V2.0.1 issues

[ndurant]

I've been playing around with V2.0.1 on my Receptor 2+Pro now for a few hours, and I have a few questions and feedback:

1. If I have a multi in the old Mixer mode, and I tag it in Rack mode, is it affected in any way in Mixer mode? Does it get moved/copied at all?

2. Is there any way to select a tag via MIDI (eg with a bank change message) ? The Receptor appears not to respond to bank changes in Rack mode. I notice in "MIDI Learn" you can set messages for stepping up/down tags, but apparently no absolute way to jump directly to a specific tag. For me this means I'm limited to remotely accessing 128 patches live, unless I somehow get my controller keyboard to work out how to jump to a specific tag for a specific song using a series of next/previous relative to the last patch.

3. Is there any way to jump to a patch above 127 in a tag using a program change or similar? Again, I see "Load next/previous Preset" in MIDI learn, but this isn't helpful when you need random access during a gig.

4. In my "Untagged" tag, in Live mode, I find that if I send program changes 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, in sequence, it jumps to patches 23, 24, 24, 25, 26. In other words, for patches above 25, it jumps to the patch before the one it's supposed to. This appears not to be the case for other tags. I really hope it is just the "Untagged" tag, and not others, otherwise I won't be able to use the Receptor live with any confidence. Seems like a really peculiar bug. Also, in Rack mode (not Live mode), the patches respond correctly to program changes.

5. I'm driving the Receptor using the Remote Control app, and it seems that the display won't go larger than 1024x768, but the manual suggests it can handle 1280x1024. This means I have to drag the scroll bar left and right to get to everything, which is a bit of a nuisance.

6. What's the best way to get out of Live Mode? The cross close button in the top right works much of the time, but sometimes it doesn't and I get an alert coming up saying live mode is not responding, and asking if I want to wait or force quit. If I choose force quit, it restarts the whole user interface and puts me back in Live mode.

7. I'm seeing some crashes that I never used to on 1.9 - particularly with Kontakt 2 (I only use this for a few sounds I don't yet have running on Kontakt 4), and I've had some problems with Ivory II complaining about memory. I'm seeing these in Mixer mode as well as Rack mode. Are these known issues that might be fixed?

All in all, I'm enjoying the new user interface, and it feels a bit faster than the previous mixer mode. I also really like finding patches via tag and the incremental search. I also love how you can hold notes over patch changes in Live mode, and they keep playing until you release - excellent! I also like the visibility of what's happening in Live mode, ie knowing which patches have been pre-loaded into memory etc.

It does feel though, that the MIDI side has lost some really important functionality, if it's only possible to call up 128 patches directly, unless I'm missing something. For those of us who rely on driving the Receptor via bank/program changes, this seems a real step back, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to use this on my live Receptors

Perhaps if there was an option to allow Live mode to operate via bank/program changes, and showing the patches stored in the currently selected bank?

Neil

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

I've been playing around with V2.0.1 on my Receptor 2+Pro now for a few hours, and I have a few questions and feedback:

1. If I have a multi in the old Mixer mode, and I tag it in Rack mode, is it affected in any way in Mixer mode? Does it get moved/copied at all?

2. Is there any way to select a tag via MIDI (eg with a bank change message) ? The Receptor appears not to respond to bank changes in Rack mode. I notice in "MIDI Learn" you can set messages for stepping up/down tags, but apparently no absolute way to jump directly to a specific tag. For me this means I'm limited to remotely accessing 128 patches live, unless I somehow get my controller keyboard to work out how to jump to a specific tag for a specific song using a series of next/previous relative to the last patch.

3. Is there any way to jump to a patch above 127 in a tag using a program change or similar? Again, I see "Load next/previous Preset" in MIDI learn, but this isn't helpful when you need random access during a gig.

4. In my "Untagged" tag, in Live mode, I find that if I send program changes 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, in sequence, it jumps to patches 23, 24, 24, 25, 26. In other words, for patches above 25, it jumps to the patch before the one it's supposed to. This appears not to be the case for other tags. I really hope it is just the "Untagged" tag, and not others, otherwise I won't be able to use the Receptor live with any confidence. Seems like a really peculiar bug. Also, in Rack mode (not Live mode), the patches respond correctly to program changes.

5. I'm driving the Receptor using the Remote Control app, and it seems that the display won't go larger than 1024x768, but the manual suggests it can handle 1280x1024. This means I have to drag the scroll bar left and right to get to everything, which is a bit of a nuisance.

