4.1 RC3 bugs found

[John Mayfield]

Hey Merging Guys!

My name is John Mayfield. I own Mayfield Mastering in Nashville TN. I'm not new to Pyramix but I am new to the forum.

I've been on 4.1 RC3 for about two weeks and these are the problems I've found:

1. If I hit the save button after writing a note in the "notes" area of a project, it shuts down PMX.

2. Upon shutting down PMX, I get the folowing Windows 2K messages:
#1 "<process has already exited> has generated errors and will be closed by windows - need to restart program"
#2 "Dr. Watson was unable to attach to the process. It is possible that process exited before Dr. Watson could attach to it....Windows 2000 returned erroe code 87. The parameter is incorrect"
(Who in the Wide Wide World of Sports is D. Watson???)

3. Plug-In Problems:
A. I tried using APHRO V1, V1Q and V1.5Q and found this result: The effect drops out completely (all source material) intermittently. The DSP guage corresponds to this drop out with readings of approx. 38 to 58%. Just installing the plug-in boosts DSP usage to approx. 50% with no sound files being played...seems there's something wrong here.
B. I used Waves Renaissance EQ Direct-X plug-in for the first time on 4.1 RC3 and it caused the following: Play-back stalls (no play at all) on the tracks that did not have the plug-in installed. The tracks with the plug-in played fine.
I had never had ay plug-in problems with 4.0.

Functions I would like added back to 4.1:
In 4.0, the EDL window gave us real-time changes in the time code read-outs and measurements of all aspects. When we altered a fade using the 'handles', the readouts of the fade length, total length, etc. changed in real time to reflect exactly what we were doing. This was a function I used every day and would love to see it returned. In 4.1 RC3, you do not see the resulting time code or measurement change until you release control of (for example) the fade tool.

4. And finally, there was a problem in 4.0 that still is hanging around...I mentioned it to G. Brown last month when he was in town.
It involves editing in the EDL window with text (numbers). I move sound files around in their time tone by typing in diferent start times. This works fine unless a seque (overlap) is created. (Yes, I'm using "auto crossfade by default" 4.1 & "overlay by default" 4.0) If a cross fade is created, then you loose the fade-out of the file being encroached on...(a "butt-cut" is created) Conversely, if you create the overlap by "dragging" the files together, all is well.

Bravo on all the improvements made from 4.0...especially in the PQ department. Let me know if you need further detail.

John Mayfield
Mayfield Mastering, Nashville

[Julian Gough]

Hi,

I have also found a few bugs. I used 4.1 RC3 to record for 1.5 hours continuous 64 tracks, 48KHz 24bit. The disc access got slower and slower and eventually the recording started droping out at about 1 hour 15mins.

I am told Merging know about this, but my dealer got an earfull anyway. It was this problem that led to a chain of events that is a very long story and eventually resulted in the lost of a whole evening's performance.

Fortunately because I am still a PMX newbie, I was running a backup on tape.

For the subsequent mixdown and edit. My dealer gave me his brand new copy of 4.1 RC4, I then found out that all rendering functions crashed the system. So I couldn't use that wonderful feature, Nova.

My clients have lost a lot of confidence in PMX. It was only the speed and quality of its editing that saved some of its reputation.

Regards,

Julian

[John Mayfield]

Julian,

No one can afford those kinds of problems. But I do believe that PMX will eventuall be a great program. As long as we dialogue with the powers-that-be and continue to inform them of all our problems, I believe we have a good chance of getting the problems fixed.
Just today, I was sitting in my control room playing back a final "tweek" on a cut for a national artist when PMX just simply stopped dead in its tracks. We all had a laugh while I re-booted. I explained that I was a beta tester and that we were still finding bugs. (I've learned to save every :30 seconds)
When I agreed to install a beta version, I accepted the fact that I was going to have problems. I don't like it, but its the only way I can get the functions that I want in a system. Believe me, I'm going to yell as loud as I have to, to get these problems fixed. If we all yell loud enough, everybody (including Merging) will be happier.

Thanks for your response,
John Mayfield

[benoit]

This is the kind of risks that you have to take in count when using beta-versions, beeing a beta-tester or not. No sense to complain about that.
There is btw a reserved beta-forum for this kind of communications.

