Any EWQL PLAY users?

Christofori · May 15, 2011, 20:53:50

.. I was dragging my feet with that as IRC is on my other machine, not this one. I might be able to remote to it.. you don't need them running on the same pc do you? Other reason - I have 3 monitors in a funky L-shaped arrangement, dunno if it will give you headaches.

Saga Musix · May 15, 2011, 20:59:36

No, IRC would just have been faster for communication. However, your studio PC has to be connected to the internet for debugging. And you can use the Mibbit client on openmpt.org for IRC if you don't have a client installed anyway.

Ceekayed · May 18, 2011, 10:55:28

Yay Christofori.

I gave up on trying to get the stuff working on ompt a while ago, I just record live samples if need be, I've also ripped most of SD2 to samples since percussions are easy to use as sample-based.

Anyhow, I did hear a wild rumour that Vienna Ensemble Pro would work flawlessly with PLAY, now the question is, does Vienna Ensemble Pro work in ompt flawlessly? It's another piece of a crappy drm protected software without a demo (or well, there *is* a demo, but it requires Steinberg's dongle), so can't test it without spending a few hundred bucks for another piece of a software that might not work. >_<

So if anyone does happen to have VEP, please test it by chaining some vsti's through it to ompt and see how stable is it and if all the data gets saved as supposed to. Vienna's customer support has been a complete bitch, they're obviously not interested in getting my money.

Christofori · May 20, 2011, 13:33:39

Well, you've got all I can give ya on the "incompatible/buggy vsti's with OMPT" arena; as my budget for samples was more than used for Garritan (ARIA works great!!!!) Personal Orchestra 4 and the EWQL CCC (w00t! I since have added a Focusrite Pro 14 to my setup and using it's MIDI I now have flawless playback AND creation.. no more swapping back and forth!). On a side note when using the Focusrite's ASIO driver and attempting to load PLAY [edit: referring to the VST version inside OMPT here, folks!...] it crashes much sooner than before. If for some reason I wanted/needed, I still have my trusty (underpowered in comparison.. muahaha..) Delta 44 going though nothing's running in/out of it now... so I could use it as another ASIO source for fun I s'pose... but alas, I digress (and then some!)

Other day I posted a support ticket on soundsonline.com for the PLAY issue in OMPT, including exact steps to cause it to crash on cue. No response yet. (surprise, surprise).

Anyway, hopefully all the trial/error in this post might help someone out there trying to use Play with OMPT some day.

Ceekayed, if your audio hardware is pretty decent, you should be able to get PLAY running as described above, being stand-alone and controlled via MIDI using the VST2MID plugin from 'midibag' in OMPT -- continuing my use in such configuration with virtually no looking back (except for the 'wonder if they'll ever fix it...?' thought every so often, I must admit..!)

KrazyKatz · May 21, 2011, 00:11:06

QuoteOther day I posted a support ticket on soundsonline.com for the PLAY issue in OMPT, including exact steps to cause it to crash on cue. No response yet. (surprise, surprise).

I'll be very surprised if they take the time to look into it. The best case is you'll get a response saying, "I'm afraid we don't officially support OMPT".

But here's hoping.

Saga Musix · May 21, 2011, 11:19:10

Well, the crash is clearly happening in their DLL, so they should fix it, not us. If they don't look into it, they are just complete assholes making money from hard-to-use (because incompatible with apparently not just one host) and insanely protected software that noone should even bother to buy.

Ceekayed · May 22, 2011, 09:11:26

Quote from: Jojo on May 21, 2011, 11:19:10
Well, the crash is clearly happening in their DLL, so they should fix it, not us. If they don't look into it, they are just complete assholes making money from hard-to-use (because incompatible with apparently not just one host) and insanely protected software that noone should even bother to buy.

That's a truth right there if I've ever seen a one!

I'm also taking another approach to the problem, I can get my hands on the kontakt versions of SOG and RA, albeit a bit illegally. But I find no moral dilemma there, I feel it's my right to replace a broken piece of shit software with a working version of the same software.

