anyone else having timing issues with play and pt 12?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by LightWing

VI will be out later this month. V is the current version I believe.

EW is working on a new Play engine? VI is an abbreviation for virtual instrument and not a plugin version. The current version of Play is 5.04.

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by LightWing

VI will be out later this month. V is the current version I believe.

Yeah Sorry if I confused anyone but when members here use the "VI" term it is meant to be "Virtual Instrument" and thats what I meant aswell

PS. Do EW use roman numerals as their version numbers as VI would represent version nr 6 and if so I understand the missunderstanding.

PPS. Jack I highly doubt EW is gonna go from 5.04 to 6 in one go so I asked around with a guy who actually know some of the techs at EW and as far as they could tell we are not there yet for some time. However they did say that upcoming releases WOULD address some of the issues with midi timing and audio library issues. Who really knows when we get third hand answers but lets hope there are some truths in there.

I remember back a few years asking you and others here about EW Orchestral libs and drum libs but after the issues with the Play 4 engine we went 8DIO as you know Jack and have now bought the entire roster from them which was equivalent to a house downpayment and we would never go back and look elsewhere. Yes they are heavy on the pricing but soo worth it with beautiful sampled sounds and extremely realistic when it comes to their hardware used to sample everything.

Sorry for the high jacking of the thread but just had to say it ... 8Dio is probably THE best one can get today but also the most expensive if you need to get a few libraries from the get go!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

Yeah Sorry if I confused anyone but when members here use the "VI" term it is meant to be "Virtual Instrument" and thats what I meant aswell

PS. Do EW use roman numerals as their version numbers as VI would represent version nr 6 and if so I understand the missunderstanding.

PPS. Jack I highly doubt EW is gonna go from 5.04 to 6 in one go so I asked around with a guy who actually know some of the techs at EW and as far as they could tell we are not there yet for some time. However they did say that upcoming releases WOULD address some of the issues with midi timing and audio library issues. Who really knows when we get third hand answers but lets hope there are some truths in there.

I remember back a few years asking you and others here about EW Orchestral libs and drum libs but after the issues with the Play 4 engine we went 8DIO as you know Jack and have now bought the entire roster from them which was equivalent to a house downpayment and we would never go back and look elsewhere. Yes they are heavy on the pricing but soo worth it with beautiful sampled sounds and extremely realistic when it comes to their hardware used to sample everything.

Sorry for the high jacking of the thread but just had to say it ... 8Dio is probably THE best one can get today but also the most expensive if you need to get a few libraries from the get go!

EW uses 'regular' numbers for version numbers. There is a Play engine called Play Pro that people have been talking about for years that is/was supposed to take care of the issues with the Play engine we have now. But for whatever reason Doug seems to not want to pursue that and more's the pity. This is why I don't buy stuff from EW anymore.

I think there might be a contender to go against 8Dio for use in Kontakt and that's Spitfire. Spitfire Symphonic Orchestra is the name; the December issue of Recording magazine has a review of it and they seem to really like it. Strings, woodwinds, brass and something they call Masse which integrates the three sections together into what the article calls an 'instant orchestra'. Runs inside either Kontakt Player or the full version - yay 255 GB total download and they have the option of getting it on a hard drive. $1699 for all four libraries and the drive is another $79. Two bummers - no percussion library and no saxes in the woodwinds (then again you don't normally see them in a symphonic setting anyway).

Oh yeah - the full boat is selling for $1389 on the Spitfire site as I type this.

[Southsidemusic]

Yeah Were in a Studio a few weeks ago and they used Spitfire. I can attest to that they sound really good IMHO of course

I think that the price lives up to what you do get and many of 8DIO libs I wouldn't be able to tell much difference, only cause we have used 8DIO for soo long now I might be able to hear some subtle stuff but colour me impressed with Spitfire libs for sure.

As we already invested over 20K in 8DIO over a few years and keep adding their new awesome libraries its hard to step off that ship as it floats soo well

Right now they have some nice deals for Black Friday and also a few try it out libs found here: https://8dio.com/instrument-category/try-free/

As you know we make pop music for the US and EU artists and bands so unfortunately we don't use these sweet samples as much as I would like but sure nice to have all those libraries on-tap when we do need them. Percussion and string samples are used frequently though so I don't feel "too bad" for shelling out all that cash

Again Thanks for the Spitfire shoutout since I would have forgot to mention them with all the libraries out there, however Spitfire sound really good for sure and at that price it is hard to beat if you are looking for those sounds.

