PCI-424 channel rename/DP issue

[Gabe S.]

Hi.

I just upgraded from 10.6.8 to 10.8.5. Started with a brand new SSD and did a full manual re-install of everything and moved settings over manually. Was quite painful. I felt it was important to do it, because I've auto-migrated to the last three computers and there was quite a bit of dead weight. As an example, my old setup had over 900 prefs files. The new setup, fully installed and running has less than 300…..

Anyway, I ran into a couple of problems when setting up DP. I worked my way through them, but I thought I'd share, in case anyone else runs into these issues.

Short version: Changing the names of the inputs in the MOTU PCI Audio Setup app using "Edit Channel Names" can break the L+R assignments in the Bundles window in DP when opening an old session. This means if you Edit the Channel Names, then open an old session that had different Channel Names, all the channels that have been renamed will not have their L+R assignments in place anymore, and you will have to manually reassign them.

If you have a lot of old sessions with complicated input setups like I do (I have 4 audio interfaces connected), you can imagine how problematic this is.

Long version: I have two 2408 interfaces in my setup. Since I was starting from scratch, I decided I would properly rename the MOTU 2408 channels. I've had my 2408's for almost ten years. Back when I got them, I started to rename them, but got lazy, and only renamed 5 of the 48 inputs, and then stopped. For the last 10 years, that's how it looked---5 custom names, and 43 generic MOTU names. Fine. Well, since I was starting fresh, I thought, ok, time to rename all 48 and do the setup correctly. I renamed all 48. When I opened my big orchestral template for the first time, I was checking everything, and I noticed in the Bundles Window that most of the audio input assignments were lost and had to be manually reassigned. You can see in the pic below, the first 5 channels have the proper assignments, but the rest is blank and they should not be blank. And at the top, you can see the custom names I gave: "2408-1:1, 2408-1:2, etc." Back 10 years ago, I used this naming scheme on those first 4 channels, and on this new setup, I simply continued it. I thought it was odd that only the first 5 channel assignments had survived. So, I started to wonder if the naming of the channels could actually affect DP's ability to remember the assignments.



So, I went back to the MOTU PCI Audio Setup app, and put back in the MOTU generic names that the DP session was used to seeing, and guess what…….ALL THE ASSIGNMENTS POPPED BACK TO LIFE! AHHH!!!! That's crazy!!



So, it appears changing channels names affects DP's ability to remember channel assignments. That's pretty terrible if you ask me. You would think that DP ignores a name that can be changed so easily, and instead actually looks for the hardware port.

I have a LOT of old DP sessions. This forces me to keep the old generic names. I can imagine someone who records a lot of live stuff and would want to change the names quite often would run into a lot of trouble when trying re-open sessions.

Anyway, I reported it to MOTU, but I just thought I'd let you guys know too. It's stuff like this that can trip you up, and it's hard to chase down.

Cheers.
-gabe

[Killahurts]

When I went from 10.6.8 to 10.8.5, I had the bundles/renaming issue as well, but I have 64 I/O on my MADI interface!

Every project I was working on, or have ever worked on, had/has to have its bundles redone. This was huge, well over a year ago, and continues to be an issue for me to this day.

RME had renamed the (Core audio) I/O completely. They told me that they had to, because when Apple went to Lion, they made a new requirement that the The I/O be named in sections of 8.

So instead of HDSP MADI 01, it had to now say HDSP MADI (1-8) 1, or some such crap.. cost me so many hours out of my composing time, I still get a little teary-eyed thinking about it.

[Gabe S.]

Yeah, it TOUGH when these are the things that are tripping us up and killing composing time. They're very hard to chase down. Some day, I'm going to have my own IT dept……let them handle this crap….

[Killahurts]

.. and another thing. Is there really any point in the bundles not being able to be applied universally, to all projects? At least, as an option?

[Gabe S.]

Yes, I totally agree with that too.

[Killahurts]

Yeah, it TOUGH when these are the things that are tripping us up and killing composing time.

