Subject:ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Posted by: Alexunder

Date:2/28/2005 5:03:18 AM

first of all a big thanks to ATP who helped me to save my eq settings!
but there are also some other problems i want help with. i mean the drive me crazy.
1)i have acid 5, built 265, which always crashes like mad. at least every 10 minutes i get the message an error occured and all that bullshit. do u have any clue why this is happening? i have a pretty good pc with p4 3.2 200 GB HD and 1,2 G RAM. i really cant find the answer.maybe i should try another built?
2)I want to format my hard drive these days and i am afraid to go on beacuse of the possibillity of loosing the eq settings(the same problme again!). is there a way of reassuring that i'm not gonna loose any of my settings?
3)another problem i get the last 3(!) years (should have joined the forum earlier!)is that with the loop & one shot files. when i'm preview my files, somehow some of them are set to be played as one shots, and some of them as loops. thats ok but i hardly use loops so the loops feature is no need to me! i want to preview-listen to all my files as one-shot.do u know if there's anything i can do?

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:2/28/2005 5:39:25 AM

> 1)i have acid 5, built 265, which always crashes like mad. at least every 10 minutes i get the message an error occured and all that ... maybe i should try another built?

There is no other build. Yes, there are some bugs in ACID 5 and Sony is working on a patch. It’s very stable on my PC but others are not so lucky. Hang in there, the patch is coming.

> 2)I want to format my hard drive these days and i am afraid to go on beacuse of the possibillity of loosing the eq settings(the same problme again!).

Without knowing why you lost your EQ settings its hard to say. You never answered ATP’s post to say it worked or if your problem was the same. It sounds like ATP installed ACID 5 in the ACID 4 directory, which is absolutely forbidden. Let the programs install into the directory they suggest (just changing the drive letter) and you should be fine. The switch from Sonic Foundry to Sony has been a big trouble spot because the DirectX filters all changed names.

> i hardly use loops so the loops feature is no need to me! i want to preview-listen to all my files as one-shot.do u know if there's anything i can do?

So tell us why you are using ACID, a LOOP based composition tool, if you don’t use loops? ;-) (that was a rhetorical question) No, there is no way to turn looping off. That’s what ACID does. The information is imbedded in the files and ACID reads this information to determine what type a file is.

What you could do is use a tool like ACID Blotter or ACIDizer to change all your loops to one-shots on the filesystem. I think ACID Blotter will convert whole directories to one-shots. (sounds like it was made for you) ;-)

~jr

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Alexunder

Date:2/28/2005 6:14:37 AM

hello johnny!

thnx for the reply.

1)cant wait for this patch. please let me know when it comes out.
2)well, you are right here, i should have answered but i was so happy i had my settings back i almost forgot to. what happend is that i had acid 4 and acid 5 in different directories. one day i decided to uninstall acid 4 (it didnt work any way cos a hardware device drivers i guess(it was GIGASTATION that didnt let the program begin, i realised it when i took its drivers away and it worked perfectly). so i uninstalled acid 4 and when i opened acid 5 all the eq settings where gone! how i did got them back: i re installed acid 4 and the uninstalll & re install acid 5. as i understand from what you are saying is that n my new hard drive i have to install both the programs, each one in its own directory, and the settings will be there when i opoen my projects? i mean i dont have to copy any previous files or stuff like that?i guess then that the eq settings are part of the .acd file?
3)to be honest i find acid the perfect loop based software and also the best program far for audio arrangment! but i use it to construct and create my own loops!thanks for the programs mate! yeah, u r right thats excactly what i need.
4)and a last question: the last days, without a reason, maybe cos my main 80 GB HD (spletted in C:40 & D:40)is a little bit old (2 years), when i work in programs like acid or other cpu require software, afer 5 minutes the hard drives makes a strange noise like ''clickkk'' and after 3 or 5 seconds the hole systems crashes. nothing moves, no mouse or alt ctrl delete. one explanation i found is that my hard drive is destroyed cos of the intense use. the analysis on the windows show me that i have 20% of my C: section is damaged. if so i have to buy a new hard drive. but can u find another explanation?

thnx in advance.
alex

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: ATP

Date:2/28/2005 7:23:33 AM

It sounds like ATP installed ACID 5 in the ACID 4 directory, which is absolutely forbidden.

no, not at all. in fact i advised to install it in different directories, which the topicstarter did. :)

and yeah, these EQ settings are saved with the project, so if you format your system and reinstall ACID 4 (and perhaps ACID 5 after that if needed) all EQ settings in your projects will be maintained.

