Giving up on Acoustica7

[Steve Lutz]

I am sorry that I purchased the upgrade to V7. It just doesn't work properly, and many of the tools I have used for years have been removed without good replacements.

1. You have removed the parametric equalizer that was included in V6. I can't operate without one. Luckily, I was able to find a 3rd party plug-in to replace the lost tool.

2. The digital processor has been replaced with a new app which does significantly less than V6. Whereas before I could set a custom profile, now there is only a single/multi band compressor available. There is no longer any ability to do a mid-level (dB) boost without compressing the top end. This is reason enough to abandon V7.

3. Recording issues. V6 had the ability to set the sample rate and the bit size when recording, and the program REMEMBERED my usual settings, 192/24. Now it defaults to 44/16 and there is only a drop down menu for sample rate and I must scroll through the list every time because it won't store my usual settings. When I set the recording to 192 it doesn't give me a choice of bit depth. Useless.

4. Continual crashing. As I spend more time on V7, the crashing has become more frequent. Now it crashes when I open the application and reinstalling doesn't improve anything.

5. When I recorded on V6, everything but the current file was greyed out. In V7, the other files are not greyed out, but if you click on one the recording stops with no warning.

V7 is a disaster, I'm going back to V6 for my normal workflow.

[stian]

Hi Steve,

I am sorry that I purchased the upgrade to V7. It just doesn't work properly, and many of the tools I have used for years have been removed without good replacements.

I'm sorry to hear that. We are doing our best to iron out issues as they are reported by out customers.

1. You have removed the parametric equalizer that was included in V6. I can't operate without one. Luckily, I was able to find a 3rd party plug-in to replace the lost tool.

Acoustica 7 has "Equalize" seamlessly integrated and it is one of the most powerful equalizers available today (https://acondigital.com/products/equalize/), so I'm not really sure why you say that there's no parametric equalizer available?

2. The digital processor has been replaced with a new app which does significantly less than V6. Whereas before I could set a custom profile, now there is only a single/multi band compressor available. There is no longer any ability to do a mid-level (dB) boost without compressing the top end. This is reason enough to abandon V7.

You can set the threshold below 0 to get expansion and noise gates in both the single and multi-band dynamic processing tools. The audio quality is way better than what's offered in version 6 and the operational mode is industry standard. You can always concatenate two processors in the processing chain if you need both compression and expansion / gating.

3. Recording issues. V6 had the ability to set the sample rate and the bit size when recording, and the program REMEMBERED my usual settings, 192/24. Now it defaults to 44/16 and there is only a drop down menu for sample rate and I must scroll through the list every time because it won't store my usual settings. When I set the recording to 192 it doesn't give me a choice of bit depth. Useless.

Persistence for the sample rate and channel count settings are on the to do list and will be implemented as soon as possible. The modern driver models like Windows Audio (WASAPI) and CoreAudio all work with 32 bit floating point, hence the bit depth option becomes obsolete. You can choose bit depth when you save.

4. Continual crashing. As I spend more time on V7, the crashing has become more frequent. Now it crashes when I open the application and reinstalling doesn't improve anything.

I'm sorry to hear about the instability. I sent you an email, but still haven't received any reply. I assume there's a compatibility issue with the audio device. Did you alter the audio device settings prior to the crash?

5. When I recorded on V6, everything but the current file was greyed out. In V7, the other files are not greyed out, but if you click on one the recording stops with no warning.

Thanks for reporting -- the recording dialog should definitely lock other use. We'll get that fixed ASAP.

Best,
Stian

[Steve Lutz]

Hello Stian,
I’ve been an ardent supporter of Acounstica since Ver3, having purchased every upgrade and tool you have made since then. I always look forward to the next release, bringing me more automation, better tools, and easier use. Ver7 has broken from this tradition. My belief is that Ver7 will be a worthwhile upgrade and I anticipate that eventually it will be better than Ver6, but it’s not there yet.

