Hello folks,
I am not new here but this screenname is. I have been posting as Ashermusic for some time. I am a composer and author of Logic Pro books as well as a Logic Pro trainer and consultant. I write a monthly column for Film Music Magazine and I also beta test for a number of companies.

While I have no doubt that many of you are as experienced and knowledgeable as I am, and some maybe even more so, I certainly can claim some expertise.

In the last few years, frequently on forums I have endeavored to help folks with problems they have with various products I use, and defended companies and products when I felt the criticisms were inaccurate, system specific, or unfair. EastWest and its Play products have been among them.

This did not go unnoticed by EastWest who liked the (mostly) disciplined and objective way I have done so, and the company offered me a position to assist those having issues and coordinate a resolution, which I have accepted. I will ask you to believe me when I tell you that when I have written what I have in the past I had no idea this offer would be forthcoming, so profit was not my motive. I also will promise you I will never write anything I do not believe to be true.

So I will be here under this screenname to try and help you resolve issues with EW products that you are not getting satisfactory answers to and give you information that East West thinks you should know. I will continue to use Ashermusic to discuss non EastWest related topics.

Obviously, there is nothing I know and can tell you that the EastWest folks do not, but my one advantage is that because it is not my company and I have not spent the tons of hours developing products that they have, I can be more dispassionate about comments that are posted. Some of you have had issues with the company, I understand and respect that, but I believe it is a positive move they have recognized this and appointed someone to monitor and assist. I am here to serve a constructive role. So by and large I will not respond to non-specific issues, rants against the company in ad hominem attacks, but will focus on helping you achieve resolution for specific issues.

Sometimes this will help, other times it will not. One of the singular things about how Digidesign, now Avid, did their business that lead to their reputation as the most stable system was to eliminate variables. They wrote the software, designed and built the hardware, designated the plug-in formats, and tested and qualified systems. So they would essentially say to their user base, "Here is what we have tested. If you use our hardware and software with only our recommended settings, hardware components, platform and OS recommendations, we will warranty that it will work well. Any deviation from this may or may not work and we do not take responsibility for any system that is having problems that does not follow this." This could be annoying as they were slow to qualify new OS, computers, hard drive systems, etc. but it definitely gave users a good path to stability.

This is simply not possible in the world EastWest has to deal with. *There are too many different Macs, different PCs, some hand built with tons of different components by people with different levels of skill at this; different versions of different OS; different hard drives; different amounts of RAM and CPU power; different hosts; different combination of plug-ins, virtual instruments (some of them very demanding on computer resources); and yes, different levels of knowledge and skill of the users.

So there are always going to be issues that some users have that others do not because of the interaction of all these, and it changes constantly! EastWest is the industries most awarded producer, and just picked up 2 more awards last month, one being Sound On Sound "Readers Choice Award", voted by the readers of SOS over a 3 month period; the other being Electronic Musician "Editors Choice Award", so in general their products are highly regarded. However, as with all successful companies, some users have unresolved issues, and my role is to give those customers my best effort, within reason, to try and resolve these as soon as possible.

Hopefully, I won't screw it up

Jay Asher
Online Coordinator
EastWest/Quantum Leap

[email protected]

very cool! proactive support from EW!

Scott
ADK

What a great concept....users helping users and being supported by the company. I hope this is a trend.
Jay, I always pay close attention to your posts and have picked up many tips and knowledge along the way. I don't think they could have picked a better person!

Hi,

I have a question. In your opionon is it possible to run Play in Logic 32 bit and have it be reliable? Or is it pretty much accepted that Play must be ran outside of Logic in something like VEP or Plogue? I am not reffering to memory limitations. I understand that and can live with that. I am referring to crashing (not associated with 32 bit limitations) and pops in samples.

The update that just came out I have installed, but have not tested it. With previous versions Play would work fine one day and then have pops the next. Changing engines seems to be a temporary fix, if it fixes it at all. The reason the newest version has not been tested becuase of past issues. It is not trusted and can not take the lost of time.

I have ran Play in VEP and Plogue and it seems much better. At the same time running Play in another program is not always an option for us. Pretty much have given up on Play being stable inside Logic and generally won't get used here for that reason.

Looking for any further trouble shooting that you would recommend. Most normal trouble shooting has been done. Also these rigs are very clean and regularly fresh installed. At the same time these issues happen on multiple rigs, with varying setups. Pretty much the only thing in common being Logic 32 and Play.

