ezdrummer2

maybe this will help http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3045236

Maybe a session drummer 2 user can confirm the situation here on whether it works at X1D and X3E at their end for 16 outputs.
 
> the manufacturer should always try to offer some support. 

Assume you have installed X1D patch. Sorry but X1 is out of support and you can't expect software companies to support complex products forever (think of the costs involved having to support several versions of Sonar along with other peoples third party code to deal with), it probably works fine on X3E (you could try the trial to confirm this which is X3D I think). Upgrades are $120.00 and in effect you are then back in support. Or you might hang around for X4 (release date unknown).
 
The good news is that X3E has killed a ton of bugs although you may wish to check here (post #1) to see if any of the outstanding bugs with X3E effect you. It may seem a lot but it's significantly less than what X1D had under Roland. Cakewalk is now owned by Gibson.
 
Cheers...

This is the thread I started about the issue.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Problems-after-installing-EZdrummer2-m3035781.aspx

To save you some time reading posts, here are the serious issues that I had with EZD2.  They have have been reliably replicated by technicians at Sweetwater, so it is not something unique to me.
 
• Open a project that was created with EZD1
• Open the EZ Drummer GUI in the synth rack.  Do anything.  Close it or leave it open.
• You will lose either 1-audio from one or more soft synths or 2-the entire project
• The soft synth audio MAY be fixed by correcting the INs and OUTs on the synth track; HOWEVER,
• This bug breaks freezing and unfreezing so 1-you can't freeze synths and 2-synths that are frozen can't be unfrozen, meaning you can't fix the messed up INs and OUTs.
• If you lose all project audio, you may get it back with a reboot or the project may be corrupted forever.
 
Example:  I opened an old project that had EZ Drummer 1.  The bass (Kontakt) wouldn't play.  It was frozen.  I couldn't unfreeze it and therefore couldn't fix it.  Another instrument (Fab Four) wouldn't play.  I fixed it by changing the INs and OUTs which had been set to random things that didn't make sense.  They needed to be set back to receive MIDI, send MIDI to Fab Four, and then send the audio to the bus.  No instrument would freeze. Then I lost all project audio and it never came back.  Project is ruined.
 
Toontrack says it is waiting on Cakewalk to respond, but Toontrack is not updating forum entries or responding to requests.  I hear nothing from Cakewalk.  I don't know if Cakewalk believes it is their issue or not.
 
I completely uninstalled all versions of EZ Drummer, then reinstalled EZ Drummer 1.  So far so good, but I lost a project and the money I spent on the upgrade—and many hours of frustration.

konradh
To save you some time reading posts, here are the serious issues that I had with EZD2.  They have have been reliably replicated by technicians at Sweetwater, so it is not something unique to me.
 
• Open a project that was created with EZD1
• Open the EZ Drummer GUI in the synth rack.  Do anything.  Close it or leave it open.
• You will lose either 1-audio from one or more soft synths or 2-the entire project
• The soft synth audio MAY be fixed by correcting the INs and OUTs on the synth track; HOWEVER,
• This bug breaks freezing and unfreezing so 1-you can't freeze synths and 2-synths that are frozen can't be unfrozen, meaning you can't fix the messed up INs and OUTs.
• If you lose all project audio, you may get it back with a reboot or the project may be corrupted forever.
 
Example:  I opened an old project that had EZ Drummer 1.  The bass (Kontakt) wouldn't play.  It was frozen.  I couldn't unfreeze it and therefore couldn't fix it.  Another instrument (Fab Four) wouldn't play.  I fixed it by changing the INs and OUTs which had been set to random things that didn't make sense.  They needed to be set back to receive MIDI, send MIDI to Fab Four, and then send the audio to the bus.  No instrument would freeze. Then I lost all project audio and it never came back.  Project is ruined.
 
Toontrack says it is waiting on Cakewalk to respond, but Toontrack is not updating forum entries or responding to requests.  I hear nothing from Cakewalk.  I don't know if Cakewalk believes it is their issue or not.
 
I completely uninstalled all versions of EZ Drummer, then reinstalled EZ Drummer 1.  So far so good, but I lost a project and the money I spent on the upgrade—and many hours of frustration.

I will test this later.  On my system, EZD1 and EZD2 Demo are completely separate installs.  Why is it that opening an old project with EZD1 would be affected if you are not launching it with EZD2?
 
Not saying there is not a problem, but can't you continue working in old projects with EZD1?  And use EZD2 for new projects?

DeeringAmps
Ezd2 overwrites ezd1 upon upgrade. Evidently the demo does not.
Tom

Ah thank you.  Thanks for the warning.  Maybe its possible to use the installer to specify a separate location so that does not happen?
 
 

StumpyV
So I guess you have to pay for the upgrade to get support. Typical for software companies...I don't care how old a product is, the manufacturer should always try to offer some support. 

If you buy Logic Pro X, you get 90 days of free complimentary phone support. After that, it's $99 per incident. Or you can buy one year of email/phone Professional Audio support, which is valid for only the latest version. I tried to find the price but couldn't; when I called the number on the Apple web site to check price I had to enter a registration code, which I didn't have. They do not list the price although they do list the price for 1 year of video support, which is $799. Presumably the pro audio support is less.
 
