V-Machine

[JazzSinger]

Just got a tip from "Schoko" over at MusoTalk about this thread. I will repeat what I asked there:

Big deciding factor is: will my favourite plug-in work?

For theatre and sound effects I use Cakewalk's free...

sfz.exe

...sample player. It is a single dll with no registration, copy to directory and go. Its sounds are text files that contain DOS/Win style paths to samples.

My sincere hope is that this little box gets stable soon without being overloaded with "featureitis". Leave that for the rack version, I say.

What do I need in a portable live-gig box? Stable, easy-to-use, robust. And quiet. (muffle that fan!)

Most plugins are multi-timbral and have effects built-in, sfz.exe is no exception. I doubt I will need more than one plugin working at a time.

The thought of having all my sounds in a little box like this is a dream come true. I have used AKAI samplers up 'til now.

***

Pity the poor guys at SM Pro. I have visions of them slaving over the firmware during the Christmas hols!

[Ben [KVR]]

Is there possibly a feature I don;t know about that maintains your rendered audio in the digital world, e.g. returns the audio to a track to Logic, Cubase, whatever? I'm just curious if this device (or the Receptor family) is truly ideal or not to do the heavy lifting as I say above. BUT maintaining it all in the pristine digital world.

It sounds like what you are after is what UniWire does for Receptor.

http://www.museresearch.com/uniwire.php

[AzureCrystal]

www.project5.com/products/instruments/sfz_player/

got it thanks for the link !

My sincere hope is that this little box gets stable soon without being overloaded with "featureitis". Leave that for the rack version, I say.

Now now, let's not bite the hand that feeds us, don't you know who owns this site ?? You wouldn't want them to make a $150 version with less features just to spite you !!

What do I need in a portable live-gig box? Stable, easy-to-use, robust. And quiet. (muffle that fan!)

I dunno what clubs you play in, but if you can hear that fan, no one is having fun !! hehehe...

Pity the poor guys at SM Pro. I have visions of them slaving over the firmware during the Christmas hols!

I have a nagging feeling you may be right, so to Danny and all the guys sweating on our posts, HAVE A GREAT HOLIDAY !!!

[PX5]

VFXAU WROTE:

Start V-Machine in Learn Mode, then start the VFX application
From the VFX Application you can Format the V-Machine if you want.

Then you can save to V-Machine in the VFX application the complete PLUGS and BANKS (to a USB stick) and then you can copy the banks back into the V-Machine as you wish.

One thing to note, please make sure your Sample Tank Directory is "IK SAMPLETANK 2 SE" so rename is if it is not, please follow the FAQ to add teh TXT reference file to the stick as well so you can load sample tank and it's registrations back into the machine.

Thanks for the respons,

Right:
- I just formated the vmachine following your instructions.
- I created a directory "IK SAMPLETANK 2 SE" on my USB key.
- IN Vfx Application rightclick on the orange icon (left from menu) > Machine > Export Machine > clik OK to the dir on USBkey
- In the dir on my USB key I find the directorie 'banks' (with all those sample folders)
- In the dir on my USB key I find the directorie 'plugs' and in 'plugs' (with all the vfxinfo.txt)

I started the vmachine, it display's:
No Banks to Load
Preset 0
No Plugin

I putted the USBkey in place, and got the message:
Device connected
Please Wait...

and immediately:

Loading Preset 0
Please Wait...

and again:

No Banks to Load
Preset 0
No Plugin

I'm still smiling so anyone please give me some support.

Best regards,
Marco

[Paulustus]

Att: Danny;

Is there a way to upgrade the RAM on the V-Machine ?

Sure,

You can upgrade both the RAM and the FLASH as per the FAQ on the website.

It is not a simple 4 screws job, It requires some work to be done and may void the warranty.

Sorry, but I cannot find these Informations on the SM Pro Audio FAQ Site...
Please give me a link! Thanks.

Second thing:

I tried to connect a hard drive to the vmachine, but it just tells me "Device connected" and theres no data! It's an old WD-drive, I'm not sure how much RPM it has...()

- I formated the hard drive fat32 (40GB)
- I copied the directories "banks" and "plugs" direct on the hard drive

Greetings,

Paulustus

By the way: VFXAU: Your doing a great job, I follow this forum almost from the start and I notice that you are answering fast and informatively! javascript:emoticon(':!:')

[appel]

Yep, great holiday indeed!

