Dimension @ 96Khz/24bit - pitch wheel causes meters to shoot up to +99.9

When in 96Khz/24bit, running Dim LE, plain jane Dimension, or Dimensino Pro 1.2, about half of the patches will cause the instrument to distort greatly and some will be so bad that the output meters will read a peak of 99.9. The distortion is always VERY LOUD so make sure you take care to keep volumes very low so you do not damage your gear (or ears).

The best example is "Brass Pad 1" under the "Pads" group.

How to reproduce

1. Set Sonar to 96Khz/24bit
2. Create a new project
3. Create a new instance of Dimension LE, Dimension, or Dimension Pro
4. Open the patch folder "Pads" and open patch "Brass Pad 1"
5. TURN YOUR VOLUME VERY VERY VERY LOW (you could potentially cause damage due to the audio distortion generated)
6. Play a note then turn the pitch wheel
7. You will hear squeeling instead of what you are supposed to hear and will see a meter output on Dimension of "+99.9"

Scope

This has been confirmed (on another thread) to happen in Dimension (the one that came with P5), Dimension LE, and Dimension Pro 1.2. I only have Dim LE and Dim, but another user confirmed Dim Pro for me in that other thread.

This problem does NOT occur in Rapture (Dim's "sister" synth) nor does it occur in any other instrument I've tried (I have about a dozen).

Is There a Solution?

I haven't found one except to not user 96/24, but that's unnacceptable to me so please don't suggest it. I'm hoping others can try this and see if it happens on their systems and if we get enough "me toos" I'll phone up Cakewalk and hopefully have enough ammunition to get them to look into it.

Thanks everyone!

BTW - this suddenly-dangerously-loud thing also happens with a few of the prog.'s in Rapture as well - it seems, to me, to be connected to certain filter configrations, eso. Lp2 - Lp6.

How to reproduce

1. Set Sonar to 96Khz/24bit
2. Create a new project
3. Create a new instance of Dimension LE, Dimension, or Dimension Pro
4. Open the patch folder "Pads" and open patch "Brass Pad 1"
5. TURN YOUR VOLUME VERY VERY VERY LOW (you could potentially cause damage due to the audio distortion generated)
6. Play a note then turn the pitch wheel
7. You will hear squeeling instead of what you are supposed to hear and will see a meter output on Dimension of "+99.9"

I just followed this recipe with Dimension 1.2 and can't get the squeeling myself. I tried it on SONAR 7 on Vista x64, and in Cubase 4 on OSX 10.4.10 with same result. I remember than the original Dimension which shipped with Project5 (now discontinued) had this issue, but I fixed it for Dimension Pro long ago.

What OS are you using? does changing your latency make any change? Are you in a multiple core system? does changing SONAR multiprocessor mode make any change?

In any case, I suggest you to contact Technical Support no narrow this issue down. BTW, bit depth has most likely nothing to do here. The plug-ins work always in 32-bit floating point, regardless on what bit depth you set for your audio driver (16, 24, etc.)

Greetings all,

René has also posted that he failed to reproduce the SFZ distortion problem. I don't recall seeing any update to this result.

----------------------

In working in software support in the past, I found that software developers often make lousy troubleshooters for many problems encountered by users.

The reason is that these people usually test their own private versions of software on a development machine and/or development network RATHER than going to a non-development-network, vanilla machine and following the USER PROCEDURES for *installing*, and *updating* software, then testing.

The result? They often fail to duplicate problems. Instead of stopping to think about their own environment, they turn around and interrogate the user about his/her environment, believing that the user or the user's environment is somehow at fault.

When this result occurs (cannot duplicate old problem), the ball has been dropped TWICE. The ball is dropped in getting "fixed" versions deployed properly; the ball is then dropped for the second time when the developer fails to test properly.


Now this may not be the case here, but I strongly suspect that this is exactly what is happening, unfortunately for everyone involved. I still believe that René has done an outstanding job of creating a great piece of software. However, creation isn't enough. It needs to be properly deployed and supported.


Regards,
Dave Clark

The problem rapture patches for me that I can recall are (sequence) "Smoothing Breath", (lead, rgc, exp pack 1 or 2) "Unuseable Lead". They are only a few more, in both the original & and expansion packs - and this has only happened to me when hosted in Sonar 6. I do recall that it was triggered either by simply loading - try "Smoothing Breath"....not that soothing - or by adjusting the cutoff of an Lp2, Lp4 or Lp6 filter, manually during playback. I run Vista 32 on a core 2 duo rig, edirol fa-66, pcr-300, nice clean machine, no other cakewalk software problems at all. Didn't think this was a big deal - Rapture works perfectly %99 of the time. But I NEVER change progs without safe-muting first.

I'm going to go ahead and submit a support request and see where I can get from there. I'll be back to report what they tell me (can't wait).

Sure, I don't see how it could hurt. Go for it! This problem is really bugging me and preventing me from using Dimension LE, which has great patches when it's working (as long as I don't attempt to manipulate the pitch wheel and according to vespesian, some of the filters lol)! I guess there aren't many 96Khz users out there, so they probably don't hear from many people about issues at that sample rate. :-) I noticed that some of the filters seemed REALLY aggressive, but it never dawned on me that they weren't supposed to sound that way until vespesian's post! I need to mess with the filters in rap/dim at 44.1 to see if they sound more mild at that sample rate. But one problem at a time! I'll be happy when the pitch wheel problem is fixed.

LionSound - Submit a support request (via email or phone). Maybe we just need to convince them it's not just one or two random people, but there's a real problem out there. I submitted an email request late Monday night, so I'm hoping to get a reply by the end of the week.

