08/21/12 NEW Rev 903: Diva 1.1.1, Zebra 2.5.4

[aaron aardvark]

Until these Betas just showed up, I had the latest version of the Zebra (which I own), and the latest version of the trial Diva. If I'm not having any noticeable problems with my existing synths, is there a good reason to try these beta versions? Does this have the improved filter for Zebra (or similar)?

Apart from altruistic reasons like helping to catch bugs, I would say that the new midi-learn system and on average improved diva performance in the oscillators are the main things that might be beneficial to you

But it's perfectly fine to keep your stable versions running

Cheers,
- Clemens

Thank you for replying! I think I'll try the new Beta Diva.

[dcarlton]

Not seeing any spacebar stealing in Studio One v2 2.0.6.18491 with Zebra 2.5.4 here. x86/x64 tested

[Urs]

Any comment, Urs?

Sounds all good, but isn't a priority. The Grid will see improvements with the next major update, not sure if Z2 will inherit these. The FX panel is slightly too dumb to do what you suggest, which is partly related to our programming patterns. Again, the Grid control could do this (pre-select an active module), which might happen in the next rev then too.

[Urs]

In FL Studio you simply need to click in the settings panel of thr plug-in... we cleared this up last time it came up in the forum. It's simply a setting...

Yes, I still know that, but again, once you do that, you lost your mousewheel. You can imagine how fun it is working without mousewheel..

Can't say much about Studio One. Maybe they have a setting too, otherwise file a feature request for one...

As a S1 beta tester, I can confirm that there is no such a feature, and trust me, I have asked it many times..

So, how about if you finally fix your plugins? It can't be that hard to do as fabfilter and fxpansion have already fixed their plugins after I whined them. And believe me, it's not just me who absolutely hate that space bar stealing..

Well. I remember now hat guys from Presonus found a little issue in our stuff, we fixed it, their problem is gone (might even be the space bar thing?). Maybe try this in FL Studio too.

Should've been fixed with Diva 1.1 IIRC... dunno.

[Ch00rD]

Sweet, thanks gents!

[...] Rev 871
[...]
- fixed some installer scripts (please check that you can install properly on any mac system... gah.)
[...]
- Installers (Mac) delete files before new ones are installed,
[...]
- Mac installers install correctly without deleting the old component first

Huh? It is not entirely clear on reading this what files will/should be deleted automatically before installing new ones... or should I read that as a bugfix, i.e. installers do/should not delete files before installing new ones anymore?

In any case, I'll be a good boy and back up / archive important stuff before installing.

- Installers showed ????? when data was a shortcut (also zebra & diva but not hz),
[...]
- Symbolic links can't create endless loops anymore,

I think I had some problems before with using symlinks to dropbox folders (or maybe that was ACE, or ZebraCM or such... ?), so I think I'll take a chance and try setting things up like that again.

[secretkillerofnames]

Zebra 2 and Zebra HZ betas both working well so far in Reaper32bit and Renoise 64bit. Using AU.

Thought i'd mention I'm finding myself running them in Renoise most often. Not only do they run really smoothly but the randomize function that Renoise applies to any AUs and VSTis works really well with the Zebra's (particularly when compared to Synthmaster 2.5 and Absynth)
][oyd

[EvilDragon]

Any comment, Urs?

Sounds all good, but isn't a priority. The Grid will see improvements with the next major update, not sure if Z2 will inherit these. The FX panel is slightly too dumb to do what you suggest, which is partly related to our programming patterns. Again, the Grid control could do this (pre-select an active module), which might happen in the next rev then too.

Thanks for the reply!


I hope you'll manage to pull those grid improvements back to Z2. I'm really missing these keyboard modifiers a lot (hold key+click definitely beats right-click > move cursor > click again any time of day and night IMHO).


Too dumb? How can anything you guys make be dumb?

[Ch00rD]

[...]

[...] Rev 871
[...]
- fixed some installer scripts (please check that you can install properly on any mac system... gah.)
[...]
- Installers (Mac) delete files before new ones are installed,
[...]
- Mac installers install correctly without deleting the old component first

[...]

The Mac installer incorrectly shows all components as 'Install' instead of 'Upgrade'.

Another thing about the installers that slightly annoys me, is that the permissions of the preset files are often set incorrectly; so I manually fix this doing

Code: Select all

sudo chmod -x /Library/Audio/Presets/u-he/Diva/*.h2p /Library/Audio/Presets/u-he/Diva/*/*.h2p

- Installers showed ????? when data was a shortcut (also zebra & diva but not hz),
[...]
- Symbolic links can't create endless loops anymore,

I think I had some problems before with using symlinks to dropbox folders (or maybe that was ACE, or ZebraCM or such... ?), so I think I'll take a chance and try setting things up like that again.

