W8 & Crashing Collective

[sdv]

Wondering how stable Waveform 10 is with the included plugin Collective and Biotek? I'm using Waveform 8 and both Collective and Biotek 1 cause the app to crash (freeze, disappear, etc...) almost constantly. It's just not really usable. Just trying to decide if it's worth upgrading??

[Watchful]

Don't have Biotek, but Collective is rock-solid for me in W10. It was great in W9 as well. I can't speculate about your situation because W8 was about the only version I skipped. I never used it.

[exponent1]

Wondering how stable Waveform 10 is with the included plugin Collective and Biotek? I'm using Waveform 8 and both Collective and Biotek 1 cause the app to crash (freeze, disappear, etc...) almost constantly. It's just not really usable. Just trying to decide if it's worth upgrading??

Yes, I think W8's code base is quite old, and upgrading will definitely fix most of the bugs and crashes. Maybe check with the support if they can provide you the latest version's trial and you can test it out yourself?

[GuitarPlayerinNYC]

I just spent a month demoing WF 10 with Traction's and my own 3rd party plugins. I was having all kinds of problems- midi devices not recognized, and my 3rd party plugins was crashing WF10 (but not collective, and I didn't play with Biotek).

In no particular order, this is what I did: I went to the Plugin tabs, and removed ALL VSTs. Then, I did the following>

A member here steered me to a Tracktion "Settings" file that seems to have cured all my problems. In the Settings tab, to the right, "General settings folder," click that, and you will be brought to a Waveform folder. Open that, and there will be a file called Waveform.Settings (your file may be called Waveform8). Either delete it, or rename it Waveform.bak.

Keep in mind, when you delete/rename Settings, when you open up Waveform, it will be in the default state, meaning you'll have lost all your settings, and you'll have to reset all your audio/midi stuff, and rescan for plugins. You'll also lose any projects and edits (which is recoverable, as long as you know the path to them; you import them back in).

You may want to uninstall Collective and Biotek, and redownload them, as there could be a corrupted .dll that's causing the problem.

Fire up WF, reauthorize if prompted, go through setup with audio/midi etc, then scan for VSTs.

You could also simply uninstall Collective/Biotek, and redownload them, rescan, and see what happens.

What's the specs on your computer? If you have an older cpu and little RAM, that could be the problem too. Anyway, I've learned that the Settings file can be a solution to many things. Some of my 3rd party plugins are resource intensive, but I'm not crashing anymore (and I'm not leaving a a web browser open, with 20 tabs up).

Oh, as already suggested, you can download WF10 in demo mode and see how stable it is. I've discovered if you run any other version of Tracktion (I had T7 installed), you may have to drill down to that programs Settings file, and delete it, so keep in mind your WF8 Settings file, should you run WF10 alongside it.

I spend over 2 weeks troubleshooting, and it seems that any Settings file existing on any version of Traction, can have a global effect on ALL Tracktion DAWs.

My demo period ran out on Monday, and I ended buying WF10 Basic, and bundled it with DAW Essentials, which came to a total of $202. I'm missing like one item that differentiates Standard ($278), and Support told me I'll get a free upgrade to WF11, which will be released this year. It was a major PITA, and every version of Traction gave me trouble with my midi keyboard, but everything seems solid now. Now, I just have to learn the program, as I'm a real noob with midi.

[sdv]

Oh, as already suggested, you can download WF10 in demo mode and see how stable it is. I've discovered if you run any other version of Tracktion (I had T7 installed), you may have to drill down to that programs Settings file, and delete it, so keep in mind your WF8 Settings file, should you run WF10 alongside it.

I've been trying out WF11 and it's a bit more stable and interesting in come areas and still funky in a few others (looking at you MIDI Pattern Generator). Overall, a bit more resource easy than WF8.