MOTUnation.com

mikehalloran wrote:I couldn't make the right-click work...

Once the UFS is mounted, control click will verify on my system. Spinning beach ball and Activity Monitor reports M5 not responding, but after a minute or two (on the grand piano UFS) M5 reported the file integrity as good.

Funny,

The sound bank integrity check worked for *almost* all of the UFS files but not Biosphere and Universal loops. I got UVI's X-TremeFX right from their sight and it worked fine. All were downloaded today, all are the new ones, all were replaced in the M5 folder on my samples drive. Not sure if it makes a difference or not, I don't have time today to test it out, but I thought I'd report that the right click did not work for those two files.

joelfriedman wrote:Funny,

The sound bank integrity check worked for *almost* all of the UFS files but not Biosphere and Universal loops. I got UVI's X-TremeFX right from their sight and it worked fine. All were downloaded today, all are the new ones, all were replaced in the M5 folder on my samples drive. Not sure if it makes a difference or not, I don't have time today to test it out, but I thought I'd report that the right click did not work for those two files.

Same here with Biosphere and Universal Loops. It looks like it doesn't matter. The new versions were put in place after the originals were trashed. They appeared in the M5 browser with presets loading just fine. Still downloading the rest...

Looks like the smaller footprint of the new soundbanks is due to them now being reduced from 24 bit 96k to 16 bit 44k.

The 44k I can see as the benefits of 96k samples is only realized when running your project at that rate. However, moving to 16 bit will be a significant drop in quality. Looks like MOTU was trying to pull a fast one. They should let people know what they where doing here so anyone that wanted a light version has the option to download instead of wasting my time. Also, there was some improvements to scripting in some of these and I would like to get the new scripts but not reduce my sample quality to 16 bit.

Those bsstards! LOL

b-righteous wrote:Looks like the smaller footprint of the new soundbanks is due to them now being reduced from 24 bit 96k to 16 bit 44k.

The 44k I can see as the benefits of 96k samples is only realized when running your project at that rate. However, moving to 16 bit will be a significant drop in quality. Looks like MOTU was trying to pull a fast one. They should let people know what they where doing here so anyone that wanted a light version has the option to download instead of wasting my time. Also, there was some improvements to scripting in some of these and I would like to get the new scripts but not reduce my sample quality to 16 bit.

Well, who wants to re-load the old ones from the DVD-DLs and do an A/B comparison?

Anyone?

Ferris?

I could as I keep a set of VI backups on an external drive but I probably won't. Maybe I can be per$uaded.

b-righteous wrote:Looks like the smaller footprint of the new soundbanks is due to them now being reduced from 24 bit 96k to 16 bit 44k.

The 44k I can see as the benefits of 96k samples is only realized when running your project at that rate. However, moving to 16 bit will be a significant drop in quality. Looks like MOTU was trying to pull a fast one. They should let people know what they where doing here so anyone that wanted a light version has the option to download instead of wasting my time. Also, there was some improvements to scripting in some of these and I would like to get the new scripts but not reduce my sample quality to 16 bit.

May I ask how you came to that conclusion? Did you look inside the UFS files and find something to indicate that? They're not just using some sort of "uncompress-on-the-fly" method which some manufacturers have used as I recall. I'd really like to see your evidence, as you must admit, that's a pretty serious claim (I don't want to use the word "accusation" but it feels like that's almost appropriate) to make on a public forum.

You can see it in the sample properties right in Mach5. Just go to edit and click on a key bank and click the info icon. UVI and Acoustic samples have been doing the whole 16 bit thing lately. I feel they should give an option to not bit reduce the samples for those who want it. The samples where recorded in 24 bit after all. Just saying.

Also have to add that in some cases the quality trade off is not drastic so many may appreciate the reduced RAM and loading footprint. Just wish they would give a heads up and also offer 24 bit versions when they go 16 bit.

I'll have to look. You may be right, but that sure feels odd that MOTU would downgrade the sample quality without saying anything about it. I may reach out to contacts I have at MOTU and ask about this if you don't mind. Something feels "off" about it.

I'd be interested in that info. I haven't noticed a diff so far, but I haven't worked with it much yet. In fact some things seemed to sound better. ...they did until I read this thread anyway

When I installed the new UFS files today, I kept a backup of the old files on an external HD. Tonight I loaded several banks side by side and the files that were 44.1k/24bit in the previous version (2011 as I recall) are 44.1k/24bit in the new version (2013). Yes, there are some 44.1k/16bit samples, especially in some percussion sounds, but they were the same rate in both versions.

So from what I could gather in about 30 minutes of loading instruments from both new and old UFS files is that they are identical sample rates. No compromises. Perhaps someone is seeing 44/16 and thinking it has changed? One is advised not to believe everything they think.

FMiguelez wrote:Nice!

I can't update now, but if someone does, could you check if MOTU has corrected the problem where the same sample gets loaded into RAM more than once?

For instance, if you load the Telematic program in 4 different parts, it should only take the RAM necessary for ONE instance, and then simply fire the samples on demand for the other parts (they already loaded once), instead of loading the same Telematic program x4 and wasting precious RAM... That means 4 GBs only instead of 20+ GBs for the same thing!

Yes?

Well, I didn't check the RAM usage, but selecting the same instrument in a multiple parts does go thru the motions of loading samples again (albeit faster the second time, as was the case in earlier version of M5) so I believe the answer is: no, the samples still load for each instrument and are not shared. But they are cached, perhaps, which is why they load faster. This was even true when I loaded the same sound from the ld and new UFS files.

Also, M5 now mounts all sound banks in the soundbanks list after the first part loads. I got quite a few "unable to mount" or "unable to load" (can't remember the exact wording) of some incompatible banks but have to research that a little more as they might be non-M5 banks in the same directory that M5 sees and very old M5-1 and M5-2 files that are still resident on the drive.

I am running it in standalone mode at the moment, and was able to get the rick-click to verify sound bank integrity on all but the two mentioned earlier, Biosphere and Universal. Also, I keep a full library backup drive -- even for stuff that can be re-downloaded (too time-consuming). I don't see any differences in format for these replacements, so will replace my backups now.

I did, however, get four errors on the stock MachFive2 DVD libraries, even after correcting the library path (which had re-defaulted). I did install the new iLok drivers first. but maybe these older libraries can be deleted now and are redundant with respect to the MachFive v3 material as well as probably being incompatible as of this latest update?

Oh, I see this is the same error MLC is reporting. The exact message is:

"Unable to mount the Volume from '/Volumes/Library/UVISoundBanks/MachFive2DVD1-Universal.ufs' (No valid authorization found)"

But the UFS mounts and I can access files. Maybe just some samples don't expand in the process? I'm not worried about it, frankly.