I've owned a Receptor PRO for about a year and a half, and have both loved it and hated it at the same time. It definitely has its weaknesses and its strengths. As I read this forum, I've realized that I may have been expecting too much out of the Receptor. I originally purchased a Receptor PRO with the intent of using it as my main sample playback machine and set out to compose full film score orchestrations with the Receptor, Uniwire, and an iMac. What I've discovered is that it is extremely cumbersome to use Receptor as an all-in-one box, especially in conjunction with Logic and with Uniwire. I originally thought that I would be able to load up all 16 slots on the Receptor (some channels with multiple articulations and samples within Kompakt) and play back full orchestrations while routing all my Receptor channels through uniwire and into Logic with the intent of using my native plug-ins (Waves native power pack & musicians II bundle) to compress and EQ the sounds coming into Logic from the Receptor. What I've discovered is this:
1. Uniwire is currently the weakest aspect of the Receptor and I've found that the Receptor works the best if you simply turn off Uniwire and use MIDI cables to trigger the Receptor and record individual tracks from the Receptor as audio into your DAW when you are satisfied with your arrangement.
2. The Receptor should be thought of as a supplementary sound module, not as the center brain of your MIDI rig. Why? Well, if you're like me, and if you are trying to compose film scores using the Receptor alone, you will find yourself frustrated. As an example, you cannot easily play back back EW Storm Drum samples while having string bass, cello, violin leads, and internal moving viola parts, Atmosphere, and Akoustik Piano all playing at the same time. I've tried tweaking polyphony settings and DFD settings in the EWQLSO Kompakt plug-in, but no matter what I do, I still have drops outs if I am trying to play back a full orchestration on the Receptor (sometimes w/ only 10 slots loaded on the Receptor). Most of this probably has to do with its limited 2 gigs of RAM. The last film score I did involved a lot of sub mixing of parts (as audio) as I couldn't play back all of my arrangement at one time because the Receptor could not keep up. I am now beginning work on a new film score, and am using the Receptor as a "side car." I am using a 2.4 GHz iMac with 4 gigs of RAM, Logic 8.02, and am playing back a variety of East West and NI samples (all the samples are on an external RAID drive) directly from my computer (EW samples within Kontakt 3), and am using the Receptor to play a few additional libraries/synths (MiniMonsta, Storm Drum Intakt, EW Symphonic Choirs) by triggering it with MIDI cables (I do not use Uniwire 1.2 because it crashes Logic 8.02). There are still some of my libraries which don't work within Mac OSX 10.5.1, so the Receptor comes in handy as it can play some soft synths/libraries which my iMac can't play.
3. I haven't used Direct Install, but I would say this is one of the best moves MUSE has made. Even though Direct Install is limited to the installation of Komplete, it is a great start and I am looking forward to the day when users can install a variety of libraries from other manufacturers (It 'd be great to install any EW/Soundsonline library). As I've looked through the Receptor update requests on this forum, I've realized that MUSE has a lot on its plate in satisfying every customer's complaint. Sure, I wish Uniwire was a more stable and logical application, and I wish the Receptor had a more straight forward saving method where patches could be retained easier, but I applaud Rick, Toron, Vik and others who have offered great one on one customer support, and I applaud all the software engineers who are sweating it out to make Receptor a better product.
Hope this post has been helpful to some users out there. There have been many times when I've wanted to throw my Receptor off a building (or put it for sale on Craigs List), but I think I'm going to hold on to it. It's been relatively stable for me in live situations (a little slow on boot up, but stable once it's up and running) and works well if you skip Uniwire, use MIDI cables, and remember to save every patch as a user patch.
You can listen to some of my previous score for Ben Bays "The Truck Driver" here: http://www.marcandremusic.com/truckdriver/
My Thoughts About Receptor & An Apology
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- KVRer
- 21 posts since 3 Dec, 2006 from Powell, OH
Receptor Pro/EWQLSO/Symphonic Choirs/ Stormdrum/Atmosphere/B4II/Akoustic Piano/GForce Future Retro Pack/Garritan Jazz & Big Band/BFD/Battery 2/3/Komtakt 3/2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo iMac/4 Gigs RAM/OSX 10.5.1/ Logic 8.02
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- KVRer
- 14 posts since 28 Jul, 2006
Thanks for the thoughtful and fair post. I'm in a possible transition moment with my Receptor as well, given that I've sunk some dough on a new 2.8 gHz iMac, 4 gigs of RAM and plenty of hard drive space. Your post gives me food for thought. Turns out I haven't been using more than an acoustic drumset to play live, so I'm trying to figure out how the Receptor fits into my home recording setup. I'm hearing iffy things about uniwire and Logic---and have had a few initial issues---but I can't say I've experimented enough to say for certain how it will work with my Logic 8 DAW.
