Merging Technologies

I have just built a new system with the intention of upgrading finally to ver 6. I was given a key to test out ver 6 for a week or so and I have been underwhelmed. Does anybody else still get pci latency errors or playback stalls? I had not had these in my ver 5 for a long long time. Help on these forums helped isolate the problem to needing to reseat my cards. My last system was ten years old and the pci slots were getting pretty loose . Anyway I am getting a stall when I open up a project and maybe one more in the next ten minutes. After that it seems ok. I have been watching everything and all seems fine. The log area makes me worry because it shows warnings constantly. Every start and stop leaves warnings about TC interrupt missed and/or audio buffers missing. The program has even just exited to the desktop suddenly and I have had one BSOD.
I built this computer solely for pyramix and relied on the information on their website with recommended configs. I only have the hardware/parts they use and no other software is installed. I used the Asus p7h57d, i7860 setup.

This has been frustrating to me, but not something I couldn't easily deal with. The big problem is that while I am doing this "test phase" I have been trying to get a quote from the dealer I have used for all things pyramix (Strassburg Associates in NY) and it has taken a month. I still have not gotten an answer as to what I wanted will cost. I have since (23 days ago my temp key expired) been unable to work. I could just get a upgrade key, and start working, albeit in a handful of days after the key is generated and passed along to me, and if they could get around to it. My dealer says that the pyramix guys are on vacation for a month. So I ask when are they back." Should be back this week." So why have I not heard from you on this, its late in the week and you thought they would be back. " Looks like they are at a trade show." "Should be back after that." Well, I am still waiting, because I have not been given the quote, and without it I cannot simply say that pyramix is going to be what I should continue using. If they come back with a quote asking for another $11,000 I do not see it happening. Demo was not stable enough, and I missed this past months work. At least I got a vacation out of this....- just like merging

Any way, I wanted to know if using the pcie cards eliminated these warnings and errors I get( I still use the pci versions). My dealer says yes, But lately.... he seems to be in the dark.

I have really been getting turned off by the "optional" costs involved and find myself wondering why am I paying for all of these things that seem to be basic standard features to ALL other DAWs. I have been in pyramix since 4.0. I was never informed of a "pack" and purchased keys with regards to what I needed at the time. Now I would like to have the option to use a sample rate above 48khz. They want me to pay to switch me over to a regular music pack with my other non music pack keys and fill in the holes, by buying keys in the pack I will never use. The cost of using this system keeps seeming more and more expensive. The keys are not cheap and it seems you buy the key, and then pay again for it as you upgrade it. I have this pro tools interchange key that does nothing for me. I bet I have to pay to upgrade that garbage if I want to upgrade to ver 6. (How about a refund ) I wanted to upgrade to 6 because my vst's will not work in ver 5. Glad to see that they did load and work in the brief demo I had . Ok, so I can not get vsts on busses unless I get masscore. More money. ?All other DAW's can do it? So how much is this masscore? "well how many I/O are you using?" "Looks like for you it will be another $2500." WHAT?!?! Just to load vst's on a bus! Insane. I do see all the other things masscore can do.....A big mixer....and whatever. But, I was fine with what i had for processing power after paying for these overpriced mykerinos cards. Sell them on ebay was the response my dealer says after talking to him about masscore.

So how about native pyramix then? Should I just sell the myk cards and get some rme hdspe cards and be done with it. I could have vst's on busses. Seems like a lot less money being thrown away. The way they go on and on about masscore being so great, it makes you think that the computers quad processor is way more powerful than a couple of myk cards. Should handle everything right? 48-56 I/O at 96khz.

Well, loaded windows 7 as the operating system on my new computer for the trial and future upgrade to ver 6 and now I am really stuck. I can't go back to pyramix ver 5 with this OS. I have been waiting for a while and getting a very bad taste in my mouth after such an investment.

Pro Tools seems like such a better route. Am I wrong? It has been a while since I used Pro Tools, and I do like the editing and workflow in pyramix. What in your opinion should I do? I really am lost as to what I should do. Should I speak to a different dealer? Man I wish merging was here in the states.

