VSTi bug discovered during first live performance with 4.01

Frank Hoffmann · Post by **Frank Hoffmann** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:19 pm

Do you experience this behaviour with every single VST you own? I can't reproduce that with only 512MB of Ram.

Frank

gsbe · Post by **gsbe** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 4:22 pm

EnjoyRC wrote:I had numerous people/musicians approach me after last Saturdays gig asking me about LIVE. I bet a few of them went home to purchase or at least try it.

I had about 20 people come up and ask me about the program, USB controller, laptop, speakers, everything. It does sound amazing, I couldn't believe it actually worked for the whole gig!

Now if I can just get the thing to simply load songs faster. I'm relying on a DJ to fill in time while my computer loads the next song. It takes a good while to get those VSTi's loaded up - sometimes 2-3 minutes.

EnjoyRC · Post by **EnjoyRC** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 5:59 pm

Frank Hoffmann wrote:Do you experience this behaviour with every single VST you own? I can't reproduce that with only 512MB of Ram.

Frank

I've done various tests on a few. Mainly;
Linplug Albino 2 - Always does it
Spectrasonics Atmosphere - Always does it
Native Instruments B4 - Sometimes does it
Steinbergs HALion 2 - Always does it
Steinbergs Xphraze - Always does it

Now keep in mind, if you load the song, play a few VSTi notes, then start the song, it won't do it. Like it's already been initialized once. If I load the first song, then load another song, then come back to the first song, it's usually ok.

If we assume it's a swapping issue, then try this.

* Restart your PowerBook
* Load LIVE 4
* Load a song that already has the audio track and VSTi configured... don't load anything new or modify anything.
* Start the song with a MIDI controller command (mine is mapped to a pad on my microKONTROL)
* About 30 seconds into the song, start hitting notes on the keyboard....

then it'll skip. This is a very predictable, reproducable problem for me. I can MAKE it happen on command.

Let me know if there's something else I can try for you.

EnjoyRC · Post by **EnjoyRC** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:02 pm

gsbe wrote:Now if I can just get the thing to simply load songs faster. I'm relying on a DJ to fill in time while my computer loads the next song. It takes a good while to get those VSTi's loaded up - sometimes 2-3 minutes.

Holy Cow!!! Mine loads each song in around 10-15 seconds. Usually only one stereo audio track, a few FX, a few MIDI tracks, and one VSTi loaded. My longest loads are the songs that contain Atmosphere and that's the 15 second loads.

Remember, it's not LIVE that is taking a long time to load, it's your VST Instruments.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:58 pm

EnjoyRC wrote:Remember, it's not LIVE that is taking a long time to load, it's your VST Instruments.

Oh yeah, I know. Its pretty frustrating, though. If I were ever to have my own show I would have to run an external CD player or something similar for song changes.

I have two needs for my VSTi's: live performance as a keyboardist with other groups and performing my own sets. I don't ever provide beats or loops with the first situation so I have been using a live template using Nudeno to load multiple VSTi's (I switch sounds by changing the MIDI channel output on the controller). After having done a number of shows with VSTi's over the past year, my "pro" keyboards simply don't sound as real when it comes to pianos, organs, rhodes, wurly, and clav as the VSTi's.

I tend to be more inspired and play creatively if the sound is better - I'm sure I'm not alone in that statement. As a touring live sound engineer and performer, I know its true. Nuendo is a very solid app and I was starting to get into ReWire with Live when the promise of Live 4 became a reality. I will continue to use Live exclusively for my own sets and could easily use a similar template system to my old Nuendo setup for a live gig as a keyboardist only with Live. Time to get more RAM for the laptop, I guess...

gsbe · Post by **gsbe** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:00 pm

sorry, that last post was from me...getting used to a new browser...

EnjoyRC · Post by **EnjoyRC** » Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:21 pm

gsbe wrote:Oh yeah, I know. Its pretty frustrating, though. If I were ever to have my own show I would have to run an external CD player or something similar for song changes...

Or, get a second laptop!!!

* One is loading the next song while the other is playing
* You could MIDI sync um together so they stay in time with each other
* At the end of a song on Computer #1 you could have a MIDI CC sent to Computer #2 that starts the next song
* A measure into the song on Computer #2 you could send a MIDI CC message to Computer #1 telling it to STOP
* And it would look cool as hell!!!!

Cool eh?

EnjoyRC · Post by **EnjoyRC** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 12:10 pm

An additional test:

Following all the behaviors I mentioned earlier as far as not pre-initializing the VSTi prior to starting the song....

If the first note of the VSTi is played from a MIDI track, it does it too! So this verifies that it's not just incoming MIDI froma MIDI keyboard.