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From: Martin Holmes on 22 Dec 2009 20:52
Hi Rick,

I'd just like to thank you for posting this, especially all the careful
detail. I just took delivery of a brand-new 64-bit Windows 7 machine and
a VStudio 100 yesterday, and I'm just getting going with installing
stuff; it's really helpful to see what you've been experiencing, and be
able to avoid some headaches for myself.

Cheers,
Martin

Rick Paul wrote:
> I finally got some time to install some more stuff for my Win7 x64/SONAR 8.5
> x64 environment. In no particular order, here are my latest experience
> along these lines. Some might even be applicable to Reaper users. ;-)
>
> I installed the SONAR 8.5.2 patch. Had a session yesterday from about 11am
> to 4pm, and then was using SONAR beyond that (without stopping it or
> starting it all that time) for another 3+ hours. Didn't notice any hiccups
> in all that time. Not that I was doing anything all that complex. There
> was audio guitar track recorded at another studio, then I was overdubbing
> various softsynth parts, doing lots of stopping and starting while trying to
> figure out what the client wanted, then some editing, and eventually a rough
> mix. I will say, though, that it took me FOREVER to actually get the 8.5.2
> patch to download on my DSL. It's not that the DSL is slow (though it is
> compared to cable), but rather because the connection got lost pretty much
> every time, sometimes with only a little more to go, other times soon after
> starting. I tried IE, IEx64, and FireFox, all with the same results. The
> only difference was FireFox actually has a pause and resume control on their
> download thingie, and, if I noticed the connection wasn't doing anything
> soon enough after it stopped doing something, I could hit Pause, then hit
> Play, and it would resume. However, that was really touch and go on how
> long I could wait, and I missed getting it at least somewhere in each
> attempt through the first 12 or so attempts before finally getting one to
> work. No fun on a download that takes something like 40 minutes of real
> time on my connection. (I think it was 372 MB.) Why couldn't they provide
> it on an FTP site or something so I could just use a program that would
> automatically resume!!!
>
> Unfortunately, the 8.5.2 update did not fix the problem with EZ Drummer
> loading its sounds. So I guess that means relying on Toontrack's fix,
> hopefully coming soon....
>
> Antares was offering a pretty good short term upgrade price promotion on
> AutoTune Evo, so I broke down and bought that as a fix/workaround for not
> having been able to get AutoTune 4 VST working with BitBridge or the DX
> version of it working via DX Shell. I haven't had the occasion to actually
> try the new version yet to see how I like it compared to the older version,
> but there are a lot of useful enhancements, and the upgrade price ended up
> being livable.
>
> I think I'd mentioned previously having issues with Dimension Pro not being
> able to locate its samples. It turns out this is a known problem with a few
> potential workarounds. The easiest one is to run SONAR as Administrator.
> That worked, so I didn't bother with the other alternative which was much
> more complex to set up. I still didn't get the VST version working, though,
> and that is the one where I thought I might have screwed something up in
> moving directories around. I'm not going to worry about it for the moment,
> though.
>
> I'd also previously mentioned using DXi Shell to get some 32-bit DirectX and
> DXi plug-ins working as VST plug-ins in SONAR x64, but also detecting some
> sound-oriented problems in iZotope Ozone 3 when working that way. Messing
> around with that a bit more today, I think I have a somewhat better idea of
> what is going on, and it isn't unique to Ozone. In particular, on the
> parametric EQ within Ozone (and possibly other modules, but that is where I
> noticed it), if you drag the gain on an EQ band past 0dB in a positive
> direction, it snaps to the lower extreme of the control, not allowing
> positive gain values at all. This almost certainly explains the dull sound.
> I also tried a Sony Sound Forge Plugin (Smooth Enhance), and saw the same
> exact thing happen with its single control, which should go from -5 to 5 for
> enhance (with smooth being the negative values). As soon as you get past
> zero in the enhance direction it snaps back to -5, which should really be
> called "dull" instead of "smooth" at that extreme value. This is not unique
> to SONAR. I found that the same thing happens in Ableton Live, which is a
> 32-bit application, so it's also not unique to 64-bit host/plug-in
> interfaces. Just thinking about what could be going on there behind the
> scenes, it wouldn't surprise me if it does relate to assumptions being made
