StiX : MultiSynthesis Drum Machine (v1.6 Released + Flash sales)

[Lotuzia]

With regards to feature requests, I'd like to see more options on fx modulation as, at present, we only have delay times). I kinda enjoy just having occasional reverb or delay on specific hits in a pattern when using Geist 2 and would like the same with Stix if possible.

Thanks. Yes ! Theses ones are already planned for a long time. (mainly : Reverb and Delay levels available as targets for P.lock parameters for sequencer lines). Should we have lost less time for the Drag'N'"Drop feature, it might have been in the 1.5 release. So possibly for one of the next versions.

Meanwhile I'll concentrate on the 1st add-ons. There are a number of things I want to show StiX can do, especially when based on rare machines. And also probably going further/deeper in purely emulating this or that iconic machines as well. More on all of this asap.

[Local Man]

I am experiencing a very annoying bug and I am wondering if anybody here is having the same issue.
For some reason the various controls for each drum module stop responding at certain times and I have to hit the drumpad button again to get them to work. This happens in the synthesis area, the fx area, and even the single line sequencer area. Unfortunately, it is not fully reproducible and seems somewhat random, but it happens often enough to be very annoying. It frequently happens when switching from one area to another (like from the easy synthesis page to the advanced page, or even when going from the fx area to the synthesis area), and I thought that was where the issue was, but now I am finding that it happens even when I stay in the same area. For example, I was turning knobs in the EQ section and everything was working fine, but then at some point I started to notice that the sound wasn't changing anymore. So I clicked on the drumpad again (the BD button in this case), which was already highlighted and then all of the knobs that I had adjusted snapped back to where they were before this glitch kicked in and the controls started working again.
That is just one example in the EQ section, but this happens pretty regularly in all parts of the plugin. Like I said, it even happens in the sequencer when adjusting for example the mod 1 and 2 and gate parameters and whatever else.
Needless to say this is a very annoying workflow killer so it would be nice to know what exactly is going on.
For what it's worth, I am on a Mac, my OS is Mojave and my DAW is the latest version of Logic Pro. I also have Reason on the same computer so when I get a chance I'll try it there to see if I get the same behavior.
The only factor that I think could have an impact is that this is happening as I go through the manual and put the plugin through its paces so for one thing, I am changing parameters a lot to see how things work and in regular use I probably wouldn't be so rapidly changing settings (that shouldn't really matter though). The other thing is that as i go through the manual i have other applications open while i am using my DAW and Stix (Preview and Notepad for example), which is something i wouldnt normally be doing if I was just making music. At first I thought it was switching between the various apps that was causing the problem, but I have determined that that is not it either.
Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Local Man]

Is anyone else having this problem?
It is making the synthesis part of this drum machine borderline unusable for me.

[Lotuzia]

Is anyone else having this problem?
It is making the synthesis part of this drum machine borderline unusable for me.

With thousands of thousands of knobs turned on StiX I had a few similar cases (mostly on patterns, and mostly on earlier versions - windows here-).

The biggest possibility is that when you think you do nothing, you're actually modifying another drum pad (i.e : StiX doesnt show the right drumpad/settings). So I think that's what you can possibly check.

In this case the turnaround is indeed what you found : As soon as you turn a knob and StiX seems not doing what is expected, simply reselect the item, and everything works Ok.

So, though we had this behaviour very rarely, it happened at random also here at least on one windows system, and it wasn't possible to fix it with 100% chances (we did fix some issues but possibly not all). What was suspected was : host reinitialising plugin GUI, opening GUI very fastly after closing it, a random suite of commands we can't isolate/replicate, changing program focus (i.e switching between daw and certain other software like Photoshop). If you can isolate a reproducable chain of commands/events/etc it should be more easy to fix. Under any circumstances, the behaviour you describe was very very rare and random, so maybe your system is more sensitive and could help replicating the steps. If this behaviour happens too often, I'd recommend you should contact Xils directly, with system details etc. ( this page : https://www.xils-lab.com/support ) They have the same system as the one you describe available. (+ it's recommended to install the last 1.5 version, who fixed a few things for protools, but also possibly on Logic)

[Local Man]

Is anyone else having this problem?
It is making the synthesis part of this drum machine borderline unusable for me.

With thousands of thousands of knobs turned on StiX I had a few similar cases (mostly on patterns, and mostly on earlier versions - windows here-).

The biggest possibility is that when you think you do nothing, you're actually modifying another drum pad (i.e : StiX doesnt show the right drumpad/settings). So I think that's what you can possibly check.

In this case the turnaround is indeed what you found : As soon as you turn a knob and StiX seems not doing what is expected, simply reselect the item, and everything works Ok.

