M5 1.2 unusable - 1.08 works great...what's the deal?

[David Helpling]

I've been using version 1.08 on a Dual 2 gig G5 for a year or so and I LOVE it. I'm using Giga, Akai and roland libraries with no issues. When I upgraded to 1.2 I had clicks and pops everywhere, CPU spike galore and sluggish UI response. When composing I run by disk buffer at 256 for near latency free MIDI stuff. I re-installed 1.08 and everything is rock solid...

Any advice?

[Flare]

David,

I have no clue if you've read my posts. But I've mentioned that MOTU is CLEARLY aware of the absolute BUG laiden software they're flagshipping that end of their company with.

Advice? CALL them, and email them, and ASK them WHY their software is seemingly phucked. That's the only thing I can think of to do.

It's REALLY disappointing that they're trying to play off specific issues as being "system" related...as in Mac system issues, as opposed to DP soft issues.

And I honestly have to say that you're not getting alot of Gigastudio's power in regards to the tranlations to M5. Just an opinion from someown who relies on both.

[David Helpling]

Yeah...I see your point and I agree - it seems they bounce between different apps and spend bulk amounts of time addressing them. While they were developing M5 DP users waited for fixes to the original DP4, while they were building DP4.5 M5 users were screaming about the lame upgrade. I've found it's just about waiting for them to get time to focus and improve the amazing beasts they create. As for the Giga thing I agree also - I am using Giga libraries that don't rely much on key-switching, sample alternating etc and creating my own alternatives to HiFi, expressive instruments. I guess we'll see if M5 will be optimized and debugged for the serious composer before next summer? I would pay more for a bundle including a MOTU MachFive Accelerator PCI card to get it to work (we already have to use a dongle anyway). Samplers are serious, processor hungry creatures anyway - it seems to me that a serious sampling environment needs the power and stability of a bit of dedicated hardware...

Anyway thanks for the reply (this forum isn't very active - a reply is always a pleasant surprise).

[Flare]

David,

No sweat on the reply.

I really want to say M5 ROCKS... But I have to say that MOTU needs to better stabilize the editting end of things before I give it full on props.

As for general playback in DP 4.5, I really don't have any major complaints. I'm just at a point in my craft where instead of always relying on other people's talents for unique and interesting sounds, I'm compiling and archiving my own...and on that level, I'm in need of a stable editor within the sampler I'm using. Machfive have a GREAT system for editting; they just need to spray some RAID into the cracks.

As for a PCI type setup, I don't know that that will ever happen, but I like the idea. Don't know if it's a viable alternative, to increasing RAM (of course you have to have the machine and resources to do so).

My guess is that before Christmas we'll se a tweak 4.5 and a tweak 1.2. That is my hope. I really love M5 for it's strengths. It's changed the way sound design completely, as well as eliminated my hardware sampling engines. However, I'll ever be a ball buster because I believe there needs to be consistency with the product. Right now MOTU have too many bleeders in their product. People are frustrated and irrate... At least serious professionals who demand more than an empty components folder.

Cheers