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:2/28/2005 9:36:35 AM

> ...afer 5 minutes the hard drives makes a strange noise like ''clickkk'' and after 3 or 5 seconds the hole systems crashes.

Hard drives should be seen and not heard. ;-) Clickkkking is NEVER a good sound from a hard drive. I would say your drive is definitely failing in some way and your best bet would be to backup any data you want to keep TODAY! Then buy a new drive and replace the one you have. Hard drives are so cheap it just doesn’t pay to gamble with them.

There are utilities you can use from the hard drive companies (and others) can determine the health of the drive. You might want to run a few and determine if its just that the data is corrupt (and the clicking is the head trying to seek for sectors that no longer exist) or if the hardware is really failing. I would just back everything up before running any tests incase the test causes the “final failure”.

If you were just getting read errors and windows freezing up then it could be corrupt data but clicking sounds are not good. I would buy a new drive. I just picked up a second 160GB Western Digital SATA drive for only $98.

~jr

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:2/28/2005 9:52:13 AM

Let me add to what Johnny said. This doesn't sound good, and a replacement should be cheap. I just got a 80 gig WD drive from office Mac for $40 after the rebate.

As to the install problem, I think it's best to let the installer put acid where the installer wants to put it.

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:2/28/2005 10:45:50 AM

As others have mentioned, backup your documents and replace that puppy pronto. You're most likely heading toward a hard disk failure.

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
Buy Instant ACID by JohnnyRoy and mD! Now!
mD at ACIDplanet

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Alexunder

Date:2/28/2005 11:20:56 AM

well guys you 've convinced me, i'm gonna have my hard drive replaced immediatly! i understand that the situation is critical and i dont wanna loose any data of course. but i am stil worried cos i remember the last time I reinstalled the hole system my eq setting where gonne. never mind....

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Martian

Date:2/28/2005 11:49:55 AM

Absolutelutely shure its the harddrive that is broken? I experienced the same thing and it turned out to be the cooling fans that was broken... All the components got too warm and caused similar stuff that you mentioned :-) Just so you know.

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:3/1/2005 10:24:51 AM

Absolutelutely shure its the harddrive that is broken? I experienced the same thing and it turned out to be the cooling fans that was broken... All the components got too warm and caused similar stuff that you mentioned :-) Just so you know.

That could be possible. Alexunder mentioned that damage was already done to his hard drive though. I wouldn't personally trust it at that point. Some damage could lead to more problems down the road.

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
Buy Instant ACID by JohnnyRoy and mD!
mD at ACIDplanet

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Illogical

Date:3/4/2005 9:10:57 AM

"There is no other build. Yes, there are some bugs in ACID 5 and Sony is working on a patch. It’s very stable on my PC but others are not so lucky. Hang in there, the patch is coming."

When is the patch coming? Acid Pro 5 is nearly unusable on my machine, which is no slouch (Gateway, P4 HT 3.2Ghz, 512RAM, Echo Mia Midi, w/XP). I get crashes all the time (especially when scrolling, but it doesn't matter what I'm doing really), presets on FX's and synths fail to load (and when they do, the name doesn't load...everything is 'untitled'), synths sound scratchy, etc...

A couple other questions:

Why did Sony remove the feature where the plug-in icon gets those three red bars under it if there's actually a plug-in in the chain? That was kind of helpful...It would be even more helpful if it did one bar for one-plug in, two for two, and three for three or more.

Why am I sometimes unable to get a parameter to go to a certain value? I often have trouble panning to 45, 60, or 75, and sometimes my volume will not go to zero on a volume envelope...it jumps from +.1 to -.1, even with right-click held for more precision and the track fully expanded vertically.

