Matthew Sorrels

It's speakers https://output.com/speakers

In the ASIO driver settings, which you can get to from inside Cakewalk though I usually exit Cakewalk and change the settings outside in the driver control panel. I'm not sure the Onyx Blackjack is very well supported, which might explain why it's handling things so badly it crashes. You don't say what version of Windows your running but the driver and it's config is certainly the problem your describing. Normally 512 should be reasonable for some synths, but it all depends on the ASIO driver really. You also may need to make sure your laptop and OS are configured correctly for highest performance and turn off all the USB power management features. But even with all that it may not be enough to do what you want with that computer and audio interface. Lumina and Session Strings 2 Pro are both very computationally complex Kontakt instruments. But start with making sure you have the more recent/best ASIO driver. Set it to the highest ASIO buffer you can. Then configure you computer the best you can. If you are running Windows 10 this guide isn't bad: https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/pc-optimization-guide-for-windows-10/ For Windows 7: https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/pc-optimization-guide-for-windows-7/

Before I login the site is showing it as $329 discounted to $199. After I login it lowers the price to $129.99 and in my account I have a link to buy it for $99 with my SHMC product entry. So it's either a $100 discount for previous users or just a $30 discount. I guess with my monthly voucher ($50 off $75) it brings it to $49. To be honest I'm not sure it's worth it. $29 maybe.

From Gearslutz just now: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-product-alert/1294566-plugin-alliance-shadow-hills-mastering-compressor-class.html Available exclusively via Plugin Alliance, and enhanced by Brainworx with patent-pending TMT and more, we are happy to add this plugin to the growing line of Shadow Hills plugins. The Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor Class A Limited Edition is one of the most exclusive and powerful compressors ever built. Vintage King released the Class A in 2012, limiting production to only 50 units! The VCA section is much punchier on this version. Brainworx added even more features to the emulation of the already modded hardware version. The RED version is punchier, faster and more versatile than the GREEN. With the limited-edition Shadow Hills Industries included an updated Class A discrete compressor section utilizing Lundahl input transformers as well as hand wiring each compressor with Mogami Cable, an important factor when Brainworx Audio modeled one of these limited units as it gave the limited edition version a different character to the original. During rigorous shoot-out tests against the Shadow Hills Industries Mastering Compressor, our pro audio engineers observed time and time again that the Class A features a smoother compression sound, punchier VCA, a more pronounced sonic dimension and overall larger size and perceived depth. Another interesting difference between the Shadow Hills Industries Mastering Compressor and the Class A version is that with the gain set to identical values on both units, the Class A version clocks in roughly 1 to 3 dBs higher, matching the emulated hardware and as a result, delivering a thicker and richer tone to whatever is running through it. For this limited edition, Brainworx included its well-known retractable Extra Unit. The BX Extra Unit provides the following features: Brainworx´s TMT (patent pending Tolerance Modeling Technology), MS - processing, Mono-Maker, Stereo Width, Parallel Mix, Sidechain Filter continuously variable 12 dB per octave high pass filter and a Headroom parameter. Visually, this version can also be distinguished by red LEDs on the front panel versus the green ones found on the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor. GREEN for the Drum Buss - RED for the Master! Upgrade for GREEN version owners: If you already own the green Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor you`ll get the new RED edition for $99 Added to the MEGA Bundle at no extra cost. https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/shadow_hills_class_a_mastering_comp.html

One other thing you might have to deal with, ProjectSAM's Lumina has the Max Voice count set to 256, but for a lot of the stories it's really easy to exceed that if you play fast notes, which causes Kontakt to kill voices and things to sound bad. It's not the popping/cracking/freezing your describing but it's still a problem. The solution is to raise the Max Voice count. Drove me nuts when I first got Lumina.

Your ASIO buffer is too small. Kontakt and lots of complex soft synths are going to need a much, much higher number than what you'd use for recording. Try 1024 or 2048 for a buffer size, whatever your interface's highest value is.

Am I the only one that wants a Main Out mute button? Why don't audio interfaces with headphone outputs have some way to mute the mains? I must be doing it wrong. So many new interfaces none with mute buttons or dim buttons. Like older interfaces had.

But will it be a game changer? I totally need more game changing.

One of the emails they sent mentioned that you'd get coupons if you owned any of the synths that were bundled into VV3. So if you had already bought some of the new synths stand alone.

