The Telenator.
ishkabbibleSo I have been running Podium 3.2.0 (32 bit, licensed) under Win7-x64 (3.4GHz Intel Core Quad i7-3770, 8GB RAM, SSD) for months, and it has been very stable – until recently. Now it is crashing several times / day. A typical crash begins when I return to Podium after doing something else, and find no audio and the CPU indicator stuck at some value. In the past when this has happened, I could go to Setup –> Audio/MIDI, then just press OK in the setup dialog and things would start working again. Now when I do that the OK button does nothing (doesn’t even “press”), the cancel button likewise does nothing. However, the “Driver Setup” button DOES take me to the control panel for my TASCAM US-600, where everything seems normal, and I can switch through the tabs, just can’t OK or cancel. I CAN close the setup dialog by pressing the “X”. Once I do so, I immediately save my work (which works), then exit Podium, at which point I get the dreaded “A program has stopped working – checking for a solution to your problem”. All other programs have no problems pushing sound out through the US-600, even while Podium is crashing.
I haven’t installed any new audio-type applications recently, and I only use one plugin, VDXi’s ZynAddSubFx V490 (which I also haven’t changed), so I am suspecting that perhaps some windows update has broken Podium, or perhaps some configuration file has become corrupt. On a lark I downloaded the 3.2.1 beta1 just to see if there was a fix in the works, but it has the same behavior.
Has anyone else been seeing this? Any suggestions for debugging? (Yes, I have rebooted my machine. No, I haven’t seen ANY instability in any other programs, including Audacity 2.0, which also uses the ASIO driver for the US-600.)
Thanks for any advice!
druidAt a guess, your USB device could be being powered down automatically by Windows to conserve unnecessary power usage. I seem to recall having problems with my old-ish Tascam US-144, which I think may have been similar…
But if this were the case, I’d expect other programs to have the problem too.
And I’m sorry, but I don’t remember how I resolved the problem. It’s an older, no longer supported product though, so this may actually not be the same issue.
The TelenatorI’m probably mistaken, and if so perhaps someone else will straighten this out, but I thought that ZynAddWhatever was one of the very few instruments that doesn’t work in Podium. Perhaps I’m thinking of some other VSTi. I’d know more about this, except I thoroughly dislike ZynAddEtcEtc … as being the most uninspiring synth (next to SynthMaster and one or two other bloated, complicated, over-rated instruments) that I ever encountered.
ishkabbible@druid wrote:
your USB device could be being powered down automatically by Windows
The US-600 is externally powered so there is no way I would know if Windows was doing something stupid like that, but it does have a USB indicator LED on the front that never goes out.
I *do* believe that the TASCAM driver is a bit flaky – there are times when I fire up Podium that it takes forever to come up, then gives me an error saying “can’t initialize audio interface.” I have to pull the USB connection and plug it back in to “reset” something, then it works. ANd in that case also other programs are still able to use the device, so this is a Podium-specific issue.
@The Telenator wrote:
I thought that ZynAddWhatever was one of the very few instruments that doesn’t work in Podium.
ZynAddSubFx has been working beautifully for about 6 months, until just a couple weeks ago when these frequent crashes started. ANd I am not even pushing Podium very hard with the projects I am working on right now – I only have a dozen or so tracks laid down on a couple of compositions (in a large part thanks to the issues with Podium).
@The Telenator wrote:
I thoroughly dislike ZynAddEtcEtc … as being the most uninspiring synth (next to SynthMaster and one or two other bloated, complicated, over-rated instruments) that I ever encountered.
It is the only synth I use, and I am quite happy with it. I must admit that the patch bank that comes with it stinks on ice, but since I do all my own patching I don’t really care. So far the only limitation I have found with it is due to the MIDI-centric design – I come from the world of modular analog synths where I expect to be able to route triggers independently of the notes, but with MIDI they are stuck together. I also like it because it is open source and the dev team is a friendly bunch – with their help I almost have it compiling in my environment so I can start experimenting with my own ideas on how a softsynth should work (like splitting the note and trigger paths…).
If you can recommend a better open-source synth I would be happy to try it out.
Feel free to pop over to SoundCloud and check out the stuff I am doing with it. Check out “Elephino” and “eTune Opus 1 Number 4” to see the wide range of capabilities.