> in the size of floating point numbers inside the plug-ins and/or how data
> gets passed to the plug-ins through the VST/DX shell/plug-in chain. In any
> event, that is a real hassle for any plug-ins affected (it did not affect
> any of the Waves plug-ins I tried, so it's not like it affects every
> plug-in).
>
> Also installed and working now via DXi shell are:
>
> - Timeworks Compressor X and Equalizer from the SONAR 2 XL CD (including
> patches -- that needed some special handling to install because of the
> DirectX 8 expectation and the patch's wanting SONAR 2 to be installed)
> - iZotope Trash and Ozone 3
> - Cakewalk FX3 Soundstage
> - Waves RennMaxx suite
> - Tassman 3
> - Sony Sound Forge plug-ins (note, though, that some of these behave
> flakily, though perhaps no moreso than they did in 32-bit SONAR)
> - dB-audioware's original suite of dynamics processors
>
> One other note on DXi Shell: I'd originally just put it in SONAR's VST
> directory (which I also use for Live and Sound Forge), to not have to do any
> special per-plug-in setup. However, because it didn't change, new DX
> plug-ins added weren't getting scanned. So then I'd move it out, start
> SONAR, move it back, start SONAR again, and have to do a similar thing with
> Live, but that was a real pain. They also have a utility to wrap plug-ins
> individually, so I set that up, moving the DX shell VST and the rest out of
> my SONAR VST area, then just moving individual wrapped plug-ins into the VST
> area. The utility still scans every plug-in any time it's run, but then I
> only have to copy the ones that are new, and I can organized them however I
> want instead of having them all be under a DX submenu.
>
> The other reason I decided to do this was I was temporarily having a problem
> with scanning the Waves stuff due to something that clobbered all
> iLok-protected plug-ins on my system, and made the VST scans on Live, SONAR,
> and Sound Forge hang when scanning the Waves stuff. A reboot cleared that
> problem, and I think it probably had something to do with my attempts to
> install additional Antares plug-ins (see below), though I'm not positive at
> this point.
>
> I tried installing Antares Mic Modeler, one of my all-time favorite
> plug-ins, which is also DirectX, and it got to the point of installing and
> trying to register with PACE Interlok and hung. Since that is now an
> unsupported plug-in, with no upgrade available to something with similar
> functionality, it looks like that one will be lost for good. Bummer.
>
> I also tried installing some Antares AVOX plug-ins (THROAT, CHOIR, PUNCH),
> and they installed fine, and work fine in Live (as 32-bit plug-ins).
> However, they hang both Sound Forge 8's VST scanner and SONAR's VST scanner.
> Not sure what is going on there, though those are also now old, unsupported
> plug-ins. I think they do have upgrade versions, but I've never used these
> to any significant degree -- I only got them because they were freebies as
> "upgrades" when they discontinued support for other plug-ins I had (Kantos,
> Tube, Mic Modeler).
>
> On the 32-bit VST front, I installed the entire ElektroStudio suite of
> freeware vintage synth emulations, as well as the TAL Juno 60 emulator
> (U-No-62) and a freeware Mellotron emulator called TapeWorm. All seem to
> work just fine.
>
> I've still got a fair number of plug-ins to go, though most of those are
> ones I don't use all that much, and some of those are ones I'm
> procrastinating on reinstalling due to their having big sample libraries
> (read "long installation times"). With the exception of the Toontrack
> stuff, I think most all my mainstream stuff is installed and working.
>
> I still have not gotten around to trying the Win7 Professional XP
> compatibility mode stuff. There are a couple of large downloads for the
> components of that, and I still haven't determined whether they do or do not
> attempt to resolve the problem with running 16-bit Windows applications. I
> think I've gotten most of my old 32-bit stuff working without it, but would
> like to run a few particular utility programs that I have (and in some cases
> are only available) as 16-bit apps.
>
> Rick
From: Martin Holmes on 23 Dec 2009 22:44
Rick Paul wrote:
> I'll be interested to hear how you like the
> VStudio 100. It's not something I'd be likely to look into in the very near
> term, but maybe someday as a mobile rig -- have to get a laptop first! ;-)

It took me a while to get it installed and working, because it was
released without 64-bit drivers for Win7; the forum info suggested that
the driver was built into the Sonar 8.5.2 update, but this proved not to
be the case, and I actually had to download it from the site. There's
still a firmware update to do which I haven't got around to yet.

