The Hobbit Surrenders

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:02 am

Frodo,

Your resignation is NOT accepted.

Seriously, if I can offer a simple suggestion?

Why can't you dump the Intel machine and go back to a PPC G5? DP and Finale (2006) are very stable on my Dual 2.0 PPC. Additional assistance idea in your PM.

MM

monkey man · Post by **monkey man** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:38 am

kelldammit wrote:i'm sure we'll be seeing you in some ridiculously long thread that has gone hopelessly OT...monkey poo a-flyin'!
when you're ready for the next round of frodo vs technology, you have many friends here, and i feel i can safely speak for all of us when i say that any of us would be happy to help out in any way possible...so please don't hesitate to ask!
in the meantime, do what you need to do...god's speed.
kell

Hear hear, Kel; well said.

daniel.sneed · Post by **daniel.sneed** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 9:15 am

Hi Frodo, dear hobbit !

You've been so helpfull around here, that I'm at a loss for a real technologic idea.
But I can send you strength, and friendship.
That I do with pleasure and conviction.

BTW, shure what you are going thru seems much more heavy than what I endured on september 2006.
By this time, my daily nightmare has sent me to some very hard times, with deadlines hurring in front of me. And I've sent so many mails to Motu to not avail.
And, at the end, all solved magically when DP5.11 came...

Just to say : sometimes, the solution is NOT on your own side.
There are so many people involved in our musical tools today, it can get just confusing to know who can provide that real needed help.

May music help you to sort all of this.

Best on you.

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:09 pm

Wow, this is a blow. To Frodo most of all. It obviously wasn't an easy decision, and I admire the courage it must have taken to throw away all those hours invested in troubleshooting and move on. That is not easy to do, but it is perhaps the right thing to do.

The irony of this kills me. Frodo has over 6 thousand posts here, and I would wager that 5 thousand of them were written to help someone else out. Always polite, always thorough, never condescending. For someone like that to get saddled with an irreparable technological mess just isn't fair.

Others have said it and I will say it again. It sounds to me like the machine is a lemon. I've had one before, and the process of troubleshooting in vain is discouraging to say the least. Frodo, maybe when this project is over you can see about starting over with a new machine. As painful as that sounds.

In the meantime, take advantage of your new found liberty writing with pencil and paper. There is beauty in simplicity, and shifting the weight from process back to art should be a welcome thing. I'm sure there will be many humorous moments of typing in phantom key commands on your desk, but once you get past that you might be better off than the rest of us still humped over our noisy, heat generating metal masters.

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:53 pm

I was reading a post from a newbee to DP, wherein he was complaining about his inability to get DP to autoconfigure his MIDI gear. As I read his post, I was thinking about how its whiney tone caused me to be less than enthusiastic about offering assistance. My point is this: No one here at UNation has exhibited the consistent warm-hearted and helpful attitude our friend Frodo has blessed us with, day in and day out... even into the wee hours of the morning. I knew that whenever I saw a post from the Shire, great advice coupled with uncommon courtesy would be found.

Thank you for sharing so much with us here Frodo. I am hopeful Monkey has it right, and you won't be able to stay away for too long, 'cause it just won't be the same without you.

Warmest Regards,

catfishmusic · Post by **catfishmusic** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 2:57 pm

Frodo,

I truly feel your pain. I've been in the same boat for a while. I run multiple computers, my Mac Pro is my main rig, but I have several PCs as well. For the last year, I've spent thousands of dollars, and SO many hours, trying to stablize my set up.

It's hard enough to find inspiration and motivation as it is, but when you go in to create, and your rig is crapping out, freezing, and crashing, after spending thousands, well...I find it can be very disheartening.

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. But sometimes a break is needed. When I get fed up, I often book a trip to Hawaii and take a complete break. Or I'll even break out an xbox 360, and shoot at aliens for a week. Just have faith that it will turn around.

I find that creating music is today's hi-tech computer world is a process that takes much patience. For all it's incredible advantages, sometimes I miss the old Fostex 280 I had when I was in middle school....plug mic in, enable track, hit record.....done. I'll tell ya, I'm definitely more of a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of guy these days.

I have to say you are one of my favorite posters, so you will be missed. We see eye to eye on many things. Good luck, take it easy for a while, and hang in there, things will come together...

