well, i'm paying rj reynolds for cancer... don't really know the point to what i just said though. lol.

swamptooth


well, i'm paying rj reynolds for cancer... don't really know the point to what i just said though. lol.

Levity... just what all us need! You're a gem.

SuperG

My loyalty to Sonar is based upon what it can do for me - and it does a lot. Still, our relationship is based on the exchange of money. I'll be here until something better comes along.

Exactly. I think we cut software developers a lot of slack in that it's generally accepted that software is an incredibly laborious and complicated task, and that bugs are virtually guaranteed in a program the size and complexity of Sonar. But the other side of the coin is, you've paid hundreds of dollars for it and you expect it to work as advertised! Especially if you use it as a tool to earn your living. 


I've had my fair share of frustrations with Sonar but at the end of the day it's only a hobby for me (at this point anyway). I can only imagine what it's like to deal with freezes and hangs and other bugs when you're a commercial artist with deadlines to meet (and a muse to maintain). My business makes extensive use of Quickbooks, Outlook and Google Calendars. Boy have I had my share of problems with those programs...it really sucks when you spend a large chunk of your work day dealing with bugs that interrupt your work flow. 

hey superg take a try with tts1 and see how it works. i vhecked the midi file for weird sysx commands and there werent any. still scratching my head.

swamptooth


hey superg take a try with tts1 and see how it works. i vhecked the midi file for weird sysx commands and there werent any. still scratching my head.

Ok - I popped it onto TTS-1. I like the Roland GM better than built-in Microsoft..


Actually, I mostly do a quick run through with TTS as an evaluation to see if a midi is something I'd like to play with, I just don't remember if I had done it with this one. Love the double-bass in this one (don't we all..)

Anyway, it's still crashing.

Originally, I had the same identical symptoms as yours. The display was all weird - as you moved the mouse. various parts of the screen would refresh, but in the wrong places.

It had me stumped as to why it started crashing, and then I remembered something. I had figured my best guess was that as this was related to the midi stream it was likely a memory error. *Blink - lightbulb flash* Ah - this means that the behavior of the software after whatever is exactly the trigger point can vary - because we really don't know which part of memory got hosed over. The thing is, every PC is gonna load programs in different places depending on what software, drivers, OS options, and so on. In Sonar, the type and number of plug-ins, synths, controllers all may change what gets loaded where. There's just no telling. The only person who can know for sure is the developers themselves, and it's gonna be somewhat different even for them.

Here's what I do now to get around it - it's fairly straightforward.

So... for Aria, basically what you need to do is convert the program changes for articulations like pizzi and such over to key switches. Use the program changes as guides to line up the now-pointer, but just don't ever open tracks with program changes in notes or the PRV. Just add key switch notes to a new track and then patch that track to the same channel. The goodness is - you can mute all the key switch tracks and still save the project as a standard GM compatible file, or unmute and you have a really slick Garritan version. Some folks have told me they do this in their workflow anyway - it's a lot easier top find and edit key swtiches.



Oh yeah - thanks for mentioning Arias' reverb. On that other muting issue - I played around and discovered (drum roll...) it's putting out reverb on all channels from all channels. That's at least partially responsible for the channel bleed-over, I don't know about the rest yet, but now that I understand it's behavior it's not gonna bother me anymore. Definitely a head scratcher - then I though about how I'd do it - and the first thing I thought was no way would I do 16 instances of a reverb, it's just too dam costly CPU wise. We use things like sends and busses here and in the physical world for those reasons. The implementation probably follows the same. Send every channel into an single internal reverb bus, but sum some of that back into each channel (as there's no thing such as synth master bus, at least not officially?) - but you're hearing *everybodies* common reverb, not just your own - I guess I learned something today.

Oh well, it's nice to have the option of using the synth's reverb, but it's just as easy to put a reverb on a master bus in Sonar as well....


Whaddaya think?

oh yikes if youhave the ms midi enabled for the love of god disable it!!! sooooo many ptobs with that thing.

swamptooth


oh yikes if youhave the ms midi enabled for the love of god disable it!!! sooooo many ptobs with that thing.

Good gracious no! 


The only thing in the world that uses it would be MS media player - which will play a midi if you click on it from a browser (if its configured that way..). But I don't use it at all in Sonar or Acid.

SuperG

stratman70

SuperG

bjornpdx


I have the exact same problem. I submitted a report to Cakewalk and they replied with: "The problem you are experiencing is most likely a system specific problem or a configuration issue that we believe can be resolved with assistance from Cakewalk Technical Support." Well, this doesn't happen in X1 on the same system, just X2.

It's not a system specific error - and I am a seasoned software engineer. They have a lot of explaining to do concerning why the problem is not present in X1, but is in X2. Basically, that video demonstrates it in a nutshell, there's no way you can deny it.  You can have both X1 and X2 installed and switch between them to demonstrate the difference!


If you want to embarrass the poor souls in technical support, you certainly could give them a call, but there's no way they'll solve this over the phone. It's either an issue within sonar X2 itself or the run-time libraries it is using (if incorrect versions are being loaded).

It has the feel (smell?) of a 'fence-post' error (in software lingo), since CC and program changes and such must be treated separately from note data in many cases, and it be really easy to mess up an index or pointer if CC or non-note indexes were off or incorrect - which would give you a crash.

I'm hoping sooner or later one of the developers gets bitten by it- sometimes that's the only time people will acknowledge an issue.

Not happy! 

It's great that you found this but your pompus attitude is not needed. Who cares how seasoned you are-They have a lot of explaining to do??? If you want to emabarrass them??? You have zero class pal, zero.

Pompous?  

I'm not sure what chip you have on your shoulder, but if it makes you feel someone is being uppity it's not doing you any good - because I don't know you from Adam.


Being handed the brush-off by technical support is insulting - it is not acceptable to take advantage of someone merely because of their level of knowledge or understanding. That type of treatment demands a response, and if someone who knows better can deliver it, so much the better.

Customer support is a tough, demanding job. (Yes, I've done that too, - add that to your list..) CS reps are caught between trying to assist customers of varying capability and working around (possibly unknown, undocumented) faults within the product. It can be grueling, and it's all too tempting to attribute faults to the customer or his equipment in order to close the matter, even if it's being done unconsciously. That should never be done and no-one should ever stand for it. This isn't to say that there aren't unreasonable individuals that contact CS, but reps and their manager are used to and prepared for that.



I do need to mention that CS has forwarded on the issue, and I am grateful for that. I don't don't hold any enmity towards CS either, none of us are perfect.

My loyalty to Sonar is based upon what it can do for me - and it does a lot. Still, our relationship is based on the exchange of money. I'll be here until something better comes along.

Yes I have done them also, the tech support, the network gigs, etc, etc - big deal.
 
I just feel it could have been presented much better -simple-w/o all the bravado and chest thumping. And in your reply to me you still assume you know better than the techs at CW- Autograph please.
 I'll leave the thread here, don't want to go too far off base and derail.
 
 

I always try to remember that: we're stuck behind these terminals and try as we might, there are some expressions that just will not survive the medium. We try, little things like emoticons, maybe an avatar to represent what we think our personality represents, but still we sometime just manage to miss it.

I didn't think I was putting on that much bravado, but maybe according to some ethos I was. Either way, the best we can do in a disagreement is to just put forth our opinions and talk openly about them without characterization of the other.

None of us is perfect - no one. Cut yourself some slack and call it a good day.