Zynewave.
sugesHi all,
My first post here, I started testing out Podium today. I can’t say anything about it just yet, because I have just been setting it up so far and have run into a few problems I wonder if anyone can help me out with so I can actually try to make a song in it!
I had been spending the time setting up my devices and MIDI interfaces and stuff. Set it all up. Saved the project so I could use it later. Then I went to Settings or whatever it’s called to Save All Settings just for good measure. Then the program crashed. Then I tried to run it again, and now all I have is a black screen! I can see the Project Wizard on top of a completely black background. There are no menus or anything. I can’t use Open a project… because when you select a file from the file browser and confirm, nothing happens!
So then I tried to look in the Podium directory to perhaps delete any corrupted settings files I created, and there’s nothing there except the executable and the uninstaller!
So yeah guys, please help, I’m dying to try this out, I’ve been waiting to download the beta for a long time!
BTW, I’ve been getting the “Could not open stream at 44100 Hz” message too, even though my Tascam FW-1884 can run at all the main sample rates. I found that if you swithc to a different ASIO driver (like the DirectX one) and then switch back, it starts working. Also (probably related), Podium seems to keep loading the DirectX ASIO driver for my Tascam when it first loads (I can tell because I get the “This is the first time using ASIO Full-Duplex…” message every time).
Take it easy,
Suges
jenshm – I never run into such problems even not with the first beta versions 😕
I’d say try installing it again – you do not need to save the setup- (though Podium of course shouldn’t crash upon saving it) – Podium automatically loads the last setup you used.
Before you install it again mybe you should delete the ‘Zynewave’-folder
it’s in your ‘documents and settings’-folder and there in the ‘applications-data’-folder (or however these folders may be called in english 😳 ) – do a search for ‘Zynewave’ if you do not find it manually.
(another thing you could try is to delete only the Podium.ini in this folder.
(actually in the ‘Podium’-subfolder) – this .ini file contains all the settings 😉
About the ‘could not start 44khz’-thing:
This message also appears whenever you chose mme-driver but
did not select any output. (with asio you do not have to/can not select ins and outs independently)
hth 🙂
ZynewaveHi suges,
Then I went to Settings or whatever it’s called to Save All Settings just for good measure. Then the program crashed.
Did it crash before the ‘Save Complete Setup’ finished? i.e. was pressing ‘Save’ in the file dialog the last thing you did?
I’d like to know what it is that is completely black. Is it the entire main browser window, everyting but the window frame? If you open an Object List window (press Ctrl+L) is this black also? If this is the case, then it’s because the color settings in the setup file somehow have been set to all blacks. Probably due to the crash.
To delete the corrupted setup look here: (if using W2K/XP):
C:Documents and Settings[user]Application DataZynewavePodium
Make a copy of the Podium.ini file and email it to me. There’s a chance I may detect why Podium crashed. Then just delete the Podium.ini file to start up with default settings again.
It should not be necessary to reinstall Podium. Reinstalling Podium will not delete the setup file either.
Podium seems to keep loading the DirectX ASIO driver for my Tascam when it first loads (I can tell because I get the “This is the first time using ASIO Full-Duplex…” message every time)
When Podium starts, it enumerates all available drivers on the system. This is implemented by the ASIO system by loading/unloading each driver to query its capabilities. Many have found this problematic, so I think I have to skip this method and just do a search of the registry for any available drivers. This will unfortunately only tell the name of the driver. Showing how many inputs/outputs, sample rates, etc. that each driver supports will not be possible until you activate a driver.
Don’t hesitate to ask if you run into further problems, I’m up and awake now 😉
Frits
sugesIt crashed AFTER saving complete setup. It took a couple seconds to save, then on the next click (whatever it is that you click on, doesn’t matter), it crashes. It’s happened twice so I just don’t use that menu item anymore hahah.
The entire main browser window is black indeed, Ctrl+L is black (invisible) as well.
Thanks for the path to the setup files, I deleted the .ini file as you said and everything’s working again!
I still am getting this weird “Could not start streaming at 44100 Hz” error message…my earlier workaround method doesn’t seem to work. I basically just have to keep fiddling and changing the drivers back and forth from MME to ASIO until it gets it the message goes away!
Yes I think you should just search the registry. Even though it’s probably more clean and smooth to know all the driver details ahead of time, it isn’t really necessary since most people stick to only one driver anyway once they’ve made their initial choice.
I can definitely say so far the interface is sexy. Is there any Quick Start guides or anything? I’m having a hard time figuring this all out, coming from Cubase SX.
Thanks for your assistance!
Suges
jens@suges wrote:
I can definitely say so far the interface is sexy
😆 – yes, it surely is if you can say that about a sequencer at all 😀
no quick start guide so far – I have experienced th ‘can’t start 44khz’-thing
as well… – let me think – try to ignore it – to which sample-rate did you set the arrangement?
ZynewaveI just changed the ASIO enumeration at Podium startup. This will be available in v0.92 friday/saturday. Maybe this will help with the 44.1 stream error messages as well.
What Windows version are you using? The podium.ini file you sent me seems fine to me. No black screen on my system. Saving the setup file, as you tried with the menu, does not crash either. My best guess is that something with the driver initialization on your system is going wrong. Perhaps the new startup detection wil cure this.
Is there any Quick Start guides or anything? I’m having a hard time figuring this all out, coming from Cubase SX.
I know it’s not much help to you now, but I am currently creating some video tutorials, which I hope will be available in a week.
Just let me know what is confusing. It will help me in learning what areas I need to improve. If you need a quick guide on how to set up an arrangement with plugins, there is this topic.
Frits
ZynewaveAlso:
What display resolution are you running at? What brand of graphics-card and how much video memory do you have?
