Quote redleicester:

---

... after all, rare indeed is the product that just works out of the box on every possible software / hardware combo,

---

Which begs me to wonder why the heck an efficient form of standardisation isn't put into effect to minimise this. Compatibility issues are becoming the norm and spiralling out of control... or at least they will be if nothing is actioned NOW.

Everything should be built to protocol that will work universally, in a way that MIDI was devised back in the early 80's. If component manufactures worked together and stuck to standards, life would be a LOT simpler for s/w developers.

Slightly OT, I know... but needed to be said.

Cheers,
Peter

--------------------
Composer, Producer, Sound Designer
www.universal-sound-design.com

Quote idris y draig:

---

errr, I can cite several examples of a real slating in the pages of SOS.

---

Here's one from me:

www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/articles/staudio.htm

"Within a couple of minutes of initial WAV playback auditioning, my ears were telling me that something was wrong at the bass end... ...low frequencies were seriously lacking, being 0.5dB down at 120Hz, and -3dB at 45Hz. ...ST Audio soon confirmed my findings, and reported that the problem was again simply due to unsuitable capacitor values being used, and was easily corrected.

From serial number HOON0315 onwards more suitable values will be used, and all remaining units in the field will be recalled."

What really tickled me at the time was the manufacturer initially claiming that I must be wrong, since this unit had already been favourably reviewed in two other magazines


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Glad to see I'm not the only one.
It can be a pretty lonely business locked in a room with all this technology particularly when it doesn't work as you expect. However...
I will restate how much I love the sounds themselves and its 'ALMOST' worth buying a PLAY soundware product and spending a few weeks sampling them into the EXS 24 so they work as you expect. When will manufacturers realize they don't need to re-invent the wheel with their front ends? For example the first EWSO library originally sat in the stand alone Kompakt player. Which doesn't work on intel macs, so when I upgraded my mac I had to invest in Kontakt in order to play the sounds. Fair enough, but 12 moths later we are all being forced to move to PLAY- a front end that simply is not good enough in my opinion. When I load an empty new track and insert a single instance of PLAY I get a huge white block where the plug in should be. Clicking on it resolves this but I have simply never got more than two or three PLAY's working at once without a complete crash. I have cash waiting to invest in loads more EWQL soundware but I simply can't as long as they insist on forcing PLAY on us.
SORT IT OUT.
void(0)

Quote Herewego:

---

Quote Len:

---

1. Advertising PLAY without warning that it will only work on a full 64 bit system (I can see false advertising lawsuits looming)

---

Mine works (albeit after much hassle - see above) on XP 32 bit. They do say it will on their site.

---

Matters little, I have thus far tried it on XP32 with 4Gb with and without the /3GB switch, XPP x64 with 8Gb RAM, Vista64 with 8Gb of RAM and all have shared a common theme, which wasn't a terribly tuneful one.

--------------------
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote Paul Farrer:

---

When will manufacturers realize they don't need to re-invent the wheel with their front ends?

---

They obviously did it for a reason, and we don't know what the deals with NI were - it could be that renegotiating a deal to bundle a Kontakt player became cost-prohibitive. I know NI annoyed a lot of people around the UB transition time by not offering UB versions of Kompakt, and forcing third-party soundware developers onto a new deal with a later engine version, and I've a feeling the costs went up a lot - there were a lot of transitions away from Kompakt players at that time, iirc.

However, my view on Play (and I haven't used it, or had any personal experience with it) was that it was almost *guaranteed* to cause issues for some time.

A sample playback engine in itself is not a particularly hard thing to develop, but a really good one, with a lot of internal playback features, large-memory and streaming support, across multiple plugin-formats from, and this is the key, *a company that has no experience developing audio software* - well, it's going to have kinks.

Kontakt is a fairly mature piece of software from a company with a lot of experience developing audio plugins and engines, and is reasonably solid. EW have either had to contract out to external developers, or buy in development talent to build the platform. I don't know which, but in either case, building these engines, and basing the future of the company on them, is a pretty big task.

Any company making the transition from soundware to software is going to have kinks, and customers should bear this in mind when getting tempted by shiny new gui's from soundware companies, until the products are tried, tested and proven solid.

The biggest annoyance with all this is not the fact that the product itself may have issues, hey, nobody's perfect, software has bugs and these things are complex - it's the attitude of the company that really matters. If customers are reassured that these issues are being worked on and will be resolved, it inspires confidence.

Alas, the feedback from the support side of EW, as evidenced by many posts here and elsewhere over the years, paints a rather dreary picture of how much their customers are valued, and does not inspire confidence that these issues will ever be resolved.

