Sounds like you're talking to me John.

I've been back on 8.5.3 for about 6 weeks now, after finally giving in with X1 and completely removing it from my system.

This is going to sound vague, but I simply could not get anything done in X1 due to the constant crashing - no warning, just crashing back to the desktop even after attempting the simplest of tasks - selecting a track, scrolling in track view, inserting a plug, that sort of thing.

Initially, even whe X1 had been completely removed (including Registry tweaks) 8.5.3 was also showing signs of very strange behaviour (can't remember the details now) so I had no choice but to uninstall 8.5.3 and re-install. Sinvce then, 8.5.3 has been 100% stable - not a single crash and  in that time, I've been doing some intense editing, adding numerous live, un-bounced V-Vocal clips.

The only non-bundled plugs I've been using are BFD2, T-Racks Singles, EWQLSO, Halion 3 (not very project), and a couple from DSK.

I WANT X1 to work - I think the interface is superb and can't wait to try out the Pro Channel etc.

Bristol, thanks for the reply. You seem to be using XP and I guess its the 32 bit version?

I have noticed a few others that are running XP and seem to have crashes with X1. I don't know at this point if that is significant or not.

Hopefully others will have a similar set up and have the same symptoms.  

This may not be a show stopper for most but it sent me back to 8.5. There's an issue when selecting multiple clips by "lassoing" them, if the selected clips overlap other clips it also selects the overlap section of the clip not intended for selection and also doesn't highlight the whole clip that is intended to be selected. Hopefully fixed in X1b

Actually John I CAN wait as long as it's fixed, till then I wasn't foolish enough to remove 8.5

Bristol_Jonesey

John


Bristol, thanks for the reply. You seem to be using XP and I guess its the 32 bit version?

I have noticed a few others that are running XP and seem to have crashes with X1. I don't know at this point if that is significant or not.

Hopefully others will have a similar set up and have the same symptoms.  

Yep.
 
XP32 patched to SP3
 
 
I remember talking to one use on here who had virtually an identical setup to my own, yet his X1 ran perfectly.
 
So on that basis, there's no immediate correlation, and anyway, the product is SUPPOSED to run on XP32, though I suspect it's optimized for Win 7
 

I just wanted to say I am one of those running XP SP3 32 bit without any problems other than known bugs. I don't believe it's an XP specific issue, it's possibly hardware related (I'm not suggesting your hardware is at fault, I'm more inclined to believe X1 was simply not tested on enough motherboard/cpu/video combinations)

By the way if someone can come up with a better title please submit it.  I really don't know how to ask this question well enough in very few words! I'm not really kidding though.

Using the loop construction view , ends up with either a crash or a memory leak. Meaning after using the LCV , doing a simple bounce you need to restart the software. The fact having multiple sends on one track , just disables by it's self, Restart needed,  And the most annoying bug is the lost of sound playback( Asio problems).
 Pro channel is useless when it turns off by itself. Going back to activate snap is pita.
 And then there's the Lasso bug,That makes arranging clips at different lengths impossible to cntrl copy.
 These are most annoying problems im having. not a 100% show stopper's but more so as a workflow killer. when you have 5 restarts a session , your workflow just sucks and you spend more time trying to figure out what went wrong.
 BUt even with all the problems I continue to use it everyday, I did notice 3 grey hairs since the release of X1. OHHH Boy.. Thanks CW,

James I don't see those as show stoppers at all. They may be annoying but they wont stop you from making music.

If you hadn't been able to do that in 8 then is it something you would have even noticed?

Bristol we have never had to uninstall a previous version in the past. This sort of makes me wonder about the install of X1 as being a problem child by itself. I think CW needs to look a bit closer at it. We do know that the install for Dim Pro of X1 is broken.

Hey John , I create an audio track with a kick , used that as a trigger track for gating another track, and I use the same track and send another insert to another bus or track , when I have more than 1 send at weird times the trigger track out of the blue starts playing, I click post on off turn it on off nothing works , If I restart the sends work as they should. Real Pita..
 Crashing has improved 10 fold since I dont use ASIO drivers, My Tascam fw1884 , works like **** only in X1.Right now Im using a Stanton Open scratch amp WDM working ok .My delta card dosn't work at all Crap.
 Im on Xp 3rd edition, which will change as soon as x1b is out , Going 64bit on an SSD. Hoping that will resolve alot of problems will see. Yeah crashing is a big problem but Im into the habbit of saving alot almost after every good edit. I keep chugging along.. Bascilly when ever I come onto the forums its cause im waiting for a restart. and Cw killed my workflow.

