newbie : VST Bug Fix

[Frank Hoffmann]

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

Thanks for helping us with that. We of course investigate any crash/problem report with a demo. This is in the interest of all our users. You can't expect support though.

Btw, you don't have to alter your installed plug-ins for testing. Just don't use any other plug-in as long as Live is open.

It would be great if you could reproduce the crash with the Live 5.2 beta version. It has a crash reporting tool included, that would help us track where it crashes. It would not help on the missing audio though.

It would like to know your audio buffer size and what you selected for
plug-in buffer size.

For the crash or missing audio, do you have any pattern what you have to do that is happens? Maybe at a song loop jump, a song stop or song start? Do you use more than one MIDI channel? What is your normal track setup when it happens. Do you work in Session or Arrangement?

Frank

[Pasha]

Thanks for reply, happy to help!

I will make further testing only on my home desktop.

Thanks for helping us with that. We of course investigate
any crash/problem report with a demo. This is in the
interest of all our users. You can't expect support
though.

As my company does too. BTW I have opened two support request regarding a MIDI program change problem (bank switching) with no answer so far. Is Live 4 Lite eligible for support or is considered as a demo as well?

Btw, you don't have to alter your installed plug-ins for testing. Just don't use any other plug-in as long as Live is open.

Ok. I have checked both systems and they have same Microsoft patch level, no virues, no spyware or bloatware of any kind, AFAIK. I have removed the not needed plugins from the VST directory.

It would be great if you could reproduce the crash with the Live 5.2 beta version. It has a crash reporting tool included, that would help us track where it crashes. It would not help on the missing audio though.

OK. I'll try to. BTW, if you perform a search on the forums using sampletank as a keyword you'll spot a 5.2beta user that claims removal of problems with Sampletank. It might be a good path to investigate. Hope to add my positive comment soon.

It would like to know your audio buffer size and what you
selected for plug-in buffer size.

Audio : 4096 samples if I use stock creative card on notebook,
When using Behringer FC202A FW Interface is set to 192 samples.
I will try to change this as same as Audio Buffer.
Plug-In is setup as 128 in both cases. I did not change it.

For the crash or missing audio, do you have any pattern what you have to do that is happens? Maybe at a song loop jump, a song stop or song start? Do you use more than one MIDI channel? What is your normal track setup when it happens. Do you work in Session or Arrangement?
Frank

Here is my setup and workflow :
All of my problems occur during session view usage.


Glossary :

SS2 = Sonik Synth 2 Free
ST2 = SampleTank 2 Free
Crash = Live quits without notice
Hung = While live plays Impulse clips, it does not play anymore any sound from VST. If you play with channels you can end up in a Crash.

All sound mentioned are those available for free on the download section of IK Multimedia web site.
Basic Setup :
Set tempo to 90.
Track 1: Add any drum clip you like by using Impulse. I drag and drop a clip in session view.
Delete the default AUDIO track.
Track 2-MIDI : Add VST plugin here
Plugin Window opens
Add the sound/part to be played in channel 1 - I use HQ Piano in ST2 or Silky Pad in SS2.
Close the VST Window
Track 3-MIDI : route to 2-MIDI set Trackin Parameter to the channel/part you would like to be played in your VST
I always start with this setup.

Workflow :

