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  #1  
Old 12-20-2017, 08:39 PM
TNM TNM is offline
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Default Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on order?

After the saga last night, now none of my plug in presets will show. I followed the instructions and pro tools recreated the folder and the air and xpand ones showed up, but no other plugins will install their presets any more.

The extra air plugins from the plus collection for example will just not put their presets in the pro tools folder that is just freshly created. They shower with none,. Only the plugins that come for free with pro tools have presets.

MCDSP won't. Nothing will. I am over it.

This laptop has been a junk haven since 2015 when i got it as a refurb from apple...it is my test and play machine, i have uninstalled and installed 1000 demos LOL..
I need to wipe it, give the ssd a nice re condition and install sierra from the get go (will not touch HS), not yosemite, then el crapitan then sierra,

I'll install PT 12.8.3 fresh.

I thought i was at least installing PT itself fresh earlier today when i removed all avid stuff and reinstalled.. but obviously there are issues.

The reason i need help is this..

what i am asking is the best correct order to install everything after i install the OS.

obviously sierra, followed by any critical updates, followed by interface drivers, followed by Pro tools..

but then, what order for the avid plugins? any way better in particular than another?

Since i am always using this macbook, i think I am going to retire my imac and migrate to this for everything. After all it has the same amount of TBolt ports and has USB3 whereas my imac is the last USB2 one with TBolt1. T(macbook has Tbolt 2).

I'll use the keyboard i have with numeric keypad and even use the imac as a screen (27").

So i want to do this properly, i'll be using my apollo on it, all my midi gear etc (i'll be using 2 OWC pass through thunderbolt docks for extra usb ports, and a drive will be the last thing on each thunderbolt chain.).

So.. what do you recommend? PT then xpand and air collection, then the free instruments collection (boom which i need, DB33 etc), and THEN any newer Air plugins ( i bought their complete deal some time ago)
and then third party plugs?

I just don't want any issues with having no presets and disappearing presets.. i got to say, this is something i NEVER experienced in 20 years with Logic lol.. It always read the files where i put them, end of story.


Cheers and sorry for the TL;DR!
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  #2  
Old 12-20-2017, 08:50 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

Work with a new disk drive or empty partition on a current disk. if a new drive, ideally get a fast a SSD as you can find (e.g. Samsung T5) so you can boot and run off it for testing. You will need another backup drive a well, and Carbon Copy Cloner.

Download the full macOS/OS X installer and run that to do a full clean install in that empty partition (you should definitely not be doing an update).

Create an account for yourself, on that new install do *not* use the systems migration assistant to migrate over your account or anything else from the old install.

Install ILM

Install Pro Tools

Install *nothing* else for now

Optimize the system fully

Check that runs well using Built In Output as the playback engine.

Intall interface drivers.

Check that works

Install additional plugins (ordering is not important, what is important is you check they are up to date, don't install say crap you don't actually need, and check after each major install that stuff works... build a nice test session as you go.).

Check they work.

At some point after doing a lot of work make a Carbon Copy Cloner backup of what you have done so you can roll back to that if there are problems.

Install other third party apps if needed. Check Pro Tools still works OK.

If needed eventually you can migrate over your old users documents to the new boot disk, you can just do that by dragging and dropping folders.

When fully happy and all this has been running for a while use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your new install over the top of your old system boot drive.
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  #3  
Old 12-20-2017, 09:43 PM
TNM TNM is offline
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

Thankyou kindly. I do use CCC, it's wonderful. I make 1:1 clones and have a few back up drives.

I will be formatting the internal 1TB Apple Flash SSD, which is the 1000 MB/S throughput. Mine gets about 900 in tests. I don't think any single thunderbolt drive would be much better.

I use a mechanical drive for my audio projects.


It makes sense, it's a TB ssd internally and works great as an OS and sample library storage drive. I'll split everything across the external thunderbolt drives, and one of them, the G drive 7200, will be devoted only to pro tools projects and audio read/write. Considering the track count limitations of pro tools vanilla, it's not even remotely possible to max out a single 7200 rpm drive with 128 tracks.. It will make it work, sure, but i tend to use 32 most songs anyway, that's it, and lots of midi.

