Hanging notes - affecting everyone ?

Well, if they try to pull that paid update routine, I'm going to abandon any future purchases from their company.

 

Not quite. Usually they introduce new bugs instead of fixing old ones. Or can anybody tell me which v2 bug has been fixed in v3?

 

Hello,
we are aware of the hanging notes problem and we are working on a fix. As the different postings in this thread indicate this problem occurs under various conditions with various setups so it is difficult to reproduce it. So unfortunately we can't be more precise at the moment.

Best,
Nils
_______________
Native Instruments, Berlin

 

I MAY BE NEW to Absynth 3, but I am not a computer novice by any means, having 15+ years of experience.

I am having this problem while using Absynth 3 as a standalone program. No other programs are even running at the time - much less having Absynth running within them or vice-versa.

AS ALREADY MENTIONED, THIS PROBLEM RENDERS ABSYNTH 3 TOTALLY USELESS! I AM SORRY FOR THE SHOUTING BUT THIS IS AN EXPENSIVE PROGRAM! PEOPLE HAVE BEEN REPORTING THIS ISSUE FOR MONTHS AND INSTEAD OF FIXING THE ISSUE, NI SEEMS TO BE DENYING IT AND SAYING THAT MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THE PROBLEM! WELL, IT SEEMS THAT MOST PEOPLE -DO- HAVE THE PROBLEM! AND I HAVE A VERY EXPENSIVE PROGRAM THAT IS WORTHLESS TO ME!

IT IS SHAMEFUL THAT THIS ISSUE HAS NOT BEEN FIXED BY NOW. HOW CAN NI FEEL GOOD ABOUT SELLING EXPENSIVE SOFTWARE THAT IS BASICALLY UNUSABLE FOR MORE THAN TWO MINUTES AT A TIME?

BTW - I am hesitant about upgrading the software to the latest revision, due to NI's poor track record with updates and patches that cause more problems than they fix. I think that NI software is great (when it works) but I have to say that the bloom is definitely off the rose.

 

Go ahead and install the update, because it's not going to hurt things further. Who knows, you might get lucky and things will improve after installing the update (but probably not). In a worse case, you can uninstall it all and then reinstall back to the original version. Often times updates will have little fixes to bugs that the programmers have come across while trying to fix something else... sometimes stuff that end users have not yet experienced, but might in the future. Sometimes there are small performance improvements that get added in the updates.

I think NI is probably working on the problem... definitely if they plan to stay in business they will have to fix it soon. I'm not even considering any more NI purchases until AB3 is fully fixed, and many other people have voiced the same thought. If NI doesn't put out a fix before November (one year from when I first got the software), they'll have fully burnt the bridge to my wallet... unless their fix throws in something to justify the grossly drawn out time, like some extra functionality or a ton of new patches.

If they come out with an announcement that they want a paid update in 2006, or paid update to AB4 or something like that... I'll be so far from buying anything from them again that they'll need to mail product announcements by way of an intergalactic shuttle to my computer in a galaxy light-years away.

 

Actually I have decided to install the update - like you said it can't hurt because Absynth is basically not useable anyway unless I feel like composing with a mouse, which I do not. And I would return the Absynth if it were not for the fact that, when it works, it sounds wonderful and nothing else sounds quite like it. Soft synths are a dime a dozen, so if it was a typical soft synth I would return it and get something else or even use a free one of which there are plenty. But with Absynth I can get some totally off the wall sounds that come from no other synth.

 

ewistrand, you say "there's no way to narrow the problem without more info." Forgive me, but that is a copout. How much information do you need? People all over the Internet are complaining about this problem and it is very real. If you wanted to fix the problem instead of denying it, people would gladly send you all of the information that you could ever need a hundred times over. Many threads and posts include relevant information and people who write to tech support provide the information that is asked for. So gimme a break. The reason that this problem has not been fixed is NOT because nobody sends you any information. This is a real problem with an NI product. The people who have the problems are using all sorts of different software and hardware. Are you going to say that every other piece of software and hardware in the world is bad except for yours, and that it causes Absynth to hang keys? And what do you have to say to the fact that I am running Absynth on a clean OS install BY ITSELF as a standalone with no other programs running and even killing as many processes as possible I STILL HAVE THE PROBLEM?

And then I read this from Nils "we are aware of the hanging notes problem and we are working on a fix." But you have made statements inferring that there was not a problem or that the problem was with the users.

Finally it's been suggested in another thread that the problem is with my X-Station - and I will certainly look into this. But this would be the same X Station that has no problems with anybody else's software. And Absynth would be the software that has the same problem across a multitude of different host programs, OS's, and hardware.

This is not just a little annoyance. It makes the software totally useless for a lot of people. The ones who have not had the issue just got lucky, their PC's stars were aligned in the right order at the time of installation.

PS - I provided detailed information in my original post.

 

I'm running mine as a standalone and AU in OS X.4 Tiger without any problems. There are other bugs but nothing as radical as notes hanging etc.

Wish I had a PC around here to try it on and see the problem for myself but right now I have a couple of Macs, both running Tiger and no issues with Absynth 3.02 or earlier versions.

