A comment in another thread about using customers for beta-testers got me wondering:

What VSTi instruments (not really concerned with effects) have never given you one single problem, no irregularities, worked exactly as expected (user error excepted), every time?

From my meager collection so far, the A1 is the only one I can make this claim for.

hehe interesting..

Tau pro

mda DX10

mda Piano


I guess the DX10 gave me one or two instances of stuck notes while I used it, which was a long time, so that's being overly strict and unfair I reckon.

Marco

z3ta+, Pentagon I, Pro53 and FM7 are rock solid for me. I don't remember ever having a crash from these. No failed Akai import as with Battery, no strange denorms when filters are panned to one side as Albino used to do, and no strange patch file systems to give the host problems. Oh, you can also include B4 to my list of rock solid instruments.

On the other end of the spectrum, Reaktor has to be the worst. After fighting crashes for an hour tonight, I suddenly realized that I never seem to make music with Reaktor. I have to make music with other VSTi's and then transfer parts to Reaktor just before recording.

synth 1
RM IV

Albino

Please also mention which host(s) you have been using. It may make a real difference. :logic: :muzys: :tracktion: :cubase: :orion: :massiva:

I'm gonna go with NI Battery, NI Pro53, Synth1, Plugsound stuff, Trilogy, Mda ePiano.

:tracktion::tracktion::tracktion::tracktion:

Doug Nelson wrote:

A comment in another thread about using customers for beta-testers got me wondering:

A shout out to the machinesworkinghardforyou for this one!


OK so.... ( all in Logic, and I understand the Logic instruments don't count! )

Zebra in OS X

Crystal in OS X

Absynth 1 in OS 9

Attack in OS 9

For what it's worth, Reason never crashes on my setup.

Absynth 2 hasn't crashed when used as a plug in, but stand alone is dodgy, and it still doesn't do track automation, So Absynth 2 falls into the 'customers as Beta testers' catagory. Crystal in OS 9 was dodgy for me, probably due to OS 9's poor memory alocation etc.. the OS X version hasn't crashed yet, and it's free!!

Pro-53
DR-008
impOscar (but very new)
Battery
Trilogy
PPG (in SX)
Rhino

Absynth 2, Reason (not strictly a plug-in, but never given me problems when rewiring!), tons of synth-edit made stuff that I don't care to mention

pro53 b4 rhino.
The Crashaholic Reaktor !

my most-reliable-list refers solely to my Muzys days on MacOS9. Logic Express OSX here now, not enough data yet

Marco

Logic really does stupid things with VSTi's... and load/indexes plugins referring to its "id"... taht is a value assigned by programmer independent of its name, due to that,
synth1 vst.dll (ver 1.05)
synth106.dll (ver 1.06)
S1.04 (ver 1.04)

will be reloaded as S1.04 next time you open your saved song... what a stupid system!

Julius

Chainer (host)

Guitar Synth (controller)

Bome's keyboard (controller)

Synth 1

The better question would be which are the buggy synths as almost all of the ones I use are excellent.

bigTick Rhino
all ConcreteFX synths
all rgc:audio synths
Linplug CronoX 2, freeAlpha
G-media Oddity, impOSCar
Ohm Force Symptohm Melohman
Waldorf PPG Wave 2.v, Attack
VirSyn TERA 2 and CUBE 1.5
all reFX synths
all Dash Signature synths
N.I. FM7, Absynth 2, Pro-52/53
STL VAZ Modular 3
Albino 2
Sampletank 2 xl / Sonic Reality samples
WhiteNoise Additive
Camel Audio Cameleon
fxpansion, DR-008, BFD
Steinberg (by means of other developers) PLEX, Xphraze
and a whole lot I'm forgetting

Crystal has never let me down. I wish I could say the same for some plugins I've paid money for.

wikter wrote:

Logic really does stupid things with VSTi's... and load/indexes plugins referring to its "id"... taht is a value assigned by programmer independent of its name

Yeah, not to cut Logic too much slack or anything, but much of this is, deep down, Steinberg's fault. The VST spec is really vague and illogical - no surprise that some hosts and some plugs don't work well together. In this case, Steinberg's spec says that each plugin should have a unique ID and you should register the IDs with Steinberg -- however, it's really easy to forget to do this, and IDs are just a 4-letter code, so there are going to be some ID collisions. Silly EMagic people thinking that what the spec says has some relationship to reality!

I can't recall ever having any problems with any VSTi that I have used. Maybe one or two that I tried out and didn't like but that would only be one krappy freebie in 100 instruments. If people regularly have problems with instruments I would look to your system and get it all cleaned up and working properly.

Yeah BONES, I agree, but I think it's a host thing too and what Borogove said is true too.

Not cutting any slack to Logic, the arroggant way in witch they chose to implement VST instruments is unacceptable. It was in 4.73 and never was addressed completely in any further Windows based upgrades.

I was also being polite about N.I. as I've never had that many problems with it but I'm on a Win XP box and before that a 98se computer.

In fact, I had the lowest spec computer you could ask for. I ran two licenses of Reaktor, 2.3 on a Pentium 200 and 3.x on a Celeron 600 and I couldn't crash either unless I messed up or used a messed up user program. In fact, I use a lot of N.I. stuff and except for a short bout 12 - 18 months ago everything ran perfectly, took a small dip with some non fatal problems, then got fixed and working well again.

Orion used to have problems too but were fixed. FL had some issues and still does on some synths but that's the implementaton SDK issue that goes back to Steinberg, who developed non compliant plugs themselves.

Only when I used Logic did I have problems and things like not getting multitimbral use from synths that worked fine otherwise.