The TelenatorOf course I was thinking about a couple of the pieces you have posted using ZynAdd at the same time I was knocking the synth. There are some musicians/composers, too, who swear by SynthMaster and seem to do magic with that one also, about like you and Zyn… Then there are some who think Oatmeal’s GUI is too complicated or hard to understand, yet this synth is one of my personal favourites.
Everybody seems to have at least one synth that inspires them. I see Synth1, I want to play nonstop for two hours. I see Zyn …, I want to run . . . go watch the telly or read the papers. I’m glad you can get something out of that synth. I see where certain others are keen on it too.
TrancitI don´t think it´s Podium related…
Something fucked up your windows installation…possible another software or perhaps something went wrong as you shut down your machine… there are many possibilities… that´s Microsoft…once the error is saved, it will appear over and over again
Install a fresh system and your problems will be gone…
I always make regular backups of my system disk using http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm , booting with http://www.hirensbootcd.org/ from an usb stick… copying the backup of my choice back again to the system disk and everything is new and clean again…
Takes about 5 minutes to have a fresh installation like I want it to be… otherwise I would have gone nuts several times in the past…
ZynewaveHave you checked if it happens with different projects, including some of your older projects that didn’t show problems previously?
It’s possible that you have dialed in a specific preset in ZynAddSubFx that has a license to kill.
druid@ishkabbible wrote:
@druid wrote:
your USB device could be being powered down automatically by Windows
The US-600 is externally powered so there is no way I would know if Windows was doing something stupid like that, but it does have a USB indicator LED on the front that never goes out.
I *do* believe that the TASCAM driver is a bit flaky – there are times when I fire up Podium that it takes forever to come up, then gives me an error saying “can’t initialize audio interface.” I have to pull the USB connection and plug it back in to “reset” something, then it works. ANd in that case also other programs are still able to use the device, so this is a Podium-specific issue.
Ah! Externally powered, I had missed that. In that case, I would expect Windows not to bother with it, if it isn’t drawing power through USB.
I get a problem similar to (the same as?) that with my Tascam, and not just when I use its own ASIO drivers; the Tascam (or Windows) does not like waking up from sleep or hibernate and for the Tascam to work problem free. I have to then unplug it from the computer, then replug it in. It’s not hard, but it is a nuisance.
I have to admit, since I switched to using ASIO4ALL, even with my Tascam, I haven’t had driver problems. Just hardware problems. I’ll be avoiding Tascam in the future as hard as I possibly can .. which is a shame, because I think, on paper, their USB interfaces look useful and their price reasonable, more or less. After dealing with their support, however, and even offering to help them (not realising they didn’t care because they were about to release the US-144 mkII and thus were discontinuing support for the original), their complete lack of care, their dismissal etc etc … I just gave up and vowed to never give them another cent haha.
Anyway, I hope you get your problem sorted! I haven’t had any Podium-specific issues with the Tascam that I’m aware; though I think Podium has been a little more sensitive to it at times, I’ve had issues with my Tascam with all programs at one point or another, since I switched to Win7 (64-bit) from XP.
ishkabbible@druid wrote:
I’ll be avoiding Tascam in the future as hard as I possibly can
Yeah, I can’t say I have been overly impressed with this unit. 🙁 I bought it because it was on sale at 50% off, making it a REALLY good deal for price vs. functions, and I had high hopes because of the brand name. I used Teac tape decks for editing back in the days of yore and they were extremely good, but I fear they have lost their recipe in the intervening mumble mumble years.
I will try removing the TASCAM driver and installing ASIO4All to see what happens.
ishkabbible@Zynewave wrote:
Have you checked if it happens with different projects, including some of your older projects that didn’t show problems previously?
It’s possible that you have dialed in a specific preset in ZynAddSubFx that has a license to kill.
I just finished up a project last night that I had last worked on before the problems started. It did seem to be more stable. I will continue watching the crash frequency vs. project to see if I find any correlation (fortunately I have 3 other projects in various stages of incompleteness, so I should be able to gather some statistics)
The TelenatorOur Days of Yore indeed! Yes, the Tascam issue is a real shame, as ‘back in the day’ anything Tascam, and Teac and Fostecs, too, for that matter, were always solid hardware workhorse units for those of us who hadn’t had much opportunity to work in fully equiped studios yet. Tascams were the original Home Studio mainstays!
I hope you are able to figure out what is the trouble. On other hardware I made a switch to ASIO4ALL instead of using the unit’s own dedicated ASIO and got much better results. Good luck with all this!
Cheers!
Tele