East West PT 11 crash issue

[benherron.rrr]

I apologise, I suffer from mental problems and am really trying to make music a bread winner for me after my degree so am just very frustrated and stressed out from these issues.

I am looking into upgrading RAM and hard drives but I am trying to work out whether or not it is worth spending money on upgrades compared to saving for a whole new computer.

The general problem I am having is with VI's, mostly East West stuff, BFD3 has a few issues but I think that is mostly down to a buggy interface. The blue drives I have are used for the OS and my recording drive, I don't really think the problem is coming from these because I have never had problems running large audio-only mixes. All my sample libraries are stored on the Lacie d2 quadra connected via eSata, which shouldn't be an issue according to people over at the East West forums and has never presented any issues in the last 3 years.

I have just tested EW running standalone and running in Pro Tools, When I load a Steinway patch (with 2 mic positions active) in standalone my RAM is showing 2.62GB usage (1.9 when computer was idle) and the CPU metre in play registering a 6% peak when playing (14% In task manager). However when I open a session in Pro Tools with only an instrument track with Play as an insert and loading the same patch that I loaded in standalone I see my RAM usage max out (while PT is loading up) and once the session has loaded the CPU meter (both in play and PT) show a lot of unusual spikes, while playing there are a lot of notes cutting out/not registering and even with a small amount of voices being played I get that glitchy, bit-crushed sound. I should also mention that in both instances the play engine was set to high, with 1024 maximum voices and a 256 buffer. As I have mentioned, I have been using the same system for a few years now and I have never really had a problem with it, I have been able to load up a piano patch with several instruments loaded from symphonic orchestra and a kit loaded in BFD with FX plugs without experiencing problems and my computer handling it quite easily. But recently, for some reason as soon as Pro Tools is open my computer seems completely maxed out (even before a session is open) and I can't really find out where the power is going and why it is dong that. These are the reasons why I believe the problem doesn't lie with hardware but with the software or some setting I have missed somewhere.

I hope this makes some sense.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by benherron.rrr

I apologise, I suffer from mental problems and am really trying to make music a bread winner for me after my degree so am just very frustrated and stressed out from these issues.

I am looking into upgrading RAM and hard drives but I am trying to work out whether or not it is worth spending money on upgrades compared to saving for a whole new computer.

The general problem I am having is with VI's, mostly East West stuff, BFD3 has a few issues but I think that is mostly down to a buggy interface. The blue drives I have are used for the OS and my recording drive, I don't really think the problem is coming from these because I have never had problems running large audio-only mixes. All my sample libraries are stored on the Lacie d2 quadra connected via eSata, which shouldn't be an issue according to people over at the East West forums and has never presented any issues in the last 3 years.

I have just tested EW running standalone and running in Pro Tools, When I load a Steinway patch (with 2 mic positions active) in standalone my RAM is showing 2.62GB usage (1.9 when computer was idle) and the CPU metre in play registering a 6% peak when playing (14% In task manager). However when I open a session in Pro Tools with only an instrument track with Play as an insert and loading the same patch that I loaded in standalone I see my RAM usage max out (while PT is loading up) and once the session has loaded the CPU meter (both in play and PT) show a lot of unusual spikes, while playing there are a lot of notes cutting out/not registering and even with a small amount of voices being played I get that glitchy, bit-crushed sound. I should also mention that in both instances the play engine was set to high, with 1024 maximum voices and a 256 buffer. As I have mentioned, I have been using the same system for a few years now and I have never really had a problem with it, I have been able to load up a piano patch with several instruments loaded from symphonic orchestra and a kit loaded in BFD with FX plugs without experiencing problems and my computer handling it quite easily. But recently, for some reason as soon as Pro Tools is open my computer seems completely maxed out (even before a session is open) and I can't really find out where the power is going and why it is dong that. These are the reasons why I believe the problem doesn't lie with hardware but with the software or some setting I have missed somewhere.