The TBolt 512gb SSD will be devoted to samples.. So, basically, 1 tb internal SSD, OS, PT, plugins, some samples, etc.. 1TB 7200 Tbolt - audio drive - 512 SSD T Bolt - Samples

I really only have komplete ultimate and play and a few loops. My samples probably total 1 TB, the ones i would ever use. so i'll put 500gb on main drive and 500 on the lacie. I won't be writing to that drive. Regardless, I have 3x 2TB usb 3 WD drives for backing up, one of them a dual raid in mode 1 for redundancy. I'll have them connected to the first Thunderbolt dock.

That wasn't the stuff i was worried about so much, more so the issues i have had with disappearing presets and odd behaviour (like after today's reinstall, pro tools refused to receive midi, even though the KB was on, connected, and recognised by the OS, and Logic, etc).

I actually do think something is a bit flakey in 12.8.3 though, i know 12.8.2 wasn't perfect but i DO know that my particular mac with sierra, does not have the graphics slowdown issues with 12.8.2.. I think i'll go straight to that for now, on a nice freshly installed OS :)

But i will do a pass with the diglloyd disktester.. it's a great app, the dev isn't the best though, it's $40 and you are only allowed to download 1 months worth of updates (seriously). I'll run it tonight.. Will be like a brand new SSD :) all blocks fresh.

Cheers

(ps i think i am also going to invest in the latest disk warrior as it has saved me plenty of times).
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  #4  
Old 12-20-2017, 09:52 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

...I would not don't start by sticking my head in the bear trap and deliberately destroying your currently running system, unless it is totally dead. You can boot and run fine at least to get started on a T3 or T5 or similar SSD. Disk cache will even let you run a decent session on that. Do your brain surgery on a spare drive and then clone that over your disk.

Eventually as you are laying stuff out I'd be putting my sessions on the internal SSD, that's going to be faster and more reliable than any slow old external HDD.
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  #5  
Old 12-20-2017, 10:11 PM
TNM TNM is offline
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm View Post
...I would not don't start by sticking my head in the bear trap and deliberately destroying your currently running system, unless it is totally dead. You can boot and run fine at least to get started on a T3 or T5 or similar SSD. Disk cache will even let you run a decent session on that. Do your brain surgery on a spare drive and then clone that over your disk.

Eventually as you are laying stuff out I'd be putting my sessions on the internal SSD, that's going to be faster and more reliable than any slow old external HDD.
it's not old, it's the fastest single tier portable non SSD thunderbolt drive available and is consistently at about 130 mb/s. That is plenty for even 128 tracks of 44k audio, or 64 tracks of 96, and a mechanical drive is much more suited to constant rewrites. I have 500Gb of junk here, it would be just as easy for me to format and start from scratch than it would be to systematically find and remove all the junk.

It was my mistake in the wording, that I came across as a noob. I only wanted to know what order to install Pro tools and plugins, that's it. I gave the backstory as i like to explain why i do things. I shouldn't have in hindsight in this case.

I built windows machines for many years and know mac os very very well, from 10.3 to 10.12 i have used it. It was just this bizarre situation with presets disappearing, and it was the final, "bugger it i'll do a nice clean install". I was trying to simply; work out why the presets disappeared.. i already gave the pro tools folders complete permissions, and followed avid's exact rebuild instructions, but something went wrong with the air installers and reinstalling is having no effect...

In any case, i have built every machine i have ever used prior to macs, installed all my own OS, and wiped and installed every new mac i have received fresh to do it my way anyway, or when a new OS became available. This is the first time i have layered os on os on os, and i think that could attribute to the funkiness too.

I think repeated writes to an ssd of small files on a daily basis and deleting them all the time as one does, to clean up takes, optimise, etc, is not a good thing.

