Well... I gave it two days - damn AT2 dongle already crashed

[grymmjack]

no hard feelings...I guess I'm just use to waiting longer and perhaps a little thin-skinned about this "I want it and I want it now" world we live in...fwiw I remember once on looptalk a girl said the way she had her template set-up it took about 40 minutes to load FL....that would drive me bonkers

i don't mind waiting small amounts myself either, and am of the same opinion as you for most things (i think the world moves much too fast and expects things yesterday as well at times) but not when it involves a product that had been perfectly quick in it's version 1 and with version 2, seems to have gotten worse and not better in this area. tbh i have a bit of hard feelings about AT2 since it's now dongled and such, i was seriously hoping to upgrade until i found this out. i love AT1, very much.

the 15 seconds for an EFFECT is just plain out wrong. convolution reverbs maybe it's ok, but atleast there is a good excuse loading waveforms and such.

jeez, 40 minutes!

and to clarify finally for once and for all so you have some idea about my patience with computers; i started on an oldschool ][e 1mhz. believe me that taught me MUCH about patience, both as a youth and a growing young adult. there was no instant gratification back then. over the years i'll admit i've become spoiled. with broadband internet feed, a p4 1.9ghz (400mhz fsb rdram), and such yes i'm a little impatient and expect things to happen pretty fast. otherwise why bother upgrading? isn't that why we all buy new hardware? for more speed?

no hard feelings, okay, that works.

[Hink]

this is a test..results to follow

[Hink]

12 seconds for that post to post...my specs 2.2 ghz, 1 gig ram and I too am on broadband...yes I want things quicker, but loading doesn't fit for me and 15 seconds is for me in the acceptable range...what I want to be quicker is the actual processing speed to reduce latency..that's where I want to see things quicker...

now I really have to get down by the pool or my daughter and wife will get mad...

[beergeek]

Ok...so I did some tests. I only did these in Cubase and only on my powermac g5 dual core, 2ghz with 1.5 gigs of ram.

Initial load of AT2 as an insert - pretty much 15 seconds on the dot. Subsequent instances were around 7 seconds. AT1 and a bunch of other non-dongled plugs (including instruments) were pretty much instant. BUT...and this is kinda interesting...

Sampletank 2 which is NOT dongled took even longer than AT2...and waiting does suck...but in truth, we don't know the culprit. For the record, I don't like dongles either but I can see some advantages at least in portability.

grymmjack, I don't agree that the only significant difference is the dongle. The gui is much more complex and there are a lot more options. How much of that is preloading? Got me. It also takes a lot more time to load up some complicated presets than I would like.

I would say based upon loading the first instance as opposed to the second you have about 8 seconds of dongle nonsense and about 7 seconds of pre-loading various aspects of the plug.

The bottom line is whether something can be done to speed this up and whether in fact the dongle is really screwing things up to that extent.

As a geek, you probably know that the dongle call should be very simple...look for the device, scan for a valid license, load or open a message window. I guess if you have several dongles and several licenses on each of those dongles, it could take a bit longer but milliseconds not seconds. If it's really taking 7 seconds to check the dongle, someone needs to re-write that code.

Of course, I'm on a mac and although we don't have all the plugs available to pc users, macs don't crash very often

really? do you think so?

Do I think so what? (Not trying to be a smart ass I really wasn't sure what you were asking.)

That there are more plugs available for PC's? Well, maybe I should have said Windows as opposed to OSX since I'm given to understand there might be hope for the intel macs. But yeah, I do think that.

Or do I think that macs don't crash very often? Yeah, I do think that as well. I've had some programs crash on me but not the Mac. And to be fair, XP Pro was way more stable than previous versions but still more susceptible to the blue screen of death than a Mac is to crash entirely. It's why I use a mac for work and why I moved to a mac for music. I've had less plug/host crashes since doing so. I mean as a geek I would think you would agree that OSX has a much more stable base OS than any flavor of Windows.

This is just my experience, your mileage may vary...

[stag]

AT2 takes forever to load... it seems.
I have another dongle with other licenses on it and i think the culprit is Synsoac.dll deciding what dongle look first for and then the copy response thing.

Incidentally i didn't transfer my licenses to the same dongle, as i done always, because AT2 is locked to that dongle, well it seems at least.

I think it's good people talking about those issues cause IK is one of those companies that actually listens.

Well, PC's suck, at least the ones i build but i have a VAIO for almost a year, nobody would believe the amount of crap i throw at it, so naturally nobody will believe: not a single crash, format c, or the BS i was used too.

