newbie : VST Bug Fix

[Pasha]

I got Ableton 4 Lite from an oem product, I'm considering switching to Ableton 5 upgrading. I like Live too much.
To get rid of all my wires in the room I have selected SampleTank 2 and Sonic Synth 2 as VST instruments, prior to buy all three (it's gonna be a big investment) I'm experimenting with demos : ST2Free, SS2Free + Live 5.0.3. (crashes, Midi mute and so on).
I've seen others complaining about stability issues with Ikmultimedia products, but here in the forum the sticky VST status does not even consider it!
Is Ableton forgetting about it?
In your experience, how Ableton is sensitive to users problem with other software that should work with Live?

Any help apppreciated I do not want to spend my hard earned cash without being sure of the value

P4 2.6HT 1GB Ram XPSP2.

[WaveRider]

In your experience, how Ableton is sensitive to users problem with other software that should work with Live?

they do not care. I have problems with auto-oscillating parameters in a lot of VST, and we cannot access a parameter if it comes after the 128th (many many!!!)

And now with live 5 it is even worse, I cannot midi map vst parameters at all in a vst that has auto-oscillating parameters. I complained 1 year ago and got an insulting message for third party programmers, apperantly they are bad programmers...

Now Live is the only vst host to have that many problems with vsts and it is not the cheapest. If you rely on third party vsts, take care. Now if you want a cheap sounding overpriced fm synth then buy Operator, it is very well integrated with Live. But if you want a better fm synth for half the price buy Toxic2, but you won't have access to all its parameters.

I myself phasing out Live for music creation, maybe I will still use it for presentation of rendered files.

[Pasha]

In your experience, how Ableton is sensitive to users problem with other software that should work with Live?

they do not care. I have problems with auto-oscillating parameters in a lot of VST, and we cannot access a parameter if it comes after the 128th (many many!!!)

And now with live 5 it is even worse, I cannot midi map vst parameters at all in a vst that has auto-oscillating parameters. I complained 1 year ago and got an insulting message for third party programmers, apperantly they are bad programmers...

Now Live is the only vst host to have that many problems with vsts and it is not the cheapest. If you rely on third party vsts, take care. Now if you want a cheap sounding overpriced fm synth then buy Operator, it is very well integrated with Live. But if you want a better fm synth for half the price buy Toxic2, but you won't have access to all its parameters.

I myself phasing out Live for music creation, maybe I will still use it for presentation of rendered files.

Thanks for reply.
Left alone VST Instruments, how about external gear (sound modules)?

[djastroboy]

I have problems with auto-oscillating parameters in a lot of VST, and we cannot access a parameter if it comes after the 128th (many many!!!)

And now with live 5 it is even worse, I cannot midi map vst parameters at all in a vst that has auto-oscillating parameters. I complained 1 year ago and got an insulting message for third party programmers, apperantly they are bad programmers...

The auto-oscillating VST problem has plagued me as well.
I've had some small success getting developers to change their VST to not self oscillate.
Well OK one success.
What did Ableteon tell you was the problem with the VSTs?
Did Abletone give any advice to them how to fix it?

[hoffman2k]

Quote from Frank Hoffmann / Ableton (not me)

Live will most likely never support more than 128 parameter for automation in plug-in at the same time.

The problem is that you are limited to just the first 128 parameters in Live 4/5. In a future version you will have the choice and select which parameters you prefer to automate.

Frank
_________________
Frank Hoffmann
hoffmann@ableton.com

[djastroboy]

Quote from Frank Hoffmann / Ableton (not me)

Live will most likely never support more than 128 parameter for automation in plug-in at the same time.

The problem is that you are limited to just the first 128 parameters in Live 4/5. In a future version you will have the choice and select which parameters you prefer to automate.

Frank
_________________
Frank Hoffmann
hoffmann@ableton.com

Sounds like a good solution to that half of the problem.
I wouldn't want more that 128 parameters at a time.
Now we just have to get the VST developers to properly label the parameters...
Can you say "hearding cats"?

[Pasha]

What did Ableteon tell you was the problem with the VSTs?
Did Abletone give any advice to them how to fix it?