Prepare the Basic setup
Set Monitor in on Track 3-MIDI. This will monitor your performance.
Start Live, (by pressing the Play button, not the space bar) the Drum clip plays and you can play along with that, sound is crispy and good.
Arm track 3-MIDI
Record a Clip (I record a 4 Bar clip at 90 BPM) mainly piano chords, 6 voices.
Set 3-MIDI Monitor to Auto (I always do this a short time after I have launched the clips so I switch monitor to Auto when Live is playing) Listen to your performance, as long as you like, tipically twice the length of the longest clip.
Now add another MIDI Track, 4-MIDI.
Route output to 2-MIDI and Trackin Parameter to channel/part 2 of your VST (note that points to a blank part with no sample assigned)
Point track 2-MIDI then open assigned VST.
VST Windows opens.
Add the sample for channel/part 2 (use any of the samples provided for free by Ik Multimedia) )I use Fingered bass for ST2 and P5BrassPad for SS2.
Close VST Window. I had a crash a couple of times at this point with 5.0.3 and SS2.
Set 4-MIDI monitor to in and start playing while you listen. As long as you add more parts and consequently more MIDI tracks with the same routing schema (all route to 2-MIDI, with different channel in trackin parameter), you'll arrive to a point where when 4/5 tracks are routed to the 2-MIDI, after the play-record-listen cycle you experience the 'Audio comes from Mars' problem. You hear a subtle sound when monitoring the last added MIDI channel. If you try to monitor from other channels you hear the same subtle sound as well. At this point you have to close Live and start all over. I call this an hung because despite your efforts you can olny make things worse.

In my experience, there is not a fixed number of tracks that trigger the problem (Audio from Mars), but it always happens. It might be when you have 3 MIDI tracks assigned to the VST, it might be when you have 4. This always happen in the first 20-30 minutes of usage. Sure SS2 acts worse than ST2. I do not know why because they should share the same sound engine. This happens on both machines even if the company notebook is more prone to crash. SS2 crashed 60% of the times, and for the rest is only Audio from Mars, while ST2 gives only the Audio from Mars problem without crashing so far. I only had a couple of hungs of Live 5.0.3/5.0.2 and ST2 that forced me to quit Live.
In general 5.0.2 appears more stable than 5.0.3. Only 5.0.3 crashes, 5.0.2 only hungs with Audio from Mars. 5.0.3 shows problems in less time than 5.0.2 does.

Hope this helps,
Ask for any info if needed.

- Regards
- Pasha

[Frank Hoffmann]

Thanks for the detailed description. Give us some time to try this. I will report back if it helped.

Thanks again,
Frank

PS: We investigate the MIDI problem as well, but we have no JV1010 at hand.

[Pasha]

Thanks for the detailed description. Give us some time to try this. I will report back if it helped.

Thanks again,
Frank

PS: We investigate the MIDI problem as well, but we have no JV1010 at hand.

Thanks 4 taking care.
I have answered to JV1010 topic as well.

Pasha

[Pasha]

PS: We investigate the MIDI problem as well, but we have no JV1010 at hand.

Just one more tip : roland, being GS standard since the beginning always implements in the last years MSB LSB (more significant byte, less significant byte) transmission type for CC 32,0. So any JV series model, XV series model will act the same. I have no experience with newer synths like Fantom series.
My other synth, Alesis Nanosynth has no sub bank so is able to work well with Live, except for bank 0 or program 0 (Live seems not able to send zeros..)

Hope this helps.

- Regards
- Paolo

[mezzmerized]

I have had multiple, frequent crashes while using IK Sampletank, amplitube, T racks plugs. On 5.0.1, 5.0.3 & 5.2b4

I have sent in support requests.


I love the idea of Live. It has changed my view of music creation, production and performance.

Live 5 is my first Ableton product. I try to avoid Pro Tools(although I'm an M-Audio user and M-Powered is appealing), I dislike Cubase now that I've used Live, and I'm not very experienced with other DAW hosts.

I just made the jump from hardware multitrack to pc DAW this year and I am beginning to wonder if I should have.

I am using the beta and am willing to help in any way I can as well.

I believe that Live has great potential and has the opportunity to revolutionize this whole game!!!

All I can say is God speed and "may the Force be with you" or somethin'

I look forward to Ableton success

[Pasha]

I have had multiple, frequent crashes while using IK Sampletank, amplitube, T racks plugs. On 5.0.1, 5.0.3 & 5.2b4

I have sent in support requests.


I love the idea of Live. It has changed my view of music creation, production and performance.