Stormdrum I will continue to use sample-based, I think. Just gotta take the time to do some .itis out of them so they're a bit easier to handle. Luckily it's not Tonehammer stuff with 10+ round robins per sample (though it is a huge downside to SD2; making fast and massive percussion stuff takes tons of little tweaking to make it sound even somewhat organic). Actually I'd pick $400 worth of Tonehammer percussions over SD2 any day (that's a tip for anyone who's considering of getting some organic percussion instruments).

And nah, my hardware setup is back at ground level for a while as I have no working audio interface for the moment, thus I can only run a one instance of asio at a time (which is really driving me nuts, by the way!).

Christofori · May 24, 2011, 08:29:01

Kraz: I figured as much, just being hopeful in even submitting it in the first place, to be honest. And (as yet) have not had anyone even look at the ticket... But I do agree with Mojo (er.. Jojo.. lol) on this one; they should via (if anything other than 'the right thing to do'...) due dilligence fix or at least look into it. Besides, it's likely an easy code change and/or addition, too, if the problem has to do with the signal kill when switching patterns/orders that Jojo told me about.
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Jojo: Don't say 'noone should buy' until you hear the guitar freaking OMG Awesome Les Paul patch I'm gonna use in my next song. Buying this thing (MR ie 'Ministry of Rock' component or as the CCC) is less than it'd be to pay him to play for you [edit: not to mention impossible, since he died a couple years ago... and I doubt the 'Les Paul Deluxe' lead patch was played by him, just was on his guitar. But hey, he invented the instrument anyway (amongst a whole bunch of other stuff over time!) and the patch is simply amazing! Sounds like I have someone like Steve Vai or Satriani playing along to my track..! And, for THAT, you'd need to spend more than $500 -- which I think would go without question... -=- I'll post a short excerpt of the new song with the guitar solo featured, on my site later -- and add the link to this post then. I'm sure hearing it would at least improve oppinions of the MR library...! There's really a LOT of stuff in it that makes it more than worth the cost, to me and several major writers out there... I just think it's rediculous to have to spend a bunch of money on a DAW to use libraries like these (which is why I still use OMPT for all my composing) -- so, yeah. ] -- so there's the worth in it right there, if you ask me. Now, as per the licensing, anti-pirate measures, overall stability and VST (compatibility) issues and overall shit-ness levels per the above, I DO wholeheartedly agree. I should NOT have had to spend all those HOURS banging my head on the wall only to come up with a workaround which will likely be branded a 'solution' due to EWQL's perceived lack of concern.

But I did.. so I just hope someone can make use of the tips..

And lastly: using it is EASY -- getting it running 'decently' (I don't consider outputting MIDI from a host to a stand-alone 'hog' of RAM to be much more than 'decent' or 'passable' though I at least have no real latencies .. unless I load a lot of stuff and try to hit play..) was SHIT. In my case, included the cost of another audio interface as well.. though my existing specs most definately met (even exceeded a little, IIRC) required specs from EWQL... <sigh>

BUT DAMN it sounds so nice

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CK: DAMN dude, you need some audio gear! What happened to your old stuff?
I too will have to sample things like Symphonic Choirs and/or the aforementioned Les Paul patches and (waaay back up there..) the Bösendorfer and similarly FREAKING HUGE samples/instruments/combos.. making tracking a bit more of a challenge but nothing I hadn't already had to try doing for one reason or another.. so I'll survive (even if it takes longer to get a track done for now..).

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Christofori · May 25, 2011, 13:03:20

So here it is.

This is an entirely-tracked guitar solo using only the MR component from my CCC library, composed using OMPT 1.19.02.00.

You could comment here or on my site's guestbook if you'd like..

http://www.christofori.net/preview

I'm diggin' it.. kinda good for just starting on guitar, huh? (I have always wanted to take the time to learn it, just never have.. may not need to now, though! Don't need to purchase one and all the gear for it now, either...)

(For ppl reading a while from now: the link will be somewhat short-term as I update contents of that folder periodically... no guarantees as to how long after the date of this post the solo reference mix file will continue to exist there; but it will be there for likely a month or more at least.)

