Live 5....what happened?

[John Vulich]

Maybe i should just buy a f**king Imac?

That would be perfect, since you're obviously an idiot anyway.

well i've heard some good things about them, i am not an idiot to believe that.

Just not sure what you think the advantage would be. I don't think Live runs any better on a Mac than on a PC. The only difference is that you would be paying more money for a slower computer.

[xsub]

Oh and even before that, i used cubase sx3, but that is a huge cpu hog it seems, and it always crashes on me, having used sx2 before that i hated most of the way i had to work, and i can't go back to it now.

Maybe i should just buy a f**king Imac?

lol. The slice in tracktion is easy to do. Position the playhead where you want to cut and hit / or \ (i dont remember which) my workflow is set loop in and out points, then use ] and / to cut the end, and [ and \ to cut the beggining.

As for your VST folder woes, there is a solution. By creating NTFS junctions to your folder you point live to, it will scan them (NTFS junction is like a symlink in linux -- think of it as a folder shortcut that actually acts like a folder and not a shortcut). Anyway if you want help doing it let me know. It's not hard.

I had to do it myself for storing some vst data files on another disk and the programs dont know the difference between junctions or real folders.

In this manner you could create c:\abletonVST, and create junctions to your various other folders, since the folder is recursively scanned. Pointing it to program files is going to be a huge bummer because of the amount of files there, but also because I think when it finds DLL files it tries to open them as VST -- this could explain your crash. I dont think Live5 has a feature that smartly disables plugins that fail to load or that aren't able to be opened as plugins either.

Hope that helps.

indeed, live 5 is not smart like this, also another developer flaw.

Thanks for telling me though, how would i go about creating such a short cut?

[xsub]

Maybe i should just buy a f**king Imac?

That would be perfect, since you're obviously an idiot anyway.

well i've heard some good things about them, i am not an idiot to believe that.

Just not sure what you think the advantage would be. I don't think Live runs any better on a Mac than on a PC. The only difference is that you would be paying more money for a slower computer.

no silly! i meant switching to mac to use logic 7 or another host. ( not live )

[John Vulich]

my point remains valid, not everyone wants to f**k about moving dlls, they can't they just add 'multiple paths' ?.

Maybe you just need to pay more attention during the installation process? Most VSTis let you choose the install path.

[headquest]

my point remains valid, not everyone wants to f**k about moving dlls, they can't they just add 'multiple paths' ?.

Well between us we've explained two fairly straight forward ways to do what you're asking.

If you think that having to "f**k about moving dlls" in order to set up your system correctly is a terrible pain, then possibly computer based music production is not for you

[xsub]

my point remains valid, not everyone wants to f**k about moving dlls, they can't they just add 'multiple paths' ?.

Maybe you just need to pay more attention during the installation process? Most VSTis let you choose the install path.

I do know this, but after installing so many plugins you sometimes just let it install where it wants.

Nothing wrong with that.

Also, some of the time trying to change where a plugin wants to can cause problems ( e.g. stylus )

[John Vulich]

If you think that having to "f**k about moving dlls" in order to set up your system correctly is a terrible pain, then possibly computer based music production is not for you

Yeah, and stop blaming a program for what is obviously you're lack of computer maintenance skills.

[grymmjack]

Oh and even before that, i used cubase sx3, but that is a huge cpu hog it seems, and it always crashes on me, having used sx2 before that i hated most of the way i had to work, and i can't go back to it now.

Maybe i should just buy a f**king Imac?

lol. The slice in tracktion is easy to do. Position the playhead where you want to cut and hit / or \ (i dont remember which) my workflow is set loop in and out points, then use ] and / to cut the end, and [ and \ to cut the beggining.

As for your VST folder woes, there is a solution if you use NTFS on win2k/xp/etc. By creating NTFS junctions to your folder you point live to, it will scan them (NTFS junction is like a symlink in linux -- think of it as a folder shortcut that actually acts like a folder and not a shortcut). Anyway if you want help doing it let me know. It's not hard.

I had to do it myself for storing some vst data files on another disk and the programs dont know the difference between junctions or real folders.

