Some troubles on the mac

I have installed it on my Mac G5 2x2, and at the moment (I never expect much of an 1.0 version) it's unplayable (though the samples that I could hear are very nice
- if I play just a few notes I get lots of clicks and drops and "late notes"
- if I try to activate the reverb section, it crashes immediately
- it takes a very long time until a piano is loaded (3-5 min?)

In LogicPro the CPU-meter isn't very high, but I get the same clicks and drops and crashes as above.
It's a G5 dual 2 GHz, 1,5 Gbyte memory, OS X 10.3.9, latency in Logic 3 ms (128 samples @ 44,1 kHz, Logic 7.1)

So lets see what 1.1 will bring...

Juergen
www.nana-productions.de

 

ok, I found some more information:

I have version 1.0.0.014 and I guess that's not the latest version, because I don't have a recorder/player (no matter which view I choose), the L<>R button is in the "position"-section and not in the title bar as mentioned in the manual, and there is no "distance" menu in the position-section.
So is there a latter version? Didn't find any on your website :-(

Juergen
www.nana-productions.com

 

You know, I can't believe these issues. Not only with this product, but also with Kontakt 2. I am a software technician (my real job) in Higher Education. Before we deploy any software to the user community, we test it thoroughly. The way we do this is: A test lab- We have one of each model Windows machine and Macintosh (desktop and laptop) that is on campus. These models consist of all from the last four years. They have different processor speeds, ram configurations, etc. There are also several versions of the OS on each platform tested. If the software that we plan to deploy doesn't run flawlessly on all machine types, we simply won't deploy it. Otherwise, it would be a support nightmare for us. I can't believe that a software company wouldn't do this as well. If the specs on the product box claim that it will run under a certain OS, processor, ram, disk space, platform, etc., then it should work. If not, then the product is still in beta and we; the consumers are really doing the leg work to be the beta testers for the product. I would like to also think that they would test their product within all the host software on the market. If it doesn't run under a certain host; it should be stated. If it doesn't run under a certain version of a host or a certain revision of a host; that should be stated as well. Anyways, this is just my opinion. The bottom line is that you expected to have a useable product to use in music production. The creative flow stops everytime you have to stop and troubleshoot. That is the engineers job. Not the consumers.

 

Sadly it just sounds as if the problems are the same as the ones I have with Kontakt 2, as if they had never even tried to fix the Kontakt 2 engine for this new product.

Thank you guys for the warning, I will be waiting for a fix (else I would have bought something like this piano right away).

 

Ok, meanwhile I found the player/recorder-window...

But: I've been watching the memory in the activity-panel while loading the Steinway into the Standalone-Version (I've got 1,5 GB):
It says, Akoustik Piano uses 1,25 GB of physical memory, and
2,94 GB (!!) of virtual memory.
And it was clear to see, that as long there is free physical memory available, the loading-process is rather quick. As soon as it has to use the virtual memory, it slows rapidly down (my loading times: 5:20-6:30) - it's no wonder, because the HD has to copy 3GB (from the sample files to the memory file)...

I thought it would load just the beginning of the samples, and stream longer notes from disk?

It's written on the box:
"Highly advanced audio engine including Direct from Disk functionality"

and on the AkoustikPiano-website they say:
"The Direct-From-Disk technology minimizes the use of RAM storage space. When using a large amount of sample data simultaneously the "DFD" technology ensures that your RAM doesn't overload. Piano samples are read directly from the hard drive allowing you to play instruments in a much higher resolution than would otherwise be possible. For example, a 3 GB sampled-piano could then be played on a sufficiently powerful computer with as little as 512 MB RAM, so long as the hard drive is fast enough."

Any idea anyone? Anyone from NI?

 

While I wrote the last post, I got a mail from the support who told me to look if there are any "NI_DFD 1.3.0 extension"-files in the "library/application support/Native Instruments"-Folder. There weren't any, and since I put the files there (they were in the mail attachment), AP runs flawlessly, load-times ca. 10sec, latency 3ms under logic, no crashes on reverb, etc.
It seems to be a bug of the installation programm.

Now I'm happy ;-)

 

Hi,

This is a known issue with the CUSTOM INSTALL method. If you choose CUSTOM INSTALL from the installation type menu the necessary DFD and IRC extensions will not be installed! This will undoubtedly cause performance issues as you have described. For this reason we recommend to use EASY INSTALL. You can always delete unwanted components later, such as VST, AU, or RTAS.

For users who have already installed the software via CUSTOM INSTALL, the two extensions are available (as .zip) on our updates page after logging in.

Best,

Dan@NI