It sounds to me like EW need to step it up a bit, at least in how some of these issues are being treated on the user side...

It has to be said, after reading this thread there is no way I will buy any EW product (and my studio is probably in the market for some decent orchestral samples right now).

Their zealous purging of all criticism from their own forums is not going to change the facts.

Surely samples - which are only a bunch of little audio files - can be, and should be, offered for multiple formats (such as Logic's EXS24, Kontakt and the rest).

What's currently happening is a bit like Coldplay putting out a new album which only runs on Sony CD players. In other words, barking mad.

--------------------
Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Steve Hill:

---

What's currently happening is a bit like Coldplay putting out a new album which only runs on Sony CD players. In other words, barking mad.

---

Barking mad? Nah - small favour to the world, more like.

@ desmond - thanks for saying all that, it's exactly what I wanted to say but couldn't be bothered to type ;0 .

When I read the SOS article I thought it unusual to say the least that a music company - not even an engineering company - decided to write something as tricky as a sample player (simple in concept, but it HAS to work in real time within a range of unpredictable system conditions, on multiple platforms). I had a quick shudder and thought "glad I don't work there - they'll be learning how to make it stable until release 3".

Then this thread popped up and it seems EW have compounded the issue through poor customer relations.

It doesn't have to be this way. In the early days of the liquid mix I couldn't get it to work with Sonar. Both Focusrite and Cakewalk handled things very well (Focusrite especially), recognised the issues, avoided finger pointing, and engaged with the people having the problems to diagnose the issue. I think it took them about 6 weeks to put out fixes - pretty good. And they didn't delete posts about the problem from forums either.

Sigh

--------------------
getting better all the time..

Quote adrian_k:

---

When I read the SOS article I thought it unusual to say the least that a music company - not even an engineering company - decided to write something as tricky as a sample player (simple in concept, but it HAS to work in real time within a range of unpredictable system conditions, on multiple platforms). I had a quick shudder and thought "glad I don't work there - they'll be learning how to make it stable until release 3".

---

Therein lies the rub - VSL did precisely this exercise a year earlier than EW. And it works. Mac and 32 and 64bit PC, and it's been so successful they have subsequently released their own plug-in specific host which features built-in audio and MIDI over LAN, a suite of 64-bit plugins and now have annouced that the next version of the host will support 3rd-party plugins too....

All from a sample developer....

As you say, EW's challenge was immense, the learning curve collosal, but others have done it and succeeded.

--------------------
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote redleicester:

---

Therein lies the rub - VSL did precisely this exercise a year earlier than EW. And it works.

All from a sample developer....

---

I'm not saying it's impossible. Spectrasonics have also transitioned from being a soundware developer to a software company as well. And Eric will tell you I'm sure that that path hasn't exactly been trivially easy...

There's a right way to do it and a wrong way. And potentially alienating your customers when your products aren't right isn't the right way...

Especially when I keep seeing press releases about how EW have bought expensive studio facilities, and have every amp ever made, and all this other stuff, indicating that they are making quite a bit of money - some of which doesn't seem to be being channelled back into software engineering resource (of course, that's conjecture only, and may be completely innaccurate, but...)

Quote desmond:

---

Quote redleicester:

---

Therein lies the rub - VSL did precisely this exercise a year earlier than EW. And it works.

All from a sample developer....

---

I'm not saying it's impossible. Spectrasonics have also transitioned from being a soundware developer to a software company as well. And Eric will tell you I'm sure that that path hasn't exactly been trivially easy...

There's a right way to do it and a wrong way. And potentially alienating your customers when your products aren't right isn't the right way...

---

Aye that's what I meant - it is difficult, it is fraught with difficulty, but others have made it, and others have supported their users through it, which as you rightly say seems to be fundamentally where EWQL have come unstuck irrespective of whether their player is a bit shoddy or downright disfunctional.

--------------------
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote redleicester:

---

Therein lies the rub - VSL did precisely this exercise a year earlier than EW. And it works. Mac and 32 and 64bit PC, and it's been so successful they have subsequently released their own plug-in specific host which features built-in audio and MIDI over LAN, a suite of 64-bit plugins and now have annouced that the next version of the host will support 3rd-party plugins too....

All from a sample developer....

As you say, EW's challenge was immense, the learning curve collosal, but others have done it and succeeded.

---

Yeah, VSL is beginning to look like an increasingly attractive option, especially when I get my Mac Pro and move to a two computer setup - could be time to make the switch...

