DIGIDESIGN please explain :

[Mark Haliday]

I am sure Digidesign knows the answer to that one :

On several posts it is reported that certain plugins do not work properly when instantiated over a certain number of tracks in the same session. personnally I have been plagued with this problem with ChannelStrip and Autotune. Further bad news is that version after version, the problem remains the same.

Although I am aware that this may not be entirely their fault, I think Digidesign cannot ignore this problem anymore. At least an simple explanation would be a welcome start.

After all these plugin makers are suppose to be “develoment partners” ! Digidesign contributes to their business as it also helps Pro Tools look like an attractive platform.

My guess is that it has something to do with the very elaborate GUIs, notably those who have animated displays like Metric Halo ChannelStrip, Autotune and apparently some BF plugs. I suspect that there is somewhere in the system a common (and limited) amount of ressources where these GUIs tap.

Other opinions more than welcome !
[img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Mark Haliday]

Am I the only one having strange things happening with AutoTune and ChannelStrip ? Or maybe I should have titled this thread, "all unite against Alsihad" [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[zeeman]

i can make pt crash anytime i want. lucky me...
all i have to do is bring up 2 channel strips and wait a sec or 2 and bam, crash....
it does seem like a graphics thing.
also, i will boot a session with channel strip and the audio will pass through the plug but the plug won't work till i get rid of it then bring it back , then i have sound. strange.
needless to say i am using it less and less.

cmz

[DaveP]

Originally posted by zeeman:
i can make pt crash anytime i want. lucky me...
all i have to do is bring up 2 channel strips and wait a sec or 2 and bam, crash....
it does seem like a graphics thing.
also, i will boot a session with channel strip and the audio will pass through the plug but the plug won't work till i get rid of it then bring it back , then i have sound. strange.
needless to say i am using it less and less.

cmz

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I have never had a problem with Channel Strip, but I have had the exact problem you describe with Digidesign Trim plug-in. When I had this problem I was using the plug-in in it's RTAS mode, when I switched to using it as a TDM the problem went away. Are you two using Channel Strip as RTAS or TDM?

Dave P

[Rob Macomber]

I have had no problems with multiple channelstrips or autotunes.

R

[Shawn B]

I had a list of about 20 plugins that would do "strange" things all the time on my mix3 system. But, I got tired of nothing being done about it so I stopped writing them down. Bomb Factory graphics would vanish, Lexiverb would stick on certain settings, at least 5 different plugs would randomly stay on, but no audio would pass through them without toggling them on and off. Every now and then you launch a plug and the system just hangs or quits, Etc..
These were all current paid for versions. I've seen the cracked ones do the same things on other systems. Anyone who has spent serious time in front of a few different systems has seen this stuff. I've seen the New England Digi rep crash protools a few times at demos. Just last night Waves Q1 and Q2 would peg the meters randomly on my new HD3 system and needed to be disabled and re-enabled two different times. C4 outright crashed the system once and gave me the "error type 3" forcing a reboot. This at 2 am in front of paying clients. You just have to keep your cool and move on. Protools is such a solid brand name that customers know they are making a choice to work on a computer. And anyone who doesn't think computers have bugs shouldn't work on one. Period. In spite of all that you couldn't pay me to get rid of Protools or the Waves stuff. (Or most of the other plugs either.) The stuff is awesome.
It all seems to work 99.9% of the time. But that .1% can be catastophic. Just save, save, save, save, save, or you are going to get burned. Get burned once for few lost hours of vocal takes and you'll wise up quick.
Protools is still the most stable audio software standard anywhere. And after OSX gets seated correctly it will be that much better.

[zeeman]

dave p, i'm using tdm versionsn of channel strip.
shawn, yea i agree. ya gotta just save, save , save.
after having a session go corrupt on me, i started a folder on my desktop that i just option drag any session i'm working on/with a new time or date every couple of hours or so.
that folder now has hundreds of sessions that if need be i can always grab. it takes up very little disk space and is a nice little safety.
my 2cents.

cmz

[Philthy]

I have problems with TDM BF 1176, Sans Amp. They often pass no audio until I "wake them up."

EchoFarm will only be on the left channel on a mono-stereo aux and I'll have to drag it down a spot to "wake it."

Opening new sessions, Reverb One will sometimes only pass dry signal through until I drag it to a new spot.

[john a]

I have worked on rigs where Channel Strip, after a reshuffle, would either not pass audio or would
"shift" tracks- that is, the audio from the track just to the right of the track would play out of the track to the left ( only if they both had Channel Strip on them). The first in the series of CS'd tracks would not be heard. Imagine how strange that
would sound right near the end of a mix.

Some BF plugs do need to be "awakened" sometimes.

[john a]

I got some feedback from Erik, which follow:

"With Pro Tools 5.1 Digi changed a bunch of things inside the mixer, and plug-ins needed to be updated. If you're running Bomb Factory version 2.03 or later with Pro Tools 5.1 or later, you should be fine.

If you have a reproducible case of anything strange happening, please let us know the steps, and we'll fix it.

We just discovered that installing Sample Tank makes SansAmp disappear from the plug-in list. There are definitely some funky things going on inside Pro Tools, and every plug-in can affect every other plug-in. Try eliminating "problem" plug-ins and see if the problems go away.

That said, many of the problems on the thread sound like low memory problems. Pro Tools does not handle "out of memory" conditions gracefully, nor does it do the right thing when plug-ins say "out of memory! stop!" Try adding more memory to DAE (before 5.3) and/or Pro Tools. Until Digi makes Pro Tools more robust, it will be hard to sort out these nagging little problems."