These both came out at the end of 2011. A walk through where he never shows the instrument UI even once, crazy! If this was a bundle of more recent Tarilonte libraries it would be a lot more interesting. There is an upgrade to Ancient ERA Persia from Desert Winds. Not sure this is a great deal at these price points.

For the plugins you think weren't loaded, I assure you they are directly in the call stack of the crashing thread. How they got there, only you can know that one. The way I analyzed these is pretty mechanical. I opened each dump file with Visual Studio and opened the debugger, and read the modules off the call stack view on the crashing thread. Your audio card and it's Windows 7 support seem very suspect. Not sure what you can do about that one, but it is a common theme on every project. A newer, better supported audio interface might solve a lot of your problems. But making those kinds of hardware changes (you'd really need to remove the PCI card and uninstall all it's drivers to be clear of it) is kind of difficult. A good cheap USB interface can be had for well under $200 these days. For 32 bit plugins I can't tell what they were, all you see is the bitbridge in a thread in the crash dump. There is a VST inventory tool (search the forums) that will list out 32 bit plugins registered in Cakewalk. I also seem to remember some utility that you could run on the Cakewalk project themselves that would list out the plugins being used in that project not sure if it can tell you about 32 bit plugins you are using. Reverbs for specific effects can be pretty hard to narrow down. But I'd give up on the older 32bit only stuff, no matter how perfect you think it is. You could always sample the reverb with a convolution reverb to get something like it. I've not had a lot of luck with that personally but the theory is pretty decent. You might also try using jBridge instead of the Cakewalk bitbridge. Though to be honest I don't think any of your crashes were directly due to bitbridged plugins. it's just they tend to make projects slightly more unstable. I wish there was some common crashing component in your crashes, those are a lot easier to assign blame. Your problem is almost surely something outside of the Cakewalk/plugin area though -- device drivers/OS issues.

Looks like they have updated that help page with more plugins. Some of the posts they have made on VI kind of rub me the wrong way. Their Innosetup installer handling of the VC runtime is almost criminal . They run it in quiet mode without the no restart flag so it actually will log your account out of windows without asking. But rather than own up to it and fix it they try to make it sound like it is awesome. https://vi-control.net/community/threads/pluginguru-releases-first-plugin-unify-for-intro-price-of-59.88913/post-4493067

Tried again this morning with some monitoring, the plugins that were causing it to restart in an endless loop turned out to be the Focusrite Midnight plugins, Midnight EQ 64.dll Midnight Compressor 64.dll Which were right after MidSidePlugin.dll. I don't think Unify is force updating the progress bar text so you can't see what is failing accurately by the text it shows. After removing them it did finally make it through my VST2 list. Didn't seem to like VST2 Amplitube 4.dll and a few Plugin Alliance plugins (fiedler audio stage) but it's restart on crash handler worked for them (unlike the Midnight stuff where it just got stuck). Not sure how to get it to retry those. Only option is to remove them from the list. Wish it had a bit more control. The right click menu's that list plugins are really kind of bad for my collection to. Needs more search oriented UI to be useful. Rescanning seems to look at the same plugins that it should already know about and not need to rescan (so it's not very fast). Doesn't seem to like the iZotope DLL organization very much either (iZotope uses a wrapper system where the plugin is one file and the actual code is a separate DLL that isn't a normal VST) A good plugin scanner will report the iZXXXX.dll files as not being plugins (or ignore them completely) but Unify reports them as being VSTs but that don't work. To be honest I'm not sure this result is all that bad really. I have 20+ years of plugins. It's common for VST scanners to fail. Really doesn't seem to like Waves plugins very much. I have Mercury plus but the list of Waves plugins that made it though is pretty small:

Last night I tried to have it scan my VST plugins. But was never able to get it to finish my VST2 directory. It keeps restarting and never stops. Let it run for about 2 hours while I had dinner. It did make it through my VST3 plugins. For me it makes it to MidSidePlugin.dll (part of DDMF's Metaplugin) and then restarts, scanning the same plugins again and again. The online help page has some interesting bits about plugins that it doesn't work with: https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=troubleshooting