B

Quote BenLD:

---

Quote redleicester:

---

Therein lies the rub - VSL did precisely this exercise a year earlier than EW. And it works. Mac and 32 and 64bit PC, and it's been so successful they have subsequently released their own plug-in specific host which features built-in audio and MIDI over LAN, a suite of 64-bit plugins and now have annouced that the next version of the host will support 3rd-party plugins too....

All from a sample developer....

As you say, EW's challenge was immense, the learning curve collosal, but others have done it and succeeded.

---

Yeah, VSL is beginning to look like an increasingly attractive option, especially when I get my Mac Pro and move to a two computer setup - could be time to make the switch...

B

---

Indeed. And of course it sounds way way better anyway.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to start searching for common factors, as to why PLAY doesn't work for some people. Personally, I have used PLAY/SD2 with all of my recent projects (such as radio jingles) without as much as a single glitch. On my Mac Pro-8, I use Logic 8 and simultaneously Drumcore/Rewire and Rax in Rosetta mode. Plug-ins by Waves, Flux, URS, PSP, NI, MusicLab, Synthogy, Expert Sleepers, plus shareware/freeware. OS 10.5. I also have Macaroni, SMARTReporter, MenuMeters and smcFanControl running in the background. The same goes for my MBP, with the exception of smcFanControl.

I wonder if there is a preference setting in either PLAY or OS X that causes trouble for some people. Alternatively, there might be a background process that interferes with PLAY, such as internet or network connectivity, or the (firewire) audio interface (I use an RME PCIe/Digiface). Also, I wouldn't rule out USB devices, such as mice, printers, or midi interfaces.

I think its a great idea.
But given the number of possible things that might potentially conflict with it (audio units, preferences, usb devices etc etc) how much of a detective job could that be?
Interestingly you are the second person to have mentioned running a stable PLAY system using a non-firewire audio interface. It CAN'T be that can it?
And if it is why aren't we told to avoid firewire systems with PLAY - or even better why after all this time haven't they fixed it?

Yes, there might be some detective work involved, but I'd say it's worth it - SD2 sounds fantastic.

Could the firewire interface be the culprit? I don't know, but it's easy enough to find out. Disconnect your audio interface, and use your Mac's internal audio (which is how I currently use my MBP).

Quote Paul Farrer:

---

And if it is why aren't we told to avoid firewire systems with PLAY - or even better why after all this time haven't they fixed it?

---

Becuase it's not our PLAY system that's wrong, it's YYYYYOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU - ALL OF YOU!!!!! All of you with your stinking PCs and Macs, incorrectly set up and full of foul fripperies like mice, monitors and QWERTY keyboards!!!!! It's not US - we're PERFECT and our software is BEAUTIFUL!**^&!!! You're all against us, you stinking little fuckers using your 'oh-I'm-so-perfect-because-I-was-designed-in-Austria' bits of software. AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!<><>%!!!! What's Austria ever done for the world? Stollen and Mozart, that's IT!!!! BUt we've given you StrümDrum, Voices of Poisson and Gypsy! All [ ****** ] amazing!!! Well, not Gypsy, that's true - but it's GOT A NICE COVER!&^!!! Do you think we bought Cello Studios just so we could sit around and soak up the atmosphere? AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Don't mention Atmosphere!!!!! That smug little [ ****** ] Eric Persing and his [ ****** ] frog designed front end!!!! I HATE HIM!!!! Why did he get it to work first time and we can't??!!???? HE's sold a billion units of his mincing bits of code and IT WORKS!!!!! GGGRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! You never see his software on 24/7/12/365 sale, two for one offers, 40% off til the end of time do you! DO YOU!!????!!!??? NO!!!! Of course not - because he doesn't have to! It works!! People buy it because it WORKS!!! People like him BECAUSE IT WORKS!!!! He doesn't have to dump on his clients when they complain BECAUSE IT WORKS!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




















i want my mummy

Quote reid:

---

Quote Paul Farrer:

---

And if it is why aren't we told to avoid firewire systems with PLAY - or even better why after all this time haven't they fixed it?