I apologize that I’ve made you defensive, my goal is to improve a tool which I use almost every day. Currently Ver7 has a couple of areas which are a major disappointment compared with Ver6. My earlier comments were abbreviated and obviously not well stated, so here is a more in-depth description of some of the concerns I need to see improved before I can begin to use this release.

1. Stability.
There must be several conditions which can cause the program to crash. I'm not a programming expert, so I won't speculate on the root cause. Yesterday, I tried using Version7 again. The program crashed three times over a 6 hours session. I am not sure what it is causing this, possibly the USB bus as you suggested, possibly plug-ins which worked with v6 but not v7, etc. Aside from crashes occurring during a recording session, a crash is livable so long as the program can recover from it. I have confidence that you will eventually sort out all of these integration issues, but the current situation is not tenable. Once the program crashes, it is completely dead, it cannot be restarted until I go into the USER/APP DATA section of windows and erase my stored user data file. This has to be done several times a day and is not something that I am willing to accept in a commercial program. Programmers in the windows environment should try to write their operating system interface in such a way to prevent this type of disaster, the programming should be robust.
You need to do one or both of the following:
a) Figure out which of the stored parameters can disrupt the internal functioning of the program and restrict entries to the APP DATA file to exclude these possibilities, or
b) When the program crashes during initial program startup it should automatically revert to the last known good working APP DATA file.

2. General construction of the user interface.
One of the main attributes of the previous Ver.6 was an easy to use and understand interface. Tools in Ver.7 are much more difficult to use than in any of the previous versions. Some of these interface problems are dealing with inherent windows display methods and some are related to your technical inclusions.

Windows programs all have a similar look and feel to their interface, which you have not fully adopted. Examples of this are many, but a few of them are:

a. Windows applications are typically built with a menu bar and a customizable button bar where you can store you most used commands for easy access. You had this working well in Ver.6 but have not yet implemented it in version 7.

b. Windows application screens should be dockable. If I drag a resizable window to the edge of the monitor the window should automatically dock on the monitor. My work station currently employs three monitors. I shift display windows around a lot, preferring to always have the current tool on the center monitor. I might, for instance, have the main waveform display of Acoustica running on the center screen, several instances of windows explorer running side by side on the left monitor for quick access to my audio file folders, and maybe a text display of the metadata information. The Right screen usually holds reference information, such as the spectrogram of the current file to keep as visual reference while working on a file. None of the screens in version 7 are dockable by dragging.

3. Dynamic processor.
Here’s an example of the Acoustica loosing capability. Ver.6 had 2 individual tools, 1) a dynamic processor, and 2) a compressor. You seem to have deleted the dynamic processor tool entirely and renamed the multi-band compressor as “multiband dynamics”. These are not the same functions, regardless of how you choose to name them. The new compressor gives you a single point of control over the dynamics at individual, non-overlapping frequency points, allowing different compressions to be used for different frequency ranges. The visual curve of this tool is dB versus frequency.

In Ver.6 we had a tool called the “dynamic processor”, which controlled the slope of the gain curve at different volume levels, Output dB vs. Input dB. This is a critical tool which has been left out of the current release.

It may be possible to "concatenate two processors in the processing chain" operation as you suggest, by placing a compressor in the first pass and a closely matched expander in a second pass. This assumes, of course, that you have a great deal of knowledge about using compressors and know in advance what tweaks you want to set up and what parameters to use. Ver.6 gave us a very simple, easy to use, ability to adjust these dueling processors in real time by using a mouse to grab and drag the curve while listening to a monitor.

4. Spectrogram analyzer.
The second critical tool which is missing is the spectrogram analysis tool. The new one in Ver.7 just doesn't work. Attached is a spectrogram made from Ver.6
[download/file.php?mode=view&id=12732& sid=e0843bd58f82eb750f65a6ec050bfd77]
This particular spectrogram is analyzing for noise in the 0-200 hz range of a short section from a 1930 piano recording. The spectrogram analysis in Ver.6 is good, allowing me to draw the following observations:
A) Turntable rumble 0-25hz. This is an artifact of my recording.
B) The original recording had a 55hz high pass filter imposed on the audio in the initial pressing, presumably to remove the primary 50hz hum, as this is an European recording.
C) At the time of this recording, filters were analog, far inferior to what we have today. Although they knocked out the primary 50Hz hum, the first harmonic at 100hz is clearly identifiable.

