AKAI VIP 3.0 released

[shonky]

Right, bought the M-Audio CTRL yesterday - solid build, great layout, great improvement on my previous keyboard. Installed the VIP software and am getting to grips with it but am finding that it seems to map easily with the vast majority of VSTs but will probably have to make a bit more effort with Kontakt and some other programs.

Some observations -

1) Was thinking there was a fault with the software as certain notes seemed to be silent and often much of the key range was missing. Did a search for key range in the manual but could find nothing, found out later that it's in the mixer section rather than in the instrument, along with the transpose control. Any chance of just having a default setting without all these key splits prefigured as I've wasted a hell of a lot of time this morning trying to figure out if my new hardware is bust and trying to identify the fault.

2) This is a bit more of a concern regarding the 5gb download (12 or so once unzipped?) which is VIP with the bundled software, with no option to install individually. Had to repartition my C drive in order to make room for the temporary files which was a PITA and when I went to install VIP, I unclicked the installation of the bundled software as I already owned the Sonivox 88 and had the rest from AIEP. After finally managing to install VIP, I found that none of the included presets worked - it had actually uninstalled the VSTs that I already owned and then told me that I did not have iLok authorisation to use them (which appears to be nonsense as they're still showing as authorised products on the physical dongle).

Now I understand that the installation of these instruments is required to use the included presets on VIP but surely an option to not install if you already own the instruments should be offered. Uninstalling products that I'd already BOUGHT AND PAID FOR is just insulting (not to mention bewildering).

[Schmidi]

Sweet! I just got an Advance 49 and, for me, VIP3 opens so many sound creation possibilities. This software allows me to focus much more on the actual sounds instead of the background mapping.

I think that if you are fortunate enough to have a well built and tuned PC (mine is nothing crazy 2011 HP Elitebook), the Akai software runs quite well.

In the court of Internet opinion, I'm really walking to tightrope because I'm also happily and stably running an MPC Touch!

[Schmidi]

@Shonky: I first tried a maudio code keyboard and ran into the same non sounding note issue.

It mainly happened for me when I engaged the Scale/in key function and trilled between two adjoining notes (which behind the scenes trigger the same note due to the Scale function).

I loved the extra controls of the maudio boards, but the advance run better (1 to 1) with the VIP software.

[shonky]

It mainly happened for me when I engaged the Scale/in key function and trilled between two adjoining notes (which behind the scenes trigger the same note due to the Scale function).

I loved the extra controls of the maudio boards, but the advance run better (1 to 1) with the VIP software.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the way it communicates with Ableton rather than the VIP software itself as I've noticed some erroneous behaviour when using non-VIP tracks, including an odd moment where the onboard arpeggiator was toggling record on and off. I've made a support call to M-Audio who are to get back to me today at some point so hopefully we can figure something out.

Must admit that after having a bit more of a play yesterday, I'm starting to see the potential, although i think I'll have to adapt a lot of default mappings so they're more applicable to my own needs. Really helpful to the have the visual feedback with dials and parameters rather than trying to remember which knob affects what (other producers may be slightly less chaotic in their approach than myself).

[DJ Warmonger]

And yes! I finally made VIP 3.0 work with Advance keyboard. Feels good...

...until it crashes entire Ableton when I switch preset while note is still decaying. Recurring bug fixed a year ago

[Big Tick]

Which plugin was playing ? I'm not saying this is the case here, but I've seen some plugin crash if you ask them to load a preset, or play something while their UI is being closed. You can work around that by disabling the 'smooth preset transition' and/or the plugin caching option in VIP, for that particular plugin (gear icon in the lower right when that plugin is loaded).

More generally, VIP uses VST's single-preset setChunk calls. This is not something that you do very often in other DAW's, and because of that, it's not something that developers test a lot.

[shonky]

Which plugin was playing ? I'm not saying this is the case here, but I've seen some plugin crash if you ask them to load a preset, or play something while their UI is being closed. You can work around that by disabling the 'smooth preset transition' and/or the plugin caching option in VIP, for that particular plugin (gear icon in the lower right when that plugin is loaded).

More generally, VIP uses VST's single-preset setChunk calls. This is not something that you do very often in other DAW's, and because of that, it's not something that developers test a lot.

Thanks, very helpful. It's a big task that VIP is set up to cover and so I expect some issues but hopefully these will improve with future updates.

After my rant of the other day, I realised that I'd made an error in enabling both the Mackie and USB midi options and that was causing a whole heap of problems, apologies sent for my own stupidity in not RTFM to M-Audio support

Actually seems to work pretty well for a lot of the plugs I owned but still need to figure out how to import my own presets too. Can't seem to get Arcsyn presets to be recognized, load or save in VIP but have at least got a map set up for the default for instant tweaking fun. Managed to get all my third party Kontakt libraries imported and tagged over the weekend and have a bit of work fine tuning the default settings to my own needs but it's making browsing and playing much more enjoyable which can only be a good thing.

[shonky]

Found a workaround with Harmor and Arcsyn user presets, may work with other VSTs.

In expansions, create a new expansion called "[name of VST] + user name" (e.g. Arcsyn User)
Right click the expansion to enable automatic retagging so that files will become linked to that expansion.
Open windows explorer, locate the user library for the preset, select and drag the files to the new expansion and drop.
While this doesn't always automatically include the preset name, those files should now come up when looking under the expansion and you can just rename them in the furthest left column. It might be advisable to drag these one at a time to the expansion and then relabel them as you go but the names should show up when you open the VST GUI in VIP so you can just click through the imported files and rename without too much difficulty, although it is quite a long task depending on the amount of files.

Still having hassle with Iris files but will post results if I figure out a way to do this at a later date.

[Big Tick]

Yes this will work if the plugins use fxp format to store their presets.

[shonky]

Yes this will work if the plugins use fxp format to store their presets.

Is there still development work in VIP to support additional file formats or is this being left in the hands of the individual software companies? Would be good if, at least in preset storage, there was some universally accepted format (I guess fxp is the closest) as I'm guessing this is how it felt for hardware owners in the days before MIDI.

[DJ Warmonger]

Which plugin was playing ? I'm not saying this is the case here, but I've seen some plugin crash if you ask them to load a preset, or play something while their UI is being closed. You can work around that by disabling the 'smooth preset transition' and/or the plugin caching option in VIP, for that particular plugin (gear icon in the lower right when that plugin is loaded).

More generally, VIP uses VST's single-preset setChunk calls. This is not something that you do very often in other DAW's, and because of that, it's not something that developers test a lot.

That was Dune 2, Sylenth1 does work fine. Will check that solution later.

[Schmidi]

In my experience, Ableton would be the more likely culprit in crashes. It can be very unpredictable, stability wise, even when you don't change anything in your day to day usage. Ymmv

[shonky]

In my experience, Ableton would be the more likely culprit in crashes. It can be very unpredictable, stability wise, even when you don't change anything in your day to day usage. Ymmv

Yeah, can't really blame VIP for Ableton being about as stable as a bipolar crackhead.

[Orbit-50]

Spire won't send preset information to VIP. That kind of blows because just about every other plugin works as expected.

[DJ Warmonger]

In my experience, Ableton would be the more likely culprit in crashes. It can be very unpredictable, stability wise, even when you don't change anything in your day to day usage. Ymmv

In my experience Ableton is stable in variosu scenarios. It's hard to blame Ableton for the fact that VIP crashes with 100% reproductibility