---

Becuase it's not our PLAY system that's wrong, it's YYYYYOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU - ALL OF YOU!!!!! All of you with your stinking PCs and Macs, incorrectly set up and full of foul fripperies like mice, monitors and QWERTY keyboards!!!!! It's not US - we're PERFECT and our software is BEAUTIFUL!**^&!!! You're all against us, you stinking little fuckers using your 'oh-I'm-so-perfect-because-I-was-designed-in-Austria' bits of software. AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!<><>%!!!! What's Austria ever done for the world? Stollen and Mozart, that's IT!!!! BUt we've given you StrümDrum, Voices of Poisson and Gypsy! All [ ****** ] amazing!!! Well, not Gypsy, that's true - but it's GOT A NICE COVER!&^!!! Do you think we bought Cello Studios just so we could sit around and soak up the atmosphere? AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Don't mention Atmosphere!!!!! That smug little [ ****** ] Eric Persing and his [ ****** ] frog designed front end!!!! I HATE HIM!!!! Why did he get it to work first time and we can't??!!???? HE's sold a billion units of his mincing bits of code and IT WORKS!!!!! GGGRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! You never see his software on 24/7/12/365 sale, two for one offers, 40% off til the end of time do you! DO YOU!!????!!!??? NO!!!! Of course not - because he doesn't have to! It works!! People buy it because it WORKS!!! People like him BECAUSE IT WORKS!!!! He doesn't have to dump on his clients when they complain BECAUSE IT WORKS!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




















i want my mummy

---

Quote Tui:

---

Yes, there might be some detective work involved, but I'd say it's worth it - SD2 sounds fantastic.

Could the firewire interface be the culprit? I don't know, but it's easy enough to find out. Disconnect your audio interface, and use your Mac's internal audio (which is how I currently use my MBP).

---

With respect Tui, it's got nothing to do with firewire, USB, global warming, aliens, Sarah Palin, or even Gordon Clown selling off our gold reserves, just good old fashioned programing ineptitude. PLAY was released without proper quality control and testing. Rigourous beta testing would have revealed these issues; it is as simple as that. EWQL dropped the ball...

I've had two of my game coders look at it and their diagnosis is memory leakage at a very low level (which in normal speak means crap coding). They also said that disk access streaming in PLAY is byzantine.

We're still waiting for it to be fixed 9 months after release.

With respect Rousseau, if you and your game coders are so sure what it is, why don't you get cracking and fix it then? The fact of the matter is, some people use PLAY day in, day out, without any problems. I happen to be one of them. Clearly, PLAY isn't broken for all users, but only for a certain percentage. How high that figure might be, I have no idea, but that's immaterial. PLAY works for me, on two machines, multiple instances, different sample rates, 100% of the time.

I tried to help Paul Farrer by listing what equipment I use. I hope that this helps him with figuring out what precisely it is that conflicts with PLAY in his set-up.

Tui, that would require Mr. Rogers and co to release the code to them... nuf said.

--------------------
madtheory creations
Synths and pianos for Kontakt

Quote Tui:

---

Clearly, PLAY isn't broken for all users, but only for a certain percentage. How high that figure might be, I have no idea, but that's immaterial.

---

It's not immaterial. Even if it's only 2% (and I suspect it's a lot more), how long do you think say a car manufacturer would last if 2% of its products failed? Or how about an aircraft manufacturer?

They get a bad reputation, people stop buying their products, they go bust, and then the people who have already bought their products have no support. Fear of that happening meanwhile stops people buying their products.

There's only one answer in the MBA textbooks: acknowledge the problem, fix it, offer refunds/compensation/freebies, and do it all FAST.

Denial is corporate suicide.

These people have a crap CEO. You should be worried.

--------------------
Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Steve Hill:

---

Quote Tui:

---

Clearly, PLAY isn't broken for all users, but only for a certain percentage. How high that figure might be, I have no idea, but that's immaterial.

---

It's not immaterial.

---

No it is. I was trying to make the point that, as long as there is a single user out there who runs PLAY without problems, a blanket condemnation is simply inappropriate.

I am also puzzled by the general tone on this thread. Are we here to help each other resolve tech issues, or do we come here to rubbish certain developers/manufacturers/distributors?

Quote Steve Hill:

---

Quote Tui:

---

Clearly, PLAY isn't broken for all users, but only for a certain percentage. How high that figure might be, I have no idea, but that's immaterial.

---

It's not immaterial. Even if it's only 2% (and I suspect it's a lot more), how long do you think say a car manufacturer would last if 2% of its products failed? Or how about an aircraft manufacturer?

They get a bad reputation, people stop buying their products, they go bust, and then the people who have already bought their products have no support. Fear of that happening meanwhile stops people buying their products.

There's only one answer in the MBA textbooks: acknowledge the problem, fix it, offer refunds/compensation/freebies, and do it all FAST.

Denial is corporate suicide.

These people have a crap CEO. You should be worried.

---

Agreed, and if that CEO is paying attention to what's being said on the net (if not someone please tell him/her), if he wants the likes of myself to consider buying his company's products in the future then he should be drafting a suitable statement v soon. Or are the lawyers advising him that he cannot infer that there are problems (there are no 'problems' - only 'features'....)?