Well for the price i payed for it i could build my self a Dual desktop or bougth even a dual G5 at the time.
Do i regret it??? nah

[grymmjack]

Ok...so I did some tests. I only did these in Cubase and only on my powermac g5 dual core, 2ghz with 1.5 gigs of ram.

Initial load of AT2 as an insert - pretty much 15 seconds on the dot. Subsequent instances were around 7 seconds. AT1 and a bunch of other non-dongled plugs (including instruments) were pretty much instant. BUT...and this is kinda interesting...

Sampletank 2 which is NOT dongled took even longer than AT2...and waiting does suck...but in truth, we don't know the culprit. For the record, I don't like dongles either but I can see some advantages at least in portability.

grymmjack, I don't agree that the only significant difference is the dongle. The gui is much more complex and there are a lot more options. How much of that is preloading? Got me. It also takes a lot more time to load up some complicated presets than I would like.

I would say based upon loading the first instance as opposed to the second you have about 8 seconds of dongle nonsense and about 7 seconds of pre-loading various aspects of the plug.

The bottom line is whether something can be done to speed this up and whether in fact the dongle is really screwing things up to that extent.

As a geek, you probably know that the dongle call should be very simple...look for the device, scan for a valid license, load or open a message window. I guess if you have several dongles and several licenses on each of those dongles, it could take a bit longer but milliseconds not seconds. If it's really taking 7 seconds to check the dongle, someone needs to re-write that code.

Of course, I'm on a mac and although we don't have all the plugs available to pc users, macs don't crash very often

really? do you think so?

Do I think so what? (Not trying to be a smart ass I really wasn't sure what you were asking.)

That there are more plugs available for PC's? Well, maybe I should have said Windows as opposed to OSX since I'm given to understand there might be hope for the intel macs. But yeah, I do think that.

Or do I think that macs don't crash very often? Yeah, I do think that as well. I've had some programs crash on me but not the Mac. And to be fair, XP Pro was way more stable than previous versions but still more susceptible to the blue screen of death than a Mac is to crash entirely. It's why I use a mac for work and why I moved to a mac for music. I've had less plug/host crashes since doing so. I mean as a geek I would think you would agree that OSX has a much more stable base OS than any flavor of Windows.

This is just my experience, your mileage may vary...

those are interesting results. the sampletank thing is probably doing inventory on the massive amounts of files, and disk access is slow slow slow. i know it scans some stuff on startup as i've loaded filemon and regmon from sysinternals to watch it first hand, and spy++ reported some pretty interesting things too. mainly TONS of file handles open and left open.. on sampletank anyway

for the other stuff, re: mac, i was being sarcastic. but yeah bsd is trump tight, and about the greatest thing apple has done was to use it as a base for osx. i love osx, and i dig macs too, but when people say 'macs are more stable' it's usually because they don't know better. for your own experience you seem to be a pretty smart educated guy, so you are an exception to this rule. other people are just cultish tools shouting 'macs rule macs are better' and they can't tell you why, besides 'it just works' which is brainwashing

i'm glad for you though that you love your mac and have good experiences with it. for the record i'm not an advocate of any operating system or computer, i use windows xp and a pc because i'm used to it, invested lots of time over the years, etc, but have no disdain for mac or linux (in fact i love linux and used to run slackware and gentoo and all that stuff when i ran a telnet bbs from my notebook). what host do you use on your mac?

and for sure the dongle calls should be minimal, but if how it's integrated into cubase as was well published by the pirate community in their crack information, is any indication to standard 'infestation' of code, it was like huge waste of resources because it was literally a cancer in the code calling things like every other cpu cycle or some such crap.

it's sad that it has to come to this. what's even sadder is that the companies think that dongles are safe investment and are going to fix things, when in reality they aren't. given enough time and energies any protection can be broken no matter how obscure or alien.

what these companies should do instead is figure out that products that are worthy and fairly priced will be sold like hotcakes. instead they jack up the prices when the piracy affects the bottom line, when the original reason there was piracy was for price not being reasonable. it's a vicious cycle and the legitimate joe is stuck smack in the middle. look at amberience and his issues... not fair, he played by the rules, paid his dues and still he's getting screwed in the end.

[pdxindy]

Hink... its not the plugin that takes 15 seconds to get its act together.. its the dongle protection... I'm not ragging on the software I'm ragging on the shit-for-brains method of protecting said software.