In this manner you could create c:\abletonVST, and create junctions to your various other folders, since the folder is recursively scanned. Pointing it to program files is going to be a huge bummer because of the amount of files there, but also because I think when it finds DLL files it tries to open them as VST -- this could explain your crash. I dont think Live5 has a feature that smartly disables plugins that fail to load or that aren't able to be opened as plugins either.

Hope that helps.

indeed, live 5 is not smart like this, also another developer flaw.

Thanks for telling me though, how would i go about creating such a short cut?

Go here and download the command line tool for creating junctions.

http://www.funklabs.org/share/linkd.zip

Open the file with whatever archiver you use. Extract the MHT file and double click it from explorer (it's a web-page-complete snapshot of how to use the tool 'linkd.exe' which I had to extract from the Win2k Administrator Pack.

Copy linkd.exe, delink.bat and makelink.bat to c:\windows\system32 (this should be in your path already and thus accessible from any other directory whilst in the CMD shell). The batch files aren't overly complex look at them with a text editor - I made them to remind myself how the stuff works since it's not immediately obvious.

Now make a list in notepad of the directories you want to include in this virtual vst directory for ableton. You are using notepad to do this because you are going to be copy/pasting these lines one at a time from notepad to CMD window. So first name the directory alias "Reaktor5" then put a space and paste the directory Reaktor5 (for example) is located. If the directories have spaces in the name, make sure you surround them in double quotes; ie: "C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\Reaktor5" for example.

Once you have all your folders you want gathered and the aliases it's easy to cut/paste to the shell, but first we need to make your fake directory for ableton. Create a directory C:\AbletonVST or whatever you like wherever you like.

Now open CMD.exe (start | run | cmd.exe[enter])

cd C:\AbletonVST [enter]

then create the NTFS junctions like so:

makelink (copy/paste line by line here from notepad). or if you prefer manually:

linkd "Reaktor5" "C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\Reaktor5" [enter]

This creates the NTFS junction "Reaktor5" located in the current working directorY (C:\AbletonVST).

Cut/paste from notepad is easier and the way I had you do it above you can just do a line by line and it's ready. To paste into CMD just simply right click to insert the text where you need it.

So;

Copy line from notepad,
focus CMD window,

type:
makelink (space)(right-click)[enter]

until all your junctions are there. Then point Live at that C:\AbletonVST directory.

DO NOT delete or recursively delete the C:\AbletonVST directory at a later date using del, rd /s, or shift-del or anything in explorer. You have junctions there that will delete the SOURCE files in their mounted directories! First you must delete the junctions then the container directory:

linkd /d "C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\Reaktor5"

(note you delete the reference to the mountpoint, and not the alias itself!)

It's not as scary or hard as it sounds.

Good luck.

[grymmjack]

@xsub: I bet you, also, that in some years these NTFS junction work arounds and copying wont be necessary. Take for example how USB plugsound locates their data files. You can store them on another partition / folder / disk entirely from the plugin itself. Simply by creating a windows shortcut to the datafile that is stored in the same dir as the plugin. I dunno if Ableton did this or not, but it could be fun to find out. I've seen such smart workarounds by clever programmers of other plug-ins besides the USB plugsound ones too.

Perhaps mention it in the live 5 forum for such a workaround -- their program would only have to scan for shortcuts as well and not require any more extensive programming or additional configuration details on their end by doing it that way. The NTFS junction is like 'magic' forcing it to be that way, but with a little more footwork involved.

HTH

[grymmjack]

Here is the link on M$'s site for the howto on what I was just trying to explain. They may do a better job of it:

(this is the MHT file in the zip too):

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=205524

[mon0]

well, yes Live 5 is very hard sometimes. even though i have no problems with rendering, it is nearly impossible to get more of 3 instruments (example: minimoog, arp2600 and cs-80v) run at the same time. the vsti managemnt is sluggish and the cpu hog sometimes extremly high. suddenly i couldnt load halion2, but in orion it works as normal (?). and the live 5.0.3. update destroyed my whole win98 system, cause it replaces some system files. took me 2 days to get my system back. on the other hand i like the workflow, even though some things could be improved. its the old problem: if you care about the customers and implement new features, you will get hundreds of bugs if you do that too fast.