The documentation also tells you to switch it over to using the ASIO
driver, which I duly did, but found the latency was pretty high. I
switched it back to using the WDM driver, and started pulling down the
latency; it seems to work fine at an amazing 1ms, but I haven't really
tested that with a big project yet. Running the audio profiler gives you
a very high latency (about 16ms round-trip), so you really have to
intervene and pull it down manually.

The control surface stuff seems to work as advertised. Haven't tried any
recording yet. Waiting till I get a few days off work to play with it.

Physically it's a very robust, professional-looking unit. So far I'm
very happy with it. It's replacing an M-Audio FW 410, for which there
are no Win7 64-bit drivers.

Managed to BSOD Win7 itself once, during a round of updates and
installs, but just the once. That's not bad for a Microsoft OS.

Cheers,
Martin
From: kitekrazy on 24 Dec 2009 10:55
Martin Holmes wrote:
> Rick Paul wrote:
>> I'll be interested to hear how you like the VStudio 100. It's not
>> something I'd be likely to look into in the very near term, but maybe
>> someday as a mobile rig -- have to get a laptop first! ;-)
>
> It took me a while to get it installed and working, because it was
> released without 64-bit drivers for Win7; the forum info suggested that
> the driver was built into the Sonar 8.5.2 update, but this proved not to
> be the case, and I actually had to download it from the site. There's
> still a firmware update to do which I haven't got around to yet.
>
> The documentation also tells you to switch it over to using the ASIO
> driver, which I duly did, but found the latency was pretty high. I
> switched it back to using the WDM driver, and started pulling down the
> latency; it seems to work fine at an amazing 1ms, but I haven't really
> tested that with a big project yet. Running the audio profiler gives you
> a very high latency (about 16ms round-trip), so you really have to
> intervene and pull it down manually.
>
> The control surface stuff seems to work as advertised. Haven't tried any
> recording yet. Waiting till I get a few days off work to play with it.
>
> Physically it's a very robust, professional-looking unit. So far I'm
> very happy with it. It's replacing an M-Audio FW 410, for which there
> are no Win7 64-bit drivers.
>


You must be out of the loop. I've been running my M-Audio FW 410 on
W7x64 and it runs fine.



> Managed to BSOD Win7 itself once, during a round of updates and
> installs, but just the once. That's not bad for a Microsoft OS.
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
From: Martin Holmes on 27 Dec 2009 23:54
kitekrazy wrote:

>> Physically it's a very robust, professional-looking unit. So far I'm
>> very happy with it. It's replacing an M-Audio FW 410, for which there
>> are no Win7 64-bit drivers.

> You must be out of the loop. I've been running my M-Audio FW 410 on
> W7x64 and it runs fine.

My understanding was that you could only get it working with some beta
drivers for Vista, which were no longer being developed. Have they now
released proper Win7 drivers, with a commitment to support them?

Cheers,
Martin
From: kitekrazy on 28 Dec 2009 10:36
Martin Holmes wrote:
> kitekrazy wrote:
>
>>> Physically it's a very robust, professional-looking unit. So far I'm
>>> very happy with it. It's replacing an M-Audio FW 410, for which there
>>> are no Win7 64-bit drivers.
>
>> You must be out of the loop. I've been running my M-Audio FW 410 on
>> W7x64 and it runs fine.
>
> My understanding was that you could only get it working with some beta
> drivers for Vista, which were no longer being developed. Have they now
> released proper Win7 drivers, with a commitment to support them?
>
> Cheers,
> Martin

Yes. I guess you didn't know they have their own forum either and many
people bitched about driver support.
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