The SSD's will be used for sampler/rompler samples where they will be much more useful.

i'll have it all completely done by sunday's end. If i still have disappearing presets on a brand new install, i guess i'll ask avid directly.
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  #6  
Old 12-20-2017, 10:27 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is online now
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

I don't follow all the need for details and performance tests etc. You are seeing about what is expected from a slow old SATA HDD, as in slow old rotating hunks of stuff, I don't care how old the actual drive is. I'd have no reason to doubt that or any reason to measure any storage performance here (and I've spent years working in the storage technology industry).

I would just not bother putting session on external drives.. If you have work in progress that is huge then sure. But I'd be creating new sessions on the internal SSD and eventually retire the external HDD. Just start by running *everything* you can off the internal SSD. Move samples elsewhere if you need to. And for initial testing keep that external HDD away from the system and test with new clean sessions on the internal SSD. KISS.

Overall you posts come across like you are going out out of your way to built in lots of complexity. Just try to do stuff as absolutely simple as possible at least to start with,... to see if the problem you are seeing is still here. GUI lag? Just throw up the macOS install and install ILM and Pro Tools and have a quick play. Do it on a test partition (maybe shrunk from the main boot drive) and be willing to test quick and throw away. GUI problem gone away at that point then it's worth going further, if not...

And even if starting on an external SSD USB 3 that you then clone to the fast internal SSD to do final testing.

I know you are very experienced, but the complexity jumps out here.
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  #7  
Old 12-21-2017, 08:09 PM
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unkJE unkJE is offline
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

Quote:
Originally Posted by TNM View Post
.... The extra air plugins from the plus collection for example will just not put their presets in the pro tools folder that is just freshly created. They shower with none....
As you mentioned you're familiar with both, I hope this Windows list lets you work out the Mac location for all AIR Presets:

8 extras in the Creative FX Collection Plus:
AIR Pumper
AIR Spectral
AIR DiffuserDelay
AIR TubeDrive
AIR Compressor
AIR Maximizer
AIR ParametricEQ
AIR Saturation Filter

The default location for all AIR Presets in Windows is in
Program Files (x86)/AIR Music Technology

Using AIR Pumper as an example:
Copy the Presets Folder from
Program Files (x86)/AIR Music Technology/AIR Pumper
and paste it in
Users/User Name/Documents/Pro Tools/Plug-In Settings
then change its name from 'Presets' to 'AIR Pumper'.

For all AIR Presets, you can also paste this URL:
file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/AIR%20Music%20Technology/
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Last edited by unkJE; 12-21-2017 at 08:20 PM.
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  #8  
Old 12-21-2017, 08:22 PM
TNM TNM is offline
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

hi yes i foudn the presets yestersay and copied them manually into the pro tools presets folder, and thank you also, but the point is that no presets of any plugins seem to be getting installed anymore.

I've already slated the wipe for tomorrow morning, i'll be done by the time I visit my fam on Christmas eve :)

Then on Tuesday, i'll get back to using the freshest most fresh install of pro tools i have ever had! :)

Cheers
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  #9  
Old 12-22-2017, 09:49 AM
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unkJE unkJE is offline
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

Quote:
Originally Posted by TNM View Post
hi yes i foudn the presets yestersay and copied them manually into the pro tools presets folder, and thank you also, but the point is that no presets of any plugins seem to be getting installed anymore.
Good to read you got your AIR Presets sorted!

For the other Plug-In Presets:

The various Manufacturers' Plug-In Presets need to be copied from their Default locations and pasted in Pro Tools Plug-In Settings location:
C drive\Users\User Name\Documents\Pro Tools\Plug-In Settings

With the exception of Waves, whose Plug-Ins are collectively listed at:
C drive\Users\User Name\Documents\Pro Tools\Plug-In Settings\Waves\WaveShell AAX
and
C drive\Users\User Name\Documents\Pro Tools\Plug-In Settings\Waves\WaveShell-DAE

…. all the other Plug-Ins need to be “busted out” of their Manufacturer's Folder and individually listed with their own Folder in C drive\Users\User Name\Documents\Pro Tools\Plug-In Settings