I'm pretty confident with my trouble shooting, but always looking for more tips. We use about every VI out there and Play requires the most babysitting.

Basically I am familiar with running Play outside of Logic and the benefits of this. But in situations when this is not possible, is it possible to run a stable Play in Logic 32, in your opinion? Even most of your posts as Ashermusic I see you talking about running Play in VEP, but what if you don't want to do this? Should you just not use Play then?

I have had these issues on multiple rigs. The main one being a 2 x 3 quad mac pro with 16 mb ram, with dedicated internal 7200 sample drive. Interfaces are Symphony with Rosetta 800 and DA 16x.

Thanks.

Jay,

This is certainly an interesting turn , and I am willing to give you some rope... :-)

I have a simple question, and some 2 cents.

What experience do you have outside of MAC / Logic / OSX ?

I don't need a resume, just a handle on your experience level outside of your known and noted areas of expertise.

FWIW: I don't buy the whole there are too many different MAC's , PC, O.S argument sorry, there is in fact only a handful of plugin formats and driver protocols that all the hosts operate under, sure some hosts have specific issues within those parameters , but its not some random game of roulette.

Re Operating systems, only 2 to deal with, so unless you have qualified information that certain revs/SP's of the respective O.S's cause specific issues that directly relate , then that doesn't fly.

Also in the same vein, trying to imply that there are so many combinations of PC hardware that could be a variable. That is simply Dismissal 101 in the product support handbook when you don't have the answer or are unwilling to admit liability. And before you ask, yes I have direct experience in corporate level product support for many years, I have seen that approach , and no I didn't subscribe to it. One of the main reasons I no longer consult to those companies.

I base the opinion above on this - when an end user can successfully use his chosen host/plugin/driver protocols with other plugins and VI's without issue, but experience issues with PLAY, that is not an issue with the platform O.S, computer hardware , host or driver , that is an issue with PLAY specifically.

I sincerely hope to see a distinct change in attitude in EW approach to taking some accountability to the issues being reported and a total cease and desist in the shilling practices , so I sincerely wish you all the best in your future endeavours , I'll be watching closely..

OK, first of all, I am a Mac guy not PC guy so the service pack costs are something I will have to ask EW about.

But when you say:

1. "Why is every other most simple program working on my 64bit except EWQL symphonic choirs?" can you please be more specific? Is it that it is crashing? Can you not run as much as you anticipated on your new machine? The more specific you are with your issues, the better the chance of helping you resolve them.

2. IUndertaking a conversion to a proprietary sample engine has to have been an big expense and personally I think $100 is not unreasonable. I know that there is i.e. a charge to upgrade Broadway Big Band from the Halion version to the new Kontakt version and it is $299, so this is not unusual.

Jay Asher
Online Coordinator
EastWest/Quantum Leap

[email protected]

It is certainly IMHO possible to run Play 2 with stability inside Logic 32 bit but where I have seen problems is a large number of Play instances with other engines that also use memory servers. Some of them reserve a big chunk of your unused memory so if you load Play after them you have problems that seem to be Play's fault but are basically the software equivalent to everyone trying to get on the subway at rush hour.

If you were to open Logic 32 bit and load only Play and Logic's stuff, it will be veery stable. Then if you add other stuff with memory servers it will be fine up to a point and then you may have problems but they are not Play problems.

When iLok releases its 64 bit driver and Play is 64 bit on the Mac, things are going to get a lot better IMHO.

I prefer to run Logic 64 bit, Kontakt in VE Pro's 62 bit server, and a lot of Play in the 32 bit server also because it saves on load times between projects. Plogue Bidule is also an alternative.

64 bit is the answer to many of our problems with ALL this stuff. When all the hosts are 64 bit and all our important plug-ins are (and Play is optimized for quicker loading as it soon will be) then we are all going to have a more optimal experience.

Excellent, Jay. Kudos to you, Nick, Doug, and the rest of the EW team for coming up with this solution.

Vin thanks for the rope, I will try not to hang myself

I have little experience beyond what I have listed. I do not claim to know it all as I said in my first post. But I AM willing to go the extra mile to get the answers I need.


I cannot speak outside of the DAW world with any authority but here is what I know: Mac or PC, whenever a new chip or OS version comes out, tons of native system users with Logic Pro, Digital Performer, Cubendo, Sonar, Waves, and tons of other plug-ins suddenly report problems they were not having before in lots of GS threads. Most of them get resolved later with updates. I have seen this time and time again since I started doing this in 1990.