I love the way Ivory plays on Receptor, and Superior 1.0 runs decently as well. But, I want to get those sounds into my computer, and if uniwire isn't the answer, I'm not sure all the midi-cable/render to audio business is worth the hassle---if, that is, everything will crank on my iMac. I just got Superior 2.0 today (yay!) and I'm going to install it on my computer, since, as you'd guess, Superior 2.0 isn't yet receptorized. If it performs well on my iMac without a lot of latency or other issues, maybe that will answer my questions.
In short, like you, I'm wondering if I need to recalibrate my expectations and figure out how this (expensive) piece of gear fits in to what I'm trying to do.
Tom
I love the way Ivory plays on Receptor, and Superior 1.0 runs decently as well. But, I want to get those sounds into my computer, and if uniwire isn't the answer, I'm not sure all the midi-cable/render to audio business is worth the hassle---if, that is, everything will crank on my iMac. I just got Superior 2.0 today (yay!) and I'm going to install it on my computer, since, as you'd guess, Superior 2.0 isn't yet receptorized. If it performs well on my iMac without a lot of latency or other issues, maybe that will answer my questions.
In short, like you, I'm wondering if I need to recalibrate my expectations and figure out how this (expensive) piece of gear fits in to what I'm trying to do.
Tom
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 21 posts since 3 Dec, 2006 from Powell, OH
Thanks for your reply Tom. Great to hear that I'm not the only one having these thoughts. Also good to find another Logic user using Receptor.
Receptor Pro/EWQLSO/Symphonic Choirs/ Stormdrum/Atmosphere/B4II/Akoustic Piano/GForce Future Retro Pack/Garritan Jazz & Big Band/BFD/Battery 2/3/Komtakt 3/2.4 GHZ Core 2 Duo iMac/4 Gigs RAM/OSX 10.5.1/ Logic 8.02
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- KVRer
- 1 posts since 2 Jul, 2007
Thanks for sharing your experiences with Receptor. I've just bought a refurbished Receptor Pro from Muse and overall I've been impressed.
Before it arrived I was staritng to have doubts especially after reading through this forum but Komplete 5 has been installed along with Atmosphere and Trilogy and thankfully I've not had the problems others have had. I just hope RMX and Colossus install as easily.
UniWire seems to be a no go for me though, it crashes SONAR, Project 5 and a demo copy of Ableton Live very easily, so your tip about using the MIDI ports seems the only way I'll be able to use it in my home studio.
One thing I am disappointed about is that Omnisphere can't be installed, this was one of the reasons I got it. I knew from keeping an eye on this forum that Spectrasonics were a Receptor friendly bunch but didn't check on Omnisphere until after I bought it, it was in the clearence section on Plugorama and nothing lasts long there, so it was buy then check.
If I could get the Cakewalk synths, Rapture and Dim Pro, on there as well I would consider it a complete success but I'm not sure they'll work. I've even bought an iLok!!! To have my copy of Z3ta running on there.
Anyway like I said at the start thanks for the info. I had installed UniWire that came with the Recdeptor and then installed the Receptor tools I downloaded of the website so was beginning to wonder if it wasn't working because I'd messed up.
Before it arrived I was staritng to have doubts especially after reading through this forum but Komplete 5 has been installed along with Atmosphere and Trilogy and thankfully I've not had the problems others have had. I just hope RMX and Colossus install as easily.
UniWire seems to be a no go for me though, it crashes SONAR, Project 5 and a demo copy of Ableton Live very easily, so your tip about using the MIDI ports seems the only way I'll be able to use it in my home studio.
One thing I am disappointed about is that Omnisphere can't be installed, this was one of the reasons I got it. I knew from keeping an eye on this forum that Spectrasonics were a Receptor friendly bunch but didn't check on Omnisphere until after I bought it, it was in the clearence section on Plugorama and nothing lasts long there, so it was buy then check.
If I could get the Cakewalk synths, Rapture and Dim Pro, on there as well I would consider it a complete success but I'm not sure they'll work. I've even bought an iLok!!! To have my copy of Z3ta running on there.
Anyway like I said at the start thanks for the info. I had installed UniWire that came with the Recdeptor and then installed the Receptor tools I downloaded of the website so was beginning to wonder if it wasn't working because I'd messed up.