Orion Platinum v7 released

[Lance]

M'Snah, I can't believe you did it. With the VSTi or with the internal Toxic 3?

You know Orion has a soul, and it loves you not because you are an idiot *cough* oops, obviously it must be your drivers, it must be your 'puter, on wich you must be running viruses, spywares, rootkits and warez.

[Lance]

It was just a joke.

But I ask you kindly, report it on the Synapse Forum. We have a small user base (compared to other hosts), please help Richard and us.

Cheers

[Klemperer]

I love orion platinum, but EnergyXT and even Tracktion2 are still more stable here (EnergyXT standalone is much more stable, to be honest). That said, I could part with many synths I bought when I was young and rich , but not with Wasp-XT, Toxic3, the sampler (easy to use and great, then not all the hosts have a Kriminal who provide first-class-stuff), Wave-fusion and others. The effects are of superb quality compared to demos of hosts of the same class I tested, and I simply let Orion autosave all 3-5 minutes. That makes life easy . 10 minutes might be enough, but without this feature it still wouldn't be this much fun to use it. In old times it could have been my PC, but nowadays, with other most stable hosts, it somehow must be, in some way, Orion too. Well, all the new features are great. For some Oplat is more stable now, sadly enough not for my machine.

[M'Snah]

M'Snah, I can't believe you did it. With the VSTi or with the internal Toxic 3?

You know Orion has a soul, and it loves you not because you are an idiot *cough* oops, obviously it must be your drivers, it must be your 'puter, on wich you must be running viruses, spywares, rootkits and warez.

Don't you EVER accuse me of using warez. It's an immediate mute. But before I do that: It's the internal Toxic3.

If it's my computer, bad luck for me. I'll just use the software that does work, I'm not spending time anymore on debugging software.

[Lance]

I have a crappy computer and soundcard (with Asio4All), but I can't produce crashes with Orion.

Orion loves me and I love Orion.

[hao nao]

You can put empty patterns (different ones; A1, A2, ...) to the playlist and record your playing in song mode. It's also good for fast and easier further editing, arranging.

That's a cool idea, I never thought of that but I just tried it and it works. Although setting a pattern to 10,000 notes hardly seems like the death of creativity.

I finally understood that Lance meant a succession of different empty patterns -- but I think that for long linear midi-recording, it's better to just make a single long pattern to record into, then trim later

so to answer fandango's original question: that's right, the patterns don't auto-expand, you have to set them to a long length before recording

however, in cases where you drag in a midi-clip (e.g. from RM IV or an outside file), the target pattern DOES end up with the correct length for the midi clip automatically

[Lance]

M'Snah, I can't believe you did it. With the VSTi or with the internal Toxic 3?

You know Orion has a soul, and it loves you not because you are an idiot *cough* oops, obviously it must be your drivers, it must be your 'puter, on wich you must be running viruses, spywares, rootkits and warez.

Don't you EVER accuse me of using warez. It's an immediate mute. But before I do that: It's the internal Toxic3.

If it's my computer, bad luck for me. I'll just use the software that does work, I'm not spending time anymore on debugging software.

Hey M'Snah, it was only a joke. I understand you.

[Lance]

You can put empty patterns (different ones; A1, A2, ...) to the playlist and record your playing in song mode. It's also good for fast and easier further editing, arranging.

That's a cool idea, I never thought of that but I just tried it and it works. Although setting a pattern to 10,000 notes hardly seems like the death of creativity.

I finally understood that Lance meant a succession of different empty patterns -- but I think that for long linear midi-recording, it's better to just make a single long pattern to record into, then trim later

so to answer fandango's original question: that's right, the patterns don't auto-expand, you have to set them to a long length before recording

however, in cases where you drag in a midi-clip (e.g. from RM IV or an outside file), the target pattern DOES end up with the correct length for the midi clip automatically

Yes, if you import or paste midi clip it will expand to the last note's end.

[hao nao]

Yes, that's right.

[BONES]

I upgraded to 7, but still after starting it 4 times, two times it crashed (New project -> add Toxic 3 -> go to pattern editor -> click record -> start playing -> crash.)
I like all the things it has to offer, but I don't want to have to save my project after each mouse click. so I just return to eXT once again.
And please don't start about reporting bugs. I want to use the software, if I wanted software to test for bugs, I'll participate in beta-testing. And so far Orion Platinum and Acid Pro are hosts that suddenly die on me, while eXT and T2 just remain stable.

Well, that's a noble sentiment on your part but...
... seeing that I, or any of the other beta testers, can perform New project -> add Toxic 3 -> go to pattern editor -> click record -> start playing -> crash a million times and never get a crash, it means that your problem will never be fixed. Last night I was trying to think of the last crash I had, and I concluded that it has not crashed on me at all since I started my current job last September, either on my workstation or either of the laptops I use. These days I find it difficult to so much as make it stutter.

