I can't be that stupid - can I ?

[pianodano]

Hello all,

I will keep this a simple a possible.

I have Receptor hooked up to my daw via Ethernet. I run Sonar 4.0. About a week ago I scanned for new vst's and Sonar's wrapper goes out and finds all the preinstalled plugins on Receptor. So I insert a VST into a Sonar track with accompanying midi and audio track. Sonar allows me to assign the plugin to any of my 24 audio inputs. I use a track echo to relay midi data to receptor.

I have been joyfully playing and recording this way with any of Receptors licensed plguins for as I said, about a week. The demo plgs won't scan and that's understandable.

Well after I installed Colossus a few days ago, I had Sonars' wrapper scan for that. It went out and found Colussus ok but errored and reported that Colossus was not in the "expected" folder and I should "point to the correct folder. Needless to say I can't point to the receptor drive (I can point to any windows drive only). So I say to myself, ok I'll call tech support over at Muse to find out why I can't register Receptor in Sonar. I explained what I had been donig and what was happening and I was flat out told that there was no way the the Sonar was inserting Receptor plugs and audio. But I said it was and was told it again it was not possible.
Well I am sorry but it sure as hell does. I was told that this was just not possible without uniwire. And here I was thinking that I was ok without uniwire for a while. Surely I am not the only one running Receptor VST's in Sonar - am I ??

Danny

[Scot Solida]

Perhaps Sonar was simply running the plugs from Receptor's hard drive, rather than through Receptor. Maybe it scanned the plugs over the LAN line and loaded them into your DAW that way. The only way to tell would be if your CPU usuage on your DAW increased.

[DanTimis]

When you mount the Receptor hard drive, it looks like any other hard drive. Sonar can load a plug-in from the Receptor hard drive in RAM and then run it. Once the plug-in is in RAM, it does not matter if it came from a local hard drive or a remote one. Your MIDI echo to Receptor is probably doing nothing. You are running the plug-ins locally.

However, I strongly recommend that you do not do this. Sonar might try to create files in the same folder as the plug-ins, or who knows what other strange things could happen. Instead you should copy any freeware plug-in you like to your local hard drive and try them there.

Colossus has to be authorized for the machine and the hard drive of your computer. Colossus is authorized when you run from Receptor. Of course it is not going to run from your computer and the Receptor hard drive.

[philipc68]

I believe if you run the Sonar DXi utility you can look at the properties of wrapped VST synths and see where the original VST DLL's are located. Maybe that's some help?

[pianodano]

Well the problem with an explanation involving my PC seeing the Receptor drive as any other is that just ain't the way it is. If so I should be able to look at the drives on <my computer> and see the Receptor drive, right? It does not show up as a drive in <my computer>. Remember that's what prompted my call to tech support. The vst wrapper found Colossus just fine but was not able to register it. IT errored and said Collosus was in the wrong folder and or location. A window popped up and asked me to point to the Colossus location. I could not point to the Receptor drive. My understanding after speaking to my Linux guru is that no Linux drive will show up in the windows drives. Don't know if I got that right or wrong though.

Dan RE: echo on.

Nope it won't be echoed (ie play) to the Receptor without echo on.

Because of the instability issues(my receptor is constantly locking up and or coming unconnected from my pc, I suspect it it very possible that I have somehow received a beta unwire machine. But I have no way of knowing this. IT is the machine I was unable to register a couple weeks back.

philipc68,

I am not sure were the DXI utility would be. any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Danny

[pianodano]

Dan,
I am not sure but are you basically saying I can't use Receptor for it's intended purpose, ie: run vst's to take some of the load off my pc ???

Danny

[philipc68]

I mean the Cakewalk plugin manager. Should be on the Sonar install disk, or else you can get it here:
http://www.cakewalk.com/download/PIM.asp

[pianodano]

I mean the Cakewalk plugin manager. Should be on the Sonar install disk, or else you can get it here:
http://www.cakewalk.com/download/PIM.asp

Thank you

Danny

[philipc68]

Dan,
I am not sure but are you basically saying I can't use Receptor for it's intended purpose, ie: run vst's to take some of the load off my pc ???

Danny

I don't think he's saying that. I don't own a receptor but I gather it's basically a virtual "rack" that can host synths and effects. I'm assuming that in sonar you would treat it the same as you would any outboard gear ie. you would load up some synths in Receptor, then set up a MIDI track in sonar with midi out set to point to one of the MIDI in's on the receptor. Does that sound right? The synth runs on receptor, all Sonar needs to do is send midi messages to it.

If you're using somehow managing to use the VST wrapper on receptor synths, they would be running inside Sonar on your DAW. I don't think that's the intended use!

Regards
Philip

[DanTimis]

Of course you can use Receptor to take some of the load off your PC. Currently you do this by connecting the MIDI output of your soundcard to the MIDI input of Receptor, and then connecting the audio outputs of Receptor to the audio inputs of your soundcard.

