Roli: Equator 2 is here !

[dlandis]

It does come down to ROLI testing in bitwig, there are events from each DAW as a programmer (ok last last time) you need to pay attention to, I don't know all of them and I'm sure some DAWs have more, and others less. Eg. A HTML page has an DOM Ready event, to signify to JavaScript that it's now ok to work with the DOM (HTML elements loaded on to the page).

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Bitwig being Niche
I would have said that back in version 2 days, but I now hear more and more people talking about and using Bitwig than I do FLStudio and StudioOne combined. But this may just be the circles I'm in.

Agreed with on both of these points; I'm not sure about ROLI's approach here. Bitwig was one of the first DAWs to really go out of its way to make MPE work and very early on, had it worked out probably better than anyone else at the time. If they are not testing in Bitwig, I kind of have to wonder what exactly their game is. Bitwig may not have a huge user base, but it does have an experimentally-minded group of individuals using it. In essence, while more people probably use something like Studio One, I would guess that probably more users proportionally use MPE and/or Equator 2 in Bitwig. I grant this is a subjective opinion and I can't prove it.

And I agree with about Bitwig not really being "niche" anymore. If anything, its paradign seems to be picking up steam. It is also somewhat notable that the DAW does extremely well in reviews and always has.

[SamDi]

Wow. What a disaster. I did some testing in BW 4.4.10 and it's basically ALL presets that are affected. I thought maybe it had something to do with only the MPE presets, but no, both standard and MPE are affected by the bug.

There may be a work-around of sorts:

I opened Equator 2 in both Studio One and Bitwig and copied the FX settings manually over from Studio One to the Bitwig instance, then saved the edited Bitwig instance preset with my initials to denote the preset I'd saved. I closed Bitwig and restarted. I used "Additive Elegance" for starters.

It seems to have worked; I do say this tentatively because it's only one patch, and, yes, it's slightly cumbersome, but it seems to have worked.

EDIT: I just tried "Acoustic Piano" for my second experiment, manually rewriting the FX parameters and resaving, and it worked well. I noticed that the LFO 1 parameters needed tweaking as well.

According my experience there is an easier one: selecting the twin preset (Standard <-> MPE) and then select back, normally loads the preset then correctly.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

[dlandis]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

I don't know; I'll try it tomorrow.

Good thought!

[dlandis]

Wow. What a disaster. I did some testing in BW 4.4.10 and it's basically ALL presets that are affected. I thought maybe it had something to do with only the MPE presets, but no, both standard and MPE are affected by the bug.

There may be a work-around of sorts:

I opened Equator 2 in both Studio One and Bitwig and copied the FX settings manually over from Studio One to the Bitwig instance, then saved the edited Bitwig instance preset with my initials to denote the preset I'd saved. I closed Bitwig and restarted. I used "Additive Elegance" for starters.

It seems to have worked; I do say this tentatively because it's only one patch, and, yes, it's slightly cumbersome, but it seems to have worked.

EDIT: I just tried "Acoustic Piano" for my second experiment, manually rewriting the FX parameters and resaving, and it worked well. I noticed that the LFO 1 parameters needed tweaking as well.

According my experience there is an easier one: selecting the twin preset (Standard <-> MPE) and then select back, normally loads the preset then correctly.

Whoa. I'll check this too. Does it matter which way you go? Like does one have to start with the (e.g.) standard patch and then switch to the MPE or does it not matter?

EDIT: I just checked and, wow, it seems good (and easy.) Thanks so much for sharing!

[SamDi]

Whoa. I'll check this too. Does it matter which way you go? Like does one have to start with the (e.g.) standard patch and then switch to the MPE or does it not matter?

EDIT: I just checked and, wow, it seems good (and easy.) Thanks so much for sharing!

I thought first, that the problem happens only on Standard presets. But later, this structure, I thought I have observed, was none. So just go to the other and back. Hope this was not also a pattern, what just worked incidally, bit as long as I evaluated it, it worked.

[SamDi]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

What could also an idea, to take a preset, when it’s loaded correctly and save it in BW as VST 3 preset. Maybe the restore process works better with this mechanism.

[aMUSEd]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

What could also an idea, to take a preset, when it’s loaded correctly and save it in BW as VST 3 preset. Maybe the restore process works better with this mechanism.