Away in the Manger - Cradle Song 28_12142019_194730.dmp Crashed in Dimension Pro x64.dll God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen New 11_11242019_210407.dmp Crashed in FabFilter Pro-Q 3.vst3 What Child Is This 53_12222019_014053.dmp Crashed in Drumagog5.dll 076 Symphonic O Come, O Come Emmanuel_12092019_213449.dmp No plugins in the call stack, just Cakewalk. A lot of Omnisphere threads and two BitBridge threads, so at least two 32bit plugins (not a good idea) 082 Emmanuel with audio and new piano 07_01022020_203417.dmp 082 Emmanuel with audio and new piano 09_01042020_202412.dmp Auto-save Copy of Silent Night 27_12222019_212014.dmp Away in the Manger - Cradle Song 34_12192019_013807.dmp Away in the Manger - Cradle Song 37_12192019_211608.dmp Away in the Manger - Cradle Song 40_12272019_231328.dmp Away in the Manger - Cradle Song 46_12282019_214312.dmp There are all pretty much the same as 076 Symphonic O Come, O Come Emmanuel_12092019_213449.dmp Just Cakewalk in the crashing thread (so no clear guide to what caused the crash). Bitbridged plugins. There are a lot of plugins in these crashes though, any one of which could be the problem. I also see a loaded copy of Intel's math library libiomp5md.dll which comes in dozens of versions, I know of a few plugins that require one version of it and will crash with another, since it's shared and not version controlled. But tracking that down is nearly impossible. I only vaguely remember the crazy games I went through to sort that out. Away in the Manger - Cradle Song 45_12282019_194812.dmp Crashed in Synth 1 VST64.DLL Hark The Herald Angels Sing 06_01012020_174536.dmp Crashed in Pigments.vst3 It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - GB 39_01052020_151210.dmp Crashed in Kontakt 5.dll Silent Night 27_12222019_202317.dmp No plugins in the call stack, just Cakewalk A few bitbridge plugins. No intel math library threads. But otherwise a lot like the above crashes. What Child Is This 53_12222019_004139.dmp Crashed in TriLeveler2.x64.dll One thing I think is true of all these crashes is you are using a lot of plugins that use OpenGL. I'd start with my video card driver. Do a full clean uninstall/install of the most recent driver you can find. Your audio driver seems to be ASIOEchoPCI.dll but the version you are running says it's v8.06.0.0 dated 11/22/2011 but I see Google hits for a v8.5 That might also be something to look at (though the 8.5 ones seem dated earlier than yours) I'd also install every single one of the Microsoft Windows Runtime files and then reboot. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads Plus I'd do a full Windows Update and install every last update you can. But with this many different plugins crashing and the kinds of projects you are running you are going to have a very hard to narrowing it down. The best you can do is update every thing, uninstall everything you don't need (system utilities/crazy apps/etc), try and narrow the crashes down to repeatable steps. Also dump the 32-bit plugins, getting that stable with the number/variety of plugins your projects are using is almost surely a lost cause.

I picked up Unify this morning. It and Patchwork don't really have that much in common at all. Unify is firstly a synth rack, it isn't even an effect rack at all (doesn't show up as an effect plugin). Patchwork is more for effects routing than it is for synth setups (though it can do both). I don't think I could use Unify to do anything I do with Patchwork or vice versa really. Other than the hosting plugins they really are two different kinds of things. Unify is a bit like DDMF's Metaplugin (which I also have) in fact some of the UI in Unify looks a lot like Metaplugin (maybe they are using the same GUI toolkit?). Odd Unify doesn't have a Steinberg VST ownership bit in the about box. And the open source site they send you to doesn't list any licenses yet either. So I can't tell how it was built (yes I look very closely at how software works/is built/what it uses). Unify is interesting, has some very nice presets. Though I think building your own using it may prove to be a bit too much work for me. The installer is a bit goofy. Wanted to reboot my computer after it was done, which seemed odd. Has no way to specify where to install the plugins (lucky for me it's defaults are the dirs I'm using) and has very confusing directions on how to move the default library location, instead of having it be something you just specify in the installer. In fact right now all my complaints about Unify are 100% installer related. Now that I've played with it a bit I wish it had some better internet focused preset exchange system. That's a hard nut for small companies to crack though. But I can't see me building my own presets all that much. And it doesn't seem to have any way to update the patches/etc other than drag and drop installing? Might be it's weakest link -- the lack of online preset updating functions (maybe that will be coming, along with the marketplace/store I'd guess). Not sure how to update the software either, doesn't seem to have anything to check that. The way it blends a bunch of free vst plugins along with it's own sampler and other non-free bits is very impressive though. I'm not sure I'd call it a game changer, since it is like a lot of other products (see Rob Papen's Explorer's Prisma). But for a first release it's pretty nice. It's not clear on the website what the final price is going to be. I'm guessing from the video the $59 is an intro price and it's not going to be put on sale in the future. I think it's a good move for PluginGuru though and plays to his strengths. Should be an interesting ride though.