Tui, you can't be serious. Are you?

--------------------
madtheory creations
Synths and pianos for Kontakt

Sure I'm serious.

Somehow, this thread seems to live in a parallel universe, where EW is the worst company ever, none of their software works, and I should be worried (?) because of their CEO. Huh?

In the real world, lots of people use PLAY quite successfully, and post on forums about it. One random example I came across today:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/209743-quantum-leap-pianos. html

Quote Tui:

---

Quote Steve Hill:

---

Quote Tui:

---

Clearly, PLAY isn't broken for all users, but only for a certain percentage. How high that figure might be, I have no idea, but that's immaterial.

---

It's not immaterial.

---

No it is. I was trying to make the point that, as long as there is a single user out there who runs PLAY without problems, a blanket condemnation is simply inappropriate.

I am also puzzled by the general tone on this thread. Are we here to help each other resolve tech issues, or do we come here to rubbish certain developers/manufacturers/distributors?

---

Tui, the general tone on this thread reflects people's experiences dealing with that company's products and representatives - nothing more, nothing less.

Quote Agamemnon:

---

Quote Steve Hill:

---

Quote Tui:

---

Clearly, PLAY isn't broken for all users, but only for a certain percentage. How high that figure might be, I have no idea, but that's immaterial.

---

It's not immaterial. Even if it's only 2% (and I suspect it's a lot more), how long do you think say a car manufacturer would last if 2% of its products failed? Or how about an aircraft manufacturer?

They get a bad reputation, people stop buying their products, they go bust, and then the people who have already bought their products have no support. Fear of that happening meanwhile stops people buying their products.

There's only one answer in the MBA textbooks: acknowledge the problem, fix it, offer refunds/compensation/freebies, and do it all FAST.

Denial is corporate suicide.

These people have a crap CEO. You should be worried.

---

Agreed, and if that CEO is paying attention to what's being said on the net (if not someone please tell him/her), if he wants the likes of myself to consider buying his company's products in the future then he should be drafting a suitable statement v soon. Or are the lawyers advising him that he cannot infer that there are problems (there are no 'problems' - only 'features'....)?

---

Agamemnon, what we're saying has been said directly and indeed repeatedly to the CEO in public on a forum for the past 9 months, so he is well aware of this.

Cheers

Quote reid:

---

Becuase it's not our PLAY system that's wrong, it's YYYYYOOOOOUUUUUUUUUU - ALL OF YOU!!!!! All of you with your stinking PCs and Macs, incorrectly set up and full of foul fripperies like mice, monitors and QWERTY keyboards!!!!! It's not US - we're PERFECT and our software is BEAUTIFUL!**^&!!! You're all against us, you stinking little fuckers using your 'oh-I'm-so-perfect-because-I-was-designed-in-Austria' bits of software. AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!<><>%!!!! What's Austria ever done for the world? Stollen and Mozart, that's IT!!!! BUt we've given you StrümDrum, Voices of Poisson and Gypsy! All [ ****** ] amazing!!! Well, not Gypsy, that's true - but it's GOT A NICE COVER!&^!!! Do you think we bought Cello Studios just so we could sit around and soak up the atmosphere? AAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! Don't mention Atmosphere!!!!! That smug little [ ****** ] Eric Persing and his [ ****** ] frog designed front end!!!! I HATE HIM!!!! Why did he get it to work first time and we can't??!!???? HE's sold a billion units of his mincing bits of code and IT WORKS!!!!! GGGRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!! You never see his software on 24/7/12/365 sale, two for one offers, 40% off til the end of time do you! DO YOU!!????!!!??? NO!!!! Of course not - because he doesn't have to! It works!! People buy it because it WORKS!!! People like him BECAUSE IT WORKS!!!! He doesn't have to dump on his clients when they complain BECAUSE IT WORKS!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i want my mummy

---

Now look here young man. I hold you personally responsible for my new hernia.



--------------------
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

As PLAY seems to work for some people and not others, have we come across the software equivalent of Behringer? All we need now is for EW to reduce their prices to Behringer levels and people will buy PLAY in vast quantities.

The flaw in my argument is that if a bit of Behringer kit goes wrong in the warranty period, you'll get another one to replace it that works (for a while anyway), but if PLAY doesn't work on your system, a replacement copy of the software isn't going to make it any better.

Quote Wonkey Wabbit:

---

As PLAY seems to work for some people and not others, have we come across the software equivalent of Behringer? All we need now is for EW to reduce their prices to Behringer levels and people will buy PLAY in vast quantities.