Live 5 is my first Ableton product. I try to avoid Pro Tools(although I'm an M-Audio user and M-Powered is appealing), I dislike Cubase now that I've used Live, and I'm not very experienced with other DAW hosts.

I just made the jump from hardware multitrack to pc DAW this year and I am beginning to wonder if I should have.

mezzmerized,
good to know someone is in the same mood as I am!
Are you dissatisfied with all type of VSTi ? Better I do not sell my hardware sound modules?

[Pasha]

Now I own a full Live 5.0.3, it happens as well.

[Frank Hoffmann]

Ok guys. We tried really hard to reproduce the IK Multimedia problems. But we had only once a crash and only once a "Audio to Mars" problem. Nothing that we can reproduce and nothing we can call frequent. There must be something very different on your systems or the way you use the plug-ins that this happens to you. We will continue to test and try to find a way to recreate the problem. Any insights how to do that are more than welcome!

Thanks,
Frank

[Frank Hoffmann]

My other synth, Alesis Nanosynth has no sub bank so is able to work well with Live, except for bank 0 or program 0 (Live seems not able to send zeros..)

That is not true. Live can and does send for CC 32,0 and PGC value 0. The numbering of these MIDI messages are different from manufacturer to manufacturer. Some start counting with 1 (range: 1-128) and other with 0 (range: 0-127). If your Alesis starts counting with 0 you have to always subtract 1 from the PGC displayed in Live. That's not convenient, but we can't know which sort of synth you control.

Frank

[Pasha]

My other synth, Alesis Nanosynth has no sub bank so is able to work well with Live, except for bank 0 or program 0 (Live seems not able to send zeros..)

That is not true. Live can and does send for CC 32,0 and PGC value 0. The numbering of these MIDI messages are different from manufacturer to manufacturer. Some start counting with 1 (range: 1-128) and other with 0 (range: 0-127). If your Alesis starts counting with 0 you have to always subtract 1 from the PGC displayed in Live. That's not convenient, but we can't know which sort of synth you control.

Frank

Hi Frank,

At the time of my writing I did not experiment further. I was not completely right. Pls take a look at my post :

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

Thanks for your time about IK Multimedia!

[Pasha]

Ok guys. We tried really hard to reproduce the IK Multimedia problems. But we had only once a crash and only once a "Audio to Mars" problem. Nothing that we can reproduce and nothing we can call frequent. There must be something very different on your systems or the way you use the plug-ins that this happens to you. We will continue to test and try to find a way to recreate the problem. Any insights how to do that are more than welcome!

Thanks,
Frank

Hi Frank which Live version did you test?

- regards
- Pasha

[Raul Duke]

Greetings,
I recently updated Amplitube. When I tried to refresh Live's VST browser to use amplitube in Live, Live crashed. I am running Live 5.0.3
The error messages that pop up now when I attempt to start Live are:

while scanning VSTs (Sintf32.dll) (this is at the bottom of the splash screen/Live logo at startup);
Unable to load function: FT_Thunk (Kernel32.dll)

next this comes up...
D:\Projects\rewire\Portable\ReWireDLL.cpp(982) : VERIFY failure
and last...
Runtime Error!
Program C:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 5.0.3\Program\Live 5.0.3.exe
This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

Its odd, Live was working fine, as was an older version of the plugin. Now I get this same result, even after repeated reinstall attempts.

I am running 5.0.3 upgraded from Live Lite 4.x (Line 6 edition)
Do I need the original Live Lite 4 disc to install LL 4 and then install the upgrade I downloaded from Ableton's website?

I submitted a report via email, but I wondered if anyone else had this problem too, or could help me out.
Thank you,
Raul

[enzymex]

[quote="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.[/quote]


Forget getting Live 5 for use with Sampletank / Sonik Synth. IT POSITIVELY WILL NOT WORK RIGHT.

I have Live, Sonar, Project 5, Traction, etc. Sampletank engines work fine IN EVERY HOST EXCEPT LIVE 5.

Ableton support pretends there is no problem. It is pure bullsh*t!