Sudden volume changes in DP6.01

[michkhol]

Michkhol,

Thank you for running the test and confirming that I'm not totally insane by reproducing the MIDI bombs! The volume outburst is indeed more difficult to reproduce. I have seen it in this same sequence but it happens less often, and today I was able to reproduce it only once in several minutes of testing. So it's not too surprising that you didn't experience it.

If my guess is correct then audio bursts are more likely with faster processors with multiple cores. If synchronization does not use standard (albeit costly) means, it is very easy to miss something. It works on slower machines just because timing happens to be right.

As for the MIDI bombs, I'm not 100% certain, but I think it can also happen even if you press stop before rewinding. I should really try this again to make sure, but I'm 99% certain that this has happened in my testing.

Sorry, I was not clear the first time. I didn't test the "stop-rewind" sequence. I hit stop when the MIDI was choking (no MIDI activity, no audio) and after that the playback was normal again. This actually gave me the idea that "stop" command surely resets the internal buffers, but there is something wrong with instant rewind-and-play thing.

Thank you for the explanation on what may be happening. I can't honestly say that I understand every single detail, but I get the general idea. It seems like it might indeed be a nightmare to fix for the poor engineers.

If the design was right from the very beginning (and it is very doable, look at Logic for example), they would not have this nightmare in the first place.

What's interesting is that at some point the design was right, because I've never had those problems in DP 4.61. I tried the same test sequence on the same computer, with the same OS, and DP 4.61 runs it perfectly, while DP 5 exhibits the symptoms. This has to mean that something was changed in DP 5 (and the change maintained in 6). I can't understand how come some people started having these issues in DP 4.x. It makes no sense to me.

This is the perfect illustration of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I have a question though (I don't have 4.61). How is the 4.61 audio performance different from 5.xx audio plugin and VI-wise?

Oh and.... for anyone else running the sequence, it's atonal music for a tense scene in a film. It really sounds better with strings. Honest...

That I figured out and replaced modulo with nanosampler strings the first thing. Nanosampler's dulcimer sounds even more ominous than harp

[Tomas E]

I´m able to reproduce (at least) the MIDI bombs with nadeama´s test sequence

every 2nd or 3rd hit of the "play from beginning" command results in playing those bombs. the delay where they occur is everytime a little different, sometimes earlier - after 2 or 3 seconds, sometimes after 5-6 sec.


made another test with hitting stop before hitting the play from beginning command. it then seens to occur only after every 6th or 7th hit, but it occurs

Ok, I wasn't shure if MIDI-bombs and MIDI-bursts are the same, I assume they are.

By the way, I'm not defending MOTU in any way, just trying to figure out why they seem to behave so unwittingly about this. Unless it has to do with things discussed earlier in this matter.

[bigwhitty]

I have a tech note back saying volume bursts have officially been confirmed and recreated. While they said they are working on a fix..I will keep praying it comes sometime soon..

Remember the early macs and performer(no audio)...Never a crash...Now 8core mac, 10gigs ram...Is it too much to ask that it runs MIDI without problems? Give me a break!

[Tomas E]

I remember working with Performer on a Mac SE. Those were the days, MIDI files with a size of about 50 K.

[bayswater]

Remember the early macs and performer(no audio)...Never a crash...Now 8core mac, 10gigs ram...Is it too much to ask that it runs MIDI without problems? Give me a break!

What I remember about early Macs on OS8/9 is they crashed a lot regardless of the application.

[dix]

I have a tech note back saying volume bursts have officially been confirmed and recreated. While they said they are working on a fix..I will keep praying it comes sometime soon..[/b]

"Officially confirmed" Wow! If true, that's a huge development and very good news! Apart from fixing it, an acknowledgment is all we can really ask for at this point. As long as MOTU makes it a priority it's just a matter of time before we see a fix. ...now we just have to wait

[dosuna11]

I haven't experienced any of this but I hope they will make it available to those in DP 4 and 5 as well.

[Frodo]

I have a tech note back saying volume bursts have officially been confirmed and recreated.

When you say you have a tech note "back", do you mean that you got a tech note "a while back" or that you've recently received a response, like, within the past month or so?

If this is a recent response, then you've gotta know that this development alone is light years ahead of where's it's been through at least 9 versions of DP-- maybe more, according to some. Granted-- the solution may yet be light years away, but it sounds to me that Chewy and R2 finally fixed the hyperdrive on the Linoleum Falcon.

[David Helpling]

MOTU is very serious about this issue and they are on it - Jim Cooper himself is passionate about solving this particular issue (and some other important ones). We are lucky to have a caring manufacturer...hang in there.

[dix]

MOTU is very serious about this issue and they are on it - Jim Cooper himself is passionate about solving this particular issue (and some other important ones). We are lucky to have a caring manufacturer...hang in there.

While great news, this post seems a little odd given that we only got word at 9:07 this morning that MOTU has come out of the closet and officially acknowledged this issue. Guess it doesn't take long for Jim to work up a passion ...again, it really is good news. Let's hope "passion" translates to a timely fix.

[nadeama]

I don't want to really give out any detail of my recent correspondance with Magic Dave, since he chose to communicate via private messaging (there's nothing really "juicy" there, anyway ), but I hope he won't mind if I only confirm this: MOTU are aware of the problem and are seriously working on it.

Believe me, this is great news. Just yesterday I was saying that MOTU probably didn't care about this issue and was planning on switching to Logic; today I'm waiting patiently. That's quite a turn of events, I'd say.

So I guess that's about it, we now just have to be patient.

[HCMarkus]

Woo Hoo!

[nadeama]

...it sounds to me that Chewy and R2 finally fixed the hyperdrive on the Linoleum Falcon.

Is that a new Falcon?

[Frodo]

...it sounds to me that Chewy and R2 finally fixed the hyperdrive on the Linoleum Falcon.

Is that a new Falcon?

If this volume surge issue gets sorted out, it most certainly will be a whole new Falcon.

Man-- when the update appears and this quirk is fixed there's going to be a serious party over here, and no mistake!!

It will be nice to have these surges in a galaxy far, far away. (Oops, wrong movie.)

[Shooshie]

Boy-O-boy-O-boy-O-boy. It's about TIME! This is the best news I've heard since Les Quindepan told me they were adding the "Preserve Realtime Performance" feature to the Shift command, for which I'd been begging for about 5 years but could not make anyone at MOTU understand why. Now it's an essential feature -- you could not do "Adjust Beats" without it -- but in 1997 MOTU could not see any need for that at all, much less the necessity of it when working in film scores, and many other issues. That's right; before 1998 you could not shift data as an integral, unchanging performance in time no matter the tempo changes you may cross in the process. The addition of that feature led to a domino effect of other features that would follow.

I think the solution to this problem will be HUGE, but I hesitate to speculate on its depths in public. Suffice to say that I think MOTU has just been handed an epiphany. When they see what is causing it, I think they're going to see the fix to a lot of other things as well, and it just might make DP the most solid, kick-ass DAW on the planet. (just like it used to be before OSX)

Frodo, when this is fixed, I'm definitely going to want to party. Wait... no... I'm going to want to WORK. (then party)

Shooshie