Keep the chin up.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:09 pm

I"m really sorry to hear about your troubles Frodo. I think it's an understatement of huge proportions to say that you'll be missed around here. I know you're doing a lot of demanding stuff in comparison to my pop/rock song productions so you may need that Intel machine to get by. I'm sort of glad that I've stayed with PPC thus far, and I don't know if using a PPC machine is even an option for you like MIDI Life suggested.

I hope some of the MOTU folks read this thread and perhaps try and give your case special attention. This is NOT good. I wonder if it could be one of those very weird issues where it's some motherboard thing and a defective machine. Frankly, If your problems are so persistent, MOTU might consider paying to ship your machine to them and get to the bottom of it themselves. Honest to goodness, this hammers home the mantra that STABILITY is the number one issue and stories like yours are very damaging to MOTU. It is frustrating that we're all using arguably the BEST DAW made, but issues like this are the Achilles heel.

robstudio · Post by **robstudio** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 5:29 pm

Hi Frodo,
I just wanted to add, I as well, was saddened to read your post. Mac / motu ought to be as well. Best of luck, and we will still see you around here, now and again, right? Thanks for your effort / attitude, it rubs off on everyone here.
Warm regards, Rob

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 5:50 pm

Folks:

I'm blown away by the kind thoughts. I just wanted you to know why I will be scarce over the coming weeks. I didn't want my absence to be too conspicuous, but there may be times I won't be able to get to PM's and such.

I won't be gone forever!! Who can stay away from this place with so many great people? It's so odd that's it's not necessary to actually meet someone in person and yet you consider them as part of your valid circle of true friends!

Phil O-- you mentioned RAM in jest, but you may not be too far from the truth. An "uncorrectable FBD error" has been rearing its ugly head of late that wasn't there before. This could mean having to replace RAM altogether or getting RAM from a different (better) source. It could mean having the riser cards replaced-- or it could mean that the motherboard on this machine was entirely hosed from day 1. Dunno.

Funny-- when I first got this machine I'd joked about the "lemon" theory. Hmm.

But repairs and replacements take time that I don't have at the moment.

James-- I can't disagree with you on DP perhaps being the best DAW for our purposes out there. Even with all of this, I'm not resorting to Logic or any other DAW.

Thing is, it's a mixed blessing. We don't want to bash the app, but somehow there are times when praises for it bump heads with its shortcomings. Such shortcomings emerge on some systems and not on others, yet the app passes factory inspection. I can't shake the fact that one can get a D-minus on an exam and still pass. Hmm.

As I see it, there are:

1. Issues with DP on PPC
2. Issues with DP on Intel
3. Issues unique to PPC and Intel
4. Issues common to PPC and Intel

About half of my Intel issues are shared issues with other Intel users. The other half-- which bothers me-- are issues unique to my system.

Again, I'm not doing anything fancy right now. I've never been able to fully realize my hope of networking two computers on a daily basis, although this appears to be one thing that works surprisingly well. I have an MTPAV, a 2408mk3, and DP on a Mac Pro with 4 instances of virtual instruments running with 1 stereo audio track and no effects. I'm really asking less of my MacPro than I asked of my G5 right now, although other MacPro users are reporting numbers far greater than that.

It's so basic and that it continues to fall apart just stinks out loud.

Solutions:

1. Send the MacPro to Apple Care.... lose a day at the Apple Store Genius Bar making the 60 mile round trip, with a 2-3 week turnaround...

2. Buy a new computer and RAM to the tune of $4k. I was going to buy a third machine anyway, but not until January. I thought my current MacPro would allow me at least six good months leeway.

3. Have the current RAM replaced-- lifetime guarantee. Nice. But just as with option 1, the turnaround time is way out of sync with deadlines coming up this week.

The caveat here is that there's no confirmation that the FBD error is a hardware error-- it could be a code error: DP crashing on save is not at all new. In fact, of ALL the apps I use, DP is the ONLY one that crashes on save.

Rhetorical questions:

So should I drop $1600 on Crucial RAM if DP is still going crash on save?

Should I buy a new computer if some things within DP are still broken?

What if there's nothing at all wrong with my computer? I can take it to Apple-- but they won't care if DP works on it or not if the hardware meets their spec. In fact, they'll more than likely shove Logic in my face if I present them with DP crash reports where no Logic crash reports exist.