6. What's the best way to get out of Live Mode? The cross close button in the top right works much of the time, but sometimes it doesn't and I get an alert coming up saying live mode is not responding, and asking if I want to wait or force quit. If I choose force quit, it restarts the whole user interface and puts me back in Live mode.

7. I'm seeing some crashes that I never used to on 1.9 - particularly with Kontakt 2 (I only use this for a few sounds I don't yet have running on Kontakt 4), and I've had some problems with Ivory II complaining about memory. I'm seeing these in Mixer mode as well as Rack mode. Are these known issues that might be fixed?

All in all, I'm enjoying the new user interface, and it feels a bit faster than the previous mixer mode. I also really like finding patches via tag and the incremental search. I also love how you can hold notes over patch changes in Live mode, and they keep playing until you release - excellent! I also like the visibility of what's happening in Live mode, ie knowing which patches have been pre-loaded into memory etc.

It does feel though, that the MIDI side has lost some really important functionality, if it's only possible to call up 128 patches directly, unless I'm missing something. For those of us who rely on driving the Receptor via bank/program changes, this seems a real step back, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to use this on my live Receptors

Perhaps if there was an option to allow Live mode to operate via bank/program changes, and showing the patches stored in the currently selected bank?

Neil

Wow. What a list, but good questions that deserve answers. Here they are, as best as we can answer them at this point:

1. If I have a multi in the old Mixer mode, and I tag it in Rack mode, is it affected in any way in Mixer mode? Does it get moved/copied at all?

These modes are completely separate, therefore changes made in one mode do not affect the other and vice versa.

2. Is there any way to select a tag via MIDI (eg with a bank change message) ? The Receptor appears not to respond to bank changes in Rack mode. I notice in "MIDI Learn" you can set messages for stepping up/down tags, but apparently no absolute way to jump directly to a specific tag. For me this means I'm limited to remotely accessing 128 patches live, unless I somehow get my controller keyboard to work out how to jump to a specific tag for a specific song using a series of next/previous relative to the last patch.

If you look in the MIDI MIXER section of SETUP in the new interface, you will see that a bunch of central control parameters are now learnable, including selecting Tags. In general, whatever program change you send will select whatever preset is associated with that program change number in any particular Tag. We've tried to circumvent MSB/LSB bank select because, quite honestly, they are really difficult to use and often get implemented incorrectly on various keyboards (especially cheap controllers from China). And honestly, a lot of people will just drag and drop the presets they want into a new Tag, and run that in Live Mode, which makes it really easy to create new "banks" of sounds and order them however you want. Hopefully you agree this is a step forward!

3. Is there any way to jump to a patch above 127 in a tag using a program change or similar? Again, I see "Load next/previous Preset" in MIDI learn, but this isn't helpful when you need random access during a gig.

You have access to all 128 MIDI presets in any Tag, and you can select the members above 128 using the front panel, the LIVE MODE interface, a footswitch (on VIPs and newer) or with Learned MIDI program select commands, which can include selecting a new Tag if you want to continue to use just program changes.

4. In my "Untagged" tag, in Live mode, I find that if I send program changes 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, in sequence, it jumps to patches 23, 24, 24, 25, 26. In other words, for patches above 25, it jumps to the patch before the one it's supposed to. This appears not to be the case for other tags. I really hope it is just the "Untagged" tag, and not others, otherwise I won't be able to use the Receptor live with any confidence. Seems like a really peculiar bug. Also, in Rack mode (not Live mode), the patches respond correctly to program changes.

Untagged presets in a Tag are not fully conditioned for use in Rack mode, and should be tagged before using.We didn't expect people to be using presets in the Untagged condition, and we have not tested for those conditions, since Tags are the main way that presets are organized and manipulated, and it's a simple drag and drop operation to tag them properly (Create a new empty Tag, give it a name, and drag whatever presets you want in to it), so please do Tag presets before using them.

5. I'm driving the Receptor using the Remote Control app, and it seems that the display won't go larger than 1024x768, but the manual suggests it can handle 1280x1024. This means I have to drag the scroll bar left and right to get to everything, which is a bit of a nuisance.

New in V2.0.1 is adjustable screen resolutions found in the SETUP tab. I'm sure you can find one that will work well with your display and / or your VNC viewer, but please realize that it is dependent on your particular monitor as well as the graphics capabilities of the computer you are using (if using VNC).

6. What's the best way to get out of Live Mode? The cross close button in the top right works much of the time, but sometimes it doesn't and I get an alert coming up saying live mode is not responding, and asking if I want to wait or force quit. If I choose force quit, it restarts the whole user interface and puts me back in Live mode.

