How to Crash Receptor

[okiikahuna]

I have not done any real whining on this list for, gee, almost a week now, so here goes:

I've recent;y stumbled onto a fabulous new way to crash my Receptor: just send a series of patch change mesages in succession without giving it time to fully load the multi being called up. Sometimes, but not always, the Receptor will freeze and then must be rebooted before it will respond to anything. Once, I couldn't even shut it down and had to pull out the power cord to get it to reboot. I think this happens most often when the multi contains a sampler like Kontakt or Kompakt, and it has not finished loading the samples when I call up another multi.

There is an obvious work-around here: Just like the old joke about the guy who goes to the doctor and says "it hurts when I do this" and the doctor says "so, don't do that." So, don't send patch change messages while a multi is loading.

However, the reality is this: Bandleader calls a tune, I hit a patch on my controller. Maybe I accidentally hit the wrong patch. Or, maybe he changes his mind and calls out something else. Whatever, the drummer's already started the count. Don't have time to wait for the patch to load, or even to look and see if it is still loading. Gotta hit a new patch . . . Now, my Receptor is frozen. Miss the big dramatic keyboard entrance. Have to walk over to my rack and push the Receptor's button 2X and wait for it to reboot. Everybody is staring at me and they don't look happy.

Has anyone else encountered this? Are our good friends at Muse aware of it? Is it caused by the source VST and out of Muse's hands or is it something that could be fixed in an OS update?

K.

[thesoundsmith]

For live use, don't set up the box to require this kind of scenario. Snapshots or one large multi with all the plugs you need so all you are dong is changing what midi channels are active, but not reloading samples (it's the sample reload that's killing you, most likely.) I have up to 10 different instruments loaded (Colossus with 3 channels-piano, acoustic bass and string,) Lounge Lizard, Trilogy for electric bass, B4II, FM7, MiniMogueVA, OP-X PRO, sfz, Plugsound Free and several EQs, plus a comp-limiter. Takes a while to load, but the Colossus and Trilogy instruments are not reloaded, and Plugsoound loads pretty quick for Clav or several pads, the others change patch internally instantly - or nearly so.

Properly configured, there is no problem with a complex stage setup, but it takes looking at the system as a SYSTEM, not just a set of plugs.

[okiikahuna]

Thanks, Soundsmith. I think you have a good system there and I should try doing something like that for the gigs that allow it: Gigs where I basically need to switch between a few bread and butter sounds (probably most gigs.)

However, a couple gigs I do require fairly intricate splits and layers across my keyboard, sometimes up to 8 sounds spread across the keyboard at any one time, with custom samples, etc.. I then switch midi channels to get different keyboard set ups without having to reload anything, sometimes up to three or four different setups per tune. So, on these gigs I need separate multis per tune. These are the gigs where I seem to get in trouble like this. (These are also the gigs where the leader seems to be absolutely incapable of following the set list he just wrote out.) In the old days, the old samplers wouldn't even respond to patch changes until they were done loading the data from the floppy, so this wasn't an issue.

Anyway, on the off-chance that Muse can implement something in a future update to protect us from ourselves, I thought I'd mention it. Besides, now that Greg Holmes has fixed my volume control problem (Thanks again, Greg!), gotta have something to whine about.

Regards

K.

[thesoundsmith]

Gotcha. I have a few complex setups, but mostly no more than 3 instruments on a split, and only I setup per song. I think you'll need to find ways to speed up the load times - can you downsample some stuff? make it smaller, maybe convert from WAV too decent MP3? You'll lose a small amount of quality, but in live performance would it be noticeable? Is your audience one that grew up hearing MP3 artifacts and will find the sound 'normal'?

Just throwing out ideas, I have worked with elaborate rigs before, and don't envy you - even if you have roadies AND techies...

[gregh1]

You're welcome, K!

[okiikahuna]

Roadies? Techies? Well, there is that guy who keeps telling me I don't need to worry about his lights falling on my head because he used an extra layer of duct tape on 'em.

K.