Lexicon PCM 96

[elambo]

Originally Posted by Blenn

Mac Pro 2.8ghz 8 core, 8 gig ram, OSX 10.5.5
Separate SIIG firewire pcie card dedicated soley to the lexicon (the siig is a TI chipset)
PCm96 has 1.2.9 firmware with 1.3.0 installation software
Nuendo 4.1.3

As I'd said earlier, I have the exact same setup, even the amount of RAM and brand of firewire card, although I'm using ProTools instead of Nuendo. Maybe that's the culprit.

[Jack Weaver]

Thanks NS

[World Studios]

Mr Special! Back from the dead!

Actually, I would prefer a single plugin with more pages and some parameters inactive for some algo's. If nothing elese, it might fix the crash I constantly got goint to Plate from any other plugin... Do you have any working update coming up soon for the box? It gets little use so far over here - in standalone... The FW connectivity was what sold me on it in the first place, and it just does not work well enough for me to dare use it when paying clients are in the studio... It's been a long time coming by now...

Cheers,


Johan

Originally Posted by Nobody Special

Hi Jack. Here's that explanation. It's a function of the way that the plugins must be defined to the DAW. This is true for RTAS, VST and AU. When a plugin is instantiated, it must tell the system how many parameters it has and what the range of each parameters is. That's perfectly fine if all algorithms have the same parameters.

But Lexicon algorithms are all different. Although many parameters are shared, you'll still see some differences between say, Chamber and Hall. Part of that is Lexicon's ancient tradition, but there are also acoustic reasons. In order to have a single plugin, we'd have to declare all the parameters of all the possible algorithms. Not only would this mean many extra pages of plugin to slog through, but it would also mean that not all parameters would be active for a given algorithm.

So we're not wild about having to have lots of plugins either, but that's the nature of the plugin world. Hope this answers your question.

--NS

[Nobody Special]

Originally Posted by World Studios

Mr Special! Back from the dead!
... Do you have any working update coming up soon for the box? Johan

I wasn't dead. Only holding my breath. Yes we've been working hard on an update. We just put new code in testers' hands today. Shouldn't be too much longer. It's important to us and we know it's important to you.

[World Studios]

Great news! I keep my fingers crossed for it to work 100% this time. I would be happy to test it out for you before it gets released, since I did not get the last one to work. Many others did and mabye my system is particullarily challenging - or something... You do not want to release another public version that does not work properly, now do ya? :-)

[Blenn]

Hope on the horizon guys! Can't say too much just yet!

Paul

[Nobody Special]

We've just posted a new update for the PCM96. It's at the Lexicon Pro website.

Release notes are in the download package. This release has lots of fixes for the plugins, along with a number of fixes to the box code. In addition, there are a number of new pitch shift algorithms in both mono and stereo. Some are practical--for example shifting during a video conversion, tuning cuts on an album, etc. Others are deeply wacky.

It's a free update, so go get it! And remember, you don't have to pull out any EPROMs

[peeder]

I guess version 2 went by the wayside...

DL'ed.

[elambo]

Originally Posted by Nobody Special

And remember, you don't have to pull out any EPROMs

But in the time it took me to update my 96 I could have swapped out 10 EPROMS. Must be a lot of error-proofing during the transfer, I'm assuming since most of the time was spent transferring. And restarting.

But I couldn't get it to hiccup after about an hour of trying. Trying intensely. I looped a very short section of audio, inserted a Duende on-the-fly, then the 96 right below it, then I was swapping presets and even algorithms. Never a glitch. Never stopped the audio. I was surprised.

SmartShift pitch shifting works well. I was dropping a female vocal 30% and it sounded completely natural. Well, it sounded like Tay Zonday, which isn't natural, but the basic tone was really good. It didn't oscillate like most pitch shifters.

I didn't play much with the other new presets. Most time was spent trying to get it to fail. It never did, even with a lot of on-the-fly Duende tweaking during playback. I always tend to be on the lucky side with FW devices, but this may finally be the fix other people have been expecting.

[elambo]

NS - I noticed that the blue background went away. Black now. Was that to make the plug more stable, or was it an aesthetic choice?

[World Studios]

Elambo, you have my hopes up high now. Amma make da motha crash, if it takes me all day! ;-) Heres hoping it finally works! I am off... :-)

[peeder]

Originally Posted by elambo

But in the time it took me to update my 96 I could have swapped out 10 EPROMS.

No kiddin.

But good news you couldn't get it to crash.

[World Studios]

I guess Elambo is pretty fast at switching his eproms out. Updating the PCM-96 takes over an hour. I reckon with the unscrewing and screwing (screws - nothing else) racking and unracking disconnecting and connecting, I might do 4 eprom switches in this period of time.

Black is the new blue. Less prone to bugs, I hear.

Took me one minute to get it to crash. Inserted a chamber plug on a stereo track. Duplicated the track with the PCM96 insert and the PCM went down. Seconds later ProTools went the same way. I am soo good. :-(

[World Studios]

I can get it to work AES I/O and FW control, but not FW audio. Crashes every time. What settings for latency etc do you have there, Elambo?

I have mine on a FW extender cable. Could that be the problem? It did not help to use a shorter cable before in earlier versions...