I hope this makes some sense.

Of course you're going to have more ram usage when running PT and sample based plugins like Play and BFD - that's the nature of the beast. And it sounds like you're running out of ram - you simple have to max out what your computer can take. Simply put you are having hardware issues and need to upgrade your computer system. Saying because it worked before it should work now is a fatal flaw and you're seeing the results.

BFD can be a memory hog depending on how you have the ram handling setup in it. If BFD3 is like BFD2 you can choose whether to use 16 or 24 bit samples, and whether to load on demand or load all samples from a kit and not stream from disk. If you do decide to stream then you're going to need fast drives and depending on the actual drive you have on that esata connection - say you have a 5400 rpm drive - it is a problem and you're wasting the speed of an esata conenction.

Play by default streams from disk but that can be overridden on a per instrument basis. Buffer setting in Play when running inside PT means nothing; that's only for running in standalone.

As to whether you upgrade your existing machine or get a new one is totally up to you.

[s9dd]

Along the same lines, I have just added the EWQLSO and other titles in the CCC2 Pro range to my setup, and oh boy! What crashes it creates!

My system has Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 installed, so I have that option.

I load up EW QL Pianos - lovely BTW! - and try to play that plugin alone. It's stable for 5-10 mins then bombs PT with a combination of "Autosave failed to function - if your drive is read only..." errors, not to mention a parade of 907x hardware errors.

Thought I cracked it with setting it to optimise for streaming... but no.

I am only playing piano. What if I loaded the strings? Loads more errors.

I have separate Caviar Black 2Tb drives installed. One for samples, defragged, and another for sessions. Play v4 latest.

Wondering about stability. v10.3.9 of PT installed. TDM HD3 system. W7x64 latest patches. i7 8core. 16Gb RAM.

Advice sought here too.

[grahamsimmonds]

Dear Ben

I fully sympathise with you. I have used Play for years and have grown used to it blowing things up regularly. However, I love the sounds it makes and whilst I don't have Pianos I do have Diamond Brass & Strings which do just a good a job of maxxing out my computer especially if you go for multi samples. I do have BFD3 which was pretty flaky too (but there is a recently released free update - have you downloaded it?)

As Pro Tools 11 does not handle Midi or VIs well, can I suggest that you try putting Play inside Vienna Ensemble Pro 5 and connect it to Pro Tools from there? Play not only behaves itself much better inside VE Pro but if Play does max out your memory at least it does not take Pro Tools down with it and you do not lose your performances. You just reload VE Pro connect it back up and away you go.

I would suggest that once you have got the performance and sound you want that you print the Play output to audio in PT to release some capacity for mixing. Also you will need to get round that unbelievable ADC bug as well.

I cannot tell you how much time and stress VE Pro has saved me. There is a 30 day demo on the Vienna website so you can try it out. The added joy of it is that you get 3 licenses so you can run VEPro with your VIs on a slave computer eventually which is what I am doing now.

Best of luck Ben! PS you do need more RAM but if that's all you can afford at the moment then as I say print to audio when you are done. I have 32Gb RAM but I have never managed to load up more than 25Gb before the CPU gives up the ghost. I am not sure about the comments regarding your hard discs. Unless you were to get SSDs I am not sure you will solve any of your issues with new hard discs. The joy of SSDs is that the samples load much quicker!

[s9dd]

@Graham

My system has a few things which I have set up.
1) 4 of 8 processors 99% for PT, this is modest.
2) I have rigged it to be "optimised for streaming" in the engine.
3) I switched off AutoSave session in options.
4) I have 16Gb RAM.

I have found it to be slightly more reliable in PT than Ensemble Pro, but this is so early in stability testing that it would be unethical to trust that last point.

So I guess the obvious things would be
1) to upgrade the RAM, to 32Gb.
2) to take out the Caviar Black 2Tb and replace with 2x 1Tb SSDs

?

David
UK