I really want to love RMV

[SuperFly76]

I've been in the market for a good drum machine and rex2 player for a while now. I came across RMV in my search for this recently. I read the site and this is exactly what I am looking for. All the features meet and exceed my expectations. I almost bought it immediately after reading the product page and watching the demonstration videos. I managed to restrain myself though and wait until the demo finished downloading.

I downloaded the latest demo, 5.0.4, and I'm glad that I did. This thing is extremely unstable on my system. I have a highly optimized XPpro SP3 based DAW that has been tweaked for audio. It's been a while since I've had a plugin crash my hosts. I seem to be having similar problems as this user: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=251160


I'll post all of my system specs below after describing my issues.

I get stutters and glitches no matter what I set my ASIO buffers to. Each time I've tried the demo, the plugin has completely locked up my host after a few minutes. I get this glitching motorboating sound and the whole plugin and host do not respond to any mouse control. I have to [ctrl]+[alt]+[delete] to end the process, and cycle my audio card off and on to reset it.

I have issues when trying to preview samples too. When there is a loop playing on the first slot and I try to load a loop into slots 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, often only the first slice is played back on preview. When I try to load the loop, the program freezes for a few seconds, then all the slices are played back really fast for a few seconds then it seems to correct itself. I am using rex2 loops loaded into the sample section. I have a large rex2 loop library from many vendors including, Sonic Reality, Galbanum, Luftrum, and a few others including a bunch that were created by me using recycle. Also, when I preview the rex2 loops, most times they aren't in synch with my host's timing (bars, beats, etc...), My host's tempo, and any other loops already loaded into RMV itself.

Also, the gui responds really sluggish when playing back more than one loop. The audio also stutters a bit. The waveforms don't always seem to display correctly either. Lately when I load a loop into the 1st slot, it's waveform will show in all the empty slots too. I've solo'd the slots to make sure it wasn't accidentally loaded there either.

Overall, my experience with this plugin has been negative. It is very sluggish at all asio buffer sizes, it seems to have issues loading and previewing samples, and it frequently stutters and eventually locks up all of my hosts.

Normally, I'd just uninstall the demo and be done with it. But in this case, I wanted to report it to the developers because I want this plugin to work on my system. I have read really good reviews about RMV so I'm sure it's just a bug that I can help troubleshoot. It looks like I'm not the only one having these issues either.

I am willing to help troubleshoot these issues with the developers. As I said, I really want to love this program. On paper it is exactly what I am looking for. I'll happily purchase it immediately if I can get it stable on my system. I have done testing for software companies in the past so I know what goes in to testing and I'd be happy to help linplug in anyway that I can.

System Hardware:
Tyan K8we s2895 motherboard
2x dual core Opteron 275 physical processors (4 cores)
4 GB of ram
XFX Nvivia GeForce 86oo GT graphics card
Dual head Benq 24" HDMI flat panel monitors
HighPoint RocketRaid 3520 pcie raid card with onboard processor
6x 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives set up in a raid 1/0 configuration for speed and redundancy.
1x 320 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive used as system drive (for os)
1x 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive used for downloads and documents archival

Sound Card:
RME Fireface800 with latest drivers as of 5/20/09.

OS and Software:
Windows XP SP3 Build 2600.xpsp_sp3gdr.090206-1234
The operating system has been tweaked for audio use.
Samplitude 10 professional
Sonar 8 Studio
Reaper 2.xx (latest build)
Bidule
Savi Host
Propellerheads Reason 4

Attached Hardware:
Presonus Faderport
Maudio Octane mic preamm 8 channel digital convertor
Contour Shuttle PRO (V1)
Event TR5 audio monitors
Yamaha MG12/4 mixer for monitor signal routing

[SuperFly76]

I also wanted to add that liveslice is my other contender as a rex2 player. I've been testing the demos of these the last 4 days and liveslice handles these rex2 files just fine in my hosts. There is no glitching or studdering. It plays back fine.

I just wanted to report this to rule out trouble with my rex files. The features in RMV suit me much better and I'm hoping these glitches get ironed out.

[grymmjack]

checked out slicex too? i'm an ex owner of both of these (RMV, and liveslice) - i find that if i was going to do it again i'd want slicex instead - but what I do now is just use dr rex in reason or just drop a rex file onto battery 3 and it divides it up into pads.

battery3 is f'n awesome and relatively cheap. i fought buying battery3 hoping RMV would sort me (as an RMIV user i was excited for RMV) but RMV was also buggy and harder for me to use than I had hoped.

i think that shortcircuit can also load up rex and do zones and stuff, but not sure.

liveslice was awesome but a bit more than i needed - it was a lot of fun when i started groking what it was all about, but i kinda got lost in the sea of homogenous neutrality that is the UI of liveslice.

slicex is cool, a little overboard still but it has some unique features (the dual decks and such) but it's a bit pricey for me and difficult to justify when i own already battery3 and reason4.

have you discovered any decent rex collections/libs? i've been contemplating spending about $150 on the zero-g total rex bundle but that's a lot of coin for me right now.

if i were you i'd skip RMV and revisit it later when it's had time to mature. linplug has had a hard time getting it going it seems this time around, and it seems to me it was a premature launch based on a deadline that was promised..

good luck with your rex pursuits

[SuperFly76]

To the Developers,

I am happy to go off board to help trouble shoot these issues with you too. Feel free to pm me if you are interested and I'll share my contact info with you.

Regards,
Doug