Cheers
Benoit

[Julian Gough]

Circumstances are not always that clear cut, and sometimes you have to take the risk becuase you have no alternative.

My situation is very difficult to explain on this forum, even if I wanted to.

The fact is that I am not an official beta tester and therefore have no access to the beta testing forum. Due to situations beyond my control, I had no choice but to use 4.1 RC3 on a type of job that I would have used an official release version had one been available to me at the time. The system screwed up and a recording was lost.

It is not the end of the world, the recording was rescued from the backup, and the TV programme went to air just a few hours ago.

It is no good trying to hide these sort of problems. They've happened before and will happen again. This is what I consider this type of forum should be for, to alert people to problems, so that one person's misfortune is not repeated elsewhere.

I have no problems with the concept of beta testing. and I would be happy to continue to work with beta versions. As long as I am still able to return to a known working version when it really mattered.

Regards,

Julian

[Graemme]

Hi John,

Welcome to the forum!


Did you also send this report to "bugs@merging.com"? If you are using beta software (and don't have access to the beta forum) that is the place to send your bug reports.

I can't recreate your 'Notes cause crash bug' -it's fine here. Are you doing anything other than just typing text? Which font are you using? Does that font work in other programmes?

Why, Dr. Watson is Sherlock Holmes associate...<g> Seriously, ignore those error messages. I mean, I know that something is wrong, but all that info apparently is no help to the Merging programmers.

Do you have a license/key for AphroVerb? If you don't, it will intermittently mute itself. This plug-in uses a lot of DSP, btw.

As far as the Direct-X plug-ins go, what sample rate are we talking about and how many plug-in 'instances' are loaded? How fast is your computer? Which CPU?


Regards,

Graemme

Hey Merging Guys!

My name is John Mayfield. I own Mayfield Mastering in Nashville TN. I'm not new to Pyramix but I am new to the forum.

I've been on 4.1 RC3 for about two weeks and these are the problems I've found:

1. If I hit the save button after writing a note in the "notes" area of a project, it shuts down PMX.

2. Upon shutting down PMX, I get the folowing Windows 2K messages:
#1 "<process has already exited> has generated errors and will be closed by windows - need to restart program"
#2 "Dr. Watson was unable to attach to the process. It is possible that process exited before Dr. Watson could attach to it....Windows 2000 returned erroe code 87. The parameter is incorrect"
(Who in the Wide Wide World of Sports is D. Watson???)

3. Plug-In Problems:
A. I tried using APHRO V1, V1Q and V1.5Q and found this result: The effect drops out completely (all source material) intermittently. The DSP guage corresponds to this drop out with readings of approx. 38 to 58%. Just installing the plug-in boosts DSP usage to approx. 50% with no sound files being played...seems there's something wrong here.
B. I used Waves Renaissance EQ Direct-X plug-in for the first time on 4.1 RC3 and it caused the following: Play-back stalls (no play at all) on the tracks that did not have the plug-in installed. The tracks with the plug-in played fine.
I had never had ay plug-in problems with 4.0.

Functions I would like added back to 4.1:
In 4.0, the EDL window gave us real-time changes in the time code read-outs and measurements of all aspects. When we altered a fade using the 'handles', the readouts of the fade length, total length, etc. changed in real time to reflect exactly what we were doing. This was a function I used every day and would love to see it returned. In 4.1 RC3, you do not see the resulting time code or measurement change until you release control of (for example) the fade tool.

4. And finally, there was a problem in 4.0 that still is hanging around...I mentioned it to G. Brown last month when he was in town.
It involves editing in the EDL window with text (numbers). I move sound files around in their time tone by typing in diferent start times. This works fine unless a seque (overlap) is created. (Yes, I'm using "auto crossfade by default" 4.1 & "overlay by default" 4.0) If a cross fade is created, then you loose the fade-out of the file being encroached on...(a "butt-cut" is created) Conversely, if you create the overlap by "dragging" the files together, all is well.

Bravo on all the improvements made from 4.0...especially in the PQ department. Let me know if you need further detail.

John Mayfield
Mayfield Mastering, Nashville