 

On a recent project that the send issue is happening , Im using SSD 3 with the step sequencer,  Quick run down, SSD3 kick on every 1/8 note, insert send to synth track thats has digital air noise , Automated the volume and added a filter to sweep it up and down,  press the insert send on button click post fader lower the volume controller, works mint.. Now I added another synth track with strings , and used the same kick track as the trigger cause I'm looking for that 1/8 note pumping effect on that sound, and I add that send, it works fine. and then out of the blue if I put focus on that track hit play the volume control now slammed to the top of the track and started playing back the trigger kick, Restart and its works perfect again.
 Yeah I had a major show stopper with my Tascam fw with 8.5.0 couldn't use it till 8.5.3 was released in March of last year. Pc computing needs to redesign the whole ASIO driver world. Look at NI there having a PITA time with there new S4 controller and PC 's Drivers/ASIO and Zero problems with core Audio. IMO Pc needs to take a Mac approach on how drivers work. I never had a problem ever with Core Audio .. it just works!! 

For me, it isn't so much any "one" bug that became a showstopper - it was the cumulative factor of multiple bugs -- as can be evidenced by the long bug fix list coming in X1B.

It just was becoming too annoying to use X1, and it became that "man against the machine" paradigm, and it completely inhibted workflow.

So, to me, it was like a major showstopper because there was no "flow" to it.

The below is from the Readme file of Sonar 8.5.3. I present it here as a reminder that Sonar 8.5 had a lot of bugs in it too.

I don't present this as a way to discount the bugs in X1, rather simply that we have had these things to deal with before. It did not cause this sort of consternation.

None the less I do think any bugs when identified need to be fixed asap.

Issues Addressed in SONAR 8.5.3

 

AudioSnap

·         Vastly improved stability
·         Rendering
[font=""courier new""]o        Render Mode “Applies to” set to “Tracks” did not always apply to all clips on a track
[font=""courier new""]o        Bouncing using Radius Mix sometimes resulted in flatlined clips
·         Clip Follows Project
[font=""courier new""]o        Was not undo-able
[font=""courier new""]o        Toggling sometimes changed slip edits
·         Clip Tempo Map
[font=""courier new""]o        Ruler sometimes stayed on after disabling AudioSnap
·         Addressed various graphics glitches with transient markers, Clip Tempo Maps and AudioSnap Palette button states   
·         “Show Pool Lines” setting was not persisted properly in project files
 
General
·         Arpeggiator sometimes stopped working after a bounce or freeze operation
·         BitBridge servers defaulted to 1 after VST scan
·         SONAR would sometimes crash when accessing a Windows 7 Homegroup from the Media Browser
·         Improved stability when switching driver modes

 

Issues Addressed in SONAR 8.5.2

 

Accessibility

·         Event List View was not accessible
·         Accelerator keys fixed for the following:  Audio Effects Dialog, Audio Options
·         Extra Encoding Options was missing a keyboard accelerator
·         Insert Tracks dialog had incorrect or missing accelerator keys
·         Paste | Advanced dialog has missing accelerator keys
·         Using keybinding to arm a track did not always work while a project was playing
·         Can now change focus in Track View to the Track Inspector

Arpeggiator

·         Extra root notes played quietly when using “Rhythms” presets
·         Arpeggiator introduced random, flammed or doubled notes when using some pattern-based presets
·         Open Preset dialog did not always remember last folder location
·         Arpeggiator UI would remain on after an instrument track was frozen
·         Arpeggiator widget group would not appear unless FX Bin was also enabled
·         Velocity control had slightly different behavior for Rhythm Only shapes