They told me to talk with the VSTi Maker, in this case, being SampleTank, Ik Multimedia.

[WaveRider]

Quote from Frank Hoffmann / Ableton (not me)

Live will most likely never support more than 128 parameter for automation in plug-in at the same time.

The problem is that you are limited to just the first 128 parameters in Live 4/5. In a future version you will have the choice and select which parameters you prefer to automate.

Frank
_________________
Frank Hoffmann
hoffmann@ableton.com

I got that, that is a very good solution -but I have been waiting for more than a year now. And secondly the problem with oscillation of parameters has gotten worse with live 5 -you can't even map anything in those vsti now.

..so the situation has been getting worse, not better.

[WaveRider]

I have problems with auto-oscillating parameters in a lot of VST, and we cannot access a parameter if it comes after the 128th (many many!!!)

And now with live 5 it is even worse, I cannot midi map vst parameters at all in a vst that has auto-oscillating parameters. I complained 1 year ago and got an insulting message for third party programmers, apperantly they are bad programmers...

What did Ableteon tell you was the problem with the VSTs?
Did Abletone give any advice to them how to fix it?

No advice except asking the rest of the world to fit's ableton's limitations. I won't lobby for that sorry. And they said that all those programmers were unprofessionnal and amateurs. Sorry abes it is not true.

[Frank Hoffmann]

And they said that all those programmers were unprofessionnal and amateurs..

Who said that? This is not our policy and nobody at Ableton ever said that. I am sure.

Frank

[Frank Hoffmann]

Still I have to say that plug-ins that oscillates their parameters:

1) do this in every host and create in trouble in every host, except in hosts that don't have automation recording and/or undo.

2) there is absolutly no change since Live support VST with that, nothing got worse in Live 5.

3) it is common knowledge in the whole audio software developer community that this is not correct behaviour. If anybody has better information about that, then please let me know.

Frank

[WaveRider]

Still I have to say that plug-ins that oscillates their parameters:

1) do this in every host and create in trouble in every host, except in hosts that don't have automation recording and/or undo.

2) there is absolutly no change since Live support VST with that, nothing got worse in Live 5.

3) it is common knowledge in the whole audio software developer community that this is not correct behaviour. If anybody has better information about that, then please let me know.

Frank

1) I never had any problems with auto-oscillation of parameters in Cubase SX2, FL studio, Energy Xt, AudioMulch, Buzz or any other hosts. How can you state the oppsosite? Only Live has problems with those. You are going thru mental gymnastics here to pretend the opposite "except in hosts that don't have automation recording and/or undo" well you are the only one tracking VST parameter changes for undo. Even graphic elements in vsts (like leds flashing) make Live's undo and back to arrangement misbehave. Your soft is the ONLY one doing that.


2)Why don't yourself try it then; it happens in my face everyday!!!!!
I have it in my face day after day since I use V5, why don't you investigate properly? sINCE v5, when trying to midi map controllers in a vst that has auto-oscillating params, those params are detected as if they were the one I want to map, they move faster than I can move the controller I want to map, so I cannot turn a pot and map cutoff for exemple if param28 is constanly updated. A 5 second trial will have you realize that. And that would not happen in V4. So vst compatibility (real world usage) has gone worse in V5, I do not see how can you deny that.

3) I know that it may not be a good programmation practice to "flod the host with parameter changes" but that happens in lots of vsti that I use (mostly synthedit made) but I do not live in a perfect world where specs are clear and all code is perfect, so why don't you adjust to the real world and like your support team suggested provide us with a way where we can exclude parameters from that infernal tracking for nothing your soft is doing.
Your team explained me how they would fix the 128 param limit and the auto-oscillation of param one year ago can you please act on this? These 2 problems are live's biggest problems as a vst host why don't you fix it as you know how????? That and with the unstable midi clock your soft provides conviced me you have screwed-up priorities... so now your have an intel-mac version! big deal, I call that screwed-up priorities and I realized you won't be the one to fullfull my needs if I stick with you. This is a soft for mac laptop djs not musicians that use vstis, external drum machines etc. you priorities are proving that to me.


So anyway I mostly use audiomulch and eXT now and for 115$ instead of 500$ I can use all the vsts i want without any trouble.