Copy the Presets for Blue Cat Audio, Eventide, IK Multimedia, iZotope, Toontrack, etc, from their Default location at:
C drive\Users\User Name\Documents

Copy the Presets for Plugin Alliance from
C drive\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins\Plugin Alliance
For example:
C drive\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins\Plugin Alliance\bx_bassdude.aaxplugin\Contents\Factory Presets\bx_bassdude

Copy Softube's individual Presets from
C drive\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins VST AAX 64-bit\Resources
For example:
C drive\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins VST AAX 64-bit\Resources\Summit Audio Grand Channel.aaxplugin\Contents\Factory Presets\Summit Grand Ch

Copy Soundtoys5 from its Default location at:
C drive\Users\Public\Documents\Soundtoys\Soundtoys 5

Copy Sonnox from its Default location at:
C drive\Users\Public\Documents\Sonnox\Oxford Plugins\Presets


A Windows (C drive) Search of any Plug-In Manufacturer's Name eventually finds the location of their Presets.
Takes a while for the green Search Results line to "find it".
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Last edited by unkJE; 12-22-2017 at 11:31 AM. Reason: Have a great Christmas - happy 2018 to all!
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  #10  
Old 12-24-2017, 12:29 PM
TNM TNM is offline
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Default Re: Time to throw in the towel and re install.. need some advice, please.Advice on or

sorry to bump this, but I haven't been able to do anything cause apple have taken away sierra from my purchased list in apps.

I have every other OS back to 10.7 there and always thought that was a safe place. There are complaints all over the net..

I literally can only install el crapitan fresh, and then it will give me the option to go to high sierra.

I don't even know how to react to this. Apple's logic is that any machine that can run sierra can run high, so they couldn't care less about the myriad of apps i use that are incompatible with it, or that i'll soon lose all 32 bit support. (i run 32 bit plugins made into 64 bit plugins via "32 lives" then use them in blue cat patchworx.. things liek quadrasid work perfectly in pro tools this way, and there's still no other complete decent c64 emu instrument).

Apple have this eternal quest to "de complicate" things for customers, yet I find itunes for example, and backing up iphones, as well as the way their cloud works, to quite possibly be the most awful, unintuitive POS I have ever used.

I think in their desperateness to make everything OTT user friendly, they tipped over a point where they don't even know what that is anymore.

There is no WAY i will use el crapitan, and that will be the next OS that Avid drops support for, at least with sierra i'll have a few years, i would have been happy to use yosemite but i'll have to stop at PT 12.8.. do you think Avid will give me a refund lol? What's the point.

Sierra was the compromise i was willing to live with. I spent enough of my Xmas weekend trying to find a legit way to download it. If by some miracle it ever appears in my account as it should, i will download and back it up on 3 different mediums.

I don't think I have a choice anymore.. I have honestly never felt so violated and downright been shown so much contempt from a company as apple have done the last 3 years when they lost the plot.

I started in 2000 with them with PT, a G3 then G5 for the studio.. once the studio closed and i was home bound, i continued on my win machines till i decided to be with Logic, so from 2008 to now i have personally owned about 8 macs. Not to mention the ipads and iphones.

And this is how they treat me, taking away something from my purchase history.

I think they may have pushed me too far this time, i am literally in a futz over it and really really angry.

I guess I will have no option but to seriously consider moving to windows, where at least, microsoft do not, as cartman would say, you know what their customers on a daily basis.
Sigh.

Here goes an all new adventure.. i'll have to select parts i want, build a machine, get a win app to read my mac drives, lose all the mac only software i have paid for, start with pro tools fresh with win 10 which will work for a decade probably or close to it, find the app that allows me to make my own key commands for PT, and just get used to it. I might even move to windows phone but i guess i'll have to keep one ipad for pro tools control.

Doesn't anyone else ever feel shafted from Apple? I mean if i thought it would do ANY good, i'd write to Tim cook, but what's the point? I feel so severely screwed here.

Oh, and Merry Christmas everyone or Happy Holidays to those who don't celebrate it. May you all have an incredible 2018 and beyond.
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