The flaw in my argument is that if a bit of Behringer kit goes wrong in the warranty period, you'll get another one to replace it that works (for a while anyway), but if PLAY doesn't work on your system, a replacement copy of the software isn't going to make it any better.

---

Well the EWQL buy one get one free deal has been extended, they've got a 40% pre christmas sale on, so perhaps there's something in your comparison

Wow I seem to have started World War III.
I agree with some of you, software that doesn't work sucks golf balls through a garden hose, and it is of course completely unacceptable that we should even be trying to do the detective work of what makes PLAY work and what makes it crash. However lets stop trashing the company or its employees personally and keep the thread focused on digging ourselves out of the hole. Hopefully it will shame the PLAY people into getting their act together. The nastier and more personal and spurious we are the greater the chances they will get stroppy and force SOS to remove the thread. Which benefits none of us.
Does this make me a huge cotton candy assed pussy cat? probably, but just trying to be pragmatic and get my system happy.

Quote Tui:

---

Perhaps it would be a good idea to start searching for common factors, as to why PLAY doesn't work for some people. Personally, I have used PLAY/SD2 with all of my recent projects (such as radio jingles) without as much as a single glitch. On my Mac Pro-8, I use Logic 8 and simultaneously Drumcore/Rewire and Rax in Rosetta mode. Plug-ins by Waves, Flux, URS, PSP, NI, MusicLab, Synthogy, Expert Sleepers, plus shareware/freeware. OS 10.5. I also have Macaroni, SMARTReporter, MenuMeters and smcFanControl running in the background. The same goes for my MBP, with the exception of smcFanControl.

I wonder if there is a preference setting in either PLAY or OS X that causes trouble for some people. Alternatively, there might be a background process that interferes with PLAY, such as internet or network connectivity, or the (firewire) audio interface (I use an RME PCIe/Digiface). Also, I wouldn't rule out USB devices, such as mice, printers, or midi interfaces.

---

Okay, lets run with this then:

I have had Play glitch, fall over, appear to operate but produce no sound, open a blank plugin window, and crash the DAW (all/and/or combination of the above) on the following systems:

System 1 (DAW):
Asus P5B Deluxe
Intel Q6700
8Gb RAM Crucial PC6400
1x 75gb WD Raptor SATA System HD
2x 500Gb Samsung F1 SATA HD
2x 750Gb Samsung F1 SATA HD
RME HDSP MADI PCI / ADI-648
EuCon
TC Electronic Powercore Firewire
UAD2
PS/2 Keyboard
Kensington Orbit Pro Trackball
2x Nvidia 7600GS GPUs driving 2x 20" and 2x 24" TFT displays

OS - Hardware multiboot - XPP 32 / XPP 32 with 3Gb Switch/ XPP x64 / Vista64 Ultimate


System 2 (DAW2):
Asus P5Q Deluxe
Intel Q9550
8Gb RAM Corsair XMS2 6400
1x 75gb WD Raptor SATA System HD
2x 500Gb Samsung F1 SATA HD
2x 750Gb Samsung F1 SATA HD
RME HDSP MADI PCI / ADI-648
EuCon
TC Electronic Powercore Firewire
UAD2
PS/2 Keyboard
Kensington Orbit Pro Trackball
2x Nvidia 7600GS GPUs driving 2x 20" and 2x 24" TFT displays

OS - Hardware multiboot - XPP 32 / XPP 32 with 3Gb Switch/ XPP x64 / Vista64 Ultimate


System 3 (x2 Slave):
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
P4 3.2GHz
4Gb RAM
1x 74Gb WD Raptor SATA System Drive
2x 500Gb Samsung F1 SATA Drive in RAID0
2x 500Gb Samsung F1 SATA Drives
RME HDSP 9652 PCI
EuCon
PS/2 Keyboard
Kensington Orbit Pro Trackball
Nvidia 5200LE GPU driving 20" TFT

OS - Hardware multiboot - XPP 32 / XPP 32 with 3Gb Switch

Cubase 4.5 and Standalone Play
Vienna Ensemble running Brass / Woodwind / Percussion / Keyboards


System 4 (x2 Slave):

Asus P5DW2 Deluxe
Intel Core 2.66
8Gb RAM
1x 74Gb WD Raptor SATA System Drive
2x 500Gb Samsung F1 SATA Drives
RME HDSP 9632 PCI
EuCon
PS/2 Keyboard
Kensington Orbit Pro Trackball
Nvidia 7200GS GPU driving 20" TFT

OS - Hardware multiboot - XPP 32 / XPP 32 with 3Gb Switch/ XPP x64

VSL Vienna Ensemble 2 Running Strings sections (solo and ensemble)



System 5 (x2 DAW):
Mactintosh MacPro Quad 3GHz, 16Gb RAM, 4x 1Tb HD, MacOS Leopard / Tiger / Tabbycat
UAD1
RME HDSP MADI PCIe + ADI-648 / MOTU Traveller / Internal Audio via ADI-192
2x ATI GPU of some flavour driving 3x 30" TFT displays
Apple metal flat keyboard thing (TM)
Apple Puny mouse (TM)


For the sake of brevity, I have not bothered listing any and all plugins, merely an off-the-top-of-my-head list of those I commonly use.