I don't know how the Sonar wrapper works, but one possibility would be that it copied the dlls from the Receptor hard drive to the internal hard drive. Another possibility is that it took the original dlls, loaded them in RAM, then built new dlls that contain the executable code from the original dlls. If that's the case, then maybe you had the Receptor disk mounted on your PC when Sonar scanned for new plug-ins, but now even when it is not mounted Sonar has the plug-ins on the local disk and it can load them.

In any case, it looks like you are using Sonar to run these plug-ins, which means your are using your computer's CPU. That defeats the purpose of offloading some of the processing to Receptor because you not using your Receptor's CPU.

We have Sonar, so we will try to scan for plug-ins on Receptor and see what happens.

[pianodano]

Dan,

Ok. I will be glad to hear what you guys come up with. I had assumed that the VST's running in Sonar were being handled in a manner simiiar to the way my Universal Audio or TC powercore VST's were run.

Thanks,

Danny

[pianodano]

Dan,
I am not sure but are you basically saying I can't use Receptor for it's intended purpose, ie: run vst's to take some of the load off my pc ???

Danny

I don't think he's saying that. I don't own a receptor but I gather it's basically a virtual "rack" that can host synths and effects. I'm assuming that in sonar you would treat it the same as you would any outboard gear ie. you would load up some synths in Receptor, then set up a MIDI track in sonar with midi out set to point to one of the MIDI in's on the receptor. Does that sound right? The synth runs on receptor, all Sonar needs to do is send midi messages to it.

If you're using somehow managing to use the VST wrapper on receptor synths, they would be running inside Sonar on your DAW. I don't think that's the intended use!

Regards
Philip

Hi Philip,

Well I had actually thought, and it certainly appears to me as I stated in the post to Dan Timis, that the VST's in Receptor were being handled just like any other vst that uses it's own processor. I really have no interest in another "hardware" based instrument. I have a entire room full of them. Based on the available sales info regarding Receptor, I/we reached the resonable conclusion that it was set up to work exactly as I outlined in the beginning of this thread. It has been a real disappointment learnimg that unwire was not/is not a part of my Receptor. If and when they release it, I am now quite frightened that the inital users will just be in effect the beta testers. I am not interested in that at all either. It appears I have unknowingly/unwittingly bought another piece of equipment that is in it's inital stages of development (TASCAM and Yamaha are terrible for this). Eventually the several pieces of my expensive digital equipment was discontinued and folks like myself were just left hanging with gear that sales literature said was going to do all these wonderous things but in reality, was just left incomplete/undeveloped. As an old guy that has been involved in music for over 40 years and had my own business for 20, I am really disappointed in the way the music equipment mfgrs have evolved. : I am not going to say they use intentional dishonesty, but many of them certainly use misleading tactics, in general.

Regards,

Danny

[CrownRoyal]

Dan,
I am not sure but are you basically saying I can't use Receptor for it's intended purpose, ie: run vst's to take some of the load off my pc ???

Danny

I don't think he's saying that. I don't own a receptor but I gather it's basically a virtual "rack" that can host synths and effects. I'm assuming that in sonar you would treat it the same as you would any outboard gear ie. you would load up some synths in Receptor, then set up a MIDI track in sonar with midi out set to point to one of the MIDI in's on the receptor. Does that sound right? The synth runs on receptor, all Sonar needs to do is send midi messages to it.

If you're using somehow managing to use the VST wrapper on receptor synths, they would be running inside Sonar on your DAW. I don't think that's the intended use!

Regards
Philip

Hi Philip,

Well I had actually thought, and it certainly appears to me as I stated in the post to Dan Timis, that the VST's in Receptor were being handled just like any other vst that uses it's own processor. I really have no interest in another "hardware" based instrument. I have a entire room full of them. Based on the available sales info regarding Receptor, I/we reached the resonable conclusion that it was set up to work exactly as I outlined in the beginning of this thread. It has been a real disappointment learnimg that unwire was not/is not a part of my Receptor. If and when they release it, I am now quite frightened that the inital users will just be in effect the beta testers. I am not interested in that at all either. It appears I have unknowingly/unwittingly bought another piece of equipment that is in it's inital stages of development (TASCAM and Yamaha are terrible for this). Eventually the several pieces of my expensive digital equipment was discontinued and folks like myself were just left hanging with gear that sales literature said was going to do all these wonderous things but in reality, was just left incomplete/undeveloped. As an old guy that has been involved in music for over 40 years and had my own business for 20, I am really disappointed in the way the music equipment mfgrs have evolved. : I am not going to say they use intentional dishonesty, but many of them certainly use misleading tactics, in general.

