This is a little frustrating. After finally getting Pent I setup to mangle up a vocal track Sonar Lexington has crashed... every time.
 
I know it's old but has anyone been able to use Pent I as a Vocoder in SPlat? Is this just a totally broken/buggy tool (for this purpose... I've played with Pent as a synth without issue before)? Maybe just Lexington (which has been screwing me around a bit anyway)?
 
I just want to know how hopeless this experiment is before I waste a bunch of time on it or if it's just my system.
 
Sorry if a sound ticked off but I don't like learning new stuff just to have it completely not work. Pent I is the only vocoder included and I really wanted to try this technique. It was sounding very hopeful before the crashes which is even more frustrating. Ugh...
 
Anyway... thanks for any input on this.
 
BTW I am following these directions to set up the Vocoder if anyone wants to test it out...
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/Support/Knowledge-Base/2007013086/Using-Pentagon-I-as-a-Vocoder
 
Cheers.
 
PS: BEWARE!!! I think this has actually corrupted my project even though I had not saved it before the crash. DO A SAVE AS BEFORE TESTING!!! I'm gonna have to revert back to an earlier version (but I save as often so it's not a huge deal for me... just don't want anyone screwing up their projects).
 
Also the Fault Reporter (which NEVER pops up because I haven't had a hard crash in  ages) just sat there hanging for a long time until I simply had to close it.... so that was kind of lame too.

I suppose this is not a simple project with a single audio track track with Pentagon in the FX bin being driven by a MIDI track. If it is, i just tested that and it worked OK in L.
Without following the link, here is what I did

• Created a new project
• Added an audio track with a spoken word clip in and looped the clip.
• Dropped Pentagon in the FX rack and set the program to the first one in bank A called hUnison
• Added a MIDI track setting the input to my controller, output to Pentagon and enabled echo on.
• Started the transport and played my controller.

Thanks for checking scook. Yes it's a more complex project than that (wanted to try this in context of the mix for obvious reasons).
 
That's pretty much how I did it (of course I also had to do the "Click Pentagon Icon" to "Set Voice Modulator to ON" (doesn't work otherwise for me).
 
Are you on Lexington or Manchester? I'm guessing Manchester. Maybe that will correct it but I'll see what happens in a new project.
 
This is not a huge project but has quite a few effects in it.
 
Cheers.

I have D through M installed. I tested with L.
Yes, I failed to mention the Voice Modulator setting. It is necessary.

I tried in a new project. It worked properly for a while but as I was cruising patches it started causing those nasty noise/crackle flare ups that seem to happen when synths get unstable and things were starting to freeze breifly. I could tell it was about to get stupid so yanked the cans of my head just in time for a really loud one (they were on my table and I could tell that one would have hurt... phew). Hopefully my headphones are okay.
 
Anyway... it gave me enough time to realize it's probably not exactly what I'm looking for anyway. I thought I was gonna get more annunciation like a Talk Box (and yeah I turned on the Formants thing) but it was all really quite undefined. SOme patches were certainly closer than others and I'm sure with some tweaking I could have done some cool stuff but these crashes are making it not really worth it.
 
Pent I isn't really the best sounding synth compared to Zeta and Rapture and some of the others so whatever. It was an experiment and I think I'm just gonna try my other schemes for this which are more effect and pitch oriented.
 
Cheers and thanks again for checking that out.

There is a very serious bug with some of the patches in Pentagon you are guaranteed to hear if you audition all the presets http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2708401
 
 

Ah, yes. I recall that issue. It's the "simulator" options, yes (Valley ones specifically)? I haven't played with Pent that much before aside from some simple testing so I forgot that was the synth affected.
 
That certainly explains what I experienced in the new project. The crashing was happening (in the populated project) before any real patch browsing though so I think that might be a separate (but maybe related) issue.
 
Essentially in the populated project just mucking about on my controller (and the first time I think just setting it up as a Vocoder) caused the crash. One time I believe I tried to navigate from the initial bank (so may have stumbled on a Valley Sim patch).
 
Most of the effects in this project are Prochannel modules (just temporary settings as I recorded) and are minimal. The effect that is used extensively is GR5 across about a dozen active tracks and set to use the "Hi" samplerate setting.
 
Perhaps GR5 is exacerbating the issue. I've been kind of suspecting it as a source of/contributor to some of my issues lately.
 
hmm...

Beepster
That certainly explains what I experienced in the new project. The crashing was happening (in the populated project) before any real patch browsing though so I think that might be a separate (but maybe related) issue.

Could be, I have used Pentagon as a vocoder in more than a trivial test case (although not since Platinum) but have not tested it with multiple instances of GR set on HI. FWIW, I also always run at 44.1 sample rate.

scook

Beepster
That certainly explains what I experienced in the new project. The crashing was happening (in the populated project) before any real patch browsing though so I think that might be a separate (but maybe related) issue.

Could be, I have used Pentagon as a vocoder in more than a trivial test case (although not since Platinum) but have not tested it with multiple instances of GR set on HI. FWIW, I also always run at 44.1 sample rate.

As it so happens this project is actually in 44.1 as well. This is that oooold "Beepster Metal" project I did as my first recording and I rerecorded everything but the initial drum track (which unfortunately cannot be recreated which is another hindrance) was still 44.1 so I just stuck with that instead of upsampling.
 
I kind of don't think that Pent I is going to do what I wanted anyway based on the prelim tests or at the very least it's going to take way more futzing about than I am willing to put into it for this project. I'll chalk it up as a learning experience for now unless the other stuff I want to try maybe leads me to think the effect I was getting might benefit the overall theme of the tune.
 
What I may also try, and I'll probably be doing this quite a bit more now that I have it installed, is doing an export of the entire mix, importing it into Reaper then seeing if Pent I will behave a little better there. If it does (and if it's even possible to use as a VST in Reaper) then I get the sound, export as audio and reintroduce it to the Sonar project.
 
Otherwise that will just be an experiment for later. Now I think I'm going to mess with the various pitch tools and more extreme effects applied directly to the audio in Sonar to do my mangling. I'm thinking this will be a good excuse to maybe try out Bifilter which I've been wanting to for ages and perhaps some straight up automation "Draw" tool stuff in the lanes in combo with various effects or even just simple crap like pan and volume.
 
Cheers.

Pentagon is a DirectX plug-in