The two DAW machines are to be found running the following:

Nuendo 4.2.2 + NEK
Sonnox Suite
Vienna Suite
Altiverb & Speakerphone
Komplete 2, 3, 4, 5
EWQL Play versions of SD2, Orchestra Platinum Plus, Goliath
NI Komplete 2, 3, 4, 5
Spectrasonics Omnisphere, Stylus RMX, Atmosphere, Trilogy
Project SAM TrueStrike
Synthogy Ivory, Italian Grand and Upright

Notable Konktat 2/3 Libraries:
SD1
Colossus
SO Platinum
Symphonic Choirs
RA
Kirk Hunter
Symphobia
Chris Hein Guitars
BelaDMedia - Anthology 1 & 2, Lyrical Distortion 1 & 2, Tenor, Retro Flute, Diva and Diva Extended
Art Vista VGP 1 and 2
Acoustic Legends
Cinesamples Harp, CineToms and Drums of War
Heavyocity Evolve
Soniccouture Hang Drum, Mbira, GuZheng, Bowed Piano
Countless converted Akai / Roland / Kurzweil libraries


Network Spec:
It is notable each machine is running with 2x Gigabit network ports, with each motherboard having been chosen expressly for this purpose being as they're equipped with pairs as standard.

Inside the studio cloud, we have two physical subnets:

DMZ1 - EuCon specific
Sonicwall Router
Netgear GS724TP 24-port switch, no jumbo frame, full managed QoS, no packet inspection.

DMZ2 - MOL / File transfer stacks
Cisco 1721 Router
Netgear GS724TP 24-port switch, jumbo frame (7418 frame size), managed QoS for MoL.
2x Infrant/Netgear ReadyNAS 2Tb
2x Buffalo Terastation Pro 1Tb
1x Canon Pixma 970MP Network Scanner/Printer

The GS724TP here then takes a gigabit fibre uplink to the main subnet outside of the DMZ, via a third GS724 and to a Netgear DG834PN Router and ADSL Modem.

As a result of this simple architecture, all of the subnets are entirel isolated from one another with no packet or frame collision, time critical packets are managed via QoS, and the DMZs can be opened up individually to the main WAN and allowed free reign for updates / downloads as and when needed, but are otherwise entirely cut off from the rest of the WAN and the world, thus simply and easily negating the need for any further firewalls / anti-virus etc.

Now for the sake of clarity, I should point out all of those systems bar the Macintoshes were handbuilt, and the older 8Gb machines are currently in comfortable service as VSL Vienna Ensemble Slaves and regularly run up to 7.2Gb of samples loaded into Ensemble without so much as breaking a sweat. ALL of the systems use MIDI-over-LAN, and ALL of the systems use EuCon. It should also be noted for those who haven't already worked it out, DAW2 was the replacement upgrade for DAW1, and what was DAW1 is now another VSL/Cubase slave, still exhibiting the same issues...

So that's 8 systems I have personal experience of which cannot run Play in anything that resembles a reliable and stable manner, much less be relied upon under time-critical and screaming-paying-client-OMFG-I'm-going-to-die pressure. The rig is used for music for film, tv, theatre, computer games and for me to fart into microphones for peurile pleasure. Oh, and for my three year old to wander in and bash notes at random.





PS - For my detractors amongst those who know me, I should also be at pains to point out the Macs are not mine.

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote Paul Farrer:

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Wow I seem to have started World War III.
I agree with some of you, software that doesn't work sucks golf balls through a garden hose, and it is of course completely unacceptable that we should even be trying to do the detective work of what makes PLAY work and what makes it crash. However lets stop trashing the company or its employees personally and keep the thread focused on digging ourselves out of the hole. Hopefully it will shame the PLAY people into getting their act together. The nastier and more personal and spurious we are the greater the chances they will get stroppy and force SOS to remove the thread. Which benefits none of us.
Does this make me a huge cotton candy assed pussy cat? probably, but just trying to be pragmatic and get my system happy.