AudioSnap

·         Clicking “Set Clip from Project” would sometimes crash SONAR
·         SONAR would sometimes crash when choosing “Set Measure/Beat at Now”
·         Improved results using Threshold control
·         MIDI events could not be quantized to the AudioSnap Pool
·         MIDI events would not snap to transients in the AudioSnap Pool
·         Tab to Transients in the PRV always followed the first track rather than the selected track
·         Using Copy as MIDI would paste notes at 100% duration, making it difficult to work with
·         Clicking AudioSnap Enable/Disable button sometimes hid the waveform of the clip
·         AudioSnap Enable did not light up in Palette after selecting “Edit Clip Map”
·         The AudioSnap Palette would always re-open on the primary monitor, even when closed from a secondary monitor
·         Drag/scroll did not work with Transient Tool when selecting transient markers offscreen
·         When adding envelope nodes at transient markers, nodes were created for disabled markers
·         SONAR would temporarily hang when adding envelope nodes at transients
·         After splitting a clip with Transient Markers on, Markers on right-side clip remained on after switching tools
·         Transient Markers sometimes appeared on Groove Clips
·         Transient Markers were not displayed on frozen clips after freezing an instrument track
·         Projects sometimes took a very long time to load, due to AudioSnap performing tempo detection on load 
·         Tempo detection is now performed on a clip the first time an AudioSnap command is applied to a clip
·         Duplicate tempo candidates sometimes appeared in the Average Tempo list
·         SONAR was not always able to copy the clip tempo to the project tempo when choosing “Set Project from Clip” if the selected clip was at the start of a project
·         F1 Help did not always open for the AudioSnap Palette

Automation

·         Automation envelopes were sometimes excluded when copying data from instrument tracks
·         Clip Automation envelopes were sometimes deleted from a clip when an overlapping clip on another layer was deleted
·         Copying clips with clip envelopes into tracks with layers sometimes caused the clip envelopes to stop working
·         Automation Write button in Synth Plug-in Header did not always arm all automatable parameters

Cakewalk Plug-ins

·         External Insert did not always properly compensate for latency while recording
·         Under some circumstances, Channel Tools would case overs and stop the audio engine
·         For VX-64, PX-64 and TL-64, changing parameters from a control surface did not update the graphics in the UI
·         VX-64 and PX-64 dynamics and delay modules would sometimes lose their settings on sampling rate changes
·         Dragging nodes in LP-64 EQ during playback would sometimes crash SONAR
·          “Half Rack’ Plug-ins (Alias Factor, HF Exciter, Tempo Delay, etc.,)
[font=""courier new""]o        Were sometimes not installed correctly in Studio Edition
[font=""courier new""]o        Did not work play sound in all x64 configurations
[font=""courier new""]o        Did not always display at the correct size
·         Cakewalk MIDI FX plug-in controls did not display correctly
·         BitMeter plug-in was not installing correctly in SONAR Studio
·         Projects containing Fantom VS or ARX Editors did not always load properly in Windows Vista
·         Tooltips were missing for Solo and Step Sequencer buttons in the SONAR plug-in header strip

General

·         Bus input trim sometimes became inactive after bouncing, freezing or creating a V-Vocal clip in a project
·         SONAR sometimes glitched when enabling or disabling delay compensated plug-ins during playback
·         Process | Audio | Reverse flatlined 64-bit audio files on x64
·         Project files saved with Groove Clip slice edits did not always load the edits back in
·         MIDI Echo no longer worked for Drum Maps
·         In the Event List, changing Value or Type of Events caused the View to scroll to the top
·         In the Piano Roll View, lassoing notes while zoomed in caused redraw problems and erratic selection behavior
·         Improved overall stability on PC’s using older AMD processors that do not support SSE2
·         The default latency for WDM devices has now been lowered to 30msec from 100msec
·         Assignable controls did not work for synths patched in an FX Bin
·         SONAR sometimes crashed when inserting a VSTi with “All Synth Outputs” checked in the Insert Synth dialog
·         Insert Synth Dialog did not remember settings across sessions
·         Synth Rack could not be minimized when several other views were opened maximized
·         Floating Windows could not be disabled for some views
·         Projects containing Arturia Moog Modular V2.5 sometimes loaded with a compatibility warning
·         Disk and CPU meters sometimes exceeded 100%

Instrument Tracks

·         Inserting track templates containing instrument tracks sometimes played at a lower volume than when saved
·         Pasting MIDI data to/from an instrument track sometimes created a new MIDI track

