Tracktion Software

mmmatt · Post by **mmmatt** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:25 pm

Hello,
I was sent here by the mackie support folks. To start this out on a very sour note, I will qoute what I have been told to date "you bought the hardware and the traction software was free. Nobody said it would work."
Needless to say I am bent. Here is my problem. My wish is to record 14+ channels at 24/96 for 2-3 hrs at a shot. In my testing (and at live gigs) I have found that you can stop traction at about the 1hr point and it will save all tracks, but anything more and it only saves some of the tracks. The exception to this rules is if you let it time out at the 4hr point it saves all tracks flawlesly. Does anybody have a fix for this? Has anybody tried this? The level 2 tech at Mackie ran a similar test, and told me that I was correct that the software had a glitch. Will this be corrected in traction 2? I'm stunned that I'm the only one trying to use this software for live recording, and that this has never been tested.
I have a HP lappy with an AMD 2800 processor, I've done a bazillion XP tweaks with full op system reloads in between (6 full XP reloads now), I have upgraded to 1.25 GB of Ram, I have upgraded the internal HD to a Hitachi 7200/8MB travelstar, a maxtor 200GB 7200/8MB USB2 external, and I have done every little "raindance" sequence of starting this first than that, or loading this first then that, and I am stumped. 3 weeks later, Mackie finally does a 2 hr test at my request and finds that it is the software, then says tough s#$t, it was free.
Can anybody help me?

Matt

aldi · Post by **aldi** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:44 pm

sorry to hear this, i bet it's not fixed in t2 because the support could have tested it on t2. as far as i know this problem wasn't mentioned here before. (btw. very bad supportanswer of mackie)

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:53 pm

Yes, that's bad support, I gotta say.

Aldi doesn't actually know for sure that it was possible for a support staff to try it out on T2, though, so it's hard to say.

I don't think my hard drive has SPACE for that much recording all at once-- how much room does a project like that take up? I'd like to try to replicate it but I'm afraid I'd crap out my system.

mmmatt · Post by **mmmatt** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:03 pm

yeah... I'm not a happy camper right now. I feel they are responsible to make this right and I've got an e-mail in, that is supposedly going to go all the way up to the top. We'll see if they will make good on this. They should be embarrassed that they never tested the software. The onyx hardware that I have was designed to record live... I'm also put out that the designers of the software didn't test this either. Maybe it is good software for the mixdown (I'd love to get that far!), but they should know the limits of the software and post them in the literature. Mackie is making like they were duped by the software designers on this one.
I agree... I doubt that T2 will work either, I'm sure the tech would have tested it on both. I feel that I spent my time testing software that someone else should have tested. Instead of being paid to do it like an employee of Mackie or the software company, I LOST money by screwing up 2 paying gigs, passing up 2 more, and if this isn't rectifiedby early next week I'm going to loose 2 more. I'm trying to break into this busness and so far I'm just looking like an idiot who can't come through... not good for business.

Matt

mmmatt · Post by **mmmatt** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:09 pm

Lunch Money wrote:Yes, that's bad support, I gotta say.

Aldi doesn't actually know for sure that it was possible for a support staff to try it out on T2, though, so it's hard to say.

I don't think my hard drive has SPACE for that much recording all at once-- how much room does a project like that take up? I'd like to try to replicate it but I'm afraid I'd crap out my system.

14 tracks 12@ 24/96 and 2 at 16/96 ( the 16bit tracks are the main mix off the board which I would use to burn on site as a sample) comes to about 52 GB for a 4 hrs session. Try 2 hours if you can... 4 hrs works fine. I've also had failures doing 4 tracks for that 2hr point, but I've had successes that way also. FWIW I've also tried all at 24bit and all stero, all mono... I'm pretty sure I've tried everything!
FWIW The level 2 tech at Mackie did say he had already been playing with T2.
I'm sorry, btw, that I just jump in here and start bitching... I usually have nice things to say when I join a new forum, but I am just steaming over this.

Matt

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:15 pm

mmmatt wrote: I'm trying to break into this busness and so far I'm just looking like an idiot who can't come through... not good for business.

