Pacamara Connectivity Questions — (long sorry!)

Question

I recently purchased a Pacamara Ristretto and I love having more processing power. No more out-of-realtime messages even at higher sample rates. I’ve just started working to integrate it into my studio workflow as both an audio interface and a MIDI interface. I have both Ethernet and USB-C connections working and my pacamara shows up in both windows of Audio MIDI Setup window. So far so good. (Though I was somewhat surprised to learn that Host USB inputs and outputs are not independent. In other words it’s not possible for audio or MIDI input to be handled by the pacamara with output handled via Host USB.)

I’m beginning to suspect that the setting “Host USB” refers to a host application (3rd party) and not host computer. Using a 3rd party application (such as Digital Performer or Max), I can route MIDI between my pacamara and my computer … both input and output. However, I do not seem to be able to send MIDI from a MIDI keyboard that is routed directly to the pacamara in my Audio MIDI Setup screen. So those little input/output triangles on the bottom of the pacamara-1250 icon appear to be misleading (?) and it’s not possible for the Audio MIDI Setup application to serve as the host application for this sort of data transfer. (I was kinda hoping that would work.) Is my assumption correct or am I missing something…? 

I can also send audio between Kyma and a 3rd party application (primary testing done with DP and Quicktime). So far when, audio Host USB is selected, I only hear audio while monitoring the host computer. Is that the only way it works … no way to monitor what Kyma is sending? 

(Tried posting on discord, but got error message)

Answer 1

When the Pacamara is connected to the computer via USB-C and Host USB is selected as the audio and/or MIDI device in Kyma's DSP Status window, the Pacamara appears as an audio or MIDI device connected to your computer.

As with other audio or MIDI devices connected to your computer, you can use a dedicated audio or MIDI routing application to route audio or MIDI between devices on your computer. For example, you can use LadioCast (macOS) or VB-Audio Matrix (Windows) to send audio coming out of the Pacamara to an audio interface connected to your computer. For MIDI routing, you could use the MIDI Thru app (macOS) or MIDI-OX (Windows).

As an alternative, you could use a DAW to route audio or MIDI between interfaces.

Comments

Thanks. LadioCast works fine. I found and downloaded MIDI Thru, but it doesn’t seem to do anything … or even run at all anymore.