136 clicks on the little bundles squares, per project.

Yes, I've counted.

It was a big day for me when I found out I could option-click the stereo pairs into place..

[Gabe S.]

Did you know there is an Export/Import feature in the Bundles? It's in the drop-down menu on the top right of the Bundles screen. That can make it easier. Just have a good saved Bundles and then clear and import. I don't generally use it, but I see it's there.

[Killahurts]

Yeah, I've seen it, but it didn't work for me in that situation because it was the names of the audio interface itself that were changed. DP couldn't accept the new hardware names and publish the actual bundle channel names in the sequence, to their proper inputs/outputs. I didn't have to change the bundle names, only the way the hardware was routed to them was broken.

i.e., if I imported an old bundle, I would now simply have two sets of the same problem.

[Gabe S.]

ugh…..it's crazy that this setup stuff is so easily broken, and that it can hose us so badly.

I experienced something similar back when I was considering going to OS10.7. I did a FULL clean install onto a bare drive. Then installed only the barest necessities to get DP running.

When I looked at the Bundles, the DP inputs from the two 2408 devices were in jumbled order. Instead of them being listed in order, 1,2,3,4,5, they were like 1,4,17,8,6,2……. It was totally screwing up all the inputs. I asked MOTU how I was able to be backwards compatible with old sessions……..Ultimately, MOTU said there was nothing they could do. It was Apple's problem and they needed to wait for Apple to do a fix. I never heard anything after that…….That was one of the main reasons I held onto 10.6.8 for so long. Let me tell you how nervous I was when I opened DP for the first time in 10.8.5. Fortunately, 10.8.5 has been ok so far. phew…..I swear I'm going to hold onto this setup for quite awhile.

You want to know another frustrating thing? I would love to start moving over to Thunderbolt external devices in preparation for moving to a new Mac Pro some day…….I thought it would be easy to find a PCI-e--to--Thunderbolt card I could stick in current Mac Pro tower……guess what……no such thing exists…..!! I would love to start putting SSDs in a fanless thunderbolt SSD drive holder. They exist. BUT there's no pci card to do it. So frustrating.

Damn, where's my IT dept to deal with this???

[Dan Worley]

I recently went through this when I migrated over to a new Mac, even though I'm using the same RME interfaces and cards. My input/output bundles are all messed up in all my pre-move projects. The little tiles are not where they should be.

What I did was make a good Bundle set which I import into my older projects, and then I reassign all the tracks I/Os. Not fun. Audio Assignments (option-A) makes it a little more tolerable. In my case, I found reassigning tracks faster than repositioning all those little Bundle tiles.

[Killahurts]

I recently went through this when I migrated over to a new Mac, even though I'm using the same RME interfaces and cards. My input/output bundles are all messed up in all my pre-move projects. The little tiles are not where they should be.

What I did was make a good Bundle set which I import into my older projects, and then I reassign all the tracks I/Os. Not fun. Audio Assignments (option-A) makes it a little more tolerable. In my case, I found reassigning tracks faster than repositioning all those little Bundle tiles.

Yeah I wish I could have done that, but I have 48 I/O and I've always mixed or summed through a desk. Assigning all the audio would have taken me a long time, and would be different with every project. At least with the bundles it's the same miserable job every time. I've even gotten to where I can daydream a little while I'm doing it.

[Dan Worley]

I recently went through this when I migrated over to a new Mac, even though I'm using the same RME interfaces and cards. My input/output bundles are all messed up in all my pre-move projects. The little tiles are not where they should be.

What I did was make a good Bundle set which I import into my older projects, and then I reassign all the tracks I/Os. Not fun. Audio Assignments (option-A) makes it a little more tolerable. In my case, I found reassigning tracks faster than repositioning all those little Bundle tiles.

At least with the bundles it's the same miserable job every time. I've even gotten to where I can daydream a little while I'm doing it.

Sorry, that made me laugh. You sound like me. I hear ya, brother.