Please fix the auto-oscillation bug and the 128 params limit, the midi clock, and after that there is still a ton of work to do to provide MIDI musicians with a pro feature set, be it multitimbral vst freezes or track management (too many needed to drive multitimbral vsts etc) or midi filtering plugs (I cannot even route the mod wheel data where I want to now, like excluding a synth within a split) or the capacity to use midi vst plugins or good keyboard mapping/layering tools or midi editing tools like controller scaling and lots of midi functions with musical signifiance? I lost the ablility to quantize to a bar in V5 since V4, and I bet none of you noticed.

[Pasha]

It seems to me we're going off topic without helping.....
I only wanted to know :

Why IK Multimedia Products are not listed in the VST known program list, because there is need to.
Which VST is best to use with Live? (I need Pianos,Bass,Guitar,Pads)?

It seems that Live guys do not pay attention to every vendor out there, but only to those on the Vst List. Am I right?

[Frank Hoffmann]

It seems to me we're going off topic without helping.....
I only wanted to know :

Why IK Multimedia Products are not listed in the VST known program list, because there is need to.

Which VST is best to use with Live? (I need Pianos,Bass,Guitar,Pads)?

It seems that Live guys do not pay attention to every vendor out there, but only to those on the Vst List. Am I right?

No, that is not true. We try to solve every problem that is brought to our attention. In fact we have a good relationship with IK Mulitmedia. Our problem is that neither IK Multimedia nor Ableton can reproduce the problem. And we can only act on problems we can see and understand.
We definetly need a better description how to create the problem. If you're willing to help with that you're more than welcome.
Please also contact the IK Multimedia support about the problem.

Frank

[Pasha]

It seems to me we're going off topic without helping.....
I only wanted to know :

Why IK Multimedia Products are not listed in the VST known program list, because there is need to.

Which VST is best to use with Live? (I need Pianos,Bass,Guitar,Pads)?

It seems that Live guys do not pay attention to every vendor out there, but only to those on the Vst List. Am I right?

No, that is not true. We try to solve every problem that is brought to our attention. In fact we have a good relationship with IK Mulitmedia. Our problem is that neither IK Multimedia nor Ableton can reproduce the problem. And we can only act on problems we can see and understand.
We definetly need a better description how to create the problem. If you're willing to help with that you're more than welcome.
Please also contact the IK Multimedia support about the problem.

Frank

Frank, thanks for reply,
As a newbie, I see that neither Ableton nor IK multimedia mention each other on their respective websites.
I already contacted Ik Multimedia and I'm still awaiting for an answer.
I work in a software company so you have all my understanting, sometimes it's difficult to reproduce issues. I did not want to sound offensive, If in any case I was, please accept my apologies. I simply wanted an answer about lack of information (on both sides I have to say) about Live+Ik Multimedia.
The only info I have found on this forums are about people complaining about the inability to use Live and IK Multimedia products at the same time. I would have expected to find IK Multimedia in the list of the WIP problems.
Live changed the way I think about music. Since I got verion 4 Lite I did not touch Cubase. I strongly need Live + Sonik Synth or SampleTank.
I'm happy to help, pls tell me how do I can help more.

Being a software professional I'm happy to help. I have 2 computers, and both give me problems. I'm trying to isolate the problem to be more proactive.
It's easy to reproduce on both my machines that are almost equal with demo version only of Live 5.0.3, Sonik Synth 2 Free, Sonik Tank 2 Free. (P4 2.6Ghz HT 1GB RAM and Pentium M 1.6 Ghz 1GB Ram)
XP Pro SP2, all Microsoft Updates. Sonik Synth crashes and when not chrashing looses audio output of VST instrument. SampleTank chrashes less often. It only looses audio output after 10 to 20 minutes usage.
The presence of a stock audio card or Behringer FC202A does not alter the results. The second computer (the notebook) is my company PC so it's a 'no garbage software zone', but strange to say has more problems than my bigger machine where I got some free VST installed (that I'm removing to have better testing)
I'll open a support request, but I thought that opening a support request against a demo is not allowed. If I did not experience this problems with demo I would already bought Live 5 upgrade!

-Regards
- Pasha