You can leave live mode by turning the front panel button to a new Tag and loading a preset. Force Quit is invoking the reload routine that restores the last known state of the machine, so leaving Live Mode using the front panel is one way, or if you click on the top right hand corner button, realize that if it is right in the middle of loading some large presets, it will need to finish loading them before it can then unload everything. Live mode is buffering HUGE amounts of data, so it takes time to initially enter the mode, and it takes time to leave it.

7. I'm seeing some crashes that I never used to on 1.9 - particularly with Kontakt 2 (I only use this for a few sounds I don't yet have running on Kontakt 4), and I've had some problems with Ivory II complaining about memory. I'm seeing these in Mixer mode as well as Rack mode. Are these known issues that might be fixed?

We haven't heard of any issues like this to date... There is a fairly big update to the OS that occurs with V2.0.1, and given that Kontakt 2 is now 7 years old, it could be that some compatibility issues are surfacing with the more modern OS. I;ll let engineering and support know to keep an eye out for this...

Re. Banks and patches, we've discussed maybe adding some of this functionality back, but please try the Tag select functionality and see if you can make this do what you want... I believe it is MUCH easier than trying to use Bank select, and being able to have more than 128 presets in a Tag, and select them using alternative means, is quite a relief to many people...

Bryan

[ndurant]

Many thanks for your comprehensive reply Bryan!

1. If I have a multi in the old Mixer mode, and I tag it in Rack mode, is it affected in any way in Mixer mode? Does it get moved/copied at all?

These modes are completely separate, therefore changes made in one mode do not affect the other and vice versa.

That's good to know.

2. Is there any way to select a tag via MIDI (eg with a bank change message) ? The Receptor appears not to respond to bank changes in Rack mode. I notice in "MIDI Learn" you can set messages for stepping up/down tags, but apparently no absolute way to jump directly to a specific tag. For me this means I'm limited to remotely accessing 128 patches live, unless I somehow get my controller keyboard to work out how to jump to a specific tag for a specific song using a series of next/previous relative to the last patch.

If you look in the MIDI MIXER section of SETUP in the new interface, you will see that a bunch of central control parameters are now learnable, including selecting Tags. In general, whatever program change you send will select whatever preset is associated with that program change number in any particular Tag. We've tried to circumvent MSB/LSB bank select because, quite honestly, they are really difficult to use and often get implemented incorrectly on various keyboards (especially cheap controllers from China). And honestly, a lot of people will just drag and drop the presets they want into a new Tag, and run that in Live Mode, which makes it really easy to create new "banks" of sounds and order them however you want. Hopefully you agree this is a step forward!

Indeed - I can see logic behind the decision, but it's a shame that bank select is fully deprecated in Rack mode, and not an option at all (even if there are more preferable/recommended alternatives). It's also a shame that poor MIDI implementations on cheap controller keyboards can influence or constrain the design of high end pro gear like the Receptor. But yes, maybe in time, those of us who have relied heavily on MSB/LSB will adapt

Creating new "banks" of sounds and ordering them is a really nice idea, especially as patches can appear in multiple tags. But it does cause the location of patches to be rather transient. Up to now, I've had all my bank and program changes for all my keyboards and rack units programmed into my main controller keyboard, so a single change on there dials up everything on all my gear, instantly. I now lose this ability, firstly because I can only access 128 directly (without physical rack access) in a random access fashion. And within those 128, if I select a likely bunch of patches for a gig, I firstly need to order them on the Receptor, then go through all my patches on the controller keyboard and configure specific program changes for each one, based on the patch positioning within the tag. And if I insert/re-order patches in a tag, I need to go through all my patches on the controller keyboard and keep them in sync.

So it seems the new approach in Rack mode favours those who reach over to the Receptor and dial in a new sound, or always step through incrementally through a pre-defined set.

3. Is there any way to jump to a patch above 127 in a tag using a program change or similar? Again, I see "Load next/previous Preset" in MIDI learn, but this isn't helpful when you need random access during a gig.

You have access to all 128 MIDI presets in any Tag, and you can select the members above 128 using the front panel, the LIVE MODE interface, a footswitch (on VIPs and newer) or with Learned MIDI program select commands, which can include selecting a new Tag if you want to continue to use just program changes.

So no MIDI-controllable way to go beyond 128 presets without relying on relative step up/down of patches or tags, since MIDI learn doesn't support absolute tag selection. I guess it's the loss of ability to dial into specific patches *absolutely* that I'm missing, because I tend to use a large number of patches that I often need last minute random access to, and my rack usually isn't physically accessible easily on stage.

