I’m planning a larger acoustic kit with multiple toms, snare, kick, hi-hat and several cymbals, and I’m wondering if it is possible to run two Evans Portal interfaces simultaneously on a single Mac with Sensory Percussion 2 so that I can comfortably cover all drums and cymbals.
If this is supported:
Are there any specific requirements or recommendations for the Mac hardware (CPU model/generation, number of cores, RAM)?
Is there a minimum or recommended RAM size (e.g. 16 GB vs 32 GB) for stable performance with two Portals and a larger number of sensors, including cymbals?
Are there any known limitations or issues when connecting two Portals to the same machine (USB bandwidth, aggregate device setup, driver conflicts, etc.)?
If this is not officially supported, I’d also be grateful for any workarounds or alternative setups you’ve successfully used (for example, using two computers, or combining one Portal with another interface) for larger kits with several cymbals.
Thanks in advance for any help and for sharing your experience!
The easiest way I have found yet is to open one instance of stand alone and one instance of the plugin and set each interface separately.
Alternatively I HAVE had some luck forcing Ableton to open two separate instance of sensory percussion plugin on Ableton and create an aggregate device between my two portals, but this is extremely glitchy currently. Tbh I rarely need more than 7 actual sensors and tend to find filling the rest in with traditional piezzo triggers or Roland pads works wonderfully.
I’m trying to determine the maximum supported sensor count with Sensory Percussion 2 and the EVANS Portal.
From the documentation, I understand the Portal provides 7 dedicated sensor inputs. In this thread, it appears that legacy SP-V sensors can also be connected through the A/B combo inputs, bringing the total to 9 sensors on a single Portal.
Can someone from Sunhouse confirm:
Is 9 sensors on a single Portal officially supported?
Can the A/B inputs be used with current-generation sensors, or only legacy SP-V sensors?
Can Sensory Percussion 2 use two Portal interfaces connected to the same computer at the same time?
If dual-Portals are supported, what is the maximum supported sensor count?
Are there any limitations on positional sensing, training, or latency when using A/B inputs versus sensor inputs 1-7?
Officially only v1 sensors are supported in the XLR inputs. We’re hoping to release a converter for v2 sensors. It’s in the works, but no timeline is available atm.
We’ll be releasing dual-portal support in the next major update (coming pretty soon). With that, you’ll be able to use 18 sensors assuming you have four v1 sensors (and a fast computer!)
No limitations – you’ll just have to make sure you set the gain at the correct level.
Would that v2 sensor converter work with a non evans interface? I have an Evans Portal and RME UFX III, would be great to use a couple of the UFX III XLR inputs for the Sp2 software
We just released 2.8-beta5 that includes dual portal support. If you don’t have two portals, you can also use a different interface as your main interface and use the portal just for sensor inputs.
That’s awesome, thanks for the response. After looking through the update notes, you guys have been doing great work! Looking forward to checking it out