Nick,

Specifically what are your requirements? Although I do have Masscore I believe that unless you are doing huge video or film post production Native will now handle most things. There have been huge improvements in Native in the past few years.

As for support from Merging, I have had excellent response times especially from the Bug Reporting page. I agree that this is not the same as getting a quote through your dealer but it does show that the company is responsive. Maybe you should try contacting the international sales department directly.

I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to ProTools - although it is a long time since I used it. The Pyramix workflow is so much better for the style of work I do. Perhaps contact someone else who is using Merging nearby you and see if they can recommend another dealer.

Best of luck
Larry

Hi Nick,

I would echo Larry's questions & comments, plus offer the following:

1. If you are getting latencies and/or playback stalls - with a Myk. system (whether or not Masscore) - we would want to know much more about the nature of your typical projects (track count, sample rate, and plugins). A version 6 single-Mykerinos card non-Masscore system on a rig such as you describe should be capable of recording & playing back a lot of tracks, even at 2 FS. Graemme Brown had offered a useful suggestion to some of us who were having difficulties after the initial upgrade to V6: build new templates from scratch, rather than recycling templates built in V4 or V5. Maybe this will help.

2. The fact that you've had even one BSOD indicates you have a critical hardware issue with your system, unrelated to either OS or Pyramix. You say you just built this system...I would begin swapping components one at a time until you narrow down the culprit(s).

3. You should not need to upgrade to pcie Myk cards, I have two V6 systems still running very happily with ten-year-old pci Mykerinos cards (plus two native V6 systems, also running perfectly).

4. I don't run any VST plugs in Pyramix, I'll let other users comment about that.

5. Lastly, I will say that I'm also in the NYC area and have been very well-served by Strassburg Associates over the years. Whatever they don't know can generally be answered quickly with an email or phone call to Switzerland. I can see you are frustrated & I sympathize...but before you give up on a great DAW (& go over to the dark side) I suggest you first get to the bottom of what appears to be a hardware issue. I've been using V6 for over a year on four different systems (one Masscore, one non-Masscore Mykerinos, & two Native) and have achieved an awful lot of productivity.

Tim Martyn

If your dealer is not answering questions then consider jumping ship and call independent Audio, they have a full pricelist online and can proably serve your needs.

Thanks Larry and Tim. My setup currently is an MB4 w/ MADI and a MB1 /ADAT on windows 7. I have 4gigs of ram, the previuosly mentioned MB and processor. 2 WD black 1TB drives and the 4350 sapphire video card. I have opened projects from ver 5 that were a pretty good size, 50 tracks or so at 48khz. No vst's, no automation, just the tracks and upon opening the warnings happen. What does everyone see in their log view. My dealer says to ignore this. I have only had a few stalls, normally one in the first few minutes of being up and running and then that is it. Does not want to stall after that. I still see warnings in the log though after every start and stop. I had made a new session, mounted some new tracks (8 wav files around 14 minutes each at 44.1khz) and the same behavior is still here. I did one time have a ethernet cable attached that was not networked at the time. I did not want to misplace the cable and connected it to both my computers and left it until I could get around to it. Thinking about it, that day, pyramix was waiting like 8 seconds for almost every other move or click. Could that have been a problem? I do not see that kind of behavior any more since the cable is now not just sitting there plugged in. That day was when it also exited to to the desk top.

My previous system never had one BSOD and that system was ten years old this year. I do not know where to start in figuring out what caused this. Tim, you think it is a hardware problem, like I plugged something into the MB wrong when doing the assembly? I do not know what it could be if it isn't the software. Everything is attached and installed as it should be. What would be an example of something you would look for being wrong?

The last few years of using ver 5 were great for me. It was the most stable system I have ever used. It never crashed, always worked(outside of having to reseat the cards once in a while) and just felt great. I just want this new system to do the same with ver 6. I do not really want to go back to pro tools but I need to get to work soon. I hope this is a simple user error and I can get these log warnings to go away. They make me uneasy to the stability of the system, add to that the exit to the desktop and the BSOD and I do not feel like dropping more money to do the upgrade. I know somebody has the same basic config as I do, This was taken from mergings suggestions. Are you experiencing any problems.

