help with cakewalk/motu symphonic instrument

[TheMacB]

i've installed both. cakewalk runs fine and i can write and hear what i've written. installed motu symphonic instrument and should see it when i click insert->DXi Synth. But its not there. The other 3 synths that came with cakewalk are there but no motu symphonic instrument.

i first installed motu in program files. then tried installing it in the same folder as the other 3 synths are. no luck.

any ideas?

[ChrisHurn]

TheMacB,

I don't use MOTU, but I use other similar libraries and may be able to help. When you installed it, did you select "install as Dxi"? The setup should register these plugins for you, so they are ready to be inserted. It may just be that they were not, so you could manually register the DLL's:

start>run>regsvr32.exe C:\Cakewalk\instrument.dll

where instrument.dll is the dll plugin for MOTU, and C:\Cakewalk is where it's installed. (there may be more than one you'll need to do this to).

What version of Cakewalk are you using? Some (such as Sonar) have a plugin manager, which can be found on the Cakewalk CD. I've never had to use a plugin manager for DXI's, but it might work.

Give that a try.

-Chris

[TheMacB]

ok i got it to work! woo hoo! but now it is not coming through clearly. it sounds like its skipping.

i have AMD athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2 GHz and 512MB ram.

is that not enough?

the requirements are only 800 MHz Pentium III and 256 MB ram.

[TheMacB]

the manual suggests reducing the buffer size to avoid a delay (not the problem i'm having but sounds similar). tried doing that and it sounded good for a second but then the application crashed. this is with only one track and one note too. :( i think maybe my computer is not beefy enough for this motu library.

[ChrisHurn]

No, that is enough. However, the RAM will depend on how many instruments you want loaded etc. I don't know about that library, but 1GB (or 2 if you can afford) is recommended for orchestra situations. If you're only loading a few instruments though, you should defenately not be getting any sort of problem.

What do you mean by 'skipping'? What instruments are you playing back etc.? I'm not familiar with MOTU.

-What soundcard are you on? what drivers etc.
-What's your latency/current buffer size?
-Does MOTU have a support forum?

-Chris

[TheMacB]

the only driver/sound anything on my computer is Realtek AC97. i'm just trying to do something very basic (one note on a violin or a clarinet) to test before i get down into it. buffer size defaults to 90 ms. i've experimented with it everywhere and it still skips and still crashes sonar. i think how long it plays for before crashing depends on the complexity of the instrument. for example if i try to use a piano i barely get anything before it crashes. :( i've sent emails to both cakewalk's and motu's tech support. my fingers are crossed.

[ChrisHurn]

My buffer size is 512. 90's probably too low. And your latency - go to 8ms or something. If it still cracks, go higher, and if it's fine, see how low you can get it.

-Chris

[TheMacB]

the buffer size only ranges from 10ms to 340.8ms. the effective latency says the exact same thing as the buffer size. if i set the buffer size to 340.8ms, the effective latency is 340.8ms. ????? sonar and mot haven't written me back yet :(.