u-he

TWL · Post by **TWL** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 12:15 pm

Hi there,

I am new to Zebra.
Something odd happened:
seems that Zebra, perhaps depending on the preset,
doesn't start at the start of a Midi notation,
but skips the first note,
starting with the 2nd in a time line.
This happened first with "luci typical rainbow".
Seems to be the same with other presets; very strange...

Working with Live 6.07

Greetz

A. von Greifenkeil

mkastrup · Post by **mkastrup** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 12:52 pm

Hmmm i've seen that question once before but dont recall where and what, perhaps it was something Live specific. Maybe a search for both zebra and live could bring up something.

If you experience weird things then try have a go at the latest beta of zebra and see if the problem still persist.

/Michael

jupiter8 · Post by **jupiter8** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 12:54 pm

I'm pretty sure that's a Live bug.

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:02 pm

Hi,

It's a bug that occurrs in several hosts where the developers have forgotten to implement good user experience for synths that exhibit latency.

Zebra reports a latency of 16 samples to the host, which helps to reduce cpu consumption big time.

Hosts should in such cases begin playback a few samples earlier than the actual position, but some don't. Even some that did so in the past don't do it anymore today.

A workaround i.e. in Logic is to add a few ticks of track delay. I don't know if there's an equivalent in Live though.

I'm very reluctant to add a fix by myself ("workaround buggy hosts"), but if there's no solution by the host vendors any time soon I'll just stop reporting latency.

Cheers,

Urs

djsubject · Post by **djsubject** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:18 pm

Urs wrote:but if there's no solution by the host vendors any time soon I'll just stop reporting latency.

ouch,

make that optional please

Subz

TWL · Post by **TWL** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:30 pm

Urs wrote:Hi,

It's a bug that occurrs in several hosts where the developers have forgotten to implement good user experience for synths that exhibit latency.

Zebra reports a latency of 16 samples to the host, which helps to reduce cpu consumption big time.

Hosts should in such cases begin playback a few samples earlier than the actual position, but some don't. Even some that did so in the past don't do it anymore today.

A workaround i.e. in Logic is to add a few ticks of track delay. I don't know if there's an equivalent in Live though.

I'm very reluctant to add a fix by myself ("workaround buggy hosts"), but if there's no solution by the host vendors any time soon I'll just stop reporting latency.

Cheers,

Urs

Tried to use the Beta for improvement.....
I was wrong!
Same thing as before, but something odd on top of that!
The paths of Zebra 2.2 Beta are different to 2.1,
and my user details (already registered) are gone.
Also the extra presets (Transmission, OldSkool) are no longer showing up,
and no Uninstaller for Zebra is visible.
Please tell me how to get rid of all registry entries of the present Beta,
if there are any.

Apparently Zebra and Live are incompatible; at testing time I couldn't decipher this problem,
since I didn't use Zebra in full Sets at that time, the testing was done manually only.

How sad, but what to do???
Zebra and the extra presets were purchased just a few days ago.....

Greetz

A. von Greifenkeil

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 3:04 pm

Greifenkeil wrote:Tried to use the Beta for improvement.....
I was wrong!
Same thing as before, but something odd on top of that!
The paths of Zebra 2.2 Beta are different to 2.1,
and my user details (already registered) are gone.
Also the extra presets (Transmission, OldSkool) are no longer showing up,
and no Uninstaller for Zebra is visible.
Please tell me how to get rid of all registry entries of the present Beta,
if there are any.

Apparently Zebra and Live are incompatible; at testing time I couldn't decipher this problem,
since I didn't use Zebra in full Sets at that time, the testing was done manually only.

How sad, but what to do???
Zebra and the extra presets were purchased just a few days ago.....

Greetz

A. von Greifenkeil

The new beta has an option to install everything in your Vstplugins folder. Just delete the directory "Zebra2.data" next to Zebra2.dll, and everything (Transmission, Oldskool, Registration) will be back. The idea behind the "Zebra2.data" is Receptor compatibility.

Zebra does not write anything to the Registry.

Please write to Ableton about this latency problem. Nothing will happen unless users complain!

Cheers,

Urs

TWL · Post by **TWL** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 5:56 pm

Urs wrote:
Greifenkeil wrote:Tried to use the Beta for improvement.....
I was wrong!
Same thing as before, but something odd on top of that!
The paths of Zebra 2.2 Beta are different to 2.1,
and my user details (already registered) are gone.
Also the extra presets (Transmission, OldSkool) are no longer showing up,
and no Uninstaller for Zebra is visible.
Please tell me how to get rid of all registry entries of the present Beta,
if there are any.

Apparently Zebra and Live are incompatible; at testing time I couldn't decipher this problem,
since I didn't use Zebra in full Sets at that time, the testing was done manually only.

How sad, but what to do???
Zebra and the extra presets were purchased just a few days ago.....

Greetz

A. von Greifenkeil
The new beta has an option to install everything in your Vstplugins folder. Just delete the directory "Zebra2.data" next to Zebra2.dll, and everything (Transmission, Oldskool, Registration) will be back. The idea behind the "Zebra2.data" is Receptor compatibility.

Zebra does not write anything to the Registry.

Please write to Ableton about this latency problem. Nothing will happen unless users complain!

Cheers,

Urs

Hi Mr. Zebra,

thanks for your reply.
Guess you understand that under these
circumstances it is quite pointless to carry on with Zebra.

According to my practical experience with Live,
Ableton is not very open for suggestions.