Think of it this way. At Daniel's house, Daniel and Paul play well together. At Daniel's house, Daniel and Fred play well together. At Daniel's house, Daniel and Paul and Fred do not play well together. Yet Paul and Fred play well together if Daniel leaves the room.

This does not make it Daniel's fault, it is the interaction.

Vin, I respect that your experience may lead you to disagree. But either way, what I am here to do is help with specific issues as much as I can.

Scott, jcschild, guavadude, and kafka, thank you for the vote of confidence. I hope to prove worthy of it.

tl;dr

Are they paying you, or is this charity work?

Oh, just so you know, you are not supposed to your signature in your post body. That's against the rules from what I understand. You should use the signature function, so I won't see it. Thanks!

I am indeed being paid. Not a huge amount, but what I believe will be fair compensation for the time this will take me.

Jay Asher
Online Coordinator
EastWest/Quantum Leap

[email protected]

Jay, I believe the poster was being facetious - Win service packs are no different from OSX updates within a major rev (i.e. security/minor updates to Snow Leopard). To date, there haven't been any paid upgrades just for service packs.

His point is simply about the cost to upgrade to Play to get Choirs to work, and it still doesn't.

I was in the same position: Wordbuilder (VST/NI based Choirs) did not work on my new system in any host, for no apparent reason (and I'm quite tech savvy to troubleshoot issues myself), so I upgraded to the Play version, but it still didn't work.

I called tech support about the Choirs problem last year but the person acted as if I was simply a distraction to their day rather than a customer - no apology for the problems and wasted money, and only a generic attempt at troubleshooting (that I knew was a waste of time) - nothing else. Call ended in a stalemate - no attempt whatsoever to keep me as a customer, research the problem and get back to me, etc. Support should be constructively and positively proactive, not defensively reactive.

I had to shelve Choirs as lost investment. I bought Requiem to finish that project - worked perfectly.

It wouldn't take much to correct support calls like that and create a positive experience for the customer rather than a negative one. While this is not likely the norm, it only takes one to leave a bad taste in one's mouth.

As you know as a fellow working composer, with deadlines to meet, there isn't time to wait, and then pay for upgrades to software we've already purchased, only to have those upgrades fail as well. No one expects perfection, but some degree of reasonable consideration isn't too little to expect.

KDM, understood and please accept my statement that it no way will I try to shift responsibility to you but once again "Wordbuilder (VST/NI based Choirs) did not work so I upgraded to the Play version, but it still didn't work" doesn't help me help you. Because here on my rig in Logic Pro 9 it DOES work.

So please if you will be very specific about in what ways it does not work and with your system's specs and I will do my best to see that you no longer have to consider it a bad investment.

Thanks Jay - I only cited that as an example to support the previous poster.

The rest of the story is that I later installed it on a new PT/Win7 system, and the Play integrated WB worked for the most part, but there was a bug in that as well that prevented me from using it on the next project.

If I have time in the coming months I may try again and contact EW about it, but for now it isn't a high priority.

Let me know if you technical support with the signature function.

LOL!

OK, thanks for educating me on that. It is now in my signature and hopefully will show up.

But it is not exactly an aid to concise expression, is it?

OK, this is not a one-liner. Why is it not showing up?

What VIs use a memory server, besides Kontakt? Kontakt is not used with Play here. We do pop music and not score music. So it is usually a matter of us needing strings or a single piano and using Play and Kontakt at the same time is not the issue. More of a one or the other case. So unfortunately that is not the issue here. What other plugs could it be? The last session Play was used here had Play, few exs, one instance of arturia mini moog, one Stylus, one predator, and a few audio tracks. It was actually one of the smaller sessions around here. Hence why we decided not to use Play after issues in the past. I will dig up the old session when I get a chance. The issue we were having was pops in a simple string instrument, not a large one. Basically had to bounce many times and then edit it back together to avoid pops. Some of the pops were not even random, ie in the same spot each time, so this didn't work for those. The day before Play was being fine, but of course once it became time to deliver for mix and I opened up the session Play wouldn't work with out clicking.

This wasn't a one time scenario, but more of the screw it lets not use this till it gets reliable for us. This might be hard for you to believe but honestly Play has been the only VI we have given up on for reliability reasons in the past 4 years.

Glad to hear 64 bit is coming, but honestly until more companies go 64 bit it is not a solution for us.