The spectrogram, when performed correctly, allows me to identify various noise components and to remove them digitally during the restoration process. The second attachment to this post is the spectrogram made with Ver.7 of the same excerpt, using identical analysis settings.
[download/file.php?mode=view&id=12733&si ... ec050bfd77]

The Ver.7 spectrogram is devoid of the useful information I need for my work.

I've already run on much longer than I had intended, so I will end my comments here. The point I want to make is that eventually Version 7 of Acoustica will become an indispensable tool and I am looking forward to that time, but it needs more work before I can use it for production purposes.

Steve

[DuX]

What an audio developer has to deal with these days... I'd rather grow potatoes.

I'm sorry for the interruption, just go on. I just thought it was a bit too critical of new A7. It's great and it's getting better. You've just been too used to the old version and the new one is just too different for you. Give it time and patience and it will grow on you just like the old one.

[stian]

Hi Steve,

Hello Stian,
I’ve been an ardent supporter of Acounstica since Ver3, having purchased every upgrade and tool you have made since then. I always look forward to the next release, bringing me more automation, better tools, and easier use. Ver7 has broken from this tradition. My belief is that Ver7 will be a worthwhile upgrade and I anticipate that eventually it will be better than Ver6, but it’s not there yet.

Thanks for your long time support -- as I've said before, we'll do out best to fix and improve workflow issues in Acoustica 7.

1. Stability.
There must be several conditions which can cause the program to crash. I'm not a programming expert, so I won't speculate on the root cause. Yesterday, I tried using Version7 again. The program crashed three times over a 6 hours session. I am not sure what it is causing this, possibly the USB bus as you suggested, possibly plug-ins which worked with v6 but not v7, etc. Aside from crashes occurring during a recording session, a crash is livable so long as the program can recover from it. I have confidence that you will eventually sort out all of these integration issues, but the current situation is not tenable. Once the program crashes, it is completely dead, it cannot be restarted until I go into the USER/APP DATA section of windows and erase my stored user data file. This has to be done several times a day and is not something that I am willing to accept in a commercial program. Programmers in the windows environment should try to write their operating system interface in such a way to prevent this type of disaster, the programming should be robust.
You need to do one or both of the following:
a) Figure out which of the stored parameters can disrupt the internal functioning of the program and restrict entries to the APP DATA file to exclude these possibilities, or
b) When the program crashes during initial program startup it should automatically revert to the last known good working APP DATA file.

We all agree that these things shouldn't happen, but unfortunately, they do with the multitude of different drivers and third party equipment available. I think the problem that Acoustica tries to load another driver when the currently selected USB driver isn't accessible anymore. Acoustica doesn't normally crash in this scenario -- I have a USB device myself that I add and remove all the time. However, we are aware of certain ASIO drivers that do crash in this case. Since other applications crash using the same drivers, we have reason to believe that it's not Acoustica's fault in that particular case. In order to help you further, it would be great to know the driver model you are using (ASIO, Windows Audio, etc.) and the input and output devices listed. We prefer to solve device specific issues through support instead of here on the forum for various reasons and I just wrote you an email.

2. General construction of the user interface.
One of the main attributes of the previous Ver.6 was an easy to use and understand interface. Tools in Ver.7 are much more difficult to use than in any of the previous versions. Some of these interface problems are dealing with inherent windows display methods and some are related to your technical inclusions.