4. In my "Untagged" tag, in Live mode, I find that if I send program changes 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, in sequence, it jumps to patches 23, 24, 24, 25, 26. In other words, for patches above 25, it jumps to the patch before the one it's supposed to. This appears not to be the case for other tags. I really hope it is just the "Untagged" tag, and not others, otherwise I won't be able to use the Receptor live with any confidence. Seems like a really peculiar bug. Also, in Rack mode (not Live mode), the patches respond correctly to program changes.

Untagged presets in a Tag are not fully conditioned for use in Rack mode, and should be tagged before using.We didn't expect people to be using presets in the Untagged condition, and we have not tested for those conditions, since Tags are the main way that presets are organized and manipulated, and it's a simple drag and drop operation to tag them properly (Create a new empty Tag, give it a name, and drag whatever presets you want in to it), so please do Tag presets before using them.

Ok, that's good to know. I probably wasn't going to use the untagged presets in this manner, but (wrongly) assumed that "untagged" worked the same as any normal tag, so was concerned when program changes were only "sort of" working correctly with them. Thanks for clarifying.

5. I'm driving the Receptor using the Remote Control app, and it seems that the display won't go larger than 1024x768, but the manual suggests it can handle 1280x1024. This means I have to drag the scroll bar left and right to get to everything, which is a bit of a nuisance.

New in V2.0.1 is adjustable screen resolutions found in the SETUP tab. I'm sure you can find one that will work well with your display and / or your VNC viewer, but please realize that it is dependent on your particular monitor as well as the graphics capabilities of the computer you are using (if using VNC).

This doesn't seem to match what I'm seeing. I tend to use VNC, on a monitor that supports resolutions up to 1920x1080, and no matter how large I make the VNC window, the Receptor refuses to offer me anything over 1024x768 in the Setup tab, even though the manual suggests 1280x1024 is possible. I see no settings within the VNC remote control app to specify larger resolutions either. So even though I have lots of space on my monitor, I have to horizontally scroll within VNC to get to the effects modules on the right hand side of the Receptor Rack display.

6. What's the best way to get out of Live Mode? The cross close button in the top right works much of the time, but sometimes it doesn't and I get an alert coming up saying live mode is not responding, and asking if I want to wait or force quit. If I choose force quit, it restarts the whole user interface and puts me back in Live mode.

You can leave live mode by turning the front panel button to a new Tag and loading a preset. Force Quit is invoking the reload routine that restores the last known state of the machine, so leaving Live Mode using the front panel is one way, or if you click on the top right hand corner button, realize that if it is right in the middle of loading some large presets, it will need to finish loading them before it can then unload everything. Live mode is buffering HUGE amounts of data, so it takes time to initially enter the mode, and it takes time to leave it.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. Would be nice to have an on-screen button to exit Live mode without the lengthy restore process of a force quit, for those of us who run their Receptor some distance away. Maybe just dropping back into normal Rack mode on whatever patch is already loaded in Live mode.

7. I'm seeing some crashes that I never used to on 1.9 - particularly with Kontakt 2 (I only use this for a few sounds I don't yet have running on Kontakt 4), and I've had some problems with Ivory II complaining about memory. I'm seeing these in Mixer mode as well as Rack mode. Are these known issues that might be fixed?

We haven't heard of any issues like this to date... There is a fairly big update to the OS that occurs with V2.0.1, and given that Kontakt 2 is now 7 years old, it could be that some compatibility issues are surfacing with the more modern OS. I;ll let engineering and support know to keep an eye out for this...

Indeed, I don't really expect Muse Research to support an ancient Kontakt like that at all, so the fact it largely does without problem is great. Of more concern was that Ivory II complained several times of lack of memory, which is has never done before in 1.9.

Re. Banks and patches, we've discussed maybe adding some of this functionality back, but please try the Tag select functionality and see if you can make this do what you want... I believe it is MUCH easier than trying to use Bank select, and being able to have more than 128 presets in a Tag, and select them using alternative means, is quite a relief to many people...

Yes, I can definitely see that it has many advantages to many people. I guess I'm just one of the edge cases where I select Receptor sounds in an absolute random access fashion remotely over MIDI. Surely I can't be the only one? I really want to be able to use Live mode, because it has fantastic potential, especially the advance loading, and handling of held notes across changes. It just might be too much of a maintenance headache, having to update all my program changes in my controller each time I change something in a tag, and error prone too, so I might end up just using Mixer mode live, which would be a great shame.

