Omnisphere playing extra audio on first note in Logic

[Captain]

It's rather difficult to describe this problem, so please bear with me. I have had this issue with Omnisphere from the beginning, and now I decided I'd investigate it a little further. I'll try to explain my findings here. Again, I don't know if this is a Logic-related problem or not, but seeing how Spectrasonics uses Logic in all their videos, I'd guess Logic if any should work OK with Omni. I actually emailed Spectrasonics' support about this earlier (although I described the problem a little differently), and they promised to look into it. But since the problem is still there in the latest update and I have not seen any other mentions of this anywhere, it's always a good idea to check if it's only me..

Basically this comes down to how instrument plugins act when they have a sound playing, and you (stop and) start the sequencer. So far, I have seen three different behaviors.

Let's say you have a MIDI track with some silence in the beginning, and then a couple of notes. Play Logic until the notes are played (preferably with a sound with a long release time), then stop Logic, rewind, and press play again. (Also make sure the track is inactive = the red R-button is not lit.) What happens? All plugins seem to stop producing sound the second you press stop, but the differences start when you start playing again:

- Some plugins (impOSCar, Kontakt3) start producing sound again as soon as Logic starts. It's as if they are frozen when you stop Logic, and made alive again when Logic starts. If there were any notes playing the moment they froze, you can hear the notes continue exactly from the freezing point, meaning you usually get some note releases / delays / etc. When Logic encounters the first notes on the track, the instruments play them nicely like they should.

- Other plugins (Sylenth1, GForce VSM) stay silent. It seems they reset themselves completely when Logic stops & starts, and cut any playing notes. When Logic reaches the notes on the track, the instruments play the notes just fine.

- And then there's Omnisphere, which seems to have it's own ways to handle things. When Logic starts, Omni stays silent. However, it still remembers it's state from the moment when the sound was cut off, and comes alive only when the first note on the track is played. In practice, this means that very often the first note on any Omni track produces a loud click, some old note releases, delays etc. in addition to the note it's supposed to play. This is very irritating. I have tried changing Omni's preferences, but nothing seems to change how it behaves.

I'm not a plugin programmer, but I'd guess this has something to do with how plugins handle, play & empty their audio buffers. Any ideas? Are you experiencing the same, and if you are, how come this doesn't seem to bother anyone else? (I'm still hoping I'm just doing something wrong and there's an easy solution around the corner... )

I'm using Logic 8.0.2, and the latest Omni on a Mac Pro with OS X 10.4.11.

[Dave Bourke]

Using the latest Omnisphere update on a Mac Pro running OS X 10.4.11 and Digital Performer 5.13 and it doesn't happen here. Which would suggest a bug in Logic?

Kind regards.

[Captain]

Interesting. One more thing I should add: apparently this does not happen with all Omnisphere sounds, only those that use certain FX (like Chorus Echo) seem to be affected.

For example, open the Pads+Strings category, and load the first sound (Adagio Expressivo). That works just fine, and Omni starts playing from absolute silence even if this sound was playing when Logic stopped. Good.

But the second sound in the same category (Adagio Singing Bell Harmonics, uses Chorus Echo), behaves like I described in the first post. Play some high notes with it, stop the sequencer (Omni goes silent), press play, wait for the first note on the track.. suddenly you get a loud POP and the releases of the high notes are all over the place.

EDIT: After some testing, seems like the problem is related specifically to Omni's internal FX (and Logic?). Disabling all of them seems to fix the problem for all patches.

[Ubiety]

@ Captain

Sounds like you need to clear Logic's buffers by hitting Return twice. Logic is known to do that with some reverb plugins as well.

[Captain]

Sounds like you need to clear Logic's buffers by hitting Return twice. Logic is known to do that with some reverb plugins as well.

It's standard practice for me to hit the stop button repeatedly at least twice whenever I stop Logic. Unfortunately, doesn't seem to help in this case...

[zvenx]

contact their support. Odd because I know Eric and I suspect many others at spectrasonics use Logic as their DAW of choice.
rsp

[Captain]

Here's an MP3 of the issue:

http://www.insomniac-music.com/transfer ... roblem.mp3

First, there's one bar of silence. Next, there's two notes, one low and one high. Then, some silence, and the same notes again. Before I bounced this mp3, I stopped Logic in the middle of the notes, so Omni was just playing them. The first note starts, well, not very nicely - you can hear the "leftover" release of the high note in the beginning. The same notes are there for the second time for comparison - that's how the first ones should sound too.

[Captain]

contact their support. Odd because I know Eric and I suspect many others at spectrasonics use Logic as their DAW of choice.
rsp

Like I said in my first post, I did, last November. They said they'll look into this, but that it's probably a Logic-related problem, which is odd, since they clearly use Logic a lot.. (and other plugins don't suffer from the same problem).

[zvenx]

sorry I didn't read the entire Original post.
rsp

[topaz]

I am able to reproduce this with logic 8.02 leaopard 10.56

if you don't let the release finish and then press start again the sound is indeed messed up.

by waiting for the sound to finish playing this does not happen.

this does not happen in Live 7.014

Interesting. One more thing I should add: apparently this does not happen with all Omnisphere sounds, only those that use certain FX (like Chorus Echo) seem to be affected.

For example, open the Pads+Strings category, and load the first sound (Adagio Expressivo). That works just fine, and Omni starts playing from absolute silence even if this sound was playing when Logic stopped. Good.

But the second sound in the same category (Adagio Singing Bell Harmonics, uses Chorus Echo), behaves like I described in the first post. Play some high notes with it, stop the sequencer (Omni goes silent), press play, wait for the first note on the track.. suddenly you get a loud POP and the releases of the high notes are all over the place.

EDIT: After some testing, seems like the problem is related specifically to Omni's internal FX (and Logic?). Disabling all of them seems to fix the problem for all patches.

[Captain]

I am able to reproduce this with logic 8.02 leaopard 10.56

Ah, thanks, now I know I'm not (that) crazy!

[koolkeys]

@ Captain

Sounds like you need to clear Logic's buffers by hitting Return twice. Logic is known to do that with some reverb plugins as well.

I don't think it's just Logic. The same happens with Sonar and others. I think it happens when you have it set to send an audio off message on stop. It seems to temporarily suspend the sound until you hit start again. At that point, it finishes whatever it was playing, usually an effect tail, and continues on with whatever it's supposed to play.

Brent

[Bruce Bartlett]

This happens with several other softsynths as well, so I don't think it's a Spectrasonics issue. In fact, I even recall this happening on Logic 5.5 for Windows. I've just got into the habit of either starting the song 4 bars in, or bouncing starting from -9 1 1 1 and trimming the resuling audio file accordingly.

[koolkeys]

Yeah, I don't even think it's really a "bug", per se. It's most just a downside to a good feature.

Brent

[Captain]

This happens with several other softsynths as well, so I don't think it's a Spectrasonics issue. In fact, I even recall this happening on Logic 5.5 for Windows. I've just got into the habit of either starting the song 4 bars in, or bouncing starting from -9 1 1 1 and trimming the resuling audio file accordingly.

The problem is that this won't help. Omni doesn't spill the "extra audio" until the first note it encounters (which might be in the middle of the song), not in the beginning of the bounce (which is not a problem, I always let Logic play nothing for a while before bouncing to make sure all delays and releases are gone). Of course I can just add a dummy note in the beginning of every Omni track, but that is just stupid.. especially when I haven't seen any other instrument plugins that require the same. Of course this doesn't mean there couldn't be others, but still, since it seems to be possible to avoid this behavior, would be it possible to make Omni like that too?