Updates Jan 27th 2020 - Catalina & more

[40watt]

I'm also getting stuck notes in Diva when using the arp.

[Telematix]

I'm also getting stuck notes in Diva when using the arp.

Same here. Sometimes I get stuck notes when I just stop playback in my DAW. Maybe Reaper doesn't send Note Off correctly? The workaround is switch off/on the Arp control.
BTW, I've noticed the same behaviour in previous versions.

Update:
Just have read the Cockos forum - it's the common Reaper issue, not only for U-he synths.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Update:
Just have read the Cockos forum - it's the common Reaper issue, not only for U-he synths.

I said this in another thread recently but Reaper has an action called something like "Send Note Offs to all MIDI Devices/Instruments." I recommend adding a keybinding to this action and/or putting it on your toolbar to kill the stuck notes.

You could even create a custom action that sends that action while playing/stopping playback.

[tasmaniandevil]

I'm also getting stuck notes in Diva when using the arp.

Same here.

As I've already written in this thread, we could confirm that there is a hanging note issue which can happen in Diva's arp in the latest version. It's on our radar, and will surely be fixed. Thank you all for notifying us about it, that was an issue that slipped through our QA during the release tests.

[tasmaniandevil]

Here is some more information about when stuck notes might occur: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=541167

[cantaloupe]

The latest u-he Hive takes more than two seconds to load on my machine. Bazille takes a bit under two seconds, which puts it in "just acceptable enough to not care". Dune 3 opens instantly.

Latest Reaper on a Macbook pro 2017 (integrated gpu) with macOS 10.14, new installation. Can't remember Hive being this slow to open. Is it normal or a bug?

edit: by "load" i mean open the GUI.

edit2: fixed the issue by choosing a different color profile. I thought "Adobe RGB" was one of the performance enhancing ones but apparently not. Using sRGB, it opens a second faster at least.

I've tested each color profile on macOS while opening Hive and this is how they rank:

Slow:
SMTPE RP
ROMM RGB
Rec. ITU-R 2020-1
LCD PROJECTOR
Display P3
Adobe RGB
ACES CG Linear

Fast:
sRGB
Rec. ITU-R 709
HDMI to VGA
Generic RGB Profile

All the slow ones are similarly slow, all the fast ones are similarly fast, so pick the one that looks best among the fast ones.

Dune3 still loaded instantly on the slow color profile though.

What a trainwreck lol.

[Urs]

What a trainwreck lol.

Absolutely.

We use (and always have) Apple's CoreGraphics framework, which is and always has been "the standard" for visualisation and imaging on OS X. However, they made it really slow as of late, regardless if you do bitmaps or vectors - unless you do very simple vector graphics. This has changed only in recent years, things have been very fast in earlier versions of OS X.

On the other hand, standards like OpenGL are doomed on OS X as they are marked for deprecation. Ironically, UIs programmed using OpenGL still seem to run a lot faster than UIs programmed using CoreGraphics.

Hence, we're a little bit at a loss here. Investing into OpenGL seems futile. Investing into modern low level imaging like Vulcan or Metal seems way beyond the scope of our UIs. Therefore, for the time being we try to get by with CoreGraphics, optimising the shit out of it wherever possible.

[cantaloupe]

Thanks for the information, Urs. It must be frustrating to deal with.

With the correct color profile, this is a non-issue to me personally. But i imagine there are thousands that don't know about that performance fix. It could perhaps be nice to include a line of text about it in the installer or something.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Zebralette download link is pointing to Zebra2 installer

[muki]

Zebralette download link is pointing to Zebra2 installer

afaik that's correct: zebralette is part of the zebra installation

[Urs]

From https://u-he.com/products/zebralette/

"Zebralette: mini Zebra

Zebralette is our version of a Trojan horse. A free synthesizer and an introduction to Zebra2’s fantastic oscillators. Perhaps it will persuade you to try Zebra2 and upgrade. If one oscillator is this powerful, imagine what you can achieve with four… and all the other great features available in Zebra2.

Zebralette is included with the Zebra2 download and is installed at the same time."

[bhinton]

I believe I've found a bug in Zebra HZ 9709 - critical one for a patch I'm working on.
It's the behavior of the mute buttons for each lane (VCA in HZ?).

Turning mute on and off for any given lane while holding a note/notes works as expected UNLESS all four lanes are at some point muted.
Example:
Lanes 1 2 and 3 are muted, while Lane 4 is audible.
While holding a note, mute lane 4.
Unmute ANY lane (doesn't matter of it's 4 or the previously muted lanes):
No sound.

Occasionally, an additional odd behavior occurs in which instead of unmute failing to unmute the sound from the lane, it causes a subsequent key press on the notes that were held to sustain indefinitely - but unlike the no-sound-on-unmute behavior, which is repeatable, the sustain glitch seems to be a random occurrence.

In addition to impacting a patch for a piece I'm working on (requires very fast mute/unmute of lanes as a performance technique by the keyboardist (via external control of the mute automation parameter), occasionally going to total silence for a split second before unmuting, in this case, lane 2 or 3 with notes held), the bug interrupts the flow when programming new patches.

I realize this is probably not a common playing technique, but thought you'd want to know of the bug.

Zebra HZ Rev 9709 / Plogue Bidule 0. 9767 / Reaper 6.11 / MacBook Pro 16" 8 core i9 w/ 64 GB RAM, Radeon 5600M, MOTU 828ES-Thunderbolt

[bartok2112]

"Zebralette is our version of a Trojan horse. A free synthesizer and an introduction to Zebra2’s fantastic oscillators. Perhaps it will persuade you to try Zebra2 and upgrade."

This worked on me. Zebralette hooked me and I bought Zebra 2.

[Hanz Meyzer]

Hi,

I got some really nice Zebra 2 version with a huge GUI speedup for my macos system. It seems to have no slowdowns with 4k at all, and being independent from GUI scaling, too! It was some switch regarding async rendering or so you added. It would be even greater if the framerate wasn't restricted to 30fps or so.

Is there such an test update already available for Hive, too?

[Urs]

Hi,

I got some really nice Zebra 2 version with a huge GUI speedup for my macos system. It seems to have no slowdowns with 4k at all, and being independent from GUI scaling, too! It was some switch regarding async rendering or so you added. It would be even greater if the framerate wasn't restricted to 30fps or so.

Is there such an test update already available for Hive, too?

The same switch slows down Hive's UI rendering dramatically. We'll have to make it optional with a user preference or something. It's pretty hopeless in Hive, but it works great in Zebra.