Okay, I heard back from Cake. Here's their reply...

Hello Timothy,

Thank you for contacting Cakewalk Technical Support. And thank you for
bringing this to our attention. I was able to reproduce this problem
with Dimension LE in Project5v2.5. It also occurred in SONAR 7 with
LE; however, this issue may vary from interface to interface, so I
can't say for certain (yet) if this is solely Dimension's bug. It
could be an up/down sampling issue with specific sound cards in
certain driver modes. This does not occur in any other sampling rate,
other than 96k, with my set up.

I have a few questions that may help us get to the bottom of this: Are
you using ASIO, WDM, MME drivers? What MIDI interface or controller
are you using to send the pitch bend? Does this happen with both the
VST and DXi versions of Dimension?

I will escalate this issue and log it in our tracking system. I can
assure you we will take this seriously and put it through a battery of
tests.

Thanks again for the report.

And my reply back:

Thank you for the prompt reply, Steve.

To answer your questions:
1. I am able to replicate this problem in WDM and ASIO modes. I have not tried MME. I normally operate in WDM.

2. I initially sent pitch control messages from my Yahama CS2X as my controller. I also tried my old Roland Alpha Junos. I have also "drawn" pitch bends in Sonar using the mouse by creating a pitch envelope.

3. VST versus DXi: I don't know -- I only have the DXi version installed right now.

Side note: There are some other (possibly related) problems noted at 96Khz for Dimension Pro which do NOT happen at other sampling rates. I have also been able to replicate these using the OLD "Dimension" (not Pro and not LE) that came with the original P5v2 but I do not own DimPro (yet). See my "pitch" thread and also the second thread (distortion using SFZ) at the links below for more information. I suspect Dimension only because I have several other soft-synths I use and none of them exhibit this problem at 96Khz: Rapture, Atmosphere, VSampler, JunoX2, Pentgon, and then the other ones that come with Sonar and P5 all work fine.

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

"SFZ Distortion" Post:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1111166

My "pitch" post:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.asp?m=1159575

Hi thx1200,

I also received a reply from Tech Support, basically a copy of what you received.

Unless SONAR is invoking drivers for mixdown, this problem is not caused by sound card, drivers, etc. Nor is the SFZ distortion problem, as I previously demonstrated.

-----------------------------

This software rendering procedure, something like that which Cakewalk Tech Support should have performed, creates HUGE floating point values without making a sound.

Download (RIGHT-CLICK/Save Link As...):

Mixdown Pitchbend Bundle


Start SONAR 6PE.


Open Project that was downloaded:

DPro_PitchBend.cwb

Accepting default directories, etc. or change as you like....


Options/Audio set to 96,000 Sample/sec. IMPORTANT to ensure that rate is set correctly!


Select DPro Tracks (highlight for mixdown) and

Edit/Bounce to Track(s)


Note extreme floating point values in the new track for very small (194), very brief pitch bend.


Regards,
Dave Clark

Just a bump to keep this topic active. I still haven't heard back from support after confirmation of bug. Going to email them again to ask for update. Will keep everybody posted...

add me to the list
I tried this for fun and curiosity

I'm using WusikStation as a workaround

DimPro only works at 24/44.1k for me

Hi MR_Sine,

Thanks for posting your findings.

So, do I need to file a formal bug fix request to customer service, or is posting here enough?

I recommend submitting a formal report because it's more likely to elevate the priority of fixing the problem. If Cakewalk starts communicating with us regarding status or scheduling, then this may not be necessary, but they haven't said anything about it publicly for quite some time.

The sample rate of 44,100 samples/sec is the only sample rate that appears to have no problems for version 1.2.

Regards,
Dave Clark

I think there are more problems than just the level problem in 96k. Call me crazy, but when I play a piano patch (e.g.the largest one in the original 1.2 version or even a Rhodes patch), the higher octave on my 61key controller sounds weird. It sounds as if there is a filter applied to the sample with the filter envelope (with slow attack and fast decay) invoked. This is only the case for the highest octave, and of course when the sample rate is restored to 44.1 everything sounds normal. Can someone confirm this?

Well, I still haven't heard anything. I'm going to submit another email form (why won't they reply with a "from" address I can reply to from Outlook????) to see what's going on. Consider this post a bump. Glad to see it's been viewed over a thousand times. At least the userbase is noticing our plight!

My fear is that the various 96khz bugs are resulting from a large core flaw which is requiring a very large amount of debugging and rewriting. Just speculation here, but if it was a simple fix, or even a not-so-simple, but not huge, fix it would be done by now. I guess they feel that either most people don't find this a critical bug or are perfectly happy operating in the 44.1Khz domain.

Cakewalk - I've been a customer since version 5.0. And I don't mean Sonar 5.0. I mean Cakewalk 5.0 for DOS which came out in like the early 90s. I've had little to complain about to this point, even during the dark buggy Sonar 1.0 years. You guys always make things right! But it's the lack of response on your side with this that's frustrating. If Cakewalk would come on here to this thread and just tell us something like we're sorry about this but it's a huge thing and it will take eight months to fix. Well then at least I know WHEN the fix is coming! That's all I'm asking. I know Cakewalk isn't a gigantic company like Microsoft with tons of resources to spare. Bugs happen. But can you please open the line of communication here? I know Cakewalk techs lurk and post here. Give us a heads up. That's ALL we are asking for. We're reasonable. Obviously a quick fix is ideal for us, but at least give us a dialog to let us know we aren't forgotten!

See you guys next month when I bump this topic again. ;-)