DP & Leopard... UPDATE: DP 5.13 is out!

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:35 am

grimepoch wrote:I asked UAD about it as well and they said it wasn't something they were aware of and that they suspected DP as DP does not fully follow the AU spec. I asked MOTU and didn't get anything from them about it. .

Interesting GP

auptown · Post by **auptown** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 7:59 pm

grimepoch wrote: Since it does not crash, I cannot figure out where it is getting hung up. I tried using the developer tools to get deeper into the problem, however, they will not report on hangs unless they eventually come back. This problem NEVER comes back.

Now if we could just get MOTU to give us a copy of 5.13 compiled with the debug option on, we could get on with figuring this stuff out.

grimepoch · Post by **grimepoch** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:25 am

Hahah, of course, if you've ever used code with the debug stuff turned on, it is so slooooooooooooooow

jnunally · Post by **jnunally** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 11:30 am

stiefelmusik wrote:
cmm wrote:I'll chime in; for me the random volume surges have not shown up over the past few days in 5.13. I've using the same large orchestral/VI project that had the volume surges in 5.12. I almost didn't want to acknowledge in fear of the jinx....
You know, this is one of the things that disturbs me most about how MOTU handles things: they leave their users guessing as to what's been fixed and what's not. All of the other major music apps I use ALWAYS publish a bug-fix list when they issue an update. To see for yourself, check out the notes to updates/interim releases over at Ableton, Digidesign, Propellerheads, Native Instruments, etc., etc. They generally let their users know what's been fixed, and what's not. Why does MOTU have to be so mum about everything? Why do they feel they are somehow special and can get away with something practically no other major audio software vendor can get away with: namely, leaving their users completely in the dark? I just don't understand. I find it VERY, VERY frustrating... and frankly, my patience is wearing thin.

Apologies for the rant. Just can't help myself. I feel sorry for cmm, myself, and everyone else trying to second guess MOTU. With that said, things have been reasonably stable for me with 5.11 on 10.4.10. I do still have issues with volume surges, etc., but I do not like the idea of mixed bit sessions nor the new file format, so I'm avoiding upgrading for the time being -- especially since there is NO OFFICIAL STATEMENT that I know of from MOTU addressing the many issues that have come up in recent releases that would encourage me to upgrade.

I think it is only fair for people to rant about things that shouldn't be a problem, things that cause extreme frustration and loss of income.
I can not explain the deep grief I felt when I installed a new system with a HD192, MacPro, DP 5.0, and experienced crashes all the time, I mean all the time, I couldn't go minutes without crashes. I thought is was Apple's fault, my fault, hard disk failure, memory failure. I spent hours taking apart my studio and new computer, reinstalling the OS 4 times, all this through the night while I had a 10am session starting the next morning. I have been in this recording business since 1986. I've been to audio engineering college, I know how to trouble shoot, I have my Grammy Award certifications hanging on the wall, and I just happen to perform with some of the greatest musicians in the world. Yet when I call MOTU support there is a fellow there that attempts to make you feel like a 1st grader. And come to find out from another MOTU tech person, it was DP's fault the whole time, not hardware, as someone else at MOTU had told.
All that said let me say this. If they have lemon laws for cars, it is now time for lemon laws for software. If you counted the wasted hours by users trouble shooting software it would add up to millions upon millions of wasted hours and dollars in time. These software companies who are making millions selling defective merchandise should be held to task.
So I say rant, get it out, let people know when something is wrong so we can know what to expect.
This forum has been a life saver for me many times. It is the best resource for technical issues, way way better than anything MOTU has on their website, which is another issue with MOTU. I am not going to just rant though let me say this about DP. While I hate it when it doesn't work right, I love it when it does work right. It is the best software interface I have found over the years. I still have Pro Tools and have used Logic. But I still settle on DP for my personal preference.
Thanks to James for this site, it really is the best resource for MOTU issues.

Jim

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 3:26 pm

Lemon Laws! I love it. I wish we could have lemon laws for software. It would be difficult to figure out where to draw the line, and just as difficult to figure out when that line has been crossed, but we sure need something like that.