Matrix View

·         Capturing to the Track View now obeys Matrix Row Mutes and Solos
·         Capturing to the Track View did always work correctly for cells that were looping, but the source clip was not a Groove Clip
·         When capturing to the Track View, sometimes triggering a new cell to toggle off a previously playing cell did not turn off the capture from the previous cell
·         Matrix View sometimes dropped first buffer on triggering on audio cell and played extra buffer after triggering the cell off
·         Under certain conditions, MIDI cells missed the first note when triggered
·         Pending cells would get triggered when enabling Sync to SONAR Transport
·         Cells did not stop when in "Transport Sync" mode when Metronome is enabled
·         When not set to Follow Transport, triggering a cell for the first time in the Matrix View did not always start immediately
·         When set to Follow Transport, stopping SONAR sometimes did not stop all cells in the Matrix
·         Cells would not retrigger when Global Retrigger mode was on and Global Loop mode was off
·         On some occasions, scrollbars did not appear when rows containing populated cells were offscreen
·         Cell progress indicators were not always indicating the exact playback position of the cell
·         Multiple clips could not be simultaneously drag-dropped from the Track View into the Matrix View
·         Did not support type 1 MIDI files
·         Timing and performance optimizations

Media Browser

·         Presets did not function properly in non-English OS’s
·         Presets pointing to folders under “My Documents” did not function properly on Windows 7
·         No longer continues to play selected clip(s) after dragging into the Matrix View
·         Preview Bus list did not update for renamed buses
·         Improved stability with multiple projects opened simultaneously

Step Sequencer

·         Open and closing the controller plane when scrolled down in the View caused the View to scroll to the top
·         With multiple rows selected, changing a parameter in one row sometimes changed all parameters in other rows as well
·         Velocities could not be edited for newly-created steps while the velocity lane was open
·         Velocities could no longer be edited after changing the number of beats in the pattern
·         Edit controls pop-up did not appear correctly on screen when scrolled down the View
·         Tooltips did not display the parameter/value as the control was dragged
·         MIDI CC’s in controller pane did not display the CC number
·         Did not always retain New Value Types added to the controller pane
·         Flammed steps played back inconsistently when per-step probability was less than 100%
·         Clearing all steps sometimes did not clear probability settings
·         Patterns with a time offset on the last step would sometimes hang the last note
·         Step Sequencer sometimes opened on previously selected track rather than selected track
·         Inserting a new row in a Step Sequencer attached to an unlinked SS clip sometimes crashed SONAR
·         The Step Sequencer View sometimes expanded after deleting a row
·         Looping the Step Sequencer with Reason 4 sometimes dropped notes after looping
·         Performance optimizations

Session Drummer 3

·         There was a memory leak in Session Drummer 3 upon opening and closing projects
·         In French version of SONAR, some SD3 kits played at +12dB to +20dB too loud
·         On Windows 7 x64, closing and opening the UI during playback sometimes caused SD3 to no longer play audio
·         Various content issues with the following kits:
[font=""courier new""]o        Steven Slate Kits
§         StevenSlate_OldZepKit_Dry and StevenSlate_SizzleKit_Dry had cutoff problems when quiet notes followed loud notes
§         StevenSlate_SizzleKit_Dry hi hats were not grouped
§           Dry kits weren't choking the hi hats properly
§           Sidesticks weren't full velocity sensitive and did not play properly at low velocities
§           Crash cymbals and toms were cutting themselves off
§           Toms were not correctly decending in pitch from Note 50 down to the lowest Floor Tom
[font=""courier new""]o        Sonic Reality Kits
§           Some side stick sounds didn't have full velocity scaling; a very low velocity would trigger a loud sound
§           Some open hi-hats sounded like pedal hats, and had excessive low frequency content
§           Snares were monophonic; hitting a snare twice would produce an unexpected cutoff sound
§           Some snare rolls played too slow
§           PremrTimbaleKit:  Right Hand Snare, Note 40, and Right Hand Low Snare, note 43, at high velocity, had an audible click in the right speaker
§           ClassicRock Kit:  Crash Cymbal on Note 49 triggered a Bell hit of the Cymbal rather than a normal Crash Cymbal
§           Blues Kit:  The Snare Roll samples had an audible hissing noise
§           BritRock Kit:  The Snare Roll had an audible clicking on the attack
§           RingBeats Kit
·      There was an audible hissing noise in the Snare Roll
·      There was audible clicking in some velocity layers of the Snare Roll
·      SideStick had doubled/ flamed hits towards the upper velocities
§         TR-707 had missing floor tom sample
§         TR-808_bright had missing low cymbal sample
§         DarkLordOfTheSethKits:  sidestick was not fully velocity sensitive
§         NPulse kit contained some samples with extra hits at the very end
§         Groovy Kit Brushes Note 39 played the wrong sample