So, though we had this behaviour very rarely, it happened at random also here at least on one windows system, and it wasn't possible to fix it with 100% chances (we did fix some issues but possibly not all). What was suspected was : host reinitialising plugin GUI, opening GUI very fastly after closing it, a random suite of commands we can't isolate/replicate, changing program focus (i.e switching between daw and certain other software like Photoshop). If you can isolate a reproducable chain of commands/events/etc it should be more easy to fix. Under any circumstances, the behaviour you describe was very very rare and random, so maybe your system is more sensitive and could help replicating the steps. If this behaviour happens too often, I'd recommend you should contact Xils directly, with system details etc. ( this page : https://www.xils-lab.com/support ) They have the same system as the one you describe available. (+ it's recommended to install the last 1.5 version, who fixed a few things for protools, but also possibly on Logic)

Thank you.
I think you're right and this may be somehow related to the way logic handles the Stix GUI. It seems to load more slowly than other plugin GUIs and when I load or close the plugin (not just the GUI but the plugin itself) it appears to load in layers (ie first the background color then the control elements). I haven't noticed any other GUI that does that.
I'll try to isolate the problem and find some sort of reproducible steps. And like I said, I'll try on a different DAW to see if that is the issue.
Anyway, I guess I'll have to deal with it for now. At least it doesn't crash!

Oh and a somewhat related question: are there any plans for NKS support in the near future?
That could be one workaround for some controls at least. I guess I'll manually assign some midi ccs to see what happens.

[Lotuzia]

Oh and a somewhat related question: are there any plans for NKS support in the near future?
That could be one workaround for some controls at least. I guess I'll manually assign some midi ccs to see what happens.

Yes NKS is planned, and I already have a few -very draft- approaches for that on an Excel sheet. Well, controlling StiX via Maschine or a standard NI Keyboard is very different. Maschine can access different pages much more easily that the NI standard keyboards, so I think I'll base the approach on Maschine as a controller, wich seems to make more sense. But even there, there are many possibilities for the hierachy and layout of the pages. So I think I'll propose different schemas here, to see what people prefer and think is more appropriate. Btw All ideas/proposals are welcomed of course about how to implement NKS in StiX.

[Local Man]

Well, I tried it in Reason and I get the same problem
So I guess that rules out this being a DAW problem specific to Logic.
It must be some sort of hardware/OS thing.
I've also determined that assigning a control to a midi cc doesn't help either. The same thing happens. Even though the hardware knob is controlling what is shown on screen, it eventually stops affecting the sound from the plugin until you reset the drum pad.

I am still very curious if anyone else is having a similar issue.
I don't get why this thread is so quiet. Stix is an awesome drum machine!

[Lotuzia]

Well, I tried it in Reason and I get the same problem
So I guess that rules out this being a DAW problem specific to Logic.
It must be some sort of hardware/OS thing.
I've also determined that assigning a control to a midi cc doesn't help either. The same thing happens. Even though the hardware knob is controlling what is shown on screen, it eventually stops affecting the sound from the plugin until you reset the drum pad.

I am still very curious if anyone else is having a similar issue.
I don't get why this thread is so quiet. Stix is an awesome drum machine!

Hello Local Man, I'd really recommand you join Xils-Lab via the form I indicated above for direct communication. -As I see it- There must be something quite specific with your system wich needs to be investigated, understood, replicated, and therefore hopefully fixed. Meanwhile I'll FW your message to Xils. I think that if too many systems behaved in a similar way, we would certainly have heard about this, because there are thousands of StiX users already (and probably more using only demo/CM/Beat versions) who don't seem to get similar problems. I have no 100% certainty about that, but it's seems reasonable to think so, based on my direct experience using StiX extensively, and all the people I personnaly know who use it.

[Oopi]

Stix is a great drum vst but I have little problem when trying to use midi drag and drop in Fl studio. When I try to drag pattern in Fl studio playlist or piano roll its shows circle which has line inside it. I think it means no. I can drag midi file inside Stix gui but as soon as I drag it outside the cursor changes and drag and drop won't work. It's like opposite when I'm using something like Uvi beatbox anthology the circle which means no changes as soon as cursor is outside the plugins gui.

[Lotuzia]

Stix is a great drum vst but I have little problem when trying to use midi drag and drop in Fl studio. When I try to drag pattern in Fl studio playlist or piano roll its shows circle which has line inside it. I think it means no. I can drag midi file inside Stix gui but as soon as I drag it outside the cursor changes and drag and drop won't work. It's like opposite when I'm using something like Uvi beatbox anthology the circle which means no changes as soon as cursor is outside the plugins gui.

My first question would be : Do you use the full version of StiX, or the demo version, or one of the CM/Beat restrcited versions ? Midi drag'n'drop is one of the features that are restricted in Demo/CM/Beat magazine versions.

[Oopi]

Stix is a great drum vst but I have little problem when trying to use midi drag and drop in Fl studio. When I try to drag pattern in Fl studio playlist or piano roll its shows circle which has line inside it. I think it means no. I can drag midi file inside Stix gui but as soon as I drag it outside the cursor changes and drag and drop won't work. It's like opposite when I'm using something like Uvi beatbox anthology the circle which means no changes as soon as cursor is outside the plugins gui.

My first question would be : Do you use the full version of StiX, or the demo version, or one of the CM/Beat restrcited versions ? Midi drag'n'drop is one of the features that are restricted in Demo/CM/Beat magazine versions.