Shooshie

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:36 pm

Shooshie wrote:Lemon Laws! I love it. I wish we could have lemon laws for software. It would be difficult to figure out where to draw the line, and just as difficult to figure out when that line has been crossed, but we sure need something like that.

Shooshie

Man-- lemon laws shed a whole different light on the situation. I wonder-- how many automobiles are reported defective before tens of thousands of models are recalled compared to legit software glitches before they are considered official and a fix is released?

Of course, such recalls and fixes hinge on the manufacturer's ability to "reproduce the problem". (Sound familiar?)

But there may be just as many under-the-hood software geeks around here as there are under-the-hood automobile geeks. If software version compatibility is that unpredictable or otherwise unreliable from one system to another, users deserve more reasonable disclosure about what these updates will and won't do.

Unfortunately, the quality of tech support after a software purchase is only a gesture and more or less par for the course that often leaves much to be desired. Some companies, however, do a whole lot better than others.

Lemon laws. LOL. Talk about earth-shattering!

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:48 pm

Lemon Laws a sour experience eh

I love that idea Maybe we could start our own warning people.

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:42 pm

The only trouble with lemon laws is that there are so many persnickety software users who would write their congressman because a word in a menu was misspelled. Without careful wording of such a law, software could never actually be sold. On one extreme are the companies that simply don't care, and on the other extreme are the users who just like to cause trouble. Somewhere in the middle lies the happy ground where developers are coerced into doing real beta testing and getting things right, and users are happy to get something that works without crashing or quitting, even if maybe there's a thing or two slightly off.

Shooshie

stiefelmusik · Post by **stiefelmusik** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:13 pm

Frodo wrote:If software version compatibility is that unpredictable or otherwise unreliable from one system to another, users deserve more reasonable disclosure about what these updates will and won't do.

My sentiments, exactly. Users deserve to know. Granted, from the developer's perspective, with so many possible configurations of hardware and software out there, bug-free operation for everyone is virtually impossible -- and of course, there's always "pilot error" to consider as well. Nevertheless, I feel software developers should be obligated to document known bugs, issues, etc. and the status of their resolution with each update or interim release. Again, what "bugs me" (bad pun intended) is that most developers are already doing this, whereas MOTU continues to run it's operations like the CIA.

I imagine if there were lemon laws for software, Native Instruments would be out of business by now! Talk about a lemon, Kontakt 2 was practically unusable when it was first released. At least I don't remember any DP release that would qualify as unusable for me. Obviously some were better than others, but quality control at MOTU does appear to be pretty high, especially compared to many other companies.

My all-time Most Stable Software Release Award though has to go to the Propellerheads for Reason 2.5 -- the only program of such magnitude that never crashed on me. Never, ever. The epitome of stability, and a prime example of first-rate quality control.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:59 pm

stiefelmusik wrote

My all-time Most Stable Software Release Award though has to go to the Propellerheads for Reason 2.5 -- the only program of such magnitude that never crashed on me. Never, ever. The epitome of stability, and a prime example of first-rate quality control.

THANK YOU for you are spot on. I've been looking for an example for ages and thats it.

THEY GOT IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME. Never an update worked seamlessly out of the box.

You see in can be done.

Update's all the time imply we DIDN"T get right but we are prepared to take your money for it till we do, which to me is unacceptable for how many hours of work are wasted by trouble shooting. crashes etc AT YOUR EXPENSE both ways.

I hope there is a change one day. All it will take are a few more companies to hold off and get it right and be SO stable that people will flock to use them forcing the rivals to do the same.

My 5 cents

stiefelmusik · Post by **stiefelmusik** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:48 pm

kassonica wrote:
THEY GOT IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.

Totally. Not only did Reason 2.5 never crash, I never encountered a single bug. Not one. Truly a masterpiece of programming. I still use it from time to time on my OS 9 machine, and it's always a pleasure. And psychologically, there's a LOT to be said from feeling confident about ones tools. Dependability is more important than most developers realize in relation to the creative process. The sense of freedom I felt using Reason 2.5 was very inspiring: I truly felt anything was possible. It inspired creativity; taking risks with unorthodox procedures, etc. With so many other programs, whenever I try something "daring and new" there's this feeling of gosh, I hope it doesn't crash. Better hit save before I try this.

