Subject:ACID + East West = issues. Need help

Posted by: Faith Granger

Date:5/31/2010 8:06:05 PM

Hi guys, quick intro, my name is Faith Granger and I am the filmmaker for cult indie hot rod film DEUCE OF SPADES. Coincidentally, I am also the composer hence my posting here.

Using East West for the first time, have tried it both with Cubase 5 (disaster) and now ACID (much better but not working right yet).

Bare with me as it is possible that I may have done a few things wrong, or made rookie mistakes BUT after talking to my friend who is an expert and seasoned user of EW, he confirmed that my problems are "weird" (I quote) and don't' seem to be something I did.

I have a deadline to complete my score and keep getting glitches with midi tracks. This is preventing me from getting my work done :( . I am in desperate need of some help, and was unable to reach tech support as of yet. SO I am turning to you guys :D

SET-UP INFO:

1. Computer: PC 3 GIG ram, dual core, very fast, I edit high res video on this computer so it's very good. Have windows XP pro 32 bit.

2. Interface: using MOTU 2408 connected to Mackie board 16 channels for audio tracks. Recording in analog 3 & 4 output set to 7 & 8. (able to record audio tracks NO PROBLEM so everything is setup correctly in ACID).

3. MIDI: Using only ONE VST instrument: East West GOLD orchestral brand new in box.

4. Average number of MIDI tracks: For light underscoring so far I have not needed more than 2 to 4 midi tracksi. But I am getting ready to do my grand finale score and that will require more.

WORK FLOW IN ACID:

I activate a "soft synth", select PLAY, go to browser, select the sound I want, assign it to a midi channel, create a midi track, assign input to my midi keyboard, output to PLAY and make sure track midi chanel matches that of the instrument I want. I then make sure my keyboard can play it and sound is correct.
(Please let me know if all above steps are correct).

Due to my needing only but a few tracks so far I have not needed to have two instances of EW open at the same time. I load up the 4 sounds into PLAY each assigned to its own midi channel. (Ex: 1, 2, 3 & 4)


PROBLEMS: (there are many, I'll try to keep it short if I can)

1. Communication between keyboard and EW[. It is unreliable. One minute works the next does not. I'll create a midi track ,do all above assignments and keyboards not playing EW. Midi track is correct. I may have to undo and redo several of the settings until magically it starts to work.

2. Sound playback. I'll set up everything and everything is working good (ex: assigned to STRING sound). I click on something in the timeline (ex: arm record button or even click on record or even click on another track to mute it) and when I come back to my STRINGS midi track it is now playing HARP (????) even though I never changed any of that track's settings!!!! Midi channel still showing the same STRINGS midi channel. To get it to play STRINGS again, I have to do a lot of gyration, there is no pattern for an easy fix, one time one thing works, another time it doesn't. Weird and very frustrating.

3. Rendering. Many problems here :(

a- A harp midi track rendered consistently as another instrument today. It plays fine, as a HARP, but renders as some other sound. ?????

b- some tracks render with glitches. A good example: I had one midi track on a timeline and played one note. A single hit of strings, that is held for about 20 seconds long. Recorded fine, Plays back fine. When I render the project all I get is a 1 second hit and 29 seconds of silence. I redid the track from scratch in a new project and this time got it to render with about 10 seconds of sound. On the timeline it plays live fine and hold the sound all 30 seconds.


I'd be lying if I said all above is not frustrating the heck out of me. Especially since I have so little time to finish my score. :mad:

FYI: When I tried Cubase 5 with EW it was a complete disaster. Nothing worked right. I had most of above problems PLUS the midi tracks kept muting on me and the only way to fix it was to close and reopen the project - which happened every 5 minutes or so. I only had 4 tracks of midi, hardly a very impressive amount. I used 4 instances of PLAY and also tried with just one and 4 sounds loaded in that one instance, Same results, same problems. I finally gave up and now trying ACID. NOte that my entire film was edited in SONY Vegas, and ACID has many similarities with Vegas so I feel right at home using it and LOVE IT - except for midi issues.

Is there ANY light at the end of this tunnel? It's really hard to be creative when you are fighting ghosts and demons LOL.

I am willing to give film credits to anyone willing to give me a jingle to help me get past this wall. Film is already listed on Netflix. Please email me at deuceofspadesmv@aol.com if interested. Knowledge of both EW and ACID would be a BIG plus. Otherwise please post your answers and suggestions here. Please be thorough and explain it to me like I am a 4 year old. After all I am still a rookie at EW & ACID .

