DP4 is just unreliable. What's going on here?

Kubi · Post by **Kubi** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:10 pm

Problem is NOT when a user gets frustrated because he/she cannot concentrate on making music due to the tools acting up. I agree we shouldn't have to deal with any of this, ever. But we as music tech users have made a devil's bargain, and now have to deal with it. Fact that you even are able to do a beat detection and subsequent processing is a miracle, really. But nothing prevents you from using reel-to-reel tape and a mixer and hardware instruments. No crashes, ever, I promise. (But bad cables and solder points and you have to allign 24 tracks every freakin' day...) Anyway, back on topic:

The problem is when a particular piece of software gets the blame due to, well, the fact that the person in question doesn't really know how to isolate a problem. Forgive me but your example is perfect: if DP only acts up with one particular loop, and not the other, well, the file with the loop that doesn't want to cooperate is the problem. Fact is, you have just proven that DP is not the cause of your particular problem by making DP do the detection flawlessly on another file in the same project. Resample your original loop and try again.

For more "proof" that too many folks are basically just triggerhappy when it comes to blaming problems that could originate anywhere in their entire setup exclusively on their DAW (because it's the app they're looking at when they experience them, I suppose?), just go visit any Logic, Nuendo, Cubase, or whatever forum. The same tired song everywhere.

Which makes me want to know: How many of those people who claim "DAW XYZ is completely kaputt!" have warez in their system? Use cracked plugs? Don't even know what permission repair is? Have insufficient RAM? Are running OSX and DP4.6 on a MacPlus? Have their system drives 95% full? Download questionable crap from dubious websites? Have every crappy widget and startup item active at every point in time? Or maybe their OS is just starting to get a little corrupted and needs to be re-installed or cleaned up? Or their drivers? Or they have FW cables that are getting intermittent? or their project drive has a bad sector?

I have maybe one "unexpectedly" every other month, if that, with DP4.61 and OS 10.3.9. That is the extent of my problems, and I run the same damn DP as everybody else. So DP ain't broken. There's always room for improvement, but it works fine, reliably, and is very stable. If it doesn't, there's a problem in your setup.

Now I don't have any particularly warm and fuzzy feelings towards MOTU, but I depend professionally on DPs survival. It is the most care- and troublefree DAW on the market, and I cannot afford letting it go the way of Studiovision. Ever.

So, while I wholeheartedly endorse it when shortcomings and actual bugs are pointed out in a constructive fashion (that's what drives progress), I just think folks should stop posting half-baked borderline-hysterical statements a la the title of this thread. Some newbie comes in, reads that crap, and if that happens too many times, my platform is one step closer to extinction.

methezer · Post by **methezer** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:58 pm

Dear Kubi,

AMEN!

Sincerely,
Methezer

sdfalk · Post by **sdfalk** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 9:30 pm

Very well thought out Kubi.
Nicely done.

dixiechicken · Post by **dixiechicken** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 2:31 am

Nothing is certain in this life - except death of course.

Often however these kind of mysterious errors seemingly random in behaviour,
is due to simple but unlikely faults. Things you havent even thought of.

Kubi mentioned bad firewire cables.
If the coolig fan on your cpu gets slightly misaligned, you will get mysterious crashes due to overheating at certain times. CPU-load dependent.

Two years ago my iMac G4 started to crash at random intervals.
The crash intervals slowly shortened over time.
I tried literally everything I knew to fix this.

After a month or so of desperate measures I threw away the Microsoft Optical
Intellimouse & replaced with another one exactly the same model -problem gone vanished like it never existed.

I was lucky of course, the problem was simply a faulty mouse and cheap to replace at that.
However perseverance eventually pays off, not nessecearily when you want to.

Cheers: Dixiechicken

profundo · Post by **profundo** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:01 pm

Many well put responses to this thread but I can't help but comment on the obvious problem in my opinion; jimfisheye's hardware:

TiBook 667 w/ 768M ram
OS 10.3.9
DP 4.12
60G 7200 rpm 8M buffer Hitachi internal HD
120G 7200 rpm 8M buffer WD external firewire HD

C'mon, do you really expect to run OSX.3 and DP4.x on a slow processer and minimal ram??

How can you seriously blame DP for your outdated hardware? I think your topic title is misleading and unfair.

I have an older G4/866 w/ the same ram. Even though the processer is a bit faster than jimfisheye's, it's similar enough to make a comparison between it and my current system; dual 1.25 G4, 1.5 gig ram OS 10.4.4 DP 4.61.
I still have the older system running w/ a digi 001 (for the occasional protools session for certain clients) and DP 4.2 is on it. I booted DP just now on the older setup and was amazed at how different it runs than my current system. It's stable but really slooooooow. As it should be! It's an OLD SYSTEM!!!!!!
Time to move on - get over OS9, jimfisheye, take the plunge! Upgrade your hardware and buy some quality ram. You'll be happy.

boonier · Post by **boonier** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 6:24 am

Kubi wrote:For more "proof" that too many folks are basically just triggerhappy when it comes to blaming problems that could originate anywhere in their entire setup exclusively on their DAW (because it's the app they're looking at when they experience them, I suppose?), just go visit any Logic, Nuendo, Cubase, or whatever forum. The same tired song everywhere.

why do I insist on writing posts after going to the pub?!

no seriously your right. I think I'd spent the day trying to work out why it wouldn't beat detect and conform to the tempo. I'd driven myself insane.

I agree with your point about other forums - they've got their own problems. Interestingly there was a Logic user experiencing the same problems with freezing Reason tracks to audio (the rendering wouldn't start until 2 bars into the freeze). I now know that the issue might infact be to do with Reason.

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