Reason 2.5 deserves a place in the history books. I cite it all the time as an example of how it CAN be done right the first time. I'm with you, mate!

pcm · Post by **pcm** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:56 pm

grimepoch wrote:The freeze on rewind has been happening to me since the first version of DP5, and in all my experimentation on it, I can tell you this:

1) For projects with few plugins or none it never happens
2) Saving the design and immediately rewinding when done saving usually guarantees a lock up for me.
3) The more tracks and plugins, the more often the freezes occur.
4) DP can be sitting idle and I can hit rewind and it will lock.

Since it does not crash, I cannot figure out where it is getting hung up. I tried using the developer tools to get deeper into the problem, however, they will not report on hangs unless they eventually come back. This problem NEVER comes back.

5) I do not think it is a UAD problem because I duplicated a song ENTIRELY in logic and no kind of rewind lock ever. I asked UAD about it as well and they said it wasn't something they were aware of and that they suspected DP as DP does not fully follow the AU spec. I asked MOTU and didn't get anything from them about it.

6) I tried to create a sample project that exhibited the problems. No number of MOTU plugins could I make demonstrate the issue. Therefore, I feel it has something to do with AUs.

You should be working for them.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 12:37 am

stiefelmusik wrote:
kassonica wrote:
THEY GOT IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.
Totally. Not only did Reason 2.5 never crash, I never encountered a single bug. Not one. Truly a masterpiece of programming. I still use it from time to time on my OS 9 machine, and it's always a pleasure. And psychologically, there's a LOT to be said from feeling confident about ones tools. Dependability is more important than most developers realize in relation to the creative process. The sense of freedom I felt using Reason 2.5 was very inspiring: I truly felt anything was possible. It inspired creativity; taking risks with unorthodox procedures, etc. With so many other programs, whenever I try something "daring and new" there's this feeling of gosh, I hope it doesn't crash. Better hit save before I try this.

Reason 2.5 deserves a place in the history books. I cite it all the time as an example of how it CAN be done right the first time. I'm with you, mate!

And in OSX stable as nothing i've ever seen.

Thanks for reminding me about this. I've got reason 3 and although they did do 4 or 5 upgrades on it, it is stable as well, in fact i've gone OUT of my way to try and crash it and i don't think i have.

I hope V4 is the same.

what are they doing to get this stability?

Maybe Audio is the problem eh

stiefelmusik · Post by **stiefelmusik** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 5:19 am

Well, I recently updated to Reason 4 and though I haven't really had a chance to put it though its paces, it appears to be as solid as ever. The Propellerheads are such geniuses.

No doubt Reason's lack of direct audio recording capabilities and third party plugin support makes it easier to bullet-proof -- but I see this as a good example of why a program should NOT try to do it all. Reason more than makes up for these "short-comings" by offering unparalleled stability.

And in these unstable times, that is very, very welcome indeed!

On the other hand, another favorite of mine, Ableton Live has grown less stable as it's added more and more features. Although I upgraded to Live 5, 6 & 7 (I know, I know. What a chump! But this program rocks, and it's totally addictive) I STILL use Live 4 in situations where stability is CRITICAL.

Back to Reason for a moment, I think their extensive beta testing program also plays a big role in producing stable releases. Again, MOTU is so hush, hush about everything -- do they even have beta testers outside of the company? Can you imagine how rock solid DP would be if they allowed some of the folks at UnicorNation to beta test release candidates? Has anyone on this board ever beta tested DP, or been approached by MOTU -- or volunteered?! Just curious.

kassonica · Post by **kassonica** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:35 am

stiefelmusik

Has anyone on this board ever beta tested DP, or been approached by MOTU -- or volunteered?! Just curious.

Indeed a very good question and since is was ported to OSX as i know some here have beta tested much older versions.