Windows programs all have a similar look and feel to their interface, which you have not fully adopted. Examples of this are many, but a few of them are:

a. Windows applications are typically built with a menu bar and a customizable button bar where you can store you most used commands for easy access. You had this working well in Ver.6 but have not yet implemented it in version 7.

b. Windows application screens should be dockable. If I drag a resizable window to the edge of the monitor the window should automatically dock on the monitor. My work station currently employs three monitors. I shift display windows around a lot, preferring to always have the current tool on the center monitor. I might, for instance, have the main waveform display of Acoustica running on the center screen, several instances of windows explorer running side by side on the left monitor for quick access to my audio file folders, and maybe a text display of the metadata information. The Right screen usually holds reference information, such as the spectrogram of the current file to keep as visual reference while working on a file. None of the screens in version 7 are dockable by dragging.

Moving ahead from the old Windows appearance has several advantages that I hope you'll learn to like once you spend more time with Acoustica 7. I agree that the docking issue is an annoyance, though, and is due to the customized frame. The standard white Windows application header doesn't look good with the Acoustica colour scheme at all and Microsoft provides no methods for Windows Desktop applications to change the colour problematically. We'll investigate the possibility to get screen edge docking to work with the customized frame.

3. Dynamic processor.
Here’s an example of the Acoustica loosing capability. Ver.6 had 2 individual tools, 1) a dynamic processor, and 2) a compressor. You seem to have deleted the dynamic processor tool entirely and renamed the multi-band compressor as “multiband dynamics”. These are not the same functions, regardless of how you choose to name them. The new compressor gives you a single point of control over the dynamics at individual, non-overlapping frequency points, allowing different compressions to be used for different frequency ranges. The visual curve of this tool is dB versus frequency.

In Ver.6 we had a tool called the “dynamic processor”, which controlled the slope of the gain curve at different volume levels, Output dB vs. Input dB. This is a critical tool which has been left out of the current release.

It may be possible to "concatenate two processors in the processing chain" operation as you suggest, by placing a compressor in the first pass and a closely matched expander in a second pass. This assumes, of course, that you have a great deal of knowledge about using compressors and know in advance what tweaks you want to set up and what parameters to use. Ver.6 gave us a very simple, easy to use, ability to adjust these dueling processors in real time by using a mouse to grab and drag the curve while listening to a monitor.

As I wrote in my email to you, the specific setup you need is indeed tricky to accomplish with v7. It is a slightly unusual setup, but we'll see if we can add a new curve based dynamics tool in v7.1 -- maybe a "Dynamics Curve" tool with an interface similar to v6, but with the improved algorithm in v7.

4. Spectrogram analyzer.
The second critical tool which is missing is the spectrogram analysis tool. The new one in Ver.7 just doesn't work. Attached is a spectrogram made from Ver.6
[download/file.php?mode=view&id=12732& sid=e0843bd58f82eb750f65a6ec050bfd77]
This particular spectrogram is analyzing for noise in the 0-200 hz range of a short section from a 1930 piano recording. The spectrogram analysis in Ver.6 is good, allowing me to draw the following observations:
A) Turntable rumble 0-25hz. This is an artifact of my recording.
B) The original recording had a 55hz high pass filter imposed on the audio in the initial pressing, presumably to remove the primary 50hz hum, as this is an European recording.
C) At the time of this recording, filters were analog, far inferior to what we have today. Although they knocked out the primary 50Hz hum, the first harmonic at 100hz is clearly identifiable.

The spectrogram, when performed correctly, allows me to identify various noise components and to remove them digitally during the restoration process. The second attachment to this post is the spectrogram made with Ver.7 of the same excerpt, using identical analysis settings.
[download/file.php?mode=view&id=12733&si ... ec050bfd77]

The Ver.7 spectrogram is devoid of the useful information I need for my work.

This is just a matter of choosing the correct block size. Please read the topics about time-frequency analysis in the manual for a better understanding. In short, you can increase the block size to improve frequency resolution at the cost of a decreased time resolution.

Best,
Stian

[stian]

What an audio developer has to deal with these days... I'd rather grow potatoes.

I'm sorry for the interruption, just go on. I just thought it was a bit too critical of new A7. It's great and it's getting better. You've just been too used to the old version and the new one is just too different for you. Give it time and patience and it will grow on you just like the old one.

Thanks for the kind words!

Best,
Stian