Jamstix and MTS ?s

[Support]

Giel, you still there?

Absolutely

I'd love to solve the problems some of you are having with Jamstix, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious big bug.

There are about 10 error reports concerning Jamstix, and they're all different. The errors typically occur in Jamstix itself (note that this doesn't necessarily mean it's not MultitrackStudio's fault).

To complicate things further: whenever I give Jamstix a try I don't see any exception errors, and I certainly don't see the whole shebang disappear.

The 4.31 version included a minor fix (a second error occurred in MultitrackStudio after a specific Jamstix error occurred).

Some people seem to feel Jamstix uses more CPU power in MultitrackStudio than in some other programs. I've been working on some things that could improve this in theory. I've actually tried to demonstrate the benefits of these steps yesterday, but the results where rather vague because Jamstix wasn't a CPU hog on my test machine to begin with.

Arghhh.... I wish Jamstix wasn't so popular with you guys


Giel Bremmers

[sinbad]

Giel,
The easiest solution would be to design your own drum plugin. There are enough good samples around.

[Mac]

Giel,
The easiest solution would be to design your own drum plugin. There are enough good samples around.

That might be easier for you to say than for someone else to do...


You sound like one of my old bosses, "It's easy, I'll just put Mac on it!"


If there is a known sequencer software that works well with Jamstix, consider using that to create the Jamstix track, then export the created track into MTS and continue with the project. "Workarounds R Us"



--Mac

[Robomusic]

That is what i am doing at the moment Mac, JS works flawlessly in cakewalk's MC3 i setup an 8 output template and do the tracks there and export them as wave files.

[SleggTheSockpuppet]

how about people say what jamstixxx does for them & mts 4.3.3 buglessly emulates the key features? would that be at all viable giels?

or, how about letting me use audio samples in the otherwise existing mts drum editor? that would be all i'd ever need

[sinbad]

Workarounds is what recording is all about. The bit about an MTS jamstix was supposed to be a joke.

[Robomusic]

Actually the multiple output is not that big of a deal in most situations, as JS has the ability to pan each drum internally and has multiple effects as well. So most of the time it is pretty solid as is.

[Support]

There's some "progress": after playing with it some more I've actually seen a couple of totally weird crashes like the ones you guys report. If only I could find a way to consistently crash it.

How do you guys typically use Jamstix? Do use the the audioM8 plugin? Do you use the jam modes, and if so, which one (audio / midi / no input) ?
Do you use a subhost, or do you just use Jamstix' own sounds?

[NystagmusE]

As I understand it, there will always be some issues with VST plugins for all different sequencer programs of all types until the specification is made more rigorously clear and standardized.

Even with the current VST standard which are somewhat flexible,...
Some VSTs use the registry, some don't. Some use their own additional data files, some don't. Some rely upon other system files, others don't.

If you take a bunch of different sequencers and try different VST plugins in them, you'll find that different sets of them work and don't work in those different sequencers. Sure, usually most of them work in all of the programs, if they are well-constructed plugins, but there's usually at least a few that for whatever reasons don't work in all of the sequencers.

As I see it, it's just a fact of life with VST plugins.

[Mac]

Some VSTs use the registry, some don't. Some use their own additional data files, some don't. Some rely upon other system files, others don't.

That's interesting, do you have any specific examples of a VST/VSTi that writes to registry?



--Mac

[Robomusic]

Geil, what i usually do is to place JS in the midi track that contains the drum patterns. i set it to jam with midi mostly, sometimes I mute the brain and let it run as a drum module. which ever one gives me the best groove.

I have done the Audio8 jam thing but that does not work as well for me. when it crashes is very random, but seems to have something to do with adjustments on the fly. While it does not crash as much in Cakewalk, it does studder and halt more there.

[NystagmusE]

Some VSTs use the registry, some don't. Some use their own additional data files, some don't. Some rely upon other system files, others don't.

That's interesting, do you have any specific examples of a VST/VSTi that writes to registry?



--Mac

LoopAZoid (drum sampler) does. I can't remember off hand of many others, but I suspect that Synth1 does since it keeps forgetting where it's bank files are stored on Vista. I have to keep opening up it's options window and telling it again where each of the 10 bank files are. Synth1 uses it's own proprietary bank storage file system. After I tell it where to look, it works, but as soon as I quit the VST host, Synth1 forgets again.

I didn't have this problem in Windows 98 SE, but that OS didn't have all the rigorous protection schemes or registry virtualization or compatibility modes.

http://www.nexoft.net/products/instrume ... pAZoid.htm (LoopAZoid)

LoopAZoid important notice

take care when re-formatting your hard disk / re-installing your OS!!!!
LoopAZoid uses a centralized list of all used samples. This is essential to provide the easy sample handling. On Windows, this list is kept in the registry, on MacOS it is written to the preference file. This has a number of consequences:

1. don't move your samples; LoopAZoid can't know about this and won't find them when your songs are re-loaded.

2. you won't be able to use your song files (*.all for Cubase, *.lso for Logic) on a different computer, even if the samples are in the same place!

3. when you re-install your OS, all your sample references will be lost!!!


To avoid these situations, always export your samples as patches, too!

LoopAZoid has it's patch import / export functionality exactly for these reasons. It's good practice to eventually make a patch for every LoopAZoid instance in every song! You can backup these patches, exchange them with others, transfer them to another computer, and they'll survive an OS re-install.

The easy handling makes the above drawbacks necessary - but it's a fair deal, if you take into account, that most of the time you don't need to bother at all about where your samples are! Instead you can just load them, with the machine finding them automatically afterwards - and everything will be just fine if you follow this guideline.

NOTE: if you have many different songs and you don't want to export patches for all of them, here is a tutorial how you can back up and restore your sample list.

[sinbad]

Giel,
unfortunately the crashes I have experienced are also very random. However, it normally happens when doing adjustments on the fly. It used to crash for no apparent reason, for instance when JS went into an idle mode, but that seems to sorted out now. It could just be a timing thing, I remember when I used to program process control units it paid to have a few time delays and hold loops in there to compensate for things that happened between scans. The trick was to find out where they were needed so as not to slow down the whole process.
But there again, maybe it just doesn't like my music
Good hunting Giel, it'll be worth it, Jamstix is here to stay.

[Support]

Thanks for the comments.

The latest idea is that loading a Jamstix in a slot that contains a Jamstix already creates a ticking time bomb. I can imagine people do this thinking "the drums are rubbish, lets try again with a new Jamstix".
Do you guys do that?

[sinbad]

Never tried that. The last crash I had occurred just when I was changing from a rock drummer to a jazz drummer. I hadn't loaded the brush kit and then down it went. Are the jamstix logs any use to you Giel?