Cakewalk continues to offer free support. The tradeoff is that it's for current users. But, they are the ones working their way through new software and likely have the most questions. Cakewalk could just charge everyone for support, but I think most people if offered a choice between a plan like Apple's or free support for current users would pick the latter.

Whether it's Toontracks fault or not, it's really up to Toontrack to fix it and approach Cakewalk if they think there are any issues with Cakes code (as many VST's are working fine with X3E I would regard it unlikely to be Sonar at fault though). It may work with other software scenarios but that does not rule out any fault with the plugin code. Ta

I'm not sure this problem can/will be fixed. I believe it is caused by the way Sonar handles/names its I/O tables. Which would be a major re-write of Sonar's routing paradigm code. If Toontrack can hand off the new outputs to every other major DAW and those DAWs can handle it, then Sonar is doing something non-standard with its I/O routing. Which some of us have assumed for years.(ie "Why can't I route a synth to an audio track and record it live?") If Sonar does re-visit its routing, we probably won't see it until X4 or X5. By then most users will have "fixed" their old projects or reverted back to EZD1. So I'm not sure it would be a priority for Cakewalk.

I think he issue is caused by EZD2 having twice as many outs as EZD1.  EZD2 also overwrites/replaces EZD1 when it is installed.  This causes projects that used EZD1 to mess up the routing of the entire project.
 
It doesn't affect other VSTs like Addictive Drums or Session drummer because they haven't doubled the number their outputs, AFAIK.
 
I have no idea where the problem lies, be it Cakewalk, Toontrack or both/neither.
 
I would like it fixed, if at all possible.  There obviously is a workaround, but it can be time consuming on complex projects.
 
Ho hum..

@StumpyV
 
Even Microsoft drops support for older version of software.  XP support was dropped.  It is prohibitively expensive and counter-productive for a company to provide endless support on obsolete versions of software, as it requires additional training and other resources, on top of the fact that companies generate income through sales of new versions and new releases of products.
 
There is a way for you to continue to get SOME assistance with issues in older non-supported versions of Sonar.  It lies in that this forum exists, that it can be searched quite well with Google, and that most solvable issues for an old and no longer supported version of Sonar will have been brought up and resolved in forum posts.
 
What I mean is that there is little likelihood in a solvable issue from a prior version of having been brought up and posted in this forum, and that you can therefore do searches in Google to located helpful posts so that you too can either find a workaround or a solution to most issues raised for your older Sonar version.
 
To search in Google for forum posts, try using this format for your search terms:
 
site:cakewalk.com forum term1 term2 term3 etc... (replace the 'term1' 'term2' and such with whatever you are trying to find info for.
 
Example:
 
site:cakewalk.com forum now time not scrolling
 
The 'site:cakewalk.com forum' portion of the search terms tells Google to only search for results for the Cakewalk web site forums, and then whatever other terms you added are applied to searching that site.  This makes it a pretty good tool for finding info on prior experiences folks have posted about, for a given issue.  Since most issues with a given old release will have been posted to the forum long before it gets to the point of being unsupported, you stand a very good chance of locating whatever available information exists for whatever issues you are searching for.
 
I hope the above helps - please post back if I have confused you or you want additional information.
 
As far as there ever being 'endless support' for anybody's product, it's just not a business reality, and not likely to ever happen, particularly for a small company like Cakewalk.  :)
 
Bob Bone
 

CakeAlexS
Whether it's Toontracks fault or not, it's really up to Toontrack to fix it and approach Cakewalk if they think there are any issues with Cakes code (as many VST's are working fine with X3E I would regard it unlikely to be Sonar at fault though). It may work with other software scenarios but that does not rule out any fault with the plugin code. Ta

As of two weeks ago, TT was still waiting for CW to provide some information to help them sort this out.  Unless this has changed, I would remind everyone it takes two to Tango.  Why is CW silent?  I have my suspicions.
 
I place my bet that there is nothing wrong with TT code.  TT supports Mac, VST, RTAS and VST.  Funny that SONAR can't deal with the addition of 8 more outputs and all of the others can.

As you can see from my post above, this is a little more serious than having to go in and adjust some INs and OUTs.
 
If it helps Cakewalk/Toontrack isolate the problem, I should let them know that I already had an intermittent problem in which some projects would stop playing VIs (soft synths) after a certain number were added—and the number was not always the same.  Sometimes 13 would be ok and 14 wouldn't; sometimes six would be ok and seven wouldn't.  Sometimes I would lose all project audio.  I did extensive investigation to validate this is not a memory issue.
 
There was also an intermittent issue with Sonar changing VI (synth) routing.  I would load a project and suddenly RealGuitar would not play because it was routed to Fantom or some other random thing.  (RealGuitar is just an example and not the only one to have a problem.) This was annoying but easy to correct once the problem was identified.
 
The old problem was not too bad because things would work after I froze some VIs and/or reboot Sonar.  With EZ D 2, projects get corrupted and synths can't be unfrozen for routing correction.
 
One last bit of information.  Although I could be wrong, I do not recall the old problems ever happening with SI Elec Piano or SI Bass.  Maybe there is something unique about their architecture or outputs.
 
The bad problems did not start until EZ D 2, but I am saying that maybe Cakewalk should look into the areas I noted.  There could be a couple of problematic code paths that are getting blown up by EZ D 2.