Having absolute tag selection in the MIDI learn list would probably solve my woes - particularly if it could support MSB/LSB bank select, but even if I had to select tags by program change (so I'd send a program change on one channel for tag selection, and one on another channel for patch selection within that tag). But I'm guessing there might be technical challenges under the covers that make this difficult....

One more question if I may (although I'm sure you're getting sick of me!). Is there any recommended way to tag existing patches in plugins in a bulk manner? It's great that the all the new bundled sounds are nicely tagged, but it would be awesome if I could somehow get all my Omnisphere etc factory patches tagged similarly, to make maximum use of the SoundFinder.

Also, is there any equivalent of the "Single" in Rack mode? It would be nice to be able to select a patch from SoundFinder and add it to the existing rack setup, rather than replacing it, so you could save frequently used plugin/patch combinations for easy re-use. Just to save time selecting the plugin then selecting the patch within the plugin. I'm imaging something like a alt-drag in the user interface, to add rather than replace.

Thanks for your detailed response Bryan, I really appreciate it. I also really appreciate the work you guys have put into the new interface, and making it available for us Receptor 2 owners!!! I hope I don't sound too negative with my feedback - I'm really enthusiastic about the new OS update, I'm just finding it difficult to find an elegant way to adapt to it with my setup and live requirements.

Cheers,

Neil

[drbill]

This doesn't seem to match what I'm seeing. I tend to use VNC, on a monitor that supports resolutions up to 1920x1080, and no matter how large I make the VNC window, the Receptor refuses to offer me anything over 1024x768 in the Setup tab, even though the manual suggests 1280x1024 is possible. I see no settings within the VNC remote control app to specify larger resolutions either. So even though I have lots of space on my monitor, I have to horizontally scroll within VNC to get to the effects modules on the right hand side of the Receptor Rack display.

Did you try closing/reopening the VNC window after changing the setting on the Receptor? This worked for me.

[ndurant]

Did you try closing/reopening the VNC window after changing the setting on the Receptor? This worked for me.

I just tried that. It gives me options for 1024x768, 800x600 and 640x480, and whatever I choose, pressing OK causes the VNC window to close by itself as the Receptor resets, and when I re-open it, it's still on 1024x768, with 1024x768 still selected in the Setup tab.

So I never get the option of 1280x1024, and only 1024x768 seems to work.

I've also attached a monitor that supports 1280x1024 directly to the Receptor, and even with that, the Receptor insists on 1024x768, with no option for 1280x1024.

So I need to be constantly dragging the scroll bar left and right to get to the effects bus stuff, hidden beyond the 1024th pixel, which is a bit annoying!

[drbill]

I was using the built-in VNC support in Mac OS X and it worked fine. I never use the Receptor Tools anymore.

[ndurant]

I was using the built-in VNC support in Mac OS X and it worked fine. I never use the Receptor Tools anymore.

Hmm, I've tried TightVNC on Windows and the built-in VNC client on Mac OS X, and either allows me 1280x1024. Maybe it's a limitation of my Receptor hardware

[Bryan@MuseResearch]

I was using the built-in VNC support in Mac OS X and it worked fine. I never use the Receptor Tools anymore.

Hmm, I've tried TightVNC on Windows and the built-in VNC client on Mac OS X, and either allows me 1280x1024. Maybe it's a limitation of my Receptor hardware

Receptor definitely supports 1280 by 1024... in fact, its pretty much the default resolution in most configurations, but this resolution will only appear if the VNC client or the monitor it is attached to supports it as well. This is a negotiation between the monitor and the Receptor that happens on power up, with teh VNC client or the LCD screen telling Receptor what it supports!

Bryan

[ndurant]

Receptor definitely supports 1280 by 1024... in fact, its pretty much the default resolution in most configurations, but this resolution will only appear if the VNC client or the monitor it is attached to supports it as well. This is a negotiation between the monitor and the Receptor that happens on power up, with teh VNC client or the LCD screen telling Receptor what it supports!

Bryan

So if the negotiation happens at power up, it's presumably before the VNC client (in my case the standard Receptor Tools client) has connected, as the Receptor needs to be pretty much fully booted up before I can connect. So if there's no actual monitor plugged in, and no VNC client connected at power-up, might it default to 1024x768 and not subsequently offer 1280x1024?

Neil

[LittleWiggler]

I am having the same resolution issue as well.

I initially hooked up a 1440x1200 monitor to do the upgrade via DVI cable.

The only options I have for resolution are 1024x768, 800x600 and 640x480.

I have tried the latest version TightVNC and still have the same options.

Just tried on a mac as well using vnc:// and same results.

Any luck on finding a solution?