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Hi

I recently purchased the Galaxy II and Vintage D Piano Libraries from Best Service. All is well except when playing the Vintage D in standalone mode there begins to be audio dropouts after only 20-min. I'm having to reload the patch each time using (Restart button) but this is temporary until it returns. The library was installed on an internal 7200-RPM drive using a Macbook. I then dragged the library to an External 7200-RPM drive in the hope of solving this, but even on the external drive running nothing but the library I'm still experiencing audio dropouts.

Not being familiar with this app would i need to go in to Kontakt to modify settings ? such as buffer size or Voice Management ?


Macbook 5.1 OS X Leopard 10.5.
Intel Core 2 Duo. 4 GB RAM.

Here's a little trick for dropouts:

Run this on your system. http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

It is safe, I have run it on my own computer. This program finds what is taking the processing power that is blocking your audio stream. Simply run the program and follow the instructions on the link.

have you turn all power saving off on the laptop - I know on my dell I had to set it to high performance or i had clicks etc

Keep in mind that the OP has a Mac.

Is latency an issue on the Mac? It's my understanding that it usually is not.

Also, Bane: that latency tool is for Windows, not Mac.

Good call, mitzysman, on the power-saving/performance settings. I don't know whether that applies to the Mac. It's certainly a consideration on PCs.

I actually have this exact same problem on Windows 7 64-bit. All my other (bigger) VST plugins are fine, like Ivory II and other Kontakt patches like Imperfect Samples and The Giant. But Vintage D is the only one that starts to give clicking sounds, but this only happens after around 20-30 minutes of the playing. I have to restart my VST host to get rid of the problem. I'm guessing this must be some bug in Vintage D causing this, especially if we're both having these issues across different platforms, and since my other plugins work perfectly fine.

That is a pretty old Macbook. Is it a 2.0 GHz or 2.4 GHz? You can probably fix the problem by increasing the buffer size, but that will increase the latency. You might also look at the multiprocessor cores setting in the Kontakt menu. It usually works best when set for 2 cores, but with that old of a processor you might also want to try the single core setting. However, the description of the problem (starts after 20 min) sounds like the root of the problem is that your RAM fills up and then is paged out. Look to see if more than one virtual memory swap buffer has been created and if any page-outs have occurred. That might happen if you have other significant programs using RAM at the same time.

Another thought, have you updated to the Kontakt 5 player. That might have improved RAM management. Also upgrading to Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) from Leopard might improve the RAM management.

More thoughts: I don't think that Macbook has a firewire 800 interface. If not, use the internal 7200 rpm drive while troubleshooting the problem. USB 2.0 is borderline too slow even for the Vintage D (which is easy on disk speed). You could also try increasing the pre-load sample size in Kontakt, but that could help or hurt in your case if as I suspect the root cause is RAM management. The important thing is to see if you are paging out or not.

More info: I see you weren't familiar with the app and wanted to know where to modify stuff. You make the buffer size change, the multiprocessor core changes, and the sample pre-load changes in the Kontakt Options menu. You can check for page-outs using the Mac Activity Monitor, which is a program in the Applications/Utilities folder. You an update the Kontakt Player to version 5 for free from the Kontakt website. If you wanted to update to Snow Leopard OS 10.6 that is available from the Apple Store for $19.99. Again, check for page-outs first to see if that is the problem.

Oh he's running Mac. That's why he's having dropouts!

Try turning your Wi-Fi card off, that is, if Macs have those. I've never owned a Mac.

If you are referring to key-press to sound latency, then yes, my understanding is that the Mac comes with low latency audio drivers as standard. However, that utility (above) is not measuring that latency - it is measuring the general latency of the system processes, which can in turn then affect the audio streaming. (and yes, ultimately require the audio buffer to be increased to avoid problems, which of course does increase the note-on to audio latency) I just wanted to make it clear that that utility is not directly measuring the note-on to audio latency.

(and yes, it's for Windows anyway)

Greg.

How much free RAM do you have?
I am running Vintage D with Kontakt 5 on a pretty old dual core laptop with win 7 x64 and only 2 Gb of ram. I found that setting the Instrument Preload buffer size to the max of 240kb (under options->memory) helps a lot. The "memory" section of the Vintage D module should show about 0.81Gb with halfpedal, silentkey and una corda selected.

I sometimes get clicking noises or dropouts after the computer resuming from sleep, but that is solved by reloading the module. Apart from that it is fine even with fast playing lots of notes across the whole keyboard range.

Note that this buffer is for the preloading of samples into memory. It is not the same as the buffer size for the sound driver, which you will want to keep as low as possible because it affects latency. (I use 256 samples which gives < 10 ms latency)

When you get a clicking sound, watch the top right of Kontakt as you play some notes, if the CPU or DISK bars turn fully white at any time then that is your problem. With the preload set at max, you should not have disk load problems if you have enough RAM to hold all the samples in memory.

Hope this helps.

LOVE the Vintage D sound!

Thanks for that extensive info Macy, and to everyone else for your support.

