Steinberg V-Stack Operation Manual

 
2
 
Installation and requirements
for Windows 

 
V-ST
 
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2 – 12 Installation and requirements for Windows 
About this chapter
 
This chapter describes the system requirements and installation pro-
cedures for V-ST 
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 for Windows. Installing V-ST 
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 for Mac OS X 
is described on page 21. 
Requirements
 
To use V-ST 
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, you need the following: 
• 
A PC with either Windows XP or Windows 2000 installed. 
A USB Port is also required.
 
For more details about the computer requirements, see below. 
• 
A compatible audio hardware. 
By audio...

 
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Installation and requirements for Windows 2 – 13 
Computer requirements 
 
Hardware
 
The absolute minimum requirements for running V-ST 
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 on a PC 
are as follows: 
• 
A 233 MHz Pentium computer with 128 MB of free RAM or an equi-
valent AMD processor. 
Recommended configuration for optimum performance: Dual PIII or Athlon procesor, 
1 GHz or faster with 512 MB RAM.
 
RAM
 
VST Instruments don’t necessarily require a lot of RAM. However, if 
you are using a software sampler or drum...

 
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2 – 14 Installation and requirements for Windows 
Audio hardware
 
V-ST 
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 will run with audio hardware that meets the following basic 
specifications: 
• Stereo.
• 16 bit.
• Support of at least the 44.1kHz sampling rate.
• Is supplied with a special ASIO driver, or a DirectX or Windows Multimedia 
compatible driver as described below.
 
❐
 
To be able to use V-ST
 
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 with VST System Link you must have an au-
 
dio interface with ASIO drivers and digital inputs and outputs!...

 
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Installation and requirements for Windows 2 – 15 
If the audio card communicates via DirectX
 
DirectX is a Microsoft “package” for handling various types of Multi-
media under Windows. V-ST 
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 supports DirectX, or to be more 
precise, DirectSound, which is a part of DirectX used for audio input 
and output. This requires two types of drivers: 
• A DirectX driver for the audio card, allowing it to communicate with DirectX. If 
the audio card supports DirectX, this driver should be...

 
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2 – 16 Installation and requirements for Windows 
Hardware installation
 
Installing the audio hardware and its driver
 
1. 
Install the audio card and related equipment in the computer, as de-
scribed in the card’s documentation. 
2. 
Install the driver for the card. 
There are three types of drivers that could apply: card-specific ASIO drivers, DirectX 
drivers and Windows Multimedia drivers:
 
Specific ASIO driver
 
If your audio card has a specific ASIO driver it may be included with...

V-STACKInstallation and requirements for Windows 2 – 17
Testing the Card
To make sure the audio card will work as expected, perform the fol-
lowing two tests:
•Use any software included with the audio card to make sure you can 
play back audio without problems.
•If the card is accessed via a standard Windows driver, use the Media 
Player application (included with Windows) to play back audio.
Installing a MIDI interface
Installation instructions for a MIDI interface should be included with 
the product....

V-STACK2 – 18 Installation and requirements for Windows
Installing V-STAC K
Defragment the hard disk
If you plan to record audio on a hard disk where you have already 
stored other files, now is the time to defragment it. Defragmentation 
reorganizes the physical allocation of space on the hard disk in order 
to optimize its performance using a special defragmentation program.
❐It is crucial to the audio recording performance that your hard disk is op-
timized (defragmented). You should make sure to...

V-STACKInstallation and requirements for Windows 2 – 19
•V-STACK Operation Manual.
Opens the manual you are reading right now.
•ASIO DirectX Full Duplex Setup.
This is where you make settings if your audio hardware uses DirectX for audio play-
back and recording.
•ASIO Multimedia Setup.
This opens a dialog with settings for the ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) system, 
which handles audio playback in V-STACK if you are using the ASIO MME driver. This 
dialog can also be opened from within V-STACK. See...

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