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I have ventured back to the Dark Side... my experience thus far.

Tallisman	Date: January 4, 2007 @ 2:11 AM So, I finally got PTLE 7.1 up and running... This in itself has been a long process. I bought a used mBox g.1 from L&M. It did not come with anything but the box and a usb cord. No Worries... i still owned a copy of 6.9 but sold the hardware after completing a project ages ago. I managed to get v.7.1 from a friend, a loan until my upgrade to 7.3 arrives. So, I am trying to re-learn this application. Much of chops are still intact and I am finding myself quickly approaching the limited proficiency I once enjoyed. I figured I start with MIDI as v.7 has a number of new features that have been a long time coming. So after playing around with the demo material (all audio based - no midi whatsoever) I created a new session and began to plug away. Firstly, I was impressed by the New instrument tracks. A nice improvement in both workflow and session organisation. It reminds me of the way Cubase handles VST instruments. I initiated an instance of Stylus RMX (gotta have drums). Finally, I am able to drag the midi data from the plugin and drop it onto the track! (PTLE did not support this type of Drag and drop until v7.) So the drums are usable, at least way less annoying than the click, which, incidentally is still a royal pain in the a$$ to implement in PTLE (in cubase you don't need to do anything, but press [c] and you have click). Now I create a new instrument track (love 'em) and rewire Reason 3 to it. In Reason I create a Cannonball Adderly rhodes patch and start playing around. I save just in case. "Hey," I think to myself, "this is working and feeling way better than i remembered. Cool." So I arm the reason track for recording, engage the 2 bar pre-roll and the cycle recording options and hit go! The Click counts down from eight. It pops into record. I get a "blechp" for sound and a buffer underrun error... something about the playback engine and raising the hardward buffers blah blah blah. So I know how to fix this, but I am leery as I am expecting unusable latency from the fix. I rais the buffers from 512 to 1024 (as there is no interim option) close the panel and start playing on my midi keyboard. To my great suprise, I can work with the added latency, which was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be! I try to record again and this time, success! Cool. I add 3 more midi tracks to the PTLE session, and some more Combis to the reason rack and record away, saving after each take. After adding some extra drum hits (kick and snare), it's time for Bass. Unfortuanatly, my instance of Trilogy does not show up in the PTLE instrument list (probably needs a re-install). So I add a bass Combi to reason, flip back to PT arm the track and... Not even the BSOD, just black, blank screen and everything has shut down. WTF I ask myself as i begin rebooting. 2 minutes later, after having killed all non-vital processes that could interfere with the working of PTLE, i re-open the session and continue. Of course I have to redo the Reason rack (cause I didn't save that). I try again... I got have of the bass part in ok. Moved my in and out points and changed the record mode fro Loop to regular, arm hit record and... it's going. I am half a measure from the end of my 16 bar phrase and... black silence... reboot. And this seems to be where I am stuck. Searching the DUC for for trouble shooting tips and work-arounds and wondering how I am eer gonna get a full project done in this application. How long will it take for Tallis to resolve this glitch? Will he find love for this application that so many espouse? has he hit his track count limit on his 3.06ghz Pentium 4? Stay tuned for the next installment of "My Treck through the Dark Side..."
mocarlton	Date: January 4, 2007 @ 5:29 AM haha i dunno what to say ur a funny guy .. you went on quite a tirade on the "input needed" forum huh
evansorchid	Date: January 4, 2007 @ 5:55 AM Hmmmm....I don't know. I've been to the dark side. It was nothing like that. That sounds more like purgatory to me.....stuck.
LiQuidMetamo...	Date: January 5, 2007 @ 3:03 AM Good luck working through these bugs T - you can always rely on Cubase SX to do the job even if you can't then take it straight into a Protools HD environment. I tell ya, Digi are the biggest rip-off merchants going, keeping a piece of obsolete junk going with barely anything more than a lick of new paint each revision since 1997. Maybe try it with a Mac, I've heard people say that Digi don't care for the Windows platform and are hoping that MacINtel sales will take off so they can dump Windows entirely. Of course this could be BS rumors, but I can see why people mock ProTools 'PoorTools' 'ProFools' etc. I am not knocking their TDM based 15k system, that is where they make their hard cash anyway, but LE and M-Powered are just so poor in comparison to Sonar, Cubase and Logic... I pretty much concur with this survey... http://www.digitalmusicdoctor.com/shootout/shootout_summary.htm
Tallisman	Date: January 5, 2007 @ 4:40 PM I love that survey. As much as I hate to see the Daw Wars fueled, I must admit a certain sense of pride whenI see the way Cubase does. Not sure really why pride, but nevertheless. So after trying all the modifications and tweaks mentioned on the digidesign web site, and furthermore checking to insure compatibility, I decided that a complete reformat and reinstall could hurt the situation. That process is nearly complete - what a pain in the a$$. I always lose something valuable despite diligently checking that everything is backed up. I am hoping that this go'round the only thing lost is the 5-6 hours it takes. I must admit I have drooled over some of the new features highlighted on the digidesign website... there are some goodies:
Tallisman	Date: January 5, 2007 @ 9:21 PM go here to see some the nifty, new feartures I'm talking about... well, new to PTLE anyway.

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