Solved: Major playcell issues over here

[TNM]

Hi, this is the first time I have ever had any kind of issue with an Avid branded plugin and I am really surprised.

Play cell seems like a good little rompler.

But I am having a LOT of issues.

I have tried everything I can think of..

Basically, half the time it misses playing the midi data notes, as in gaps.

AND

if the play cell track is record armed, i.e. so I can play it in real time with keyboard and/ore record some midi parts.. well, it is constantly spiking to 100% usage.

You see, this is not a low buffer bug, it's a bug in Playcell itself with PT.. let me explain.

Say I have my buffer at 128 to play virtual instruments, a good compromise for playable latency vs performance, but as we all know, a track is only put onto the buffer chosen in hardware preferences if it is record/monitor armed, whether an audio or instrument track.

The rest of the tracks in the project are on a higher playback buffer, I believe it is 1024 samples in PT's case, and of course as you all know, this happened with PT's engine rewrite some years back, to give it a "hybrid buffer" system like Logic, Cubase with Asio Guard, etc.

So at first I thought, surely it must be a problem with low buffers..

HOWEVER, this is the kicker.

Playcell, although occasionally missing notes (or not so occasionally, it's random), NEVER spikes the cpu when the instrument track is not record armed. it's actually got extremely low DSP usage, just as it should have by its very nature.

BUT, I tested it by setting my pro tools HW buffer to 512 and then finally to the max 1024, which matches the playback buffer of playback tracks anyway... and hence how I know it's a bug. Even at 1024 buffer, as soon as a playcell track is record armed, it will go from a few percent DSP usage in PT's meter to 100 and a big red warning and damaged audio.
That's all that needs to be changed. Even one track of it can be happily chugging along, playing notes here and there when it chooses, and then just a simple touch of that button sends it into full on zombie mode with my computer's cpu brain being the target. Again, this is even at 1024 buffer in HW settings.

Of course, other than auditi0ning playcell for pre recorded/pre existing midi files, it is actually unusable on windows to do any actual recording with.


There should be zero difference whether a track is record armed or not if I have it set to 1024 buffer. But not with Playcell.

This is the only Vi I have ever used that behaves this way in PT.

I have a feeling it's a Windows version specific issue, however my new mac studio arrived last night and I'll set it up soon and test it there, but the aim is not to use PT on that computer, it's the base model (Well, 12 core/32GB/1TB) so I can finally have access to my 100's of Logic projects and export them as audio and midi files so I can import them into PT on my PC.
And then I'll be selling the Mac asap although it's a lot of work to get through so I only hope I can get it done by year's end.

The plan is to continue enjoying PT on Windows.

I haven't had a single crash with PT on Windows yet. I don't want to jinx it but it's been solid as a rock, and this and only one other plugin have misbehaved. The presonus fat channel. That one happened when I resized the presonus GUI, and I saw my 64Gb ram go down from 48GB available to 24 in less than a minute, then I saw every second it was dropping 500mb until I removed the plugin. So that one's on presonus, and I am not even going to try it again.

But I have used lots of other plugs, and UAD native as well, lots of synths, and all has been great bar Playcell.

Anyone else? and what about missed notes? Avid user link is not showing me any updates for anything, it says all is up to date. Not sure what else to try.

[TNM]

Oh well, this TRULY and utterly sucks.

I just re subbed and got the latest version, as well as synthcell and groovecell...

Synthcell is 100% A-Ok.

PlayCell missing notes issue is resolved, it plays back everything in the piano roll.

Playcell CPU spike to 100% issue not resolved, with rice krispy audio.

But it gets worse. Groovecell has the *exact* same issue.

So, it's obviously a problem with their SAMPLE engine that both products use (synthcell is algorithmic, yes)? and has rendered them unusable for me.

This is truly sad, because I could get SO much use out of playcell

But what's worse is how long I have been begging for step sequencing in PT and Groovecell has it with sample import, and I can't play it in real time.

Same thing, regardless buffer size, and now I am trying with my MBox 3 on Win 11 (it works absolutely fine) as I am driving myself crazy and just want to see if an Avid interface behaves differently, I dunno, maybe a direct low level connection to the app or something. But it's identical. The second the red button is pressed, the red bar appears and audio becomes corrupted and either product are just not playable in real time.

I have now confirmed this both on my 13980HX laptop and 14900K desktop, and it's not a "too many cores" issue either, as I disabled hyperthread and E Cores on the desktop just to be able to completely rule out a multithreading issue.

I am actually bummed...

Let's see now, for my 320 AUD, if Avid actually give me support and fix it within the next year.

Because I also noticed, the midi output sometimes not connecting on a synth change bug is still there, 5 years after I spoke to them about it at length, and I was on MAC at the time LOL.. so I am actually quite a bit disillusioned now and thinking they don't fix bugs.

These are showstoppers with the sample engines, and I have to wonder if all beta testers were on Mac.

There is just no way I will go back to Mac, no way...

Avid, you got another 300 out of me, and I paid up early, before the next release, as I wanted to support you, so let's see if you support me now too.

Has anyone else actually bothered to play these things in realtime and record with them?

I suppose I can at least have groovecell in playback buffer mode and still draw steps into it and import samples, I just won't be ablet to compose my own drum, grooves in real time via midi controller.

As soon as groovecell did the same thing, I instantly knew it was a sample engine issue. And that could be a huge thing to fix, but also a very important one, since those synths are part of the deal.

I'll try them on Mac later, need to rest now, and then try find a video of anyone else using them in realtime on Windows, but I implore anyone who could be bothered helping me to at least give it a go and see.

[TNM]

Ok so it's a windows GUI scaling issue that these plugins don't like. I worked it out by myself.

On the laptop I have a 4K panel with 250% scaling and on the desktop a 28" 4k with I think 150% from memory (not in front of it right now).

For pro tools to show properly and not miniaturized, I had to override DPI scaling for PT to system enhanced, and that was the cause of the issue.

I now have changed it to system, and it seems to have solved the issue.