Crashing while using Consoles window & Composer Tools Pro

[JZilla]

Hey folks. I've recently bought MIDI Kinetics' Composer Tools Pro and have just started getting things set up in my big template. I've been having a problem with lots of crashes while working on the recall setup in the Consoles window in DP. It doesn't seem to be tied to a specific action, but I usually get 5-10 buttons built or edited before it crashes. Anyone else have this problem or know a way to make it a little more sturdy? I'm in 9.12 on a 2013 Mac Pro, 10.12.6.

Thanks!

[Shooshie]

Build your consoles with everything else closed. Do the minimal moving, dragging, and changing things; try to get each item right the first time or two. Save after each move, or if you're feeling lucky, do a few moves before saving. Once your consoles are built, tested, and perfected through trial & error, you can use them confidently, because they don't usually crash in plain use.

[mikehalloran]

I don't have knowledge of this particular issue but, in addition to Shooshie's suggestions, I do the following when having such issues:

Close all other windows and run the following in Terminal: sudo purge — this clears RAM caches being used by non-active apps.

or (and even better) close all windows, reboot and then open only DP and any other necessary app. This frees up even more RAM than sudo purge

Otherwise, go slow and save frequently as has been suggested. If that still doesn't do it, I have a few other suggestions.

[JZilla]

Cool, thanks for the tips, I'll keep going with it and make sure I'm frequently saving the project.

[Steve Steele]

Ah! I'm glad someone brought this up. My Vienna Ensemble Pro clients that I do builds for have been asking for Lemur and Composer Tools Pro support.

After taking with MIDI Kenetics I got some good answers about these problems. If you haven't found out yourself and would like to discuss further please reply.

Steve

[JZilla]

Hi Steve, thanks for chiming in on this, I’d love to hear what you found out.

[Steve Steele]

Hi Steve, thanks for chiming in on this, I’d love to hear what you found out.

I’ve made some custom consoles but I’m admittedly new to Composer Tools Pro. I was pleasantly surprised how candid the rep was. I’ll post his quote but I hope that everyone interested takes this in the interest of getting things working.


“Composer Tools needs a lot of workarounds to make recall work in DP. It's cumbersome, and DP's custom consoles (on which Composer Tools Pro relies for recall) are temperamental at best. I have found DP to be full of bugs and the console to be the worst offender. Sometimes (and I do mean sometimes...who knows when) I will open a button and DP has forgotten the settings-- but only if I open the button; if I leave it alone it works fine.”

He goes on to say...

“We are actually working on a VST plugin which should make it far less painful for DP users. No ETA for that, I'm afraid.”

Maybe you were already aware of this. If not, I hope it was informative.

I’ve replied about the upcoming VST plugin, asking if he means a universal plugin interface and format for any DAW, (AU/VST), or if he meant a DP specific MAS plugin, like VSL did with VEP (I’m sure it’s the former).

I’m going to contact MOTU about the issue and the supposed buggy Console to make them aware of the claim, (if they’re not already), and the issues with Composer Tools Pro. Using Lemur and CTPs is becoming increasingly popular (especially on the West Coast, ehem..), and if there’s really an issue with the Console I think it’s in MOTU’s best interest to address it. Or maybe waiting on this plugin is the answer and the release date isn’t too far off.

Hope this shed some light on the matter.

Steve

[JZilla]

Hey Steve, thanks for the info. I’m pretty new to Composer Tools myself, but have been really digging it...except for the Consoles part of things. Hopefully it’s something that can get sorted out.

[MIDI Kinetics]

Hi All,

Just wanted to say that this issue has been resolved. We have released a plugin, MKRecallSend, that makes setting up recall in DP trivially easy. No more consoles! In fact, DP is now one of the easiest DAWs with which to use Composer Tools Pro.

You can read about it in our blog post. Thank you all for your patience while we worked on this.
https://www.midikinetics.com/composer-t ... dpro-tools


Here are the setup instructions for DP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoFX-AwXb7A

We hope it makes your life working with virtual instruments much more efficient and enjoyable!

Michael
MIDI Kinetics