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Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 3:29 am
by Jmadman311
Hi all -

I'm having trouble getting Magic to react to any sound, and there are so many options to set that it's not clear what I need to do. Previously, I have used a VST plugin attached to the master output of a project called Voxengo Recorder where the sound from Reaper is routed to Realtek Digital Output, and in doing this, I have other software such as OBS hearing the sound correctly.

But selecting Realtek as the sound source in Magic doesn't work. I opened the bouncy ball demo and tried to get it to move and nothing seems to work.

I installed VB Cable, I have a "Stereo Mix" option in my sound control panel for recording devices, but nothing I try seems to work. I was having the same problem trying this with other visualization software as well.

Also...once I get this working, are there any repositories of already constructed .magic scenes? I don't have a lot of interest or time to design my own, I'd rather just use some open source scenes that are out there.

Thanks...

Re: Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 4:47 pm
by Magic
The Stereo Mix solution has always worked very well for me. Can you post some screenshots showing your audio configuration in Reaper and Magic?
Also...once I get this working, are there any repositories of already constructed .magic scenes? I don't have a lot of interest or time to design my own, I'd rather just use some open source scenes that are out there.
Do you mean besides the 30+ projects included with the application? There are some nice additional ones in the Tutorials forum here...

Re: Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 6:22 pm
by artnik
I'd rather just use some open source scenes that are out there.
I think that given the custom nature of most of the projects, and the effort involved in creating them, that there aren't open source scenes available for you to just use. Most video artists work long and hard at what they do and aren't giving that labour away for free.
What you can find are limited numbers of pre-rendered VJ loops, but they won't have any reactivity, just being videos.
Perhaps, if you don't have the time or interest to work on your own scenes, you can budget to hire one of the artists here that is familiar with MMV to work with you.

Re: Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2018 11:30 pm
by Jmadman311
Thanks for the replies. Eric, I wasn't aware that those presets in the folder also contained some that were reactive and more advanced - I had only opened the bouncy ball demo and assumed the others were also similar.

Artnik, I meant no disrespect either, for me it is simply a matter of practicality...I can barely find enough time to practice my instrument and write music, it would be hard for me to invest the time to really delve deep into this software which is quite complex. Paying an expert to design some scenes, as you say, is a great idea.

Here are some screenshots. Right now, I'm just trying to get it to respond to music I'm playing from my MusicBee player and not having any luck.

https://imgur.com/gallery/rtnQgLA

I'd like to get it to respond to any sound before I try to go into Reaper and add the complexity of using the VST Voxengo Recorder to push sound from Reaper to the Realtek audio device. Reaper doesn't let anything outside of itself hear sound, but when I use this utility, I can get Open Broadcaster Studio to hear the music just fine.

I have the Studio Mix set as my default device for recording. The VB cable was another utility I downloaded to try and make the connection, to no avail as of yet...

And in the Magic screenshot, you can see my options for MusicBee outputting sound to the Saffire, and the Magic window selecting Saffire as the source, with the source selected for the bouncy ball, but it won't move in X.

Thanks for the help.

Re: Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:44 am
by Magic
If you want Stereo Mix to work, you can't select ASIO in Reaper, because ASIO bypasses the mixer. And you can't select the Saffire either, because you need to use the Realtek. I suggest you use WASAPI if it is available. DirectSound isn't very good.

Then in Magic, just make sure to select the Realtek Stereo Mix as your input device.

That should be it. It doesn't matter what device is selected in your Sound Control Panel. Also, I'm not sure I understand why you would need to use a separate VST plugin in Reaper. Reaper should be able to output directly to your Realtek.

Re: Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 2:42 am
by Jmadman311
Thanks Eric.

Maybe you can help clear something up for me that I'm not quite getting - the Stereo Mix is an input device...but in my MusicBee music player or in Reaper, I'm choosing an OUTPUT, to play the music, which is either my Saffire which goes to my headphones/monitors, or my Realtek (which usually I can't hear, unless I plug in another set of headphones into the 1/8" holes on either the front or back of my PC tower). I dunno how that Stereo Mix works or why I select an INPUT source in Magic...don't I want it to be listening to an OUTPUT from something else?

In any case, I have no joy with the settings you suggest - no reaction of the bouncy ball. See screenshots:

https://imgur.com/gallery/Y02h78E

Re: Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 2:56 am
by Magic
That Magic configuration looks correct to me.

I think the problem is that you haven't selected the main Realtek output in your other programs, which should be called "Speakers" or something like that. "Digital Output" is not what you want.

When you select Speakers as your output, your sound goes both to your physical output jack, and to the Stereo Mix input. That is how you "listen" to the output -- via the Stereo Mix input. You can't "listen" directly to an output device in another program, it just doesn't work that way.

You can think of the Stereo Mix as connecting one end of an audio cable to your output jack; and the other end of the cable has a "Y" split which goes to your speakers and to your input jack. Therefore you can hear the output through the speakers, but it also gets sent back to the input. And this all happens digitally inside your computer, instead of with a physical cable.

The general term for this is "loopback", for obvious reasons.

Hope that helps.

FYI, you can attach images in your post by using the Upload attachment section below the Preview/Submit buttons.

Re: Help getting Magic to respond to output from Reaper DAW

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 10:55 pm
by Jmadman311
Ah, okay, we might be on to something - I do have a Realtek High Definition Audio item called "Speakers" in my Playback devices in the Sound control panel, but it is grayed out and "Not plugged in". (Because I don't have any headphones or anything plugged into that jack.)

I could plug something in there to try it, but ideally, I do want to use the "Speakers" for my Saffire Audio device, since that's what I have my headphones and studio monitor speakers plugged into. But of course, this doesn't have a corresponding "Stereo Mix" item within the "Recording" tab for inputs.

However! The Saffire audio interface has a built-in "Loopback" function that I can turn on in the Saffire Mixer. I have used this before, for example, turning it on and then playing a Youtube video on my computer and having it as an input in Reaper and recording the audio from that video. There must be a way to do something similar and have Magic recognize it as well...I'll give it a shot.