Many thanks!

FAITH GRANGER
www.deuceofspadesmovie.com

Subject:RE: ACID + East West = issues. Need help

Reply by: JohnnyRoy

Date:6/1/2010 3:16:56 AM

I have never used East West and the PLAY engine thing sounds very non-conventional. I did a search on the forum and came up with these posts:

Acid Hangs When Loading a EastWest VSTi

Failed vst

Eastwest PLAY & Acid Pro 7

EWQL Symphonic Choirs in Acid Pro 6

Does Acid 7 Support 64-bit PC VST

From reading these I’m amazed that you got it working at all. Then I went to the East West site and noticed that ACID is not one of the supported hosts. They support Ableton Live, Cubase/Nuendo, FL Studio, GarageBand, Logic, Performer, Pro Tools, Sibelius, Sonar but not ACID.

It sounds like you are doing everything correctly so I would say your next step is to contact Sounds Online and ask them why it is behaving strangely in ACID. If they say that they’ve never tested it, then you made a poor choice of either host or plug-in because they might not be compatible.

I did read on their site that at one time East West was Kontakt based. See if you can downgrade to the Kontakt version because Kontakt works flawlessly in ACID. Maybe you can use the free Kontakt player to play these samples? Otherwise, can you get your money back and purchase something like Garritan Personal Orchestra which uses the SampleTank 2 engine (which also works flawlessly in ACID).

You may have just unfortunately selected a VSTi plug-in that isn’t compatible with ACID. :( I wish Peter would weigh in here and tell us if ACID has ever done any testing with East West PLAY? I wish I could think of something else you could do but you are doing everything correctly.

~jr

Subject:RE: ACID + East West = issues. Need help

Reply by: jackn2mpu

Date:6/1/2010 4:16:02 AM

Unfortunately the older version of Symphonic Orchestra Gold (the Kontakt version) is no longer available and the sample set that ships with the Play engine will not work with Kontakt. Play is problematic in hosts that it supposedly works with. In Pro Tools, for example, if you use an Ethernet-connected control surface Play will not work; actually it's not supported is what EW/Doug Rogers says.

Jack

Subject:RE: ACID + East West = issues. Need help

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:6/1/2010 12:22:25 PM

Is ACID Pro 7 being used? Garritan's ARIA for ACID Pro comes with it. Might help if you're in a pinch to get something orchestral in there.

Film looks pretty good, BTW.

Iacobus

Subject:RE: ACID + East West = issues. Need help

Reply by: Faith Granger

Date:6/1/2010 3:58:53 PM

What I did is download the free demo, which I assume would be the brand new, latest version of ACID? (sorry I'm not at home right now and can't physicaly check). Am I to understand that some sound samples come with it? or only if you buy the boxed version (as opposed to the download)

Has anyone on this forum used EW GOLD with ACID???

Subject:RE: ACID + East West = issues. Need help

Reply by: raskiefilm

Date:6/2/2010 7:39:03 AM

@ FG:

"2. Sound playback."

I have this issue as well but I have rectified it by doing something rather simple: I have an EMU patch mixer working as my main sound for ASIO and wav. The program runs in the background. When ACID plays back the MIDI signal, sometimes, there is no sound. If I click and bring the EMU patch mixer to the forefront, the sound starts working. Yes - it's one of those magic things.

I have had no problems rendering. In fact, I'm rather impressed with how well ACID renders huge compositions with MIDI in it.

All I can say is that ACID will work with EWQL libraries. I have several of the libraries including Symphonic Orchestra Platinum. There is a ton of tweaking and patience required. I have plagued the EWQL forums with requests to support ACID. I almost gave up on ACID but realized that it would be foolish to leave such a powerful DAW. MIDI has come along way in ACID.

There is light at the end of the tunnel but you will have to fight a few of the ghosts and demons until Sony ACID and EWQL play nicely together - literally.

Subject:RE: ACID + East West = issues. Need help

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:6/2/2010 8:50:31 AM

I don't think any of the free VSTis (like KitCore and ARIA) that come with the full version of ACID Pro come with the demo. Still, ARIA is quite nice for what it is. (A lighter version of Garritan Personal Orchestra.)

You can check out a sample of a project I'm working on that uses ARIA here.

I don't use EW Gold so I can't help you there, sorry.