[TNM]

I've worked it out guys, it's something to do with PT 11's+ high buffer playback engine.

For some reason, play is using the internal buffer rather than being compensated (will try switch off pdc tonight, didn't try that yet), so it's basically playing 1024 samples out of time roughly, but it's still a little inconsistent.

I tested today with manual midi notes with the drums, and pre built midi loops using sync to host method with the midi loops playing from the instrument. Same thing. It's not that it isn't reading the project tempo, it's that it's behind the beat.

If i set my buffer to 64, and press the record button on the instr track, suddenly it's in time. Disengage the button, issues. Since this is absolutely the only aax in existence that does this, it's obviously a flaw in play's coding.

I can't really use it at all, and i dare say, users of orchestral libraries may not have noticed as much because that music has a lot more human expressiveness rather than grid locked.

So 4 months of payment now and i haven't been able to use play in one single project.. it's just so wonderful, the feeling of throwing away 100 USD.

I have confirmed this is the issue.. play is somehow affected by the buffer setting.. for example, even with record armed, if i put the buffer at 1024 or 512 manually, the same thing happens.. make sense?

For some reason, and the way it should be, all other aax instruments compensate on playback.. I tested everything against a kick and click and it's spot on.

To show how bad play is, i simply put a kick, hihat and clap right on the grid.. and you hear it losing time.

I believe this will happen to absolutely everyone with play 4 and PT 12, when the record button is disengaged. Technically, it's still 64 samples out when the record button is engaged, (or 128 if i am working at my usual 128), but it;'s pretty unnoticeable. The problem is, the cpu usage is 4 to 5x. In fact, on my current ish macbook pro quad 2.8ghz i7, using either apollo twin or mac on board audio with apple's bog standard core audio driver, if i arm an instrument track at 64 samples, i get massive cpu usage. 128 is where it's at.. But to put it in perspective, at 128, when armed, it's say 30% to play back the drum part.. when not armed, it's 4%. This is the difference and why it's completely impractical to keep midi tracks armed just to use play. And those figures are on a single instance of play on one single instrument track!

i also found another great bug today.. On their drum player, once you reload a project, all the midi on track is greyed out and won't play.. neither will live auditioning via midi KB.. there is a bug in play on reload that does something to the engine. I have to remove play, and then re insert it in the instrument slot, and suddenly the midi tracks go back to their normal colours and come to life and play.

What absolute GARBAGE software.

Just pure trash. I should have listened to those warning against it over the years.

I guess i wanted an easy all in one complete "everything". I since upgraded to komplete ultimate 11 on the black friday sale, and it destroys play in every way and guess what, timing is ROCK SOLID with kontakt.

How can east west continue to push such rubbish? I don't get it.. Their browser is from the 80;s.. there are no left and right next patch buttons, and every single time you load a new patch it asks you to confirm. Every single time. There is no option to turn that off. It's SO slow to load things and just to audition sounds, even to flick through sounds against a pre existing midi file playing back in the project. It's painful. Damn this is a regret.

That said, if it worked properly at least, i could make suggestions, but not really be angry. But it doesn't.
I just can't reproduce a single problem like this with any other AAX virtual instrument.
it's obviously the way pro tools sends it's transport info, that east west didn't bother to accomodate for.. yet every single other plugin maker DID, lol.

Why do i know this? cause it also happens with the vst hosted through patchworx.

I am seriously considering going to local ombudsman for refund and forced early contract termination on grounds of "not fit for purpose" via Australian law.

[TNM]

Some more info.. all this work I have done over the months and i have worked it out!

new random problem.. play saying it can't find samples.. even though i never have removed them from the single same spot they have been.. i had to manually relink/guide play to the library folder and now that's ok, but it's just one more thing in the bug that is Play.

Ok, re the "new" reload issue with the joe C drumkits, i worked that one out soon after i wrote it.

For some reason when using east west pro drummer, it loses the midi connection on project reload.

I just had to re guide the instr track to output to play and it fixed it. I have never seen this before in almost 2 years of PT, with any aax, so i guess it threw me.

it's a bug, but not a showstopper as it can be manually fixed.

Now, re delay comp.. makes no difference on or off..So that's answered. Never had thought to even try that before suggestion here, thanks :)

I have worked some more stuff out.. All the info re the playback buffer in previous post is correct..it's pro tools internal high playback buffer that is throwing it off time (all play instruments, no matter what, even with hard quantized 4/4 midi).. but if you load back a project fresh, and do NOT enable the record button, it's in sync.
Once a play instrument track has had realtime midi monitoring enabled, by hitting the rec icon, and the track has shifted to the the selected monitor buffer in PT prefs, and THEN the record button is turned off when we have done our recordings, the problem starts.