The black screen can be the result of not enough available video memory. I’ll implement a warning pop-up dialog in Podium when allocation of video memory failed. This will help sort out if this is the problem on your system.
Frits
sugesHi Frits thanks again for the swift replies,
Display resolution is 1024×768 running on a Radeon 9200. I think that should be more than enough graphics power, but I could be wrong. The screen wasn’t ENTIRELY black…I could see the startup wizard as well as the grey horizontal line that runs across the very top edge of the browser window. But everything else was black.
I’ll definitely download your latest build on Saturday. My Windows version is XP Pro. Yeah I’m not sure what the problem was there with the .ini file, all I know is once I deleted it everything was back to normal in Podium.
Really looking forward to those videos.
Since I haven’t gotten anywhere yet in Podium, I’m going to start again fresh right now, and type as I’m going. Hopefully this may help you to see the average user’s–or maybe just a Cubase SX user’s thought processes as he/she tries to use Podium.
Okay my goal is to start recording some MIDI piano using Hypersonic.
Starting Podium…
Oh man black screen again! What the hell is going on?? Okay when I press Ctrl+L (I was wrong before) I can see the object browser. Any node I double-click on will bring up its properties window.
Perhaps it’s my test project I saved from before that’s corrupt? I’ll send you that right now…
Okay deleting Podium.ini.
Restarting…
Studio setup has a red arrow, setting various options…
MIDI setup went smoothly.
Audio setup threw the “Couldn’t start 44100…” errors. NOW I figured it out. It doesn’t seem to be talking to my Tascam ASIO driver nice. I click on the Tascam’s control panel, notice all the settings are messed up. Put them all back to the way I have it set up in Podium, then streaming begins.
It’s not clear what a MIDI input mapping is, but pressing the red button is simple enough.
It’s not clear what hardware mappings are, either. This is probably because at this point, I haven’t seen how the sequencer works yet. Here I have to click “I do not wish to use hardware device definitions.” since I don’t know what the problem is.
Import plugins is pretty smooth, however I would request an option to import an entire directory and its subdirectories, since all of my VSTi’s are organized into directories (so that they’ll be more organized in Steinberg products).
Used the wizard to create a new arrangement.
Now creating a track…
I’m not sure why I wouldn’t want to create a master track without bounce, all projects need to go to a mixdown wave sooner or later (I think?).
Okay the wizard’s cleared. I dismiss it.
Looking at the arrange window. Trying to figure out how to add a new MIDI track…..
Right-clicked, found Insert New Track.
Don’t understand any of the options presented except for track name and the two output dB controls (which are greyed out anyway).
Clicked on newly created track. Don’t understand what to do next.
Found Input drawer. Double clicked my MIDI input. I see now. The reason I thought at first I couldn’t use these drawers is because they are greyed out, so I thought they were inactive right now.
Clicked Map. Chose Hypersonic 1+2. A red exclamation mark showed up. An error message about missing parent track mappings to handle audio which means nothing to me right now…
Didn’t know what to do with Preset and Param.
Went back to Map and right-clicked Hypersonic to get the properties. Clicked Device is an instrument. Clicked Stereo from source and traget channels drop-downs.
Stuck.
Anyways, I’ll probably figure it out when I get some more time. I hope that “user case scenario” helped you a bit (I had to learn to document the UI experience when I went to software design school) for when you write the manual. Anyways, thanks again for all the help!
Suges
Jens,
hahah you’ve never heard that before? I always hear people calling sleek interfaces “sexy” so I went with it. As for the streaming issue, I have both Podium and my Tascam set to 44100. Thanks for your help!
Suges
ZynewaveImport plugins is pretty smooth, however I would request an option to import an entire directory and its subdirectories, since all of my VSTi’s are organized into directories (so that they’ll be more organized in Steinberg products).
I have just added it to the future plan.
I’m not sure why I wouldn’t want to create a master track without bounce, all projects need to go to a mixdown wave sooner or later (I think?).
Some users may want to work with MIDI devices only.
Clicked Map. Chose Hypersonic 1+2. A red exclamation mark showed up. An error message about missing parent track mappings to handle audio which means nothing to me right now…
Ok, the problem is that your new track is on the same level as the master output. Use the ‘increase group level’ menu to make it feed into the master track. The master track should always be the topmost track. I just noticed there is a bug when clicking the ‘Insert new track’ menu in the area below the tracks. It does not insert the track at the bottom but rather before the currently selected track. Will fix this. I will also implement that the default group level for new tracks will be set so they are feeding to the master track.
Went back to Map and right-clicked Hypersonic to get the properties. Clicked Device is an instrument. Clicked Stereo from source and traget channels drop-downs.
It should not be necessary to go into the properties for the device mappings. These are for configuring the setup of the plugin/external device, and they should be set automatically by the import. If not set correctly, it’s likely to be a bug in Podium (with the exception of buggy plugins that supplies wrong info to Podium).
I hope that “user case scenario” helped you a bit
Great help! Thanks
Frits
sugesGreat, that cleared everything up. Thanks for the replies (both on the forum and e-mail).
As a last note, I’ve worked out exactly what’s going on with this “Could not start 44100 streaming” error message. Whenever Podium starts, it sets my FW-1884 to 96 kHz for some reason (even though it’s always set at 44.1 usually). So all I have to do is go into my control panel and set it back to 44.1 and everything starts working. I hope that helps you troubleshoot the issue, or perhaps Tascam wrote some crappy ASIO drivers? Who knows. Anyway we’ll see if your 0.92 build tackles the problem as well.
Take it easy,
Suges
ZynewaveCould you go the Report page in the Interfaces dialog and create a report and email it to me? That way I may know a little more about the Tascam driver.
Frits