It's full version 1.5.1. When I click that midi icon it turns white and when I drag it inside Stix gui it shows arrow and plus sign but as soon as it goes outside of Stixs gui it turns into black circle with line inside it so it can't be dropped. So it works exactly opposite way how it should work.

[Lotuzia]

Stix is a great drum vst but I have little problem when trying to use midi drag and drop in Fl studio. When I try to drag pattern in Fl studio playlist or piano roll its shows circle which has line inside it. I think it means no. I can drag midi file inside Stix gui but as soon as I drag it outside the cursor changes and drag and drop won't work. It's like opposite when I'm using something like Uvi beatbox anthology the circle which means no changes as soon as cursor is outside the plugins gui.

My first question would be : Do you use the full version of StiX, or the demo version, or one of the CM/Beat restrcited versions ? Midi drag'n'drop is one of the features that are restricted in Demo/CM/Beat magazine versions.

It's full version 1.5.1. When I click that midi icon it turns white and when I drag it inside Stix gui it shows arrow and plus sign but as soon as it goes outside of Stixs gui it turns into black circle with line inside it so it can't be dropped. So it works exactly opposite way how it should work.

OK. That's weird. Does the drag'n'drop work if you export the file on the computer desk (it should create a midifile). Also : What are your OS/System details.

[Oopi]

Stix is a great drum vst but I have little problem when trying to use midi drag and drop in Fl studio. When I try to drag pattern in Fl studio playlist or piano roll its shows circle which has line inside it. I think it means no. I can drag midi file inside Stix gui but as soon as I drag it outside the cursor changes and drag and drop won't work. It's like opposite when I'm using something like Uvi beatbox anthology the circle which means no changes as soon as cursor is outside the plugins gui.

My first question would be : Do you use the full version of StiX, or the demo version, or one of the CM/Beat restrcited versions ? Midi drag'n'drop is one of the features that are restricted in Demo/CM/Beat magazine versions.

It's full version 1.5.1. When I click that midi icon it turns white and when I drag it inside Stix gui it shows arrow and plus sign but as soon as it goes outside of Stixs gui it turns into black circle with line inside it so it can't be dropped. So it works exactly opposite way how it should work.

OK. That's weird. Does the drag'n'drop work if you export the file on the computer desk (it should create a midifile). Also : What are your OS/System details.

I tested drag and drop in Reaper and it works. So the problem must be in Fl studio. I just can't get midi file outside of Stixs gui anywhere. I have Windows ten and the latest Fl studio version.

[Lotuzia]

Stix is a great drum vst but I have little problem when trying to use midi drag and drop in Fl studio. When I try to drag pattern in Fl studio playlist or piano roll its shows circle which has line inside it. I think it means no. I can drag midi file inside Stix gui but as soon as I drag it outside the cursor changes and drag and drop won't work. It's like opposite when I'm using something like Uvi beatbox anthology the circle which means no changes as soon as cursor is outside the plugins gui.

My first question would be : Do you use the full version of StiX, or the demo version, or one of the CM/Beat restrcited versions ? Midi drag'n'drop is one of the features that are restricted in Demo/CM/Beat magazine versions.

It's full version 1.5.1. When I click that midi icon it turns white and when I drag it inside Stix gui it shows arrow and plus sign but as soon as it goes outside of Stixs gui it turns into black circle with line inside it so it can't be dropped. So it works exactly opposite way how it should work.

OK. That's weird. Does the drag'n'drop work if you export the file on the computer desk (it should create a midifile). Also : What are your OS/System details.

I tested drag and drop in Reaper and it works. So the problem must be in Fl studio. I just can't get midi file outside of Stixs gui anywhere. I have Windows ten and the latest Fl studio version.

Thanks for the report. Maybe there's a parameter in FL studio to turn ON so that the midi d'n'd works (if someone read this and made it work in FL ...). As an alternative, you can try to just record the Midi output of StiX in the daw between two locators (but a few Daws don't allow plugins to output midi data). Another trick could be -if you have a midi interface- to output midi data via the interface then record it back, as if it was played by an hw device. And the last thing is to make d'n'd in Reaper and copy/paste to FL studio the data (not the most convenient I agree). I'll fw your info to Xils, and report back.

[Local Man]

The velocity controls in Stix work in a strange way and I wonder if that is by design or if it is an oversight or even a bug unique to my system.
The Vel- controls on the easy synthesis page (vel-vca, vel-vcf, etc...) only work correctly for sequenced notes but not for notes triggered by a midi controller.
So when you draw a pattern in the sequencer and adjust the velocity on the "single" page, the velocity controls work just fine. Vel-vcf for example opens and closes the filter according to the velocity that is programed and the amount the vel-vcf knob is turned.
But when you play a note with the midi keyboard, the vel-vcf (and all other vel- controls) only act as an offset. It doesn't matter what velocity you hit the key with the filter amount stays the same. When you turn the vel-vcf, knob it will open or close the filter relative to the settings in the advanced page, but the parameter remains static regardless of what velocity you play with (again it simply acts as an offset to the settings in the advanced page).

Anyway, I am just wondering if anyone else has observed this behavior.
I'm wondering if I should report this as a bug or a feature request.