I can't for the life of me figure out how to import from USB stick. Synchronizing with the VFX application hardly works - mostly the dll files aren't copied (V-machine reports 'Couldn't find DLL'). ala5t0r was kind enough to explain how to set-up a plugin via an USB stick, but I can't find the menu option to actually import the plugins. Current firmware: 1.120081212b Any help is greatly apprectiated!

I would also like to know this: is there any way you can browse the contents of the V-machine directly through Explorer? Perhaps with a linux filesystem driver:
http://www.fs-driver.org/extendeddl.html

Thanks in advance!

[DustnPottyMouth]

I understand you might take it personal but I find it offensive that this product is on the mass market when you have to do all this to get it to work with a plugin especially ones you pay for! Even with a wizard file you still have to gather your DLL files and that can be just as difficult for most people. Good luck, but my sympathy isn't enough to warrant another chance for this product. Not to mention the fact that your software is responsible for erasing all my data off my desktop, and don't tell me it warned me cause there is no reason why it couldn't have pushed it to the trash instead of clean sweeping it all away never to be recovered, and even if thats irrelevant to you I will have you know I was under the impression it was creating a subfolder. You also have to take into account most people who have their daw optimized don't have the restore feature enabled. The only nice thing I have to say at all is that you guys should be commended for the idea but its a long shot off from working the way it was advertised on youtube and it also has lesser specs than the unit he was using on there as well....

I take your point, and I am sorry it caused you some problems, We see is as a tool and many customers are using it for what it is, I am an optimist and I hope one day we can get you back... (don't answer yet )

Thank you and I will certainly consider it if you get the toontrack stuff working. I understand this must be hard and I'm sorry I came on so strong but I was really pissed about the stuff I lost and I know I should take responsibility for it but I guess I just never thought something like that would happen. Perhaps you should look into a fix to make your application throw things into the trash bin instead of clean sweeping them as I'm sure I'm not the only one who will experience this and I'll keep an eye on your product for later support.

The plugins I want most to work are Drumkit from hell superior, Superior 2.0, EZ Drummer, Addictive Drums, and eventually Battery 3(if you ever get NI support) would be cool. If you can make those work I will be back the day after I receive word of it. I use alot of electric percussion and I was sooo stoked when I saw that you had designed this so once again props to you for doing that and keeping in close contact with users here. I know when the day comes that you can fill my request there are alot of my friends who would definitely buy the unit as well. Also it would be nice to see some sort documentation on what file systems its capable of reading because all my external hard drives are NTFS and I don't wanna reformat them. Also it would be even sweeter if you could make it so there was some sort of way to browse through the directory and force the machine to default to a directory rather than the entire drive that way all your plugins could be in subdirs and you could still use the drive for other things too without worrying about your other folders or files interfering.

[PX5]

Hi,

Yep, for now I only need two plugins in my vmachine:

- Native Instruments B4
- TruePianos

As I told before I had to format my vmachine and now I have a working Native Instruments B4 wich I can run from my USBkey

For your interest:
Here is my first working vfxinfo.txt

_________________________________________________

dll_name: Native Instruments B4/B4.dll
id: 1315517510
name: Native Instruments B4
is_synth: 1
parameter_count: 54
program_count: 120
has_editor: 1
editor_width: 786
editor_height: 493

registry_keys:
...

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Native Instruments\B4]
"PresetDir"="P:\\Native Instruments B4\\Presets"
"InstallDir"="P:\\Native Instruments B4\\B4"
"ShowAudioUsage"=dword:a66e8bb7
"ASIOInit"=dword:00000000
"WorkDir"=""
"AudioPort"="MultiMedia"
"AudioRunning"="No"
"MmeInPort"="None"
"MmeInDelay"=dword:00000190
"MmeOutDelay"=dword:00000190
"MaxUsage"=dword:0000005f
"MIDI Through"=dword:00000000
"MIDI filter"=dword:00000039
"MIDI Input Channels"=dword:0000ffff
"TonewheelDir"="P:\\Native Instruments B4\\Tonewheels"

...