And yet-- "not everyone is having these problems"!! Such a bummer to reconcile it all.

Things *will* get fixed-- just not right away.

.. and while I won't be "away" away, I may be deeply involved in getting my own act together.

Hang in there, my good friends. The most important thing for me right now is knowing that things are working well for you. That means that they can work well for me, too--- once again.

Day after day
I feel myself slowing down
What does it mean?
The air has changed
It's getting harder to breath
Or so it would seem

Sail me away to a distant shore
Where everything's fine

Tell me my friend
Can you imagine a place
Free of boundaries and lies
There's blood on the wind
And it's come all of the way from faraway skies

Take me away to a different world
Where everything's fine
~Toto

Aw, I'll be back...

Spikey Horse · Post by **Spikey Horse** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 4:50 pm

Frodo, this is terrible news, not to mention shocking! Talk about negative karma, I mean with all the effort you put into helping others here!

The only kind of 'advice' I can think of is that if you really suspect an inherent defect with your mac I would suggest getting apple to have a look at it, no.1 priority - If they find something amiss then great ... but even if neither you or apple can pin it down 100% to the machine being at fault I still reckon if you 'work with them' on it and really let them see how hard you've tried to resolve it and how serious it is to you as a proper pro musician/ composer etc etc (not to mention what a nice guy you are!) ... well you never know .. I wouldn't be surprised if they/you reached a point where they would consider a replacement mac anyway just to 'resolve the matter' even with out hard evidence of a faulty mac.

In my experience it seems this sort of protocol does exist in the genius bar (to some extent at least). I have to say despite feeling like a computer store equivalent of a Starbucks the whole genius bar concept is kind of cool: good old fashioned 1 on 1 relationship (

) .. seriously though, with the right kind of friendly mac tech on your side who knows?! (just try not to pick a newb without the authority to make those kind of decisions!)

It's just an idea, might be worth a shot.... (might be a waste of time)

Anyway, meanwhile I hope you do find a good 'quill and ink forum' to make your new home

.... I can see it now: 'Quill sharpening tips sheet', 'Goose or Heron - best quill for jazz? (POLL)' or 'newb question - how to get ink out of the carpet!' (.. and so on)

Hope you can find a way back to the DP-shire and U-nation soon though.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 5:40 pm

Hey Spikey:

Goes to show ya, bud: my karmic debt is far from being paid in full!!

First the bad news:

If there is anything wrong with DP and the Mac/MacPro, I'll find it.

The good news:

If there is anything wrong with DP and the Mac/MacPro, I'll find it!!

Progress report:

A new gaggle of 8GB RAM will arrive tomorrow (Wed, 5 Sept 07). Riser cards are being tested on other machines as well.

Plans to rent a machine are in motion if/when my machine has to be sent out to Apple Care. Time to wrest with the Genius Bar won't avail itself until mid-October, unfortunately.

When the rains have come and gone,
And liquor has been made from your share of the corn [against your desire],
Give thanks [in spite of it] for everything,
And place an offering by your door.

And when the beast is in its den
And you're the one they choose to draw him out...
On this night be hopeful [and]

Never put down your horn,
Never put down your horn.

~Bill Gable

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 6:03 pm

Frodo wrote: When the rains have come and gone,
And liquor has been made from your share of the corn [against your desire],
Give thanks [in spite of it] for everything,
And place an offering by your door.

And when the beast is in its den
And you're the one they choose to draw him out...
On this night be hopeful [and]

Never put down your horn,
Never put down your horn.

~Bill Gable

Or put another way: "The road goes ever on..."

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:38 pm

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Or put another way: "The road goes ever on..."

Though here at journey••™s end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Above all towers strong and high,
Above all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars forever dwell;

I will not say the Day is done
Or bid the Stars farewell.

-- Samwise Gamgee, The Return of the King

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost.

~The prophecy of Mablung, Fellowship of the Ring

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

~Walking Song, Bilbo Baggins

I will go there
... and back again...

~ Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring

There once was a man from Nantucket...

~ Anon.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 8:41 pm

Show me the way to go home...

cuttime · Post by **cuttime** » Tue Sep 04, 2007 10:02 pm

"Frodo! Come back!"