Just too complicated

[PianoPete]

Well I give up...the receptor is just too complicated and the learning curve is too steep. I am ready to take a sledgehammer to the damn thing. I called 3 weeks ago to inquire about returning it and have yet to hear back from Muse. Unless your really up on your computer skills and/or have LOTS of time on your hands I would not recommend getting a receptor. I've spent 40-50 hours working with it and have yet to make any music with it. The website would have you believe it's a simple tool...just dial up a plugin and play...don't believe it. The Muse website says, in bold letters, that the Receptor boots up in 5 seconds?? Mine takes minutes to boot up if there is a patch to load and about 45 seconds with a blank patch. Using B4ii on my Mac is a piece of cake. To organize the presets you just drag and drop in the preset window. Does it work on Receptor?...nope. B4ii midi learn? no. B4ii patch changes from my controller? Not a chance. Can I use a USB controller? no...it creates clicks and pops so I have to go midi. Again it all works just fine on my Mac. I brought the receptor to a rehearsal and all it did was embarrass me. Was playing an organ and in the middle of a song it started making a wierd 'celeste' type sound. Don't know how that happened so I just turned it off and used my backup board for the rest of the rehearsal. At least it gave the band a chuckle. I'll be bringing my powermac to yet another gig tonight while my receptor sits at home laughing at me. Guess I'm going to try to sell it if anyone is interested. It's the Collossus bundle model (1.2 gig ram 160 gig Harddrive..well it's supposed to be 160...it's actually 142).

[c3boy]

I guess it's not for everyone. But to be honest I sold my Motif ES 4 weeks after getting it because it was too complicated and I got a Receptor instead which I find a lot easier to figure out. It does take working out, but I guess the difference is that I enjoy working stuff out on Receptor because of the end results. I need to learn about DFD settings though. The only hassle I'v had so far is that on a rehearsal I couldnt alter the levels because I'v always had it connected to a monitor! Tad lazy on my part.

[c3boy]

When you mention the hard drive size and that it's not as it it should be. The OS takes up space on the drive. Mines 200GB but only shows 178.6GB or so as the OS system takes the rest.

[raintalk]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Usability counts, and easy startup, level learning curve is part of usability.

I would like to see the drives advertised as user space available. For example "160GB - 130GB user space" It would help to plan for program and data space for plugins.

[DanTimis]

I would like to see the drives advertised as user space available. For example "160GB - 130GB user space" It would help to plan for program and data space for plugins.

When you buy 1 GB of RAM you buy 1 X 1024 X 1024 X 1024 bytes of RAM. But, when you buy a 160 GB hard drive, you buy 160 X 1000 X 1000 X 1000 bytes. It is actually a little bit more than that, but it is not 160 X 1024 X 1024 X 1024.

Most computers display disk space using 1024 as 1 K, not 1000. So you have 160,000,000,000 bytes / (1024 X 1024 X 1024) = 149 GB (the 1024 at the power of 3 kind).

My Mac says that my 160 GB external hard drive has total capacity of 148.92 GB. I doubt that the entire difference is from formatting. I think that most of the difference comes from the fact that the hard drive has actually a little bit over 149 GB (the 1024^3 kind).

From the Seagate website:

Capacity:
Capacity is the amount of data that the drive can store, after formatting. Most disc drive companies, including Seagate, calculate disc capacity based on the assumption that 1 megabyte = 1000 kilobytes and 1 gigabyte=1000 megabytes.

So a receptor with a 160 GB drive has actually a 149 GB drive as displayed on the SETUP page. But, your point that the actual space that you could use for samples could be better advertised is valid. It's just that you have 130 GB available out of 149, not out of 160.

[Arys Chien]

It's exactly as Dan said: the numbers are not the same with RAM size and HD size. When you got a new 80G HD without any data on it, it's available space is already less than 80G.

As fot the "Receptor too complicated" statement, I don't think it's true. As you would see from the ad, the Receptor is designed to run VST and VSTi plug-ins. If you are familiar with setting them up on your PC, there is really no difference setting them up on your Receptor.

If you find it difficult to setup and run VST plug-ins on your host PC, then it's the VST environment that is too hard for you, not the Receptor.

[PianoPete]

As fot the "Receptor too complicated" statement, I don't think it's true. As you would see from the ad, the Receptor is designed to run VST and VSTi plug-ins. If you are familiar with setting them up on your PC, there is really no difference setting them up on your Receptor.

If you find it difficult to setup and run VST plug-ins on your host PC, then it's the VST environment that is too hard for you, not the Receptor.

Maybe you didn't read my post. As I said it works just fine on my Mac.

[Arys Chien]

Sorry. My fault.

[PianoPete]

Today the band asked me to learn a new song for the next gig. Heavy organ so of course I'm going to use the B4ii. So I'm setting up my boards and I decide to use the Receptor instead of my Mac... I figure all I'm gonna run is the organ on one preset. I just need one sound. No worry about patch changes or even Midi CC's except for maybe the leslie cuz I'm just learning a song at home (plus I'd have to reboot my Mac onto it's other harddrive to run the B4ii). I made a multi with just the B4ii on the Receptor. No other effects or anything. Started playing and the receptor cut out...woudn't respond. I had repowered my Keystation88 (sustain pedal polarity) so I figured maybe the receptor didn't like that. I rebooted the receptor. All was fine for about a minute. Now the Receptor wont respond at all. I can't even shut it off using the power button on the unit itself!

[c3boy]

You seem to have a problem with your specific Receptor, I have B4 2 working fine. I reckon there will be problems on a few Receptors, just like you can get a flawed PC from a shop on the odd occasion.