Track View

·         Archived Folders did not preserve Mute and Solo states
·         Set Snap Offset to Now Time did not always persist the offset in the clip properties
·         Bouncing multiple Groove Clips that were split and moved sometimes yielded unpredictable results
·         Groove Clips starting at Measure 1 played back incorrectly after the start time was adjusted
·         SONAR sometimes did not draw clip waveforms for long WAVE64 audio files
·         Improved stability with Groove Clips

Video

·         Video sometimes did not maintain sync while looping in project
·         Video is out of sync when using audio metronome count-in
·         Video lost sync when changing Now Time during playback
·         WMV videos are sometimes displayed upside down when first imported into SONAR in Windows Vista or Windows 7
 

Issues Addressed in SONAR 8.5.1

 

SONAR 8.5.1 addresses a number of issues with the new Matrix View, including:
·         In some system configurations, MIDI clips could not always be triggered at low latencies.
·         Some MIDI controllers would not trigger cells properly when latch was set to OFF.
·         The first MIDI note of a cell would sometimes not play when triggered.
·         Under certain conditions, with “Follow Transport” set to ON, cells would not stop when the SONAR Transport was stopped.
·         Audio glitches would sometimes occur when quickly triggering MIDI clips within the same row.
·         Long MIDI notes within a cell were sometimes truncated on playback.
·         Matrix View would sometimes lose MIDI learn assignments after swapping MIDI hardware.
·         Matrix View ignored trim points in clips dragged from the Track View.
·         Audio files that were added to the Matrix and then cleared from the Matrix were sometimes still saved with projects.
·         Various performance and stability optimizations.
 
The following adjustments were made to Matrix View mode behaviors:
·         When Retrigger is on, the Matrix will always play cells from the beginning, regardless of the “Cell Start” mode.
·         When Latch is off, cells will always toggle on/off when triggered, ignoring the setting of the Retrigger mode.
 

I forgot to add:

"There's an issue when selecting multiple clips by "lassoing" them, if the selected clips overlap other clips it also selects the overlap section of the clip not intended for selection and also doesn't highlight the whole clip that is intended to be selected."

Is a show stopper for me... I forgot about it because I never watch the show long enough to be reminded it before I change the channel and work in 8.5

A lot of those bugs affected me, John -- but not quite the same as X1.

However, a lot of those bugs didn't affect me.  AudioSnap was never something I liked or used much (it just was half-baked in my opinion and still is, though somewhat improved in 8.5.3).

V-Vocal is another one did my best not to use, so it wasn't a biggie for me.

A number of the other bugs - for whatever reason - didn't seem to stop my workflow with the entire 8.x cycle.  Some were definitely annoying, but they just didn't have the "cumulative" affect that the bugs in X1 has for me.

Another example:  The Matrix.   I just stopped using it.  It still has problems and has not had any updating.

And, interestingly enough - SOME of those 8.x bugs STILL exist, in spite of that text showing they're fixed.

But I think there's more to this.  Something I alluded to early on in the X1 release was the phenonenom of people being tired of this endless cycle of rush releases that cause some part of the user base to either not be able to use the software or, at minimum, to do so with a lot of headaches.

People get complacent.  Companies like when that happens, it seems.

But there does come a time when a "mass groove", if you will, occurs (as can be evidenced by many of the changes going on in parts of our world).   This "mass groove" then becomes an outcry.
 
 
Also - with all the DAW 2.0 hype, CW raised everyone's expectations.   Ouch.
 
Speaking only for me, I just reached a point where I felt a 10 year old mature product -- even with a facelift - should have been carefully released.

One thing I can say - for sure:  I will never again trust CW when it comes to 'initial releases' until they show a much better approach to caring about their customers.

It's not that they don't care -- it's that, in my opinion, some decisions were made at the expense of the customer (ie, management may not care as much as they should).

Yes - I understand there are financial pressures and all that.  But at the end of the day, it isn't our job to "manage" their company.   It IS their job to do so.

SO bugs are bugs.  Every software has 'em.   We don't have to eat them for breakfast if we choose not to