Hey guys, I'm running a 64-bit Windows 7 system and I just upgraded from Sonar Producer X1c Expanded to Sonar Producer X2. I'm trying to load the Pentagon 1 as a vocoder and it keeps causing audio dropout that can only be reset by force-closing the entire program. Essentially the moment I load Pentagon 1 it crashed the program. I even tried loading it as a soft synth and same problem. Somehow it just seems Pentagon is crashing my DAW. I downloaded and installed the 2Xa patch and still no help. Wondering if this has happened to anyone else, and if so, what they did to fix it (if it was fixable). Love to really get this thing working like a vocoder again. Also - I'm using the Pentagon 1 that came with Sonar Producer X1.  

I must admit i have not tried the vocoder setup but there is a known issue with certain patches that use Pentagon's valley simulator. This either causes an audio dropout or a burst of noise depending on your system.

The solution to that one is to edit out the valley simulator from affected patches and overwrite the patch.

I remember reading some years back that the patches that were causing the burst of noise were essentially crashing the audio engine. I believe the workaround was to stick a limiter on the pentagon track to stop this. Worth a try anyway.

BarryL


I remember reading some years back that the patches that were causing the burst of noise were essentially crashing the audio engine. I believe the workaround was to stick a limiter on the pentagon track to stop this. Worth a try anyway.

I think the limiter was to prevent damage to you monitors or your hearing
 
But the high level burst may have been stopping the engine. I think the best solution is to edit out the valley simulator and resave any patch you find is causing the problem.

I've seen the 'valley simulator' mentioned in several places, regarding bad samples in Pentagon.

But what exactly is a valley simulator ? And how do you go about removing one ?

In the center of the Petagon GUI, just below the Pentagon I label is a section called Simulator. It contains speaker simulations including the misbehaving Valleys simulations used by some patches. The suggestion is to edit the patches and remove the Simulator setting. BTW, this synth is also covered in Simon Cann's "Cakewalk Synthezisers" along with many other past and present.

But HOW do you edit the patches and remove the simulator setting? I can't seem to find a place on the GUI to do that. Also, the VST causes audio drop out even before I play a note, literally upon load up.

Left click on the Pentagon I logo in the center of the Pentagon GUI for menu. The Program menu is where load and save options reside. The Simulator is a dropdown with OFF being one of the options, just below the Pentagon I logo.

Ok, I found some patches with the Valleys1-3 simulators and they do indeed overload something in X2.
So I fixed them, saved them, and they now behave.

However, this is only for Bank F whose progams are stored in
Shared DXi\Pentagon I\rgcaudio Pentagon I\Presets

I've searched everywhere and I can't find the programs for Banks A-E.

In Bank A there is, for example, a program called Evolving II that also uses the Valleys simulator, but I can't find where it is located to save the new version on top of.

There doesn't seem to be a generic "save" function that'll just update the patch, wherever it is. Well, there is one at the top left beside the red X, but it doesn't do anything as far as I can tell.

I believe banks A-E are stored in the default.fxb. You save changes to them by choosing the "Save Default Bank" option in the Program menu.