Regards,

Danny

Did you call them before you bought the Receptor? I bought mine after talking to my sales rep at Sweetwater and then reading all I could about it. I knew that UniWire wasn't avaliable, yet, but was coming. I don't see anywhere that Muse has announced UniWire as avaliable. It's coming but not quite, yet. Everyone does that. Pro Tools announced version 7 at AES and here it is November and all versions aren't released, yet. You're a vet, you should know all about this stuff. Gimmie a break.

I don't think there's any misleading info. I doubt its ability to run 16 instruments at once but you can load that many and switch between them. It really depends on the plug-ins. It's not a Powercore or HD system or a dedicated DSP system for your DAW. It most certainly will offload your DAW. It's also a performance unit and guitar effects system. All in one package. Your room full of hardware doesn't have those features in one box. That's why it's unique.

I'm having some kind of flaky hardware issue. I'm (we're) trying to figure it out. I know for certain that the people at Muse are of the highest caliber. You can pick up the phone and talk to them. They offer home phone numbers to call. They call you back. They post replies to message WAY after business hours. So, when you write that you think you've been treated dishonestly by Muse, I'm sorry but I have to rush to their defense. Call them. Did TASCAM or Yamaha ever call you about your hardware? Korg? Alesis? Apple? Calkwalk?

I'm discouraged that the Receptor I bought may have to go back but I'll be damned that had anything to do with the people at Muse Research.

Muse Research is going to evolve. Someday, you may not be able to talk to them directly.

Cheers.

[pianodano]

Well CrownRoyal,
Darn it, thanks for your help in helping me to figure out the answer to what my original question was. I am really really glad you are happy with your receptor, what with you having such a great relationship, calling them all hours at home and all so you can try to keep yours working. That's great and really encouraging to me...... Mine has been trouble since I opened the box and I just don't have time to be calling people all hours of the day and night like that.

And you know what else? I did call them yesterday during normal business hours re this, but Rick was kinda busy what with his appointment and all and I got kinda tired of him basically telling me that I really did not know what I was talking about - you know the part were I was told there was no way Sonar was running vst's on Receptor. Shoot, I even offered to send him a screen shot.

Yeah I researched it too. Spent a lot of time on their site http://www.museresearch.com/receptor_videos.php.

Seeing as to how you unlike me, (remember the title of this thread is "am I that stupid or what?" were able to learn everything there was to know about it before you bought yours, I am having a hard time understanding why you have to spend so much time talking with them at home after hours and all trying to keep yours working. If you could be so kind, maybe you could just point me to where you learned on the Muse site that uniwire wasn't
in it. And also if you would'nt mind, how about were you learned on the Muse site that Receptor runs "standard windows VST's, but not exactly, or do I need someones private number to learn that?

I really appreciate the help.

Danny

[CrownRoyal]

Well CrownRoyal,
Darn it, thanks for your help in helping me to figure out the answer to what my original question was. I am really really glad you are happy with your receptor, what with you having such a great relationship, calling them all hours at home and all so you can try to keep yours working. That's great and really encouraging to me...... Mine has been trouble since I opened the box and I just don't have time to be calling people all hours of the day and night like that.

And you know what else? I did call them yesterday during normal business hours re this, but Rick was kinda busy what with his appointment and all and I got kinda tired of him basically telling me that I really did not know what I was talking about - you know the part were I was told there was no way Sonar was running vst's on Receptor. Shoot, I even offered to send him a screen shot.

Yeah I researched it too. Spent a lot of time on their site http://www.museresearch.com/receptor_videos.php.

Seeing as to how you unlike me, (remember the title of this thread is "am I that stupid or what?" were able to learn everything there was to know about it before you bought yours, I am having a hard time understanding why you have to spend so much time talking with them at home after hours and all trying to keep yours working. If you could be so kind, maybe you could just point me to where you learned on the Muse site that uniwire wasn't
in it. And also if you would'nt mind, how about were you learned on the Muse site that Receptor runs "standard windows VST's, but not exactly, or do I need someones private number to learn that?

I really appreciate the help.

Danny

I have not called them all hours off the night. I called them twice during business hours. Dan has offered his personal cell phone to someone else in here. I wouldn't be bugging someone at home. So, quit taking what I wrote out of context.

I bet you I can tell you exactly what you did. Sonar found the VST on your Receptor via Windows Networking. That's not the way it works. It would be the same thing if you ran any other program over a network connection. It's not going to start remotely and use it's processor, it'll use the processor that started it. That's where the UniWire client comes in. It starts the remote process, like an X-Windows session or Receptor Remote session WITHIN you DAW.

My Receptor ran fine the night I performed with it and the first week I owned it. I loaded a couple of unsupported VST on the Receptor and caused my own headache by changing a folder that I'd mis-spelled. I caused that. I also called Muse about what kind of memory to put in the Receptor before the sale. I also called about the crackling noises I'm hearing. So, that's one pre-sale call, two tech support calls during business hours.

As for your "too busy to call" remarks, you're not too busy to make personal attacks in forums, eh? Yeah, right... too busy... whatever.