Account transfers are almost always a bad idea from a purchaser point of view. You can't legally buy an account, unless the vendor permits it. Any transaction like that could be voided at any time in the future. Account transfers to avoid vendor fees are not only not legally invalid but may also be illegal -- dodging the fee might be considered fraud/theft. Though only a court might be able to work that out, but in general it's not a good idea for either the seller or the buyer. When buying something, if the seller insists on Paypal friends and family, walk away as fast as you can. See this recent thread on KvR for an example of why: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=537108 And yes it does mean that when selling you may could find your Paypal transaction disputed (though I don't think it's all that common trick, since it's a crime and is illegal also). This is why you shouldn't sell to people with no post history/no reputation. Documentation of the transaction can help, but in general Paypal isn't anyone's friend and the audio software/library trading area is full of scammers.

Fast bounce starting with Play version 5 and up has been pretty much broken. It's not new. There are a few threads (sadly I seem to be post in many of them). There are no real solutions. If you put your samples on fast SSD drives and load everything into ram (if you can even do that) you might get it to work, sometimes, maybe. Which of course is the real problem, you do the fast bounce and it sounds mostly OK, so you assume it worked. It's only if you look/listen closer you realize it's not always playing release tails on some samples/instruments, sometimes. This "sometimes, it mostly works" leads people to believe it's good, when it really isn't. It's also not just a Cakewalk problem (though Cakewalk does seem to have a harder time with it than Cubase).

It's already there, EzKeys and Drums. Links are in the first post.

Put your crash dumps (zip them up) on a file service (dropbox/Google Drive/what ever) and post a link to it. Someone (maybe me) will generally open your crash dump with a debugger and tell you what crashed. I can't guarantee it will be useful, but it might give you a direction to look. Doesn't really matter if Cakewalk is or isn't supporting Windows 7, your crash is almost surely going to be a plugin or device driver, but knowing what is crashing can often help. You could also send the crash dumps to Cakewalk or you could download a copy of Microsoft Visual Studio and open the crash dump yourself. Other ways of analyzing the dumps I don't really recommend, apps that claim to look at dumps rarely are that useful -- you pretty much need to read the call stacks by hand to get any decent picture. To save time ask yourself these questions: Am I using any 32bit plugins? Have I updated my audio and video card drivers and everything else I can (yes with Win 7 that's difficult but not impossible). Can I reproduce the crash using a minimum number of steps? Can I reproduce the crash repeatable with a specific project in a specific way? Software doesn't normally crash randomly (the kinds of hardware failures that would cause that will cause all kinds of problems in every app you run and just Windows itself), so you can play detective and work out how/why it crashes.

I don't think there is any upgrade path from the single products, other than M1LE.

The Triton demo is pretty awesome. Even I was impressed with all the sounds they included and the resizing GUI. The only thing wrong with it is the pricing and the crazy store they make you use. Since they really aren't offering any deals for me, I guess I'm going to wait. I'm far too stubborn to buy it without a deal. Maybe something will come up.

I think the only discount path from nothing (or just the iOS versions) is to get M1LE and then use the $199 upgrade. I'm not sure if they do license transfers/etc (so I'm not sure how easy to buy the M1LE is) And I'm not sure how you'd get M1LE (without buying some hardware). You might be able to find someone selling it unregistered though (check KvR). There doesn't seem to be an upgrade path from the single synths to the collection. The other KORG stuff isn't bad, but it's very tiny UI makes it pretty hard to use on my 4k monitor. The Triton is the first synth that has resize options. You could just buy it for $199 directly and skip the other stuff.

You may also want to try increasing your ASIO audio buffer size. Cbb and Cubase drive the ASIO engines very differently, it's possible if your using very low latency settings it might be causing the crash in Cbb and Cubase (which handles ASIO problems slightly better) wouldn't. The crash dump though is what you really need to have analyzed, it may offer more clues about why it's crashing for you and not for other users.

Works fine for me too using Cbb 2019.12 and Pro-Q 3.11 Pro-Q does use OpenGL which can cause problems with video card drivers, you may need to update them.