Still love you though man

I dont have an issue with complaining about the dongle...like I said, I can see that...but dude, how hard is it to work around 15 seconds (strap on yer guitar. plug it in and the pluggin is waiting for you)..you're reaching for another reason to hate or joking

The computer is its own strange beast. 15 seconds in and of itself is little, but this is but one effect, one little step in a chain of them... if they all add time and clumsiness to the use it is a cumulative effect (pun intended)

The computer is a left brain tool. It is an amazing tool, but music is for many people a more right brain experience. The computer is amazingly powerful, but always on the edge of and sometimes is, an impediment to creative expression.

Any additional hurdles to a medium that is already on the edge start pushing it over. Crashes, delays, instabilities, bugs etc are more annoying and disrupting than just the seconds in and of themselves. For many people there is not a lot of wiggle room before the computer starts getting in the way.

oh and btw... dongles suck and I will not buy one

[grymmjack]

Hink... its not the plugin that takes 15 seconds to get its act together.. its the dongle protection... I'm not ragging on the software I'm ragging on the shit-for-brains method of protecting said software.

Still love you though man

I dont have an issue with complaining about the dongle...like I said, I can see that...but dude, how hard is it to work around 15 seconds (strap on yer guitar. plug it in and the pluggin is waiting for you)..you're reaching for another reason to hate or joking

The computer is its own strange beast. 15 seconds in and of itself is little, but this is but one effect, one little step in a chain of them... if they all add time and clumsiness to the use it is a cumulative effect (pun intended)

The computer is a left brain tool. It is an amazing tool, but music is for many people a more right brain experience. The computer is amazingly powerful, but always on the edge of and sometimes is, an impediment to creative expression.

Any additional hurdles to a medium that is already on the edge start pushing it over. Crashes, delays, instabilities, bugs etc are more annoying and disrupting than just the seconds in and of themselves. For many people there is not a lot of wiggle room before the computer starts getting in the way.

oh and btw... dongles suck and I will not buy one

you said it, and said it well.

[arakula]

15 seconds in and of itself is little

It depends on the scope... on a 2GHz single-CPU PC, that means 30 billion CPU cycles, or presumably more than 5 billion instructions. Let's be gentle and say that the effect gets only a fair share of 10% of the CPU time. Still 500 million instructions at least. 500 000 000. Just to initialize the effect? That's gross.

[Hink]

Hink... its not the plugin that takes 15 seconds to get its act together.. its the dongle protection... I'm not ragging on the software I'm ragging on the shit-for-brains method of protecting said software.

Still love you though man

I dont have an issue with complaining about the dongle...like I said, I can see that...but dude, how hard is it to work around 15 seconds (strap on yer guitar. plug it in and the pluggin is waiting for you)..you're reaching for another reason to hate or joking

The computer is its own strange beast. 15 seconds in and of itself is little, but this is but one effect, one little step in a chain of them... if they all add time and clumsiness to the use it is a cumulative effect (pun intended)

The computer is a left brain tool. It is an amazing tool, but music is for many people a more right brain experience. The computer is amazingly powerful, but always on the edge of and sometimes is, an impediment to creative expression.

Any additional hurdles to a medium that is already on the edge start pushing it over. Crashes, delays, instabilities, bugs etc are more annoying and disrupting than just the seconds in and of themselves. For many people there is not a lot of wiggle room before the computer starts getting in the way.

oh and btw... dongles suck and I will not buy one

I agree, except I think still of the issues that hamper workflow 15 seconds is near the bottom of the list. But perhaps coming from old, old school (when I was in school they still used ditto machines and computers were about the size of a classroom)...I call it too much think...so I try to set my workflow to suit my needs...sometimes I have to be in think mode (left brained), other times I know I'm going to be just playing an instrument...then before I do anything I get everything fired up, set up and I use key shortcuts. That way it's close enough to an old fashion transport...in AA you can assign your own shortcuts...so I was so anal about that I changed the shortcut from "R" to the application key on my laptop which is between my right alt and ctrl...that way I can be quick with new takes if I'm not using loop record.

Perhaps the fact that it takes 55 seconds for my pod xt live's tone editor to open makes a difference. One thing for sure, I'm seem to be able to to not allow simple things effect my workflow, I am able to keep my focus even when some whacko problems hit me. Most of the think in it now has become second nature when doing other things like sequencing, mixing and such. So unless I get hit with a real big issue I quickly solve it and get back to business.

I'll be honest, most of it comes from years and years of playing. Many writers leave their desk exactly the same because it's like Pavlov's dogs...you sit at the desk and you get inspired. The same hold trues for me, and when I pick up my guitar my thinking goes right brain by default. Listening to my music does too, in fact once I put a cd in my car of one of my songs I was working on back when I had a long commute and almost got killed. I have said this many times, and it still holds true....I cannot listen to my music while driving...I go "there", I can play from "there", I can think from "there", but I simply cannot drive from "there".

