibration tool to accept that I am one entity which does exist and would like to proceed with making some music.

BTW. Each time the Win VM is started it does not see the DDRC. Plug the USB cable out and in again to restore connection. Every time.

DD (or am I?)

In the validation screen in DLCT, the "username" is the email address that you used when activating the license.

Thanks John. Per your suggestion, I input my email address rather than the requested User Name. Also, the 4 digit PW used at registration did not make 'Validate' go black so I used the 'new' password with the extra digits. . Validated. Thank you.

Note I have a computer expert at hand. He is highly skilled in both Mac and PC and other OSs.
He uses VirtualBox all the time and advised me that there was no need for Parallels or VM Fusion.
He also advised me not to buy one of the very affordable Windows laptops.
Largely he seems to be right, none of the issues here to be caused by the VM implementation, except perhaps for the dropping of the USB connection to the DDRC every reboot.
Does your VM Fusion do that John?

So, slightly happily, I am moving forward.
The VM issue necessitates unplugging and plugging the USB, in order for the the DL Cal Tool to see the DDRC as a Test Signal Playback device. Fine.
However when I move to the next step. Recording Device, the only item in the selection menu is -none-
The UMIK-1 is visible in the VM USB devices and apparently active. On the host Mac side the UMIK one is 'blessed' for Sound Input.
I have tried it without that 'bliessing' too. I have also tried selecting the iMac onboard mic for sound input as is the norm on the iMac. Still -none-
I will try to get into the unfamiliar to me Windows side of things, but the Cal Tool has found the Playback device with no issue.
Any suggestions you or anyone else might have would be most welcome.

Please NB. I started this thread expecting a few blips here and there, with the intention of sharing my solutions. Ultimately I get things to work, although en route I generally do find all the dead bodies.
Several Audio and Acoustics Measurement Software companies have me on their Beta teams. Nobody likes to hear bad news, nor to deliver it, but these friends are all appreciative of the heads up, despite it's per se negativity. Unfortunately this thread/journey has turned out to be far more than a few blips. But let's be clear, although I have replied to a post a tad tersely, I absolutely mean no insult to the devteam or anyone at minidsp who have been kind enough to send me this machine on demo.
Not on topic, but I have done extensive listening tests (my primary profession for decades) on the DDRC as a DAC without the filters. I have had a visiting Audio Engineer listen also, same conclusions.
The DAC easily beat my current one. It is a par, almost identical to the very high end fully professional Avid HDX192 interface.

DD

Hi Dan, the host application i.e. VirtualBox in your case has to hijack the USB device and give it to the VM. How specifically it works I'm not sure but my understanding is that USB devices can't be shared - so if the UMIK is visible as a device in the Mac System Preferences (or Audio MIDI Setup), then you haven't told VirtualBox to direct the UMIK device to the Windows VM.

Same thing with reboot (I assume you mean of the DDRC?). Unless you've configured VirtualBox to automatically give the specific USB device to the WIndows VM (and assuming that it can do that), then you will have to do it manually. VMWAre Fusion provides the option to automatically connect a specific USB device to the VM, but I always leave them set for manual choice as in the past there have been times I've been scratching my head where a device went without realizing I had a VM running in the background that had "pinched" the device.

I'd consider use of a VM to be a (usable) workaround, I don't see that it's really miniDSP's responsibility to support it.

Thanks John. My intents here were and are all good, trust me.
My ambition was to show a path to success in using a free VM to facilitate potential Mac users of the DDRC.
To be frank it has gone very far from my intentions. So much so that I am strongly considering a request to have the whole thread deleted.
But to be fair, at any point have I made a mistake, or had a bad or ill judged intention?
As you can see the issues caused by the VM are relatively minor. The dropping of the USB connection is visible in the USB devices menu. By reboot I mean of Windows.
This very last hurdle, I am beginning to think is the a second and seemingly terminal VirtualBox issue.
As I said in my posts, nominating or blessing the UMIK-1 or not in OSX has no effect on the VM. Furthermore, as I said, the VM has always immediately shown the presence of the UMIK-1.
I always suspected this free VM software might cause problems, but to be fair it hasn't been more than a small nuisance up to now.
My next step will be to move to VM Fusion or Parallels. Have you tried both? Preference? Anyone else have a view on that?
BTW John or again anyone, just to find out if it is unique to my iMac or this location, could you try the Download Air site for me. Here, on both OSX and Windows it is still not working. As I said I can easily connect to the site and take step one, but it fails on step 2, can't find server etc.
Your input has been most welcome and valuable. Perhaps making it worth keeping this thread here.
Thank you.
DD

Hi Dan, my assumptions based on Fusion follow, I'm afraid I would have no idea if VirtualBox handles these things differently. With that said: if by "nominating or blessing the UMIK-1 or not in OSX" you mean selecting it as the input device, then I think that will make no difference. The problem is that it's visible in OSX at all; I would think that if the USB device (UMIK) has been given to Windows by VirtualBox, then the Mac will not be able to "see" it at all. Again, I have no idea how you configure this in VirtualBox but I'd assume it's the same procedure as for the DDRC?

I have only ever used Fusion. I bought it back at version 3, it's just a tool that helps me get things done, I don't find trying different software related to Windows to be very exciting

PS. I am able to get to get.adobe.com/air/

Thanks John, that is odd re Adobe. Did you actually proceed to step 2, i.e. Click Download? Please see the attachments, which show exactly what is happening here in sequence., 1, 2, 3. The same happens in the VM Windows. Here's the how I got my Air filehippo.com/download_adobe_air/
The Mac OS cannot unsee the UMIK and I think you have hit the nail pretty much on the head. VirtualBox has controls for 'stealing' the mouse etc. etc. but I can find nothing to implement sound input. I might download Audacity for Windows to see if I can create a 'need' for a mic input.
VirtualBox doesn't see the iMac onboard Mic or Line Input either. Furthermore some googling of VB and Audio Record shows problems .
I hear you regarding Windows. I have been using my current illness to take on the long intended task of accessing Windows on Mac. I would have occasional use for it with Bruel and Kjaer Noise Software and so on. The actual need for it to get this DDRC going has been a welcome prompt.

There is no question of blaming minidsp for the vagaries of VB or indeed for anything other than what I said earlier. It is incumbent on anyone replying to a post, to read it to the point of comprehension.
I do believe it would be worth tweaking the website to say Email rather than User Name, If you look at my posts prior to that last Validation carefully, you will see that there is a lot more to that issue. Again something which I recommend minidsp need to sort out. There is something awry about how the website accepted my earlier identity as a UMIK buyer, and now. All the data needed to figure it out is in my posts I guess. Cutting to the chase, IMO, Log in and all Activation or Validation procedures should all have just the one name and password. As it stands there is no knowing who what where.
Also the Air thing prompts me to suggest that a minidsp Dropbox or such containing all the many many extra bits and pieces which need to be installed would be well worth while for everybody's benefit.

Best Regards, DD

Hi Dan, I typed in the URL shown in the error message and was able to download the Mac installer.

airdownload.adobe.com/air/mac/download/16.0/AdobeAIR.dmg

Aah, so you are getting the error message too. Good, sort of. It wouldn't have occurred to me to actually type in the URL, clearly you are even more devious or creative than me.......
Ta, will be back tomorrow, probably with a demo of Parallels installed.

DD