While I feel for you, and agree that this problem should be fixed ASAP (and possibly also that the response you got was woefully inadequate) I have to say that if you are basing your business on the software, it is up to you to test it to check it is up to the job.. Live recording is only one of the many possible uses for Tracktion, and it is unreasonable to expect an app to be tested in every scenario and every combination of hardware / OS / samplerate etc.

Lets hope they get this sorted quickly..

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:19 pm

For what it's worth, the programmer (a one man operation) originally created Tracktion in a way that he probably never would have imagined recording that much information over such a timeline. That's not to say your needs aren't important, too, just that I can relate to his music-making approach (as much as I know about it, which isn't a LOT, but I think he's just a plain' ol' 5-minute-song, 1 or 2 instruments at a time kind of guy.) In the 1.5 years I've used Tracktion, it never occurred to ME until your post that there ARE people in the world for whom recording long live sessions is their bread and butter.

I'm not sure where the finger of blame should be pointed, either, but the programmer is a stand-up kind of guy and any 'oversights' like this are strictly unforseen circumstance, not malicious intent.

If the project is only 52 GB, I might try recording a bit later on to see what happens. Hope in the meantime that your day brightens up.

Greg

diverdee · Post by **diverdee** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:25 pm

how large is the internal drive - & are you recording to that one or to the external 2oog drive? dunno if that would make a differnence - but if either one starts getting fragmented could create problems (simple i know - but it's sometimes the simple things) & if it's the external drive (usb 2?) I have a friend who had one that he constantly had problems with - he went for a firewire drive instead.

nuisance sonore · Post by **nuisance sonore** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:26 pm

What everybody said, but adding that you could use Adobe audition while this is behing sorted to get you going.
http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/main.html
The demo was fully functional for 30 days while I used it, so it it should be now also including save. And I did use it to record into the 2 hours mark without a itch, so I know it would work.

bobaudio · Post by **bobaudio** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:28 pm

Who jams for one hour straight with no pauses anyway??!?! Is Phish touring again????

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:28 pm

Ezy Ryder wrote:What everybody said, but adding that you could use Adobe audition while this is behing sorted to get you going.
http://www.adobe.com/products/audition/main.html
The demo was fully functional for 30 days while I used it, so it it should be now also including save. And I did use it to record into the 2 hours mark without a itch, so I know it would work.

You could of course import the resulting WAVs into Tracktion for the mixdown if you wanted to..

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:29 pm

bobaudio wrote:Who jams for one hour straight with no pauses anyway??!?! Is Phish touring again????

You've never jammed on 'shrooms have you?

SaviorNeeded · Post by **SaviorNeeded** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:42 pm

Just wondering...

If my word processor has a problem, the autosave saves at least some of my work. If my drawing program has trouble, the autosave saves at least some of my work.

What does Tracktion's autosave do?

Tom

chico.co.uk · Post by **chico.co.uk** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:50 pm

Surely it must save the actual wav files? If you look in the directory where you were trying to save the project, are they there?

It's obviously not possible for your pc to store over an hour's worth of even a single wav file in memory, so tracktion must stream them to disk, no? So presumably the files are actually there, even if they're not showing in the tracktion project?

unless T doesn't finalise the wavs properly for some reason, if they're over 1 hour long, and under 4 hours long (sounds a bit of a weird bug ...)

Traction2 · Post by **Traction2** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 6:54 pm

Perhaps you might look into one of the latest Workstations. I never had any trouble with any of them tracking and recording that much data. You are looking at $80. as opposed to $3000. I don't think I would trust a laptop with that much of a load on it with any software and hardward config.

It's good to hear a good report about Adobe's software. I tried it and it took over my whole machine. I dispatched it immediately.

Sorry for the trouble you are having, if the T2 is adjusted to handle that kind of load the promise of a "special" price to users who supported T1 will be worth the wait.

I have a Stephens Analog 40 track recorder in perfect condition, less than 15 hours record and playback time for $65,000. if you are interested.

Again, sorry for the problem but just hang in there, it will be worth it.

Tracktion Software

KVR Audio

recording 2GB+ wav's in traction (title edited)