[John Vulich]

Go here and download the command line tool for creating junctions.

http://www.funklabs.org/share/linkd.zip

Open the file with whatever archiver you use. Extract the MHT file and double click it from explorer (it's a web-page-complete snapshot of how to use the tool 'linkd.exe' which I had to extract from the Win2k Administrator Pack.

Copy linkd.exe, delink.bat and makelink.bat to c:\windows\system32 (this should be in your path already and thus accessible from any other directory whilst in the CMD shell). The batch files aren't overly complex look at them with a text editor - I made them to remind myself how the stuff works since it's not immediately obvious.

Now make a list in notepad of the directories you want to include in this virtual vst directory for ableton. You are using notepad to do this because you are going to be copy/pasting these lines one at a time from notepad to CMD window. So first name the directory alias "Reaktor5" then put a space and paste the directory Reaktor5 (for example) is located. If the directories have spaces in the name, make sure you surround them in double quotes; ie: "C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\Reaktor5" for example.

Once you have all your folders you want gathered and the aliases it's easy to cut/paste to the shell, but first we need to make your fake directory for ableton. Create a directory C:\AbletonVST or whatever you like wherever you like.

Now open CMD.exe (start | run | cmd.exe[enter])

cd C:\AbletonVST [enter]

then create the NTFS junctions like so:

makelink (copy/paste line by line here from notepad). or if you prefer manually:

linkd "Reaktor5" "C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\Reaktor5" [enter]

This creates the NTFS junction "Reaktor5" located in the current working directorY (C:\AbletonVST).

Cut/paste from notepad is easier and the way I had you do it above you can just do a line by line and it's ready. To paste into CMD just simply right click to insert the text where you need it.

So;

Copy line from notepad,
focus CMD window,

type:
makelink (space)(right-click)[enter]

until all your junctions are there. Then point Live at that C:\AbletonVST directory.

DO NOT delete or recursively delete the C:\AbletonVST directory at a later date using del, rd /s, or shift-del or anything in explorer. You have junctions there that will delete the SOURCE files in their mounted directories! First you must delete the junctions then the container directory:

linkd /d "C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\Reaktor5"

(note you delete the reference to the mountpoint, and not the alias itself!)

It's not as scary or hard as it sounds.

Good luck.

Do you really think this is an easier solution than moving the .dll files and tweaking the relevant registry files (if necessary)?

Anyway, I would recommend Winbolic Link as an easier utility for creating Junctions...

http://www.pearlmagik.com/winbolic/

[grymmjack]

and the live 5.0.3. update destroyed my whole win98 system,

No offense intended here mon0, but win98 is probably one of the worst OS's you can be running in this day and age. You would REALLY see a benefit upgrading to a better OS like XP Home (which is around $100 or so).

Seriously, that's 90% of your problem I'd bet.

Sucks though that you had a problem with the installation/upgrade of Live. Beef up that box, throw $100 at a copy of XP and you wont look back.

[grymmjack]

Do you really think this is an easier solution than moving the .dll files and tweaking the relevant registry files (if necessary)?

Anyway, I would recommend Winbolic Link as an easier utility for creating Junctions...

http://www.pearlmagik.com/winbolic/

No but if he's as anal as me he will appreciate not having duplicate copies of plug-ins hanging out in the far reaches of his disk wasting space and his time when he goes to sort through the mess later.

I've been looking for a utility to do this. I know you can somewhat do it with disk management under administrative tools in control panel but it's not easy or trivial to set it up. Thanks for the link

[mon0]

well its not my fault, dude. ableton claims win98 compability ans all updates since 5.03 worked with no problem. and what u think of win98 is err, not very intersting to me.

and the live 5.0.3. update destroyed my whole win98 system,

No offense intended here mon0, but win98 is probably one of the worst OS's you can be running in this day and age. You would REALLY see a benefit upgrading to a better OS like XP Home (which is around $100 or so).

Seriously, that's 90% of your problem I'd bet.

Sucks though that you had a problem with the installation/upgrade of Live. Beef up that box, throw $100 at a copy of XP and you wont look back.