Hauptwerk Virtual Pipe Organ

Due to the current situation, I've been trying to setup a 'Hauptwerk over Skype' arrangement, so I can continue regular lessons with my organ tutor without actually meeting face to face.

I'm using an audio app called 'Loopback' to merge the HW audio output with the signal from my webcam, the merged signal then being fed to Skype for 'broadcast'. I can't get it to work properly though and wonder if anyone has any experience of this, or a similar setup and can share their experience ?

Maybe overkill for your app, but OBS works very well.

https://blog.capterra.com/free-live-stream-tools-event/

Rgds,
Ed

I'd noticed OBS in passing, but I'm unsure if it supports two-way communication, or is it purely for 'Broadcast' as the name suggests ? Maybe you can confirm ?

Thanks,

Glenn.

You can do multiple (split screens) as well as two way audio. Does require some setup which needs to be done at both ends if you mean conferencing. There are many apps to do these feature things. Gamers use this regularly. The many updates are a bit tricky, but once set up, works quite well. Since this is open source, most of the support comes from community forums.

I wouldn't think of myself in an "expert" way, but have been a party to using it. Don't presently have the need but possibly should look at it again with regards to the present shelter in place era we're in. Then there's this thing called time. As in I have to be at the store tomorrow for my 6AM appointment to pick up my groceries. But the plus side of that is that I can place my order and pay for it online, and just drive up where they bring it out to the car. Kinda like a touch and go landing you do when practicing to become a pilot.

Rgds,
Ed

Hi.

You may want to have a look at Zoom...I found it pretty impressive.

https://zoom.us/

Regards,
-Carlo

I had a successful lesson using Zoom on Satuday. ... I fed a microphone into a spare channel on my m-audio 410, mixed it with the organ outputs and sent it to the microphone input of the laptop via a cable. I listened to his comments via a one-eared USB headset. Webcam was only used for video ... not audio. Doing it this way meant there was no chance of feedback.

Getting the levels right was a bit tricky, and varied with pitch ... but we found a registration that worked for him (even if it sounded odd to me!)

Whilst not ideal, it worked well enough for him to spot odd wrong/missing notes, missing articulations on repeated notes, etc. (No chance of hiding my mistakes )

A simpler arrangement just using webcam audio and video may well work too ... I didn't try that because I mainly play on headphones at the moment and my speaker setup is pretty poor)

Good luck trying it out ...

Mike.

So I had my first 'Skype Lesson' last night and in principle it worked fine, but for some reason my audio setup (which uses 'Loopback' to combine the audio outputs from hauptwerk and the webcam mic) is very unstable... It seems to work quite effectively (and the audio at the other end seems to be of reasonable quality) but for no apparent reason the mac's audio drivers can suddenly crash, leaving me unable to hear HW and my tutor unable to hear either me or the organ.
Resolving the issue seems to require a restart of HW, Skype and Loopback (possibly in a particular sequence, but I'm not sure about that) and after any given restart it *may* or *may not* decide to work again.

I'll probably try a few other options (Zoom, OBS) and see if they will run glitch-free.

I am running Hauptwerk advanced and full Salisbury on iMac Mojave.
We are running church services through Zoom and I am playing voluntaries at home, both using the same iMac. Output from iMac to my room speakers is on USB to Edirol UA-25EX. Does anyone have any idea how I can get Hauptwerk to send directly to Zoom whilst allowing me to hear the output through my room speakers? I can't get Zoom to recognise any output from the Hauptwerk despite both running on the same computer. Any thoughts?

Hi,

I guess that Zoom only "see" your internal/built-in sound interface.If you set Hauptwerk to output to your internal audio (instead of the Edirol) and connect your speakers to your MAC audio OUT, you should have sound in Zoom and your external speakers. You will need a 3.5mm Y-cable to RCA or 1/4 to connect your external speakers.

Pretty sure this will work.

I'm investigating how I might give some members of our local organists' association, in lieu of a real meeting, a virtual, socially distanced, tour of my HW setup over Zoom. I'd normally expect to be able to share my screen and share computer audio too, but when I test this record a practice session and listen back, the HW sound cannot be heard, just the sound from my microphone.
On my Mac, my HW sound is set to output to the USB Audio interface which is also the default system audio output- and I hear fine through headphones connected to the Audio interface.
Not sure if the problem is solved using a HW Audio Output setting or a Mac Audio interface setting (with some sort of Audio routing tool like https://rogueamoeba.com/loopback/) or something in Zoom, but any ideas or links to useful pages/tools would be welcome.

See my answer - http://forum.hauptwerk.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18612&sid=3b8769922f4d42fce297de6c7a1e2d7a

In your case, once the internal/MAC audio select, connect your headphone to the output jack.

Thanks for your quick answer. That didn't seem to work, unfortunately. I've double checked in a real call, but my colleague can't hear any system sound, not just Hauptwerk, as we also tried an mp3 file, so the problem is clearly not just a HW issue. I'll try one more restart, and keep on Googling!

(edit: Well I've now managed to successfully play back a wav recording from HW through Zoom- didn't sound great quality, it must be said-, so system sound is now working- but still no success with live sounds from HW to Zoom.)

Have you setup Hauptwerk so it will use your internal (MAC) audio device? You must use that device.

Also, have a look at this page; to share your computer audio with zoom, you must "share audio" - https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362643-Sharing-Computer-Sound-During-Screen-Sharing

I am assuming you want to provide verbal instruction via a microphone along with HW's audio.

Ideally your audio interface has a loopback function. When enabled, the audio output from the interface is sent back (looped back) to your computer. That audio can be added as a sound input along with your microphone in a program such as rogue's loopback 2..

If you have an external microphone that you can plug into your audio interface, you do not need the loopback 2 program. You can mix on your interface.

If you search Youtube for "zoom loopback", you will find lots of examples.

I have managed to resolve the problem, but in involved an upgrade of the Mac OS to Catalina and getting round eventually to upgrading to HW V (which I'd bought but not yet got round to installing). The HW V upgrade had its moments (transferring licences from USB dongle to iLok Cloud was as far as I could tell poorly documented) but all there, and my system is now detecting the unencrypted sample sets again, recaching, and (with mixed success) deciding to play straight off from existing settings or require a reboot.

Having Catalina allowed me to install Loopback (and decide to buy it, the same cost as a small sample set!) so I can have virtual sound sources (Mic and HW for instance) recognised by Zoom and switch between them on a call- using Original Audio with the HW sounds results in a surprisingly good quality audio file, almost as good as being local.

Thanks to all for their help.