The reason it was happening all the time with a new project no matter what play instr i loaded, was that i'd first record a bit of midi and therefore arm the track.

I didn't even think of this until it randomly came to me after my post yesterday, to troubleshoot.

What i have to find out now, is whether arming ANY instrument track of any aax plugin, even if not east west, throws play out of sync (the issue here is clearly with PT's hybrid buffer, Play can not handle it), or whether just arming a play track and then disarming it, throws it out of sync. But for today, i have done enough with it, and need a rest.

I am going to do 16 midi tracks with play now with all different instruments, and put an audio drum kick on an audio track to play along. I will record all the midi, it will be out of time, then i will reload the project.. If that "fixes" it, it will confirm my theory 100%.

Will do this tomorrow. What this means is, the current workaround is to close and reload a project, any time a play instrument has had midi recorded to the track or if the track has even been armed so one can play back with the midi kb live. I'll confirm all this completely one way or the other tomoz.
Need...rest.
Cheers.

[musicman691]

TNM:
While I can see you're having problems you did make one comment to the effect of not being a typical Play user as orchestral types don't play to absolute grid and that's true. This is one of those things that would make it nice if EW had a free trial/demo version so you could check it out before spending the money for it. I know they have a subscription deal but even that you have to spend money on.

EW's Pro Drummer had some teething issues and looks like it still has with the Play engine. I would never use this for real drum work especially the kind you're working with. There are better drum programs out there. Yes the Play engine has some issues and they're trying to swat them but they just don't have the technical expertise to get them all, at least not with the current engine makeup. The long talked about Play Pro is supposed to solve these kinds of things as I mentioned earlier but that's become vaporware.

I share your non-enthusiasm for some of the things in the Play engine. I have had it lose the linkage to my sample drives a couple of times but fortunately that was easily remedied. Being a more orchestral user what drives me nuts is this: I have a trumpet part being played by a patch in the Symphonic Orchestra library. Works no problem and I go on to another track with a flute and assign that in another instance of Play. Say I want to go back and edit the trumpet patch and I reopen that Play instance (I close vi gui's when I don't need them). Instead of that instance pointing to the trumpet patch in the browser it shows the last patch selected which in this example is the flute patch. Now I have to go back to the parent library which is EWQLSO, select brass, and then find the trumpet patch I was using. Understand that it plays the patch I had previously assigned but the browser points to the flute patch.

Back to the drum libraries - I like the Stormdrum stuff.

[TNM]

Originally Posted by musicman691

TNM:
While I can see you're having problems you did make one comment to the effect of not being a typical Play user as orchestral types don't play to absolute grid and that's true. This is one of those things that would make it nice if EW had a free trial/demo version so you could check it out before spending the money for it. I know they have a subscription deal but even that you have to spend money on.

EW's Pro Drummer had some teething issues and looks like it still has with the Play engine. I would never use this for real drum work especially the kind you're working with. There are better drum programs out there. Yes the Play engine has some issues and they're trying to swat them but they just don't have the technical expertise to get them all, at least not with the current engine makeup. The long talked about Play Pro is supposed to solve these kinds of things as I mentioned earlier but that's become vaporware.

I share your non-enthusiasm for some of the things in the Play engine. I have had it lose the linkage to my sample drives a couple of times but fortunately that was easily remedied. Being a more orchestral user what drives me nuts is this: I have a trumpet part being played by a patch in the Symphonic Orchestra library. Works no problem and I go on to another track with a flute and assign that in another instance of Play. Say I want to go back and edit the trumpet patch and I reopen that Play instance (I close vi gui's when I don't need them). Instead of that instance pointing to the trumpet patch in the browser it shows the last patch selected which in this example is the flute patch. Now I have to go back to the parent library which is EWQLSO, select brass, and then find the trumpet patch I was using. Understand that it plays the patch I had previously assigned but the browser points to the flute patch.

Back to the drum libraries - I like the Stormdrum stuff.

I hear ya!

Re the drums though i disagree, it's a fantastic acoustic drummer, the way you can lay out songs right in the plugin is perfect for a non drummer like me. if it was in SYNC, it would be AWESOME (besides the painful patch browsing/loading). yep i can concur your bugs and at least you have concurred the samples one for me.. which means i bet if you used the drummer you could concur the timing issues also!