I have to even more honest, I thought this was more common. I thought more people had the discipline to do the same as I and I guess I was wrong. But at the same time I would like to suggest if your workflow causes you problems when interrupted too easily, then perhaps the flow isn't really working all that well. Maybe instead of getting mad at the medium for which you are using to create you should look to yourself to see why it bothers you so and see if you can improve on that end, because waiting for software to change will probably take a lot longer to change then it might take to change how you go about things.

Every year it seems my workflow speeds up...but then I started from a dead crawl, those who came into it in the age of the DAW may get impacted more by such things...25 years ago 8 tracks with no synths, drum machines, samplers and no virtual tracks, just minimal effects, mixing board, mics and recording was about at least 5k investment. Everything was real time, and you didn't get the stellar results you do today. I'll surely take the trade off....a few extra inconveniences for me for racks of effects, softsynths, unlimited tracks, automation, sampling...and fwiw most of the most serious impacts on my workflow are caused by other people in the physical world.

Silly me for being able to adapt and cope with things....damn what a fool I must be to enjoy the things I have instead of complaining about simple little trivial things that might get in the way. Try having a tape machine eat your tape, see how much that effects your workflow after you lost everything and now having to spend an hour digging every piece of tape out of the machine. I won't start on what studio maintenance would do to the workflow

[beergeek]

grymmjack,

I use the same hosts on mac that I was using on my pc. I am embarrased to list them all because I have way too many and don't use any of them well.

Actually, I recently cleaned out the stables, sold Live and Reason and have so far kept Cubase, Tracktion and Pro Tools.

Both Reason and Live are fantastic programs but the musicians I partner with are using Tracktion and Pro Tools and for some reason, I always drift back to Cubase.

As far as I can tell, Tracktion is the best value going and I'm honestly more productive in Tracktion than any other.

One of these days, I'm going to settle down and learn one of them well.

But back on topic....

The dongle sucks and the load times suck but I have AT2, Miroslav Philharmonik and CSR from IK and they are all outstanding plug-ins...and they all use a dongle.

The Sampletank load doesn't actually suprise me (the open file handles.) ST does not stream the samples like HALion and Kontakt. It loads them into memory. Did you notice whether it was actually loading files or just opening file handles? Ooops, now I'm hijacking the thread with geek-speak.

Anyway, I can feel Amberience's pain...I'm just wondering if there's a workaround...like a template song with a couple of empty tracks with AT2 already on them. I mean after all, it's a plug that has some merits and it has it's own set of issues so let's get a workaround...

[beergeek]

Gotta love KVR...

[beergeek]

15 seconds in and of itself is little

It depends on the scope... on a 2GHz single-CPU PC, that means 30 billion CPU cycles, or presumably more than 5 billion instructions. Let's be gentle and say that the effect gets only a fair share of 10% of the CPU time. Still 500 million instructions at least. 500 000 000. Just to initialize the effect? That's gross.

Mine's a dual-core and it's 15 seconds...this was my point exactly...what the hell could it be doing? It doesn't check through and internet connection but I guess it probably starts a thread that opens up the license manager in the background, scans the devices, validates the license and finishes. I would bet that opening up the license manager is the real hold-up.

[Hink]

15 seconds in and of itself is little

It depends on the scope... on a 2GHz single-CPU PC, that means 30 billion CPU cycles, or presumably more than 5 billion instructions. Let's be gentle and say that the effect gets only a fair share of 10% of the CPU time. Still 500 million instructions at least. 500 000 000. Just to initialize the effect? That's gross.

Mine's a dual-core and it's 15 seconds...this was my point exactly...what the hell could it be doing? It doesn't check through and internet connection but I guess it probably starts a thread that opens up the license manager in the background, scans the devices, validates the license and finishes. I would bet that opening up the license manager is the real hold-up.

fwiw, most of my pluggins are less than a second....the only things that use the ilok are 5 pluggins that make up AVOX, each one actually took just about 15 seconds to open. I can tell by watching the status bar when refreshing AA like I said earlier what pluggins it's scanning. It always slows a lot when reaching those pluggins, so I'm sure the delay is from the ilok procedure (it just doesn't bother me).

On the other hand, Guitar port software came with my pod xt, it took 40 seconds to open..

[Hink]

oh and a second instance of any of the avox stuff was less than a second