Indeed this is a viable strategy. I am using the Equator 2 NKS version in Komplete Kontrol from the NKS User Library and it doesn't have this problem in Bitwig.

[MegaPixel]

From what you guys n gals have worked out here, it should be a relatively easy process for the developers @ ROLI to fix this, so 1 initialisation process works and another doesn't.

If you can open the original preset and the new preset in ultraedit (it will auto convert file to hex or text view based on it's contents). Download trial here: https://www.ultraedit.com/downloads/ult ... thank-you/

Or you could use UltraCompare, free trial here:
https://www.ultraedit.com/downloads/ult ... thank-you/
Open 1 preset in left window, and the other in the right window and it will do the comparison for you.


Compare the first part of the working preset, the middle (note the line numbers), and the end, if they are the same then this means it's EQ2's preset initialisation/setup programming and not an issue with loading.

Which in turn means there are multiple methods/functions programmed in EQ2 to initialisation/setup a preset.

Which in turn (lots of "in turn"s here), makes me wonder why is there more than 1 preset creation programming and what did they use to create the original presets, and why weren't they converted to the new way. 1 developer not communicating with another one working on the same stuff just in a different area? or just forgetfulness


Which in turn, doesn't sound like clean/good programming from an architectural and object orientation point (OOP) of view. Good OOP makes programmers create class's/methods/functions which are re-used over and over, not re-built over and over, which will give you a single point of failure, you fix 1 and you fix them all.


I am questioning if roli have a full time development team anymore after the company changes?, or are they hired back as freelance when a new products need to be developed & initially supported or only when major issues occur?

[Echoes in the Attic]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

What could also an idea, to take a preset, when it’s loaded correctly and save it in BW as VST 3 preset. Maybe the restore process works better with this mechanism.

Indeed this is a viable strategy. I am using the Equator 2 NKS version in Komplete Kontrol from the NKS User Library and it doesn't have this problem in Bitwig.

Interesting. Loading presets in KK still had the problem for me in Bitwig. Although I just loaded the plugin and then changed presets within equator. I guess you're talking about loading the actual KK presets. Was the whole Equator library converted to KK?

[aMUSEd]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

What could also an idea, to take a preset, when it’s loaded correctly and save it in BW as VST 3 preset. Maybe the restore process works better with this mechanism.

Indeed this is a viable strategy. I am using the Equator 2 NKS version in Komplete Kontrol from the NKS User Library and it doesn't have this problem in Bitwig.

Interesting. Loading presets in KK still had the problem for me in Bitwig. Although I just loaded the plugin and then changed presets within equator. I guess you're talking about loading the actual KK presets. Was the whole Equator library converted to KK?

Yes I meant loading from the saved NKS patches. It has all the Equator 2 Factory and some Free addons, plus Equator 1 legacy MPE patches, the rest are being completed.

[Echoes in the Attic]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

What could also an idea, to take a preset, when it’s loaded correctly and save it in BW as VST 3 preset. Maybe the restore process works better with this mechanism.

Indeed this is a viable strategy. I am using the Equator 2 NKS version in Komplete Kontrol from the NKS User Library and it doesn't have this problem in Bitwig.

Interesting. Loading presets in KK still had the problem for me in Bitwig. Although I just loaded the plugin and then changed presets within equator. I guess you're talking about loading the actual KK presets. Was the whole Equator library converted to KK?

Yes I meant loading from the saved NKS patches. It has all the Equator 2 Factory and some Free addons, plus Equator 1 legacy MPE patches, the rest are being completed.

Awesome! Will check it out. So if all the factory patches are completed, what's "the rest" in this case?
Edit: Oh the soundpacks I guess.

[aMUSEd]

The Non MPE legacy patches and sound packs

[dlandis]

I wonder if saving each preset as is in another DAW as a user copy would also work?

What could also an idea, to take a preset, when it’s loaded correctly and save it in BW as VST 3 preset. Maybe the restore process works better with this mechanism.

I was thinking along these lines also. Did you get to try it yet? Did you have success? BTW, I am not using the NKS patches (yet; I may be soon,) so I'll try from my end to see how it going more generally. It's difficult to imagine a hang-up specific to its use, but then it's kind of hard to speculate on why the issue exists at all.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Sometimes you don't know what correctly loaded actually is though. Probably safer to save vst3 presets in another DAW.