Diva still has some issues with symlinks, it seems. When I use a symlink to a user presets folder in a different location (e.g. "ln -s ~/Dropbox/Diva/Presets ~/Library/Audio/Presets/u-he/Diva"), inserting an instance of Diva crashes the host. I could send over some crash reports, if needed.

Another thing that I still can't get to work with v1.1.1: 14 bit resolution MIDI control. Is Diva expecting standard MSB/LSB CC# pairs for that mode?

[cheppner]

(1) The Mac installer incorrectly shows all components as 'Install' instead of 'Upgrade'.

(2) Another thing about the installers that slightly annoys me, is that the permissions of the preset files are often set incorrectly; so I manually fix this doing

(1) is due to a completely new installer generator that we had to use for Mountain Lions' Installer Signing. This will only happen the first time you use the new installer!

(2) I just fixed that. Thanks for your request!

Diva still has some issues with symlinks, it seems. When I use a symlink to a user presets folder in a different location (e.g. "ln -s ~/Dropbox/Diva/Presets ~/Library/Audio/Presets/u-he/Diva"), inserting an instance of Diva crashes the host. I could send over some crash reports, if needed.

Yes, that would be cool! You could also send me an email to clemens AT u-he com to get a debug version, whose crash log would be even more interesting

Another thing that I still can't get to work with v1.1.1: 14 bit resolution MIDI control. Is Diva expecting standard MSB/LSB CC# pairs for that mode?

In that midi-learn mode, Diva expects data for two different MIDI CCs at (almost) the same time, representing a single value. I don't know that many controllers that are capable of this feature... If that doesn't work, you could help us with the info which controller you are using and a MIDI file that includes the control values the controller sends.

Cheers,
- Clemens

[Urs]

The Mac installer incorrectly shows all components as 'Install' instead of 'Upgrade'.

We actually have to delete previous installed versions because otherwise changes weren't always taken by the System, e.g. new plugins wouldn't be "seen" in a bundle. That may be a cause.

Another thing that I still can't get to work with v1.1.1: 14 bit resolution MIDI control. Is Diva expecting standard MSB/LSB CC# pairs for that mode?

Just checked, yes, CCs 32-63 should act as "fine controls" in corrspondance to CCs# 0-31

Some CCs are reseverd though, such as Bank Select and ModWheel.

[EvilDragon]

Kurzweil PC3 series can send out 14-bit CCs, as well as Behringer BCR2000, IIRC.

[Resoded]

Zebra 2 beta working well so far. I had an issue with a stuck note though that forced me to restart Zebra to fix. Not sure if that's a problem with the beta or not.

[Ch00rD]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction re: 14 bit CC#s guys.

I'll give it another go and report back more extensive results.

Kurzweil PC3 series can send out 14-bit CCs, as well as Behringer BCR2000, IIRC.

Yeah, I was also testing this with a Behringer BCR-2000, configured for 14 bit MSB/LSB pairs, and with some custom patches in Pure data and Max as well.

[Ch00rD]

[...] I could send over some crash reports, if needed.

Yes, that would be cool! You could also send me an email to clemens AT u-he com to get a debug version, whose crash log would be even more interesting

Done.

[Ch00rD]

[...] Just checked, yes, CCs 32-63 should act as "fine controls" in corrspondance to CCs# 0-31

Some CCs are reseverd though, such as Bank Select and ModWheel.

I'm having some success now using 14-bit CC# with Diva. Yay!

However, using multiple MIDI channels still seems to confuse Diva. I was using MSB/LSB pairs on multiple MIDI channels (1 and 2), when I initially assigned them it seemed to work all right, but after opening Diva in a different host all CC#s on MIDI channel 2 were apparently interpreted as coming from channel 1.

To elaborate a bit more: in my test case, I used CC#1/33 on MIDI channel 1 for envelope 1 attack, CC#2/34 for decay, and so on up to CC#8/40 for envelope 2 release. Then I used CC#1/33 on MIDI channel 2 for filter cut-off, CC#2/34 for resonance, etc. However, after re-instantiating the plugin, the CC#1/33 messages on MIDI channel 2 now also affect envelope 1 attack, while filter cut-off remains unaffected.

This seems to be a problem in particular for using 14-bit mode effectively, since CC numbers are more scarce than usual in this context: typically, only 32 MSB/LSB pairs per MIDI channel are supported. So, having only one MIDI channel available caps the number of parameters that can be controlled in this manner at 32 (and even then, as Urs mentions, we should better avoid using some of them, e.g. mod wheel, bank select). Even though Diva does not have a huge number of parameters, 32 is arguably not enough.