Synapse aren't alone there though, most software developers expect the end user to beta test their software (at a charge of course)
But Orion imo is unique in that it had a good user base possibly spoilt by a handful of users who were in complete denial.
Bones is of course one of them (early days) where if someone reported a bug all he would do or say was "it must be your soundcard, it must be your puter, you must be running warez"
Funny that isn't it - since I switched hosts I've had very little problems with my soundcard or my puter ...warez no comment

Yeah, but if only one [or two or 20] people are having problems and thousands are not, how do you fix things for those few if they are not willing to provide input? I can recall a couple of occassions when Rich has jumped the gun a bit and released an update before we'd had time to thoroughly test it but 98% of the time all the bugs we can find are sorted before a release. I would have thought that the fact that I have had a largely stable ORION since version 2 would be a good indication of the value of providing useful feedback? Then there's the fact that when I have had problems in the past I have invariably traced the source to bad hardware/drivers and/or krap plugins.

I remember a time when teelangsun kept reporting major isuues only to be told it was ALL in his mind.

Yes, after he had spelled out his problem and Rich had tested them and found no problem. Rich sometimes comes across things in the code and fixes them, often before they have caused anyone any problems, but you can imagine how unlikely that is so if a problem cannot be reproduced by anyone else how can it possibly be fixed?

[BONES]

Well, all the new features are great. For some Oplat is more stable now, sadly enough not for my machine.

Have you given 7 a good workout? Because Rich is confident he has fixed a few of the bigger problems [nothing we could test, just stuff in the code that he thought might be causing some of these ongoing issues].

[aquar]

Yeah, but if only one [or two or 20] people are having problems and thousands are not, how do you fix things for those few if they are not willing to provide input? I can recall a couple of occassions when Rich has jumped the gun a bit and released an update before we'd had time to thoroughly test it but 98% of the time all the bugs we can find are sorted before a release. I would have thought that the fact that I have had a largely stable ORION since version 2 would be a good indication of the value of providing useful feedback? Then there's the fact that when I have had problems in the past I have invariably traced the source to bad hardware/drivers and/or krap plugins.

I remember a time when teelangsun kept reporting major isuues only to be told it was ALL in his mind.

Yes, after he had spelled out his problem and Rich had tested them and found no problem. Rich sometimes comes across things in the code and fixes them, often before they have caused anyone any problems, but you can imagine how unlikely that is so if a problem cannot be reproduced by anyone else how can it possibly be fixed?

Truth be told Bones during early developement of Orion you were one of the obnoxious characters or sycophants that wouldn't accept that Orion had a problem, which it clearly did. And the problem/s were never resolved!
Rich listened to you rather than the end user and the result was a host that never developed beyond its potential
Worse still its known as the most unstable audio application on windows. Full stop.

In your attempt to lick arse or curry favour you f**ked it up for all of us.
Just a shame I can't send my request for my money back, directly to you.

[BONES]

No, I just said "I" never had a problem, in response to the fact that others were completely unwilling to accept that the problem could possibly be anything other than ORION without bothering to look any further. Its been many years since I could attribute any issue to it, it always ends up being something else. Every reproducable bug gets fixed but if none of the testers can reproduce it, it is impossible to fix. How does this not sink in? Its like asking a mechanic to fix an intermittent problem, he can only do it if the problem occurs while he has the car, but if you can tell him exactly what he needs to do to make the fault appear, then he can track it down and fix it. Its just common sense.
Rich never listened to me, its just that his vision for the product happens to [roughly] coincide with my needs. In fact I can't recall ever having him implement anything I've asked for until I've asked him 20 times. Shit, there are still things I've been asking him to fix since v1.7 that he has done nothing about [things that don't work with skins].

[M'Snah]

Well, that's a noble sentiment on your part but...
... seeing that I, or any of the other beta testers, can perform New project -> add Toxic 3 -> go to pattern editor -> click record -> start playing -> crash a million times and never get a crash, it means that your problem will never be fixed. Last night I was trying to think of the last crash I had, and I concluded that it has not crashed on me at all since I started my current job last September, either on my workstation or either of the laptops I use. These days I find it difficult to so much as make it stutter.

Thanks. I really appreciate that you and other beta testers did try this a million times (btw in Europe a million = 1,000,000). Makes me feel humble that many people spend so much time on this.

It's also great hasn't crashed on you for about a year. I never doubted the quality of Orion Platinum. I bought it a few months ago without thorough testing because you and some others are very very positive about it. And I can understand why. I just don't want to spend days or weeks to exactly trace the problem, or to reconfigure my pc to run Orion, while T2 and eXT run fine currently.
btw if there's an automated log feature that will generate a trace for debugging, I'm perfectly willing to switch that on. But I'm not going to consciously remember every mouse click just in case it crashes and I need to report it.

[Kriminal]

I lost too many songs with Orion, so although I recognise its a good host for workflow the end result is meaningless to me.
No disrespect intended to Orion users though but I now use Live which has its share of problems but nothing I can't work around. Stability has to come first!

I upgraded to 7, but still after starting it 4 times, two times it crashed (New project -> add Toxic 3 -> go to pattern editor -> click record -> start playing -> crash.)
I like all the things it has to offer, but I don't want to have to save my project after each mouse click. so I just return to eXT once again.

And please don't start about reporting bugs. I want to use the software, if I wanted software to test for bugs, I'll participate in beta-testing. And so far Orion Platinum and Acid Pro are hosts that suddenly die on me, while eXT and T2 just remain stable.

good job everybody isnt as small minded and lazy as you then, or every piece of software would be useless.