FX freeze, VST-DX adapter and UAD problems with Vegas

stakeoutstudios wrote on 11/15/2003, 3:26 PM

I bought Cakewalk VST adapter to use FX freeze in conjunction with the VST versions of the Universal Audio UAD1 powered plugins, and Sony's Vegas software.

I've found some problems:

FXfreeze does not work at all with VST adapter and Vegas it seems. It loads up and shows the freeze icons, but does not appear to freeze the plugin in Vegas 4.0D

... I think FXFreeze depends on a VST transport bar, so the whole idea might be screwed... Anything the Vegas Dev team can do to help?

You can make the freeze icons flash, but stopping and starting playback does not change the flashing icon status... that's all it does!

I don't really need a plugin which only has a couple of flashing snowflakes above your plugin! Ah well, hopefully it'll work soon!

VST adapter problems:

There is a bug in the current UAD DirectX drivers causing excessive host load, hence my desire to try VST-DX adapter and the VST versions of the UAD plugins.

Various native VST plugins seem to work fine with VST adapter. However, there are serious problems with the UAD powered plugins.

For an example of the problem, do the following:

Set up two tracks in Vegas with identical drum loops.

Play them together, they should be in time.

Now add a VST-adapted UAD plugin to one of the tracks, this throws that track out of time with the other.

It seems the delay compensation does not work correctly.

Perhaps it is because the UAD plugs work at twice buffer size? There are also many buffer mis-match errors when loading plugins. Despite this however the UAD plugins work with significantly less host-load than the actual DirectX versions of the plugins.

I have tried the plugins FX-freeze wrapped and unwrapped.

I look forward to a response and hope you have a solution!

The M-Audio drivers were set to 2048 buffers.

Motherboard............ MSI N-Force 2
CPU.................... Athlon XP 2400+
Ram.................... 512MB OCZ CAS 2
Sound card............. M-Audio Delta 1010
DSP cards.............. 3x Universal Audio UAD1
Sequencer.............. Sony Vegas 4.0D
Operating sys.......... Win XP Pro SP1a
Graphics card.......... ATI Radeon 7000
Midi interface......... None
Hard drive............. IBM 180GXP 10GB 7200RPM
Power supply........... 400W Zalman
Cooling................ Standard AMD box cooler, + fans over UAD1s
Monitor................ Samsung 17 inch LCD
UAD drivers............ 3.2 (Cambridge and Dreamverb authorised)
Sound Card Drivers..... Delta_WDM_51000029 (others are same)
Motherboard Drivers.... NForce 2.03 (others are worse)

thanks,
Jason

------------------------------------------
www.stakeoutstudios.com

Comments

billybk wrote on 11/15/2003, 6:19 PM

I"ve never had success with any of the VST-DX Adapters when using the UAD-1 plugins. It's best to use the DX versions of the PPI's. Except for the native CPU munching, the DX versions of the PPI's, are problem free for me anyway. I've managed to make the best of the disable/re-enable workaround to reclaim the native CPU. According to UA, there is supposed to be a fix for this, in the forthcoming 3.3 update. Are you having problems other than the native CPU munching?

Billy Buck

RikTheRik wrote on 11/15/2003, 11:53 PM

I would have gone for Directixer because their version 2.5 supports latency compensation. The problem you are explaining (tracks out of time) is because the current VST Cakewalk adapter doesn't support latency compensation (but should be out soon because the latest patch for Sonar 3 adds this support)
For the VST transport, it is supported by the both adapters only in DXi mode :-\ It is a serious lack of the DX format.

billybk wrote on 11/16/2003, 12:23 AM

I have used both the DirectiXer 2.5 and the very latest Cakewalk VST-DX Adapter(w/ latest plugin patch), neither of which perfromed well at all when wrapping the UAD-1 plugs. I would get erattic behavior, like 100% native CPU usage, which would make my DAW very sluggish and often unresponsive,
which made for a non-working environment. Went back to the UAD-1 DX versions and all was well again. Even a Cakewalk rep recently posted that you are better off using the UAD-1's own DX version plugins in DX hosts, rather than using the VST ones and wrapping them with an adapter.

Billy Buck

SHTUNOT wrote on 11/16/2003, 11:24 PM

I tried to start a petition for fx freeze to hurry up on their DX support. I still stand that I will NOT put down my credit card for this unless their is a DX version. I would recommend everyone to email/post on their forums/etc... that they need to release a DX version. This would be a product that Sony should license and package with Acid/Vegas 5. What do you think Peter?

Ed.

SHTUNOT wrote on 11/17/2003, 12:08 AM

There forum cam be found here...

http://www.fx-max.com/forum/index.php

I started a thread. If we have enough votes we'll get it.

Ed.

stakeoutstudios wrote on 11/18/2003, 3:11 AM

I tried directxizer, and their latency compensation works but there are a few odd dropping out bugs, and the plugins hog just as much native CPU as the directX versions.

I'll stick with the directX versions for now and hope these annoying bugs get sorted quick!