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Paul, have you tried dealing with EW's forum or support? If so you'll know the notion that they might be shamed into action by a(nother) thread on a forum in a distant land is crazy talk. Going on personal experience, it's pretty clear they couldn't give a monkey's nuts about any unhappy customer who questions the quality of their products.

Which is bonkers - just a couple of years ago they were held in high regard the world over for having ground breaking products that sounded unbelievably good. Stuff like Stormdrum was almost visionary when it first came out; the respect in which they were held in 'our' little community was almost limitless. Yet in 18 short months they pissed everything against the wall due to their almost psychotic attachment to a piece of software that doesn't sit up and beg the way it should. With that kind of blind devotion to duty, they deserve everything they get.

If being pragmatic is the name of the game, it's time for your assistant to boot up Redmatica's 'Auto Sampler' and get busy.....

Hmmm, I'm just working on a demo using the Low Irish Whistle (Goliath) in Play, sounds Ok except whenever the pitch bend crosses the centre point there's a click. No matter what I tweak. I'm not sure if it's Play or the sample set, but fortunately this is a demo, and I'll be recording a whislte player for the actual part, but that's not the point...

Despite this, and despite the fact the standalone version is still silent for me (all the lights are glowing, but nobody's home, it only works within my DAW using VST), I do like the sounds.

Red, I know this is probably a grandmother/egg scenario and not relevant to all your setups, but have you tried making the Play engine LAA (Large Address Aware), I used Laatido to do this. Opinion seems divided on the need, but it cured a whole bunch of streaming pop/click problems for my setup (PC, xp 4gb ram, 32 bit, cubase SX3).

OK, that's about one million variables to sift through... Quite a task. Not to mention that Macs are better.

Naturally, it's not satisfactory that EW's customers should be expected to put their systems under a microscope, in order to find some obscure bugs in PLAY. No argument there. Now that this is out of the way, I would suggest the following:

Use a spare HD, freshly install the OS and your favourite DAW, then PLAY, to see if it still doesn't work. Pull out all cables (except for the power cord ) and use your 'puter's internal audio. Then, one by one, connect audio interface, USB and ethernet devices. Somewhere along the line, I'd expect the gremlins to surface.

Quote redleicester:

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...

As a result of this simple architecture,

...

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Simple? Blimey. Are you sure you didn't attach a USB toaster and firewire brain scanner as well somewhere?

Quote Herewego:

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Red, I know this is probably a grandmother/egg scenario and not relevant to all your setups, but have you tried making the Play engine LAA (Large Address Aware), I used Laatido to do this. Opinion seems divided on the need, but it cured a whole bunch of streaming pop/click problems for my setup (PC, xp 4gb ram, 32 bit, cubase SX3).

---

Sadly my Grandmother must have some Scottish heritage along the line somewhere as she'd never buy eggs.... too expensive.

Laatido is a great program isn't it? Have used it on countless things and yes, I've tried it on Play. However, even if it had worked, it would have served only to show again that there's something amiss in the Play coding - afterall, if it's not working properly in standalone 64-bit mode on those slave (as it indeed fails to do), then there really is something awry.

--------------------
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Quote Tui:

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Quote redleicester:

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...

As a result of this simple architecture,

...

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Simple? Blimey. Are you sure you didn't attach a USB toaster and firewire brain scanner as well somewhere?

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Nope. Just the Firewire Trouserpress.

Really is a fairly simple rig, but given the above, I am rather bored of being told I don't know what I'm doing, and that clearly it's all my fault as I don't know how to set up a kompooter properly...

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Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.

Likewise - my numerous EW packages purchased over the past year are awaiting a new computer; and this news is nothing short of disastrous - I have invested heavily in EW.

To sum up what this thread has so far revealed:

- Eastwest products do not work under 'Play'

- Eastwest have no intentions of resolving this issue so their products are effectively useless

- The reputations of Eastwests talent - including Doug Rogers, Nick Phoenix and Professor Keith O. Johnson - all party to this fiasco - are now in tatters and they should never be trusted again in any music or music-technology venture.

- Sound on Sound reviews, in not identifying and flagging this significant issue should not be trusted; and at a bare minimum the reviewer(s) of EW products should be disregarded from here on in.


This is all very interesting and informative. I for one will now look at VSL from here on in (although cautiously); and although I've being buying SOS since issue one; this strengthens my argument on another thread that SOS is going downhill with regard to their review and journalistic quality. I’ll be delighted for all of the above points above to be wrong as all we want are working products and a strong and relevant SOS; but this episode is incredibly telling and worrying all round.

Kevin.