 

I have installed the latest Absynth update as well as the latest drivers and firmware for all of my MIDI controllers, interfaces and for my sound card. Absynth still hangs notes when using the Audigy 2 ASIO driver but not if I use my X Station's ASIO driver. Therefore I can use Absynth without issue now since I have a choice of ASIO drivers (I have one from my GuitarPort which seems to work well too). I prefer to use my PC's sound card ASIO driver but since I plan to replace the Audigy 2 with a pro sound grade card within the next few months I am not too concerned with this anymore. I still think that Absynth (and some other NI synths) should not be so finicky about drivers. I do not have this issue with other brands of music software. There are an awful lot of people using Audigy cards whether they are the best for audio recording and mastering etc. or not, and an expensive pro card and its drivers should not be a prerequisite for using Absynth reliably. But I can deal with this for now. If I still experience problems after moving up to a newer and better sound card then I will have to deal with it at that time. For now I'm just gonna play for a while.

 

I'm glad you got it running

NI isn't the only company that doesn't like Creative's ASIO drivers, though. There's still some software on the market that wants to see 44.1k or multiples thereof; something that Creative's ASIO will NOT do because they're locked into a 48k sample rate. Absynth is a professional instrument; is it unreasonable to ask that the soundcard be likewise?

Creatives are great all around cards for the average user, and for gaming they're hard to beat. However, for serious music production they don't stack up to the competition. Their money's put into surround sound, mic inputs for Hi-Z dynamic mics and the like instead of better DACs and stable drivers suitable for recording. Because they're OEM for some manufacturers (Creative's the largest OEM producer of soundcards after all), their drivers are designed to associate themselves with EVERYTHING, and hence clog up the registry with keys.

For the same price as an Audigy (or less), you can pick up a M-Audio Audiophile or the like. It won't have the surround sound outs and it won't have the Hi-Z mic input (you're expected to have a preamp for low-Z mics). And, it won't have mini-plugs. What it WILL have are fairly stable ASIO drivers that AREN'T locked into any specific sample rate and fairly standard connections. And, the install won't run roughshod through the registry.

The way I see it, the problem isn't with NI and other products' difficulties with Creative cards; it's the fact that Creative advertises the Audigy as a serious recording card that's the problem...

But, that's just my opinion.

ew

 

Affects all Native Instruments products, currently running Protools 7 HD, but it affected Protools 6.9 as well, on a Dual 1GHz G4, tried OSX 10.3 and 10.4.

 

HI,
Checked it out on all of my computers. I have two Macs (both run Tiger but use different core audio drivers). No problems. Both have the latest version installed. No notes hanging, no crashes. Some silly issues when using multiple instances of Absynth (not host app specific since this happens with DP and Logic). NOthing as bad as what some of you guys are describing though.

I was also able to get it working with Windows XP (SP II installed) and if anything Absynth 3 was the only music app that I could ever get working with Windows (I'm using an IBM ThinkPad 3Ghz 512 RAM. Reason for not being able to use some music software is my visual disability and the fact that I have to use screen reader and magnification apps which don't work too well and cause crashes when I use music apps). No issues. An occasional crash related to some parameter changes and intense parameter tweaking but nothing that can't be avoided.

Hey, anyone else experienced weird program change related issues when using OS X Tiger and openning multiple instances of Absynth 3 with either Logic or DP4? I wonder if that's a common bug too.

It's as if the selected instance ignores MIDI PC messages all for sudden. The work around is to open the plug-in editor window for the selected instance and then it wil work. However, once the edit window is closed the problem might come back on again. THis only happens with Absynth and not other AU plug-ins though.

 

The program change behavior's a known issue on both platforms- it happens with VST and DXi on Windows as well .
Thanks for chiming in here

ew

 

I also have the hanging tones problem... (update to 3.0.2 didn't help...!)

Powermac G5 DP 2.5 GHz
2.5 GB Ram
OS X 10.3.9

PT LE 6.4
digidesign 002
KAT Mallet Trigger

 

I have stuck notes when playing Absynth 3.0.2, plug-in as well as standalone, on an iMac G5 1.8ghz, OS 10.4.3, with a variety of MIDI interfaces (not used at the same time): Presonus Firebox, M-Audio Ozonic, Evolution MK-361C. Some firewire and some USB, but the MIDI controller is obviously not the only problem, because I *also* get stuck notes while rendering files in Live 4 (haven't rendered any Absynth yet in Live 5). USB vs. Firewire vs. Brand of soundcard, etc. should make no difference to a bounced file, correct? I hope NI can fix this, because I would LOVE to use Absynth for live playing, but there's no way I would try it at this point.

 

Sure it could make a difference; if the plugin's not getting a note off on the MIDI track due to power interruption while recording it'll render to audio the same way.

ew

 

Maybe I wasn't clear: the rendering problem happens when bouncing a project down to stereo, having nothing to do with real-time control. This happens even if I have no MIDI devices connected, no MIDI inputs active and draw all my MIDI notes by hand (I did things this way before I bought a MIDI keyboard). If having an audio interface active during the render causes an interruption, then I'd expect to hear this often with all kinds of tracks, not just Absynth, but this is not the case.

 

OK... if you're drawing your MIDI track notes in by hand completely, then it would be completely an Absynth issue.
Thanks for clearing that up.

ew

 

I also am having stuck/hanging notes problems.

It seems fairly obvious to me that it's an Absynth problem and not a "my rig"/USB/FW problem because none of my other softsynths (NI or otherwise) exhibit this behavior.

I would lump this in the "annoying" category. Moreso because Absynth is amazing. Really stunning synthesizer.

My rig details:
AMD 3200+ CPU
2 GB RAM
MOTU Traveler Firewire interface
Generic Firewire I/O card w/Agere chipset
PS/2 Wireless Keyboard
Wireless USB mouse (though it also happened with a plain old USB mouse)

Happened in SX3, haven't noticed in standalone.

 

I also have the hagining notes problem, but can't seem to find any logic when it happens ... yet ...