____________________________________________________________

Directory structuur on USBkey:

plugs\Native Instruments B4 >Bin
Presets
Tonewheels
B4.dll
vfxinfo.txt

And now...cross my fingers, I'll start with TruePianos, any help is welcome.

Best regards,
Marco

[appel]

Marco, how exactly did you get your V-machine to copy the plugin from your USB key to its internal flash drive?

[JazzSinger]

www.project5.com/products/instruments/sfz_player/

got it thanks for the link !

I like it for it's absolute minimalism. It does have a bug, tho'. When more than one instance is running, it seems they try to share memory and write into each other's space. The big brother, Dimension Pro, has this fixed, but it adds another layer of complexity on top.

Now now, let's not bite the hand that feeds us, don't you know who owns this site ??

No? ... Oh! Now I do. Ah. Erhem... (cough).

That explains the category "Receptor compatibility" I see here, which reinforces what I said: almost the most important thing influencing purchase is the number of compatible plugins.

I dunno what clubs you play in, but if you can hear that fan, no one is having fun !! hehehe...

Clubs when live-gigging, but I do a lot of theatre, too. "Tubby or not Tubby; Fat is the Question.... (Whirrrrrrr....)"

Pity the poor guys at SM Pro. I have visions of them slaving over the firmware during the Christmas hols!

I have a nagging feeling you may be right, so to Danny and all the guys sweating on our posts, HAVE A GREAT HOLIDAY !!! :love: :love: :love:

I'm in the same position. I have to go in over xmas to fix bugs; Jan 6 is Review day! A programmer's lot is (sometimes) not a happy one.

[PX5]

Marco, how exactly did you get your V-machine to copy the plugin from your USB key to its internal flash drive?

Hi appel,

That is one of the questions for me too... so keep me informed
For now I'm glad I can run it from USBkey..

marco

[ZioKiller]

I've happily set up my V with all my plugins, and a bank dedicated to Samplelord with a few sampleset loaded (Sullivan's CP80, Pianet T and Wurlitzer, LearJeff's jRhodes3, Dusty Electrik Mk II).
What I really need is an acoustic piano.

Pianoteq won't allow more than 7-8 notes because it needs a powerful multi-core computer for its real-time processing.

Pianissimo from Acoustica installs fine but is quite a CPU hog, and only allows 10-12 notes at its best performance.

I'm trying to install TruePianos and I think the install process was OK because I can see the red light flashing on the USB stick that indicates that the plugin is loading the sampledata into memory, but it will freeze the V-Machine because starts with a pop-up windows (for the license) that can't be clicked. And I wasn't able to find out where it stores the licensing files or reg. keys. I tried to run Process Monitor to see which files and registry keys it loads and, if I well understand, it stores the license info in a protected key inside the registry. Too tricky to do without the developer's help. I sent them an email...

If I can find a nice piano in GIG of Kontakt format that can be loaded with Samplelord, I'm ok and my set-up is complete

[appel]

I've happily set up my V with all my plugins

Wish I could say the same. Would you mind saying which plugins you've set up succesfully? And how did you do it? Did you use the synchronize function of the VFX application or did you use an USB key?

[ZioKiller]

Would you mind saying which plugins you've set up succesfully?

I said it... all my plugins plus SampleLord which is just great.


Mostly I'm using the USB stick, but I prefer to do things manually. E.g. I don't use "Export Machine" because it will copy ALL plugins even if not used in presets (this looks like a bug), so I manually copy plugs and banks to the USB stick.

I'm momentarily running everything from the stick, the internal memory is empty.

[AzureCrystal]

I've happily set up my V with all my plugins

Wish I could say the same. Would you mind saying which plugins you've set up succesfully? And how did you do it? Did you use the synchronize function of the VFX application or did you use an USB key?

Good idea, I would love to know which plugins everyone got working as well, here are ones I got working:

- Organized Trio
- Vox'd LiteDemo (has subdirectories with samples, worked fine)
- Superwave P8
- Angelina (dont really use use, just installed it for testing, worked)
- M-Theory Demo
- Mr Ray

One I tried for hours to install was Rhino, I LOVE that Plugin, if anyone got it to work, I would most gratefully appreciate any hints !!!