Will not be altering the buffer size due to increased latency issues.

Multiprocessor is set at dual core.

Will reset the sample pre-load size and see if that helps ?

Also noticed K4 provides another option for loading samples in to memory using the KMS feature, could this be another option ?

Do i need to be running a library in K4 to confirm page-outs in Activity Monitor ?

Tried upgrading to Kontakt 5 from the NI website
but got confused about the time limited demo mode.
Can i not upgrade from K4 to K5 permanently instead of the demo version ?

As I understand it, that demo mode limitation in Kontakt player does not apply to a valid Vintage D install because Vintage D is affiliated with NI. So the demo version should be all you need.

The way this is worded is confusing (to me at least). If you have a valid registration number for Vintage D it will release Kontakt from demo mode. Without the registration number it would run in demo mode. It doesn't really have anything to do with a special relationship between Galaxy and NI. It would work this way for any vendor with a product that was designed to work in the Kontakt player. The player is free and only works in demo mode when the plug-in is not registered.

1. What is the buffer set at? Maybe it's way too small now.
2. Try with and without multi-processor on. It might work better without it on your older Mac.
3. But first Update to K5. The Player mode is NEVER a demo. You only use the Player mode with Vintage D. The same downloaded app file is also a demo of the full-version. That makes no difference to you.
4. Use Vintage D normally and check the page-outs before and after you start getting audio drop outs.

No, the Vintage D has nothing to do with releasing Kontakt from a demo mode. The App is a Player (never in a demo mode) AND a demo of the full version. The Player is all you need for the Vintage D. You don't need the full version for the Vintage D and the Vintage D will NOT unlock the full version.

I do not have Vintage D but I have other plug-ins, including Galaxy's (NI) The Giant, which behave as I described. The Giant runs in demo mode in Kontakt until it is registered. If Vintage D is any different I stand corrected.

Kontakt player is a player as you said but it is not a true demo of Kontakt full. It does not even matter whether the player is a demo of the full version or not. It has additional purposes and is utilized for more things than merely a demo product. The difference between the two involves the way plug-ins are written to operate with each plug-in's libraries. I am referring to plug-ins and how they work in one or the other.


NOTE: I had reworded the post Macy quoted after returning this evening. Apparently Macy was quoting the original post at the same time. Upon seeing Macy's post I restored my original post which I had written this afternoon. My reasons for rewording the post were to eliminate a direct reference to gvfarns post and to simplify my statement (in case anyone saw it all unfold and wondered).

Listen to Macy.

In the context of this thread, there is not interest in the full version of Kontakt (which has tons of added functionality like building your own software piano). When we say Kontakt here we almost always mean Kontakt PLAYER, which is free. The interest in this thread is using the player without demo mode restrictions. Kontakt player works without restriction on registered NI affiliated libraries like Vintage D and the Giant. For other libraries it works in demo mode.

The FULL Kontakt will play anything without the demo mode restriction, but almost no one in this forum is referring to that version. It's very expensive and few here use the additional functionality. If you have it for some other reason, it works, but it has not been referred to in this thread except by you, Ampy.

This is a rather nasty tone of a response.

I was referring to the player until Macy brought up the full version.

I have no way of knowing what most people think of when they say Kontakt on this forum.

Frankly, the point you have made is irrelevant and inaccurate.

Kontakt full does NOT function as you described.

Look, Ampy, you keep being very emphatic about saying wrong things. That will naturally irritate over time, and it's getting worse. Let's go back to what I was referring to before.



and also your implication that Kontakt full will not play unlicensed libraries. Refer to the table on this page. It very clearly indicates that the full version will play 3rd party and unlicensed libraries and that the player will not play either (outside of demo mode).

There have been a number of 3rd party VST's designed to work with Kontakt that we have discussed here and we know that they will not work with Kontakt player regardless of their registration status (the first to come to mind is cinesamples Piano in Blue, but there are tons). I also have the personal experience of playing unlicensed and 3rd party libraries in full Kontakt, so I know you are wrong on both points. How you got that incorrect understanding I cannot imagine.

A 3rd party library (in case you remain confused) is one that is not NI affiliated, even if it is designed for Kontakt. It is that affiliation between Galaxy and NI that gives Vintage D (and other libraries that work with the player) the ability to be played outside demo mode

It's ok to feel like people are picking on you and get your feelings hurt, but if they are doing it because you are wrong and keep trying to "correct" people who know what they are talking about, it is very foolish to keep insisting that you are right without researching the matter further. So please don't.

Very very petty.

You are getting inference and implication confused. I have not suggested most of what you twisted around and what I did say you misunderstood.

Brain damage. You certainly implied exactly what I said you did. If you had previously inferred it, that's also wrong, but it's your own personal problem. Had you not shared that incorrect inference here, no one else would have been subjected to it and there would be no confusion on the matter.

But anyway, if you did not intend to say what I quoted you as saying, then that's good. It's just a failure to communicate. If anyone wants to know the answer to the question musicmad posed, they can ignore your posts and get the correct info from the other posters in this thread.