Regarding my dealer, Strassburg Associates have been really good to me. Always great to call and at least get an opinion from. This is the first time where they can not seem to really get an answer for me. They are waiting on merging to answer their emails.(maybe they should place a call)

Hi Nick,

Quick question - was the BSOD a "STOP screen"? And was that ethernet cable present when you saw this?

It doesn't need to be plugging something wrong on the mobo...it could be faulty RAM or another component. I'd start by doing a RAM test (such as memtest86 unless someone has a better suggestion). Begin by swapping components which are easy....RAM, graphics card, hard drives (both system drive & media drives...if one of these is faulty or in any way intermittent I would think it could lead to the type of warnings you're seeing).

If you're working with less than 64 tracks at 1 FS, I think your non-Masscore 1-Myk. card system is powerful enough (until you begin loading in a bunch of VST or VS3 plugs).

I know exactly what you mean when you describe your comfort level with that old, solid machine...with a bit of detective work I'm sure you can locate the bug in your new system.

Tim

Thanks Tim,
I appreciate the help. I am not sure what you mean by a "stop screen". I believe the ethernet cable was present at the time. I have removed this and so far so good. Just curious, what does you log say when you open a project, play, and stop it. The log is the last thing bugging me, outside of this stall that happens when I open a project sometimes.

So far all the components are good. Hard drives- check. Ram- check. Graphics card- check.

Hi Nick,

Ignore those log messages unless Merging tech support asks you to report their content. They were only really designed to scare people like 'fl'... (insert evil laughter here...)

You should be able to use ethernet without issue...My audio files are on a server that is networked to my PMX computer. Make sure that you have the latest firmware installed for the motherboard chipset, if indeed the ethernet is built-in to the mobo.

Graemme

Thanks Graemme,

I will ignore these.

Hi Nick,

I just built a system based on the same components as you and it has been very stable. I'm running V6 Native, and XP, so there are certainly differences, but you shouldn't be having these issues. I'd like to add a few additional points to Tim and Graemme's excellent suggestions.

1.Have you gone through the process of optimizing Windows 7? I'm not familiar with windows 7 (still on XP Pro), but there are a number of resources on the web that provide step by step instructions on how to streamline the system, Sweetwater being one.

2. Have you run DPC Latency checker to see what your system is doing without any applications running?

3. Did you download the latest drivers for the video card? On my system, it was a significant update.

Hope this is helpful.

Rick Jacobsohn

Thanks Rick,

I am going over everything today. Double check all drivers for everything today. Do you have the same MB? What slot do you have your graphics card in? What slot(s) are your mykerinos in?

Nick

hi Nick,
yes these all good points. Rick mentions drivers, and in my experience missing & outdated drivers have been the problem with every unstable Pyramix rig i've ever worked on - especially the video card. i've worked on a few run windows update (then disconnect from the internet), check the device manager, perhaps even a employ a registry error checker. on the latter, i use & highly recommend ccleaner - http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner this allows you to backup your registry as a just in case measure. hopefully you'll be well on your way to a stable rig soon. as Tim said, don't go to the dark side if you don't have to!
cheers,
-c

Hi Nick,

Yes, it is the same motherboard. The video card is in the uppermost slot, not in front of the computer now so I can't give you a number. I'm running native, so no mykerinos cards.

Rick Jacobsohn

Thanks for the help guys, I have been able to get this system to function for the last day and a half with out any problems. So far so good! My last problem still is getting some kind of response from merging to my dealer so I can make a move on either buying or "going over to the darkside". I have been waiting far too long and I can not understand why they will not respond. Is merging on some kind of hiatus? 40 days and counting.

My understanding is that Dennis Gaines (Independent Audio) is on his honeymoon. I'd suggest you send an email to support@merging.com, mark it urgent, & tell them what you need.

Tim