Everything is easy and the user is the idiot,
unable to operate their immaculate host.

Afterwards apparently, they include
suggestion and criticism in their updates, etc..

No way to get anything straight with Ableton,
they have an ideology which causes headaches.

You are not the only one with latency issues under Live;
I made some remarks about specific VSTs from my side in the past,
so far nothing happened, but the programmer should comply to VST 2.4.
As you can see, no way....

My Zebra sponsor will get in touch with you I guess

Greetz

A. von Greifenkeil

tribalogical · Post by **tribalogical** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 6:02 pm

I can attest that the same thing certainly happens in Live (v6) with Absynth 4 (and possibly other synths)... I have to turn off 'snap to grid' and push the start point of the offending note a few samples forward, then all is right with the world..... since I don't use a lot of fast attack presets with Absynth, no-one (not even myself!) is the wiser...

I shouldn't have to use a workaround, but there it is..... let's push from both ends, Urs, shall we? I'll nudge the Abletons yet again, and you push too.... we-the-users like it when you all work seamlessly together

peace,
tribalogical

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Sat Sep 29, 2007 7:13 pm

Greifenkeil wrote: Hi Mr. Zebra,

thanks for your reply.
Guess you understand that under these
circumstances it is quite pointless to carry on with Zebra.

It is a problem that is easy to workaround. I also use Live and Zebra. Lots of people do, and they just deal with it. It is a small issue. Zebra is just far too amazing a synth to stop using for this reason.

TWL · Post by **TWL** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:16 am

pdxindy wrote:
Greifenkeil wrote: Hi Mr. Zebra,

thanks for your reply.
Guess you understand that under these
circumstances it is quite pointless to carry on with Zebra.

It is a problem that is easy to workaround. I also use Live and Zebra. Lots of people do, and they just deal with it. It is a small issue. Zebra is just far too amazing a synth to stop using for this reason.

Guess you mean the Latency Compensation introduced with Live 6.

In case you should mean Abletons customer service,
I am afraid, but this will neither bring about a workaround,
nor any practical solution. You might get the answer perhaps,
that one should rather use a synth which is from Ableton,
or any associate.....

The latency compensation to make a plugin work smooth within an arrangement set,
is only helpful for fine-tuning, but not as general means.
Not a t least because it increases the CPU load strongly.

So, which workaround I am not aware of?

Greetz

A. von Greifenkeil

TWL · Post by **TWL** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:22 am

tribalogical wrote:I can attest that the same thing certainly happens in Live (v6) with Absynth 4 (and possibly other synths)... I have to turn off 'snap to grid' and push the start point of the offending note a few samples forward, then all is right with the world..... since I don't use a lot of fast attack presets with Absynth, no-one (not even myself!) is the wiser...

I shouldn't have to use a workaround, but there it is..... let's push from both ends, Urs, shall we? I'll nudge the Abletons yet again, and you push too.... we-the-users like it when you all work seamlessly together

peace,
tribalogical

Interesting, Absynth 4 doesn't produce any latency problem under Live 6 for me.
Any specific preset, or always?

However, I turned back to keep on working with Absynth 3 for a different reason.

Turning off 'Snap to grid'; wonder whether this will change much,
since many if not most plugins starting off anyway not really that precise,
which causes a lot of work in an arrangement which is to be finalised (as you know).

Greetz

AvG

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 11:59 am

I've just had Ableton's head of development on the phone and discussed the issue. They are looking into it, but he's not 100% sure if it's related to latency. He asked me to perform some tests...

... for that reason it would be great to have a Live song file with 1 instance of Zebra2 and a swallowed note on playback start. If anyone could set that up for me and send it over, that would be great (mail to urs at u-he dot com)

#---

After the test I'll report the results to Ableton so they may be able to fix it. (Or I'll fix it, if it's a bug in Z2)

In the meantime, if it is indeed related to latency (or PDC), I can offer anyone a version of Zebra that does not report latency. This will introduce a little delay of 1/3 ms, which is less than MIDI and roughly corresponds to 30 cm more distance from the speakers.

Cheers,

Urs (off to download Live 6 demo)

TWL · Post by **TWL** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 12:12 pm

Urs wrote:I've just had Ableton's head of development on the phone and discussed the issue. They are looking into it, but he's not 100% sure if it's related to latency. He asked me to perform some tests...

... for that reason it would be great to have a Live song file with 1 instance of Zebra2 and a swallowed note on playback start. If anyone could set that up for me and send it over, that would be great (mail to urs at u-he dot com)

#---

After the test I'll report the results to Ableton so they may be able to fix it. (Or I'll fix it, if it's a bug in Z2)

In the meantime, if it is indeed related to latency (or PDC), I can offer anyone a version of Zebra that does not report latency. This will introduce a little delay of 1/3 ms, which is less than MIDI and roughly corresponds to 30 cm more distance from the speakers.

Cheers,

Urs (off to download Live 6 demo)

@Ableton
that surprises me truly!
Guess, you have the right connections...

@Live song
I will send it to you later after reinstalling Zebra
(had to clean up the mess between the Beta and the regular Zebra), and a little time....

Greetz

AvG

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sun Sep 30, 2007 12:40 pm

Greifenkeil wrote:@Ableton
that surprises me truly!
Guess, you have the right connections...

Indeed, their head of dev is a good friend of mine. We usually drink beer and hardly talk about work mostly because the grrrls won't let us

Awaiting your email for some testing. You'll have a working setup pretty soon!

Cheers,

Urs

u-he

KVR Audio

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