Does Battery use a memory server? This does sometimes get used in the same session as Play.

VEP is not always an option here, also we would not benifit from load times. Different songs require different palates here. So the sounds don't stay consistent.

So if I can rule out it not being a 32 bit limitation issue, and not being a memory server issue, any suggestions? It just seems to me the only logical thing to think is it is an issue with play or play and Logic together. Also I would like to state Play works perfectly roughly 80% of the time. The other 20% makes it unusable here and is the only plug that gets put in that category here. Again this is not a heavy load on play, usually one instance with one instrument.

Normal troubleshooting done is fresh install of everything, permissions, trashed prefs, even tried a completely different HD for samples. What else is there to try?

Again appreciate your responses and feel a bit sorry for you for this gig, ha.

This is pretty much my exact same experience a year ago. I can figure out basic troubleshooting, it's not rocket science these days. Then even tried calling back a couple days later after I did all the basics again, basically got silence as a response.

Seriously???? Does it bother you that much? You the Fu*kin GS police? sorry, but this is just irritating...

Hello Mr Asher,

congrats on the new gig. i'm sure you will be great at it.

Well Omnisphere also uses a Memory server and Trilian as well.

Since we are both logic guys, perhaps send me a Logic project (without audio files) that was problematic for you and let me see how it behaves here. If you like I can send you one that works fine here and see how it does for you.

And don't feel sorry for me. I don't take any of it personally, it is not my company, I don't create the products, and I am a very patient person by nature. Also, I suspect I may help a few people along the way.

BTW, the 64 bit update will be free for all current Play users and it is estimated to be another 6-8 weeks for most collections. The priority will be to get them all updated and then Wordbuilder but that will take several more months to update to 64 bit.

Are you running the latest version, Max? I am not seeing that here. Send me a stripped down project where it occurs, if you wish.

Amen and thanks

Music producer, I am here to help with what I can help. As I said my big plus is that I CAN be objective because I am not as emotionally invested as Doug and Nick and am not pissed at EW due to past issues. I am not a support person per se but a communication and issue resolution facilitator (I hope.)

Not working can mean a number of things to me: It can mean " it crashes the host." It can mean "I can not instantiate it." It can mean "when I instantiate it, I cannot get sound without pops and clicks."

I may be dense but, "it will NOT run" just doesn't tell me enough to help or get answers.

I have no idea what the future holds. If EW does not like how I do the job, I assume they will fire me. If I prove to be of no help here, people will turn on me and again probably EW will fire me. If I have learned anything in my 40 plus years in the business is all that I can do is do the best I can and live with the consequences.

Once again, I am not going to debate with anyone the correctness of what they feel or think nor am I going to try to talk someone like you who has decided "I will NEVER buy any EWQL product EVER." into feeling differently. That ship has sailed.

I only hope that you and others who feel as you do will at least let me do my job and try to help those who are still open to the possibility.

Will dig up the old session and see how it is behaving when I get a chance. Unfortunately this session I can not send to you, it was the theme song for a well known movie last summer. Unfortunately I have sessions all week and probably won't get a chance to even look at it until next Tuesday.

Was mostly asking for any known issues of Play not "playing" nice with any apple hardware setups or known conflicts with other software, ie the memory servers.

I had all but given up on play. But after all this recent activity on here figured minus well try to get it to where I trust it, if possible. Time permitting also.

Also a headache with troubleshooting it is, it's not an easily replicable bug. One day I will have tons of issues, next day none.

I will try to get a session up and going and see if I can get the issue to start, that is not a session of actual work. You will have to give me some time for this because real work comes first. But also keep in mind in the past I have checked these sessions on many rigs we have at my work and the issues generally travel with the session. But like I said will come and go.

That's none of your business.

Other forums allow support for products on their premises. Stop trying to find a negative in this - people will get some questions answered and receive support. It's all good.

For F**K Sake !

Why the negativity ? So many people want help and answers to issues they can't solve... that's probably 80% of all posts on Gearslutz ! people asking for advice.

I think it's great that Jay and EW are taking the time and effort to help.

Stop being a turd

this isn't a precedent at all- Jim@SSl has been on here for a very long time, and working what seems like overtime to help Nucleus owners get up and running- I've seen a couple others on some threads with Manufacturer specific e-mails as well. It's one of the reasons I joined this, rather than a slew of manu-specific forums.

sounds like what some other softsynth company had to do recently, yes?