Why are the tempo-based effects set to use increments of 1/1000th as the standard? I've got a delay set, for example, to continue delaying for 2 quarter notes. I decide I want to try a 3 quarter note delay, so I hit the up arrow next to the value and it goes to 2.001 quarter note delay. Is there a setting I'm missing, cuz that is very unhelpful.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any replies, and particularly for any information about when we can expect an update.

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:3/4/2005 10:07:04 AM

Illogical,
Why don't you start a thread with your particular problem fully detailed. Unless I misunderstood your acid difficulties, you need more than a acid 5.0a update. Tell us more. What are you doing when it crashes? What else is running?

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: SonyJEV

Date:3/4/2005 10:19:30 AM

Why did Sony remove the feature where the plug-in icon gets those three red bars under it if there's actually a plug-in in the chain? That was kind of helpful...It would be even more helpful if it did one bar for one-plug in, two for two, and three for three or more.

Actually, what was removed was an indication that you had at least one plug-in that supports automation on that track/bus. I don't recall which app and version did away with it, but it may have been eleminated just to keep the UI a bit cleaner. Also in ACID 5 we have overloaded even more information on this tiny little graphic:

grey => no plug-ins
green => plug-ins that do not buffer data, introducing latency
yellow => plug-ins that do buffer data, introducing latency

red => plug-ins that do buffer data, introducing latency, but ACID is in a situation where we can't handle this, eg. ACID is being run as a ReWire device. These plug-ins are bypassed since we can't satisfy them and the ReWire master app we are run by.


Why am I sometimes unable to get a parameter to go to a certain value? I often have trouble panning to 45, 60, or 75, and sometimes my volume will not go to zero on a volume envelope...it jumps from +.1 to -.1, even with right-click held for more precision and the track fully expanded vertically.

Dragging while holding both mouse buttons depressed does not give you fine adjustment for envelope points like our faders, etc., though perhaps it should.

However, holding Ctrl while you drag envelope points locks their horizontal position (time) and may give you a bit more control. Also you can use the right click context menu "Set To..." option to set envelope points accurately.

In the particular case of setting volume envelope points to 0 dB, you can just double click the points to set them to their default value (which is unity gain for volumen envelopes).

Why are the tempo-based effects set to use increments of 1/1000th as the standard? I've got a delay set, for example, to continue delaying for 2 quarter notes. I decide I want to try a 3 quarter note delay, so I hit the up arrow next to the value and it goes to 2.001 quarter note delay. Is there a setting I'm missing, cuz that is very unhelpful.

The Page Up/Page Down buttons will change these values by +/- 1.0

Personally, I'd probably just type "3" or use a Dotted Half-Note.

Hope that helps.

--j

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Illogical

Date:3/4/2005 11:43:49 AM

thanks for the reply, good to know about page up/down, but I still think the little arrow right next to the number should do the same thing by default, with many a ctrl+click giving the finer increments. If someone is doing tempo-based delays, they're typically not looking for a duration of 2.002 quarter notes.

The double-click thing I knew about, but it doesn't help when I'm trying to pan something to 45, 60, etc...it seems very strange that these values are sometimes not available.

I didn't know what the color codes meant, thanks for the info. Either way, the value of the plug-in indicators seems to me compromised somewhat by the default inclusion of an EQ plug-in on each channel. I would like to be able to know, quickly, which tracks I've added plug-ins to, and it's virtually impossible to do so without opening every track's plug-in chain to see what's there. The same problem existed in AP4, i just thought they would've sorted it out by now.

As for the crashing, I'll start a new thread if that's the most appropriate route, just feel like there's tons of similar threads here already....I'd rather wait until the patch comes and see if that takes care of it, but nobody seems to know when the patch will be ready.

Subject:RE: ACID 5 Goin Crazy

Reply by: Illogical

Date:3/11/2005 11:14:14 AM

Those plug-in indicators are pretty useless, I'm not color-blind, but I don't thing gray and green look different enough in this setting to be useful indicators. I crank up the brightness as much as I can bare, and it's still a chore to tell the difference. What's wrong with the little red lines underneath like there were in AP4? My suggestion above (1 for 1 plug-in, 2 for 2 plug-in, 3 for 3 or more) is brilliant, if I may so so myself.

I know, BTW, that you can adjust the tint and saturation on these....it doesn't help.