I have found out, that the save/reload trick works to get drummer in sync, but none of the loop libraries.. Even though i have sync to tempo activated, and trigger notes directly on the bar every bar, hard quantized, they are always out of time, unlike with logic.

problem is, i really do prefer pro tools significantly to logic these days, and i think the gui is a big part of it. I feel a lot more creative every time i launch PT cause of the feel of the working environment.

Play is at version 5 already.. i have 5.04.. this tells me, that since it started at V 1, and they still can't get it right, that they simply won't or are not able to. I am paying for the complete sub, and in my case it was for the pianos, loops and all drummers. Therefore they should work, simple as that. I guess i will use the choir occasionally too. But yeah, nothing untoward with just expecting it to work and sync to the beat LOL!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by TNM

I hear ya!

Re the drums though i disagree, it's a fantastic acoustic drummer, the way you can lay out songs right in the plugin is perfect for a non drummer like me. if it was in SYNC, it would be AWESOME (besides the painful patch browsing/loading). yep i can concur your bugs and at least you have concurred the samples one for me.. which means i bet if you used the drummer you could concur the timing issues also!

I have found out, that the save/reload trick works to get drummer in sync, but none of the loop libraries.. Even though i have sync to tempo activated, and trigger notes directly on the bar every bar, hard quantized, they are always out of time, unlike with logic.

problem is, i really do prefer pro tools significantly to logic these days, and i think the gui is a big part of it. I feel a lot more creative every time i launch PT cause of the feel of the working environment.

Play is at version 5 already.. i have 5.04.. this tells me, that since it started at V 1, and they still can't get it right, that they simply won't or are not able to. I am paying for the complete sub, and in my case it was for the pianos, loops and all drummers. Therefore they should work, simple as that. I guess i will use the choir occasionally too. But yeah, nothing untoward with just expecting it to work and sync to the beat LOL!

Being a drummer (as well as keyboardist & guitar player) that timing would drive me nuts. Now I'm no Gene Hoagland (metal drummer often called the Atomic Clock for his time keeping ability) but I play reasonably well enough on my ekit to make things work but with regular drum programs like BFD3 and and the others. The reason I do things that way instead of laying down grooves in a drum program is I can move to another drum program for the sounds if I need to. All I have to do is to make sure the MIDI mapping is the same on both.

But hey - we each work our own way.

Timing doesn't become an issue with the regular orchestral libraries providing you have the bandwidth with your sample drive(s). This is where ssd's are the go-to on modern systems. Even then if you're running multiple instruments (not articulations but instruments) in one instance of Play you may well run into performance issues on dense tracks.

As far as having to okay when loading a new instrument in a Play instance that already has one that's because Play has no idea if you want to overwrite the current loaded instrument or add the new instrument on another slot. Would be nice to have a global preference to select what you want.

It's for the reasons outlined here I don't buy new libraries for Play but spend my money on Kontakt stuff.

[TNM]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Being a drummer (as well as keyboardist & guitar player) that timing would drive me nuts. Now I'm no Gene Hoagland (metal drummer often called the Atomic Clock for his time keeping ability) but I play reasonably well enough on my ekit to make things work but with regular drum programs like BFD3 and and the others. The reason I do things that way instead of laying down grooves in a drum program is I can move to another drum program for the sounds if I need to. All I have to do is to make sure the MIDI mapping is the same on both.

But hey - we each work our own way.

Timing doesn't become an issue with the regular orchestral libraries providing you have the bandwidth with your sample drive(s). This is where ssd's are the go-to on modern systems. Even then if you're running multiple instruments (not articulations but instruments) in one instance of Play you may well run into performance issues on dense tracks.

As far as having to okay when loading a new instrument in a Play instance that already has one that's because Play has no idea if you want to overwrite the current loaded instrument or add the new instrument on another slot. Would be nice to have a global preference to select what you want.

It's for the reasons outlined here I don't buy new libraries for Play but spend my money on Kontakt stuff.

i'm only a keyboardist as i learned piano from young.. but i do plan on learning guitar some day if health allows. With the ok thing, that's exactly right, they just need a preference.. There is not one time yet where i haven't wanted to overwrite the preset and clicked "ok".. so for me, it's just an annoying extra step. And how about some left/right arrows! for previous/next!

I'm going to render some files of the timing of the drums and loops from various daws.