Christofori · May 27, 2011, 04:10:47

Official response from EWQL
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Hello,

I am not sure what OpenMPT is but we don't support it as a host.

Here list of our supported hosts is here:

http://www.soundsonline.com/Terapack

Click on Tech Specs and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Best
Kia Glover

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My response back:
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So you're taking the 'easy way out' so you don't have to look into the potential problem, huh? I thought you might. Oh well. It's a mark against EWQL in my book as well as for many other trackers like me -- as I've been keeping others informed as to the status/response on this issue... I imagine they won't be purchasing anything from you guys now.

I suppose I'll just muddle along with my workaround since you won't even try.

Thanks though.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

So.. there you have it. There is no issue because they choose to ignore unofficial "unsupported" hosts.

Christofori · May 27, 2011, 04:34:12

Last 'tech' post for me here I think.. as my afore-mentioned 'workaround' now produces output with no latency issue. I had begun using 2 sound cards to further clutter up my already frakenstein-ish setup -- one (Focusrite) is for the output (generally) and the other (my old Delta 44) is to record 4 tracks simultaneously. In getting that to work (won't go into all I did, to spare the poor readers the extraneous detail) I did have to fine-tune the latency settings of my PCI bus (as the Delta and the firewire controller card [which hosts the Focusrite card..] are both connected to it) -- I did so with a program called simply 'PCI Latency Tool 3' available (currently) here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951

Additionally I came across another tool which might help those with latency issues on their own PC's. It is a real-time graph that helps you determine if your PC might have latency issues with digital audio, called 'DPC Latency Checker' and is (currently) available here: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

My appologies if these tools had already been mentioned elsewhere..! But -- hopefully now, this thread should contain enough information for anyone to get EWQL PLAY products running properly on their systems with OpenMPT (though not as a VSTi of course). It might also help some with latency issues, too.

Saga Musix · May 27, 2011, 09:46:01

Quote from: christofori on May 27, 2011, 04:10:47
I am not sure what OpenMPT is

Awesome, they're even too stupid to read your mail (I am 100% sure I added a link to the download page in the template I gave you)! Ok, I think we're done here - I guess this is good argument for anyone here to not buy any of their stuff anymore.

LPChip · May 27, 2011, 10:03:07

I'm not sure what EWQL PLAY is, but OpenMPT, as a host, does not support it either!

Saga Musix · May 27, 2011, 10:03:51

True, true!

Though, it's very well possible that you just got through to their "basic end-user" support. I suppose if you could get through to the programmers or at least somone who knows about the tech bits, you could probably get a more sophisticated answer (though that's what they generally try to prevent, of course).

Christofori · May 28, 2011, 02:22:10

Quote from: LPChip on May 27, 2011, 10:03:07
I'm not sure what EWQL PLAY is, but OpenMPT, as a host, does not support it either!

LOL -- I'll keep that in mind as I continue running them in tandem via MIDI messages (a suggestion from an old post you made, if I'm not mistaken -- on another issue, having something to do with sending MIDI messages out from OMPT; so I owe you thanks as well!). Though it is very evident now with my multiple sound card drivers running; as when you even attempt to play (no pun intended..) a song containing PLAY, it crashes OMPT immediately. Wasn't quite that volatile prior to adding my Focusrite card. But, I've at least got something that works.

One last note (I keep saying that, lol) for any others that want to use PLAY: I had my PLAY percussion instruments (that is: instruments in OMPT set to send MIDI data to PLAY percussion patches) set to use a Note Off command under the NNA's -- doing so seemed to cause some lag/latency on said instruments. Setting them to "Continue" fixed that last minor problem. Seems the odd timings of the Note Off that OMPT sent (odd because it was immediately before a new note.. instead of on a beat or upbeat as per normal releases..) might've been causing too much MIDI data for my system to perform it all properly. It was driving me crazy because only in certain sections would there be any 'lag' -- and it was always consistant (which wouldn't be consistant with 'normal' latency as I understand it). But at any rate, my funky syncopated rhythms are playing fine now.

You couldn't do this with sustained instruments obviously, but I would think notating the note off commands in the pattern data itself would be standard proceedure for most people there; but it's worth noting.