[World Studios]

Guys!

I moved the box back in the machine room with the Macintel, now on a short FW cable. That did it. I can not get it to crash anymore, but I will keep trying. :-D

Still, what settings for latency should I use?

[World Studios]

Well, it only took me some more work and I got it to crash. Damn, I'm good. I have been able to repeat it after a complete restart of computer and PCM96. In a test session I have two mono "dual delay" and one stereo plate plugin. If I activate/deactivate one by one it works, but if I activate all 3 tracks (4 mono engines, sort of - the full monty) at the same time it hangs just before finishing. I don't think this is something you might want to do on a regular basis and the workaround is obvious, but hey, it's there. Be warned.

On a positive note, the latency compensation works 100% for me now and I can switch from any plug to "plate" without a crash :-) It seems to work well opening and closing sessions with different uses for the PCM as well. Before I had to restart ProTools between songs containing the Lex.

[Raphie]

Ok, since i am not totally clear yet on my OTB compression / EQ wishlist, i'll think i spend this months budget on this baby then PCM96: Stay ITB while being OTB

I've tested several ITB delays and verbs, both nothing comes even close to my lousy MX100, So i dare to buy this one without listening

If Lexicon would now only fix the VST plugin and librarian for the MX series..........

[World Studios]

I can not load the song that I saved with the two mono delays and the stereo plate, beacuse when I load the song up all the engines get activated at the same time... Crashes EVERY time. I tried many times, more than five times...

[loopzilla6]

Originally Posted by elambo

But in the time it took me to update my 96 I could have swapped out 10 EPROMS. Must be a lot of error-proofing during the transfer, I'm assuming since most of the time was spent transferring. And restarting.

Ethernet updates are more than 5x as fast. There is a small bit of drama getting it switched back to firewire communication after the update is finished, but the unit tells you what to do (error 106) - it's worth the effort because it saves so much time.

BTW I'm doing a couple of demos at Dale Pro Audio in NYC tomorrow morning for their staff - kind of a "guest producer" thing. If you are in the city around 11am tomorrow, I'd love to visit and answer questions about the unit after the demos.

[Blenn]

Originally Posted by World Studios

I can not load the song that I saved with the two mono delays and the stereo plate, beacuse when I load the song up all the engines get activated at the same time... Crashes EVERY time. I tried many times, more than five times...

I'm having huge problems with the 3.0.0.7 (latest as of 30th Nov 2008) drivers also.

Any Nuendo project I have saved with a PCM96 pluggin wont load. Spinning wheel. I have to do the following to get the PCM96 to work, again, with a project.

• Boot off PCM96
• Reload Nuendo project
• Remove all instances of the pluggin, save and close Nuendo
• Reboot PCM96
• Repair connection in control panel
• Reboot Nuendo Project and reload PCM96 plugs

Now this only happens the first time. It's usually after the MAC and PCM96 (i.e. whole studio) has been switched off. The rest of the day ot will work from saved session to saved session. But When I go home, shutdown the whole studio, I will have to do it all over again the following day and I lose the settings that where saved!

I have to do this everytime. It's the only way to get it to work.

So I'm afraid it's still buggy as hell. Bummer!

Paul

[elambo]

The answer to all your prayers...

Don't turn it off!

[Blenn]

Unfortunately - that's not an option.

Plus - I discovered another problem today. It still ****s up when on. What I thought worked when going back to a session the same day appears, now, not to. So that now blows that one out of the water!

Buggy as hell!


Paul

[strawdps]

I don't have a PCM96 but I was looking at maybe getting one ... can you run this with Windows / PTLE 7.1??

I know as a plugin it is running buggy but if you just use it strictly as a piece of hardware would it run smoothly on my system??

How would I connect to my 002 if I got this unit?? XLR?? SPIDIF??

Thanks

[elambo]

Originally Posted by Blenn

Unfortunately - that's not an option.

Plus - I discovered another problem today. It still ****s up when on. What I thought worked when going back to a session the same day appears, now, not to. So that now blows that one out of the water!

Buggy as hell!


Paul

What has Lexicon recommended for you? There are several variables which can make a difference, but it depends on your system.

[elambo]

Originally Posted by strawdps

I know as a plugin it is running buggy but if you just use it strictly as a piece of hardware would it run smoothly on my system??

Entirely. 100% reliable in stand-alone. And even as a plugin it has become stable for a large majority of users (myself included) with this latest release, but, unfortunately, a couple people still have issues.

[elambo]

Originally Posted by Blenn

Unfortunately - that's not an option.

You can't leave the power on? Is that also true for your other digital hardware? It's mandatory, in my opinion, that digital hardware be left on.

[sctt_stone]

Ok guys. Is it still buggy?
I am considering buying one in the near future for use with Logic 7.
Should I wait?

[elambo]

Originally Posted by sctt_stone

Ok guys. Is it still buggy?
I am considering buying one in the near future for use with Logic 7.
Should I wait?

I installed the latest version of the RTAS software the same day it was released. I've been trying hard to get it to crash ever since. It's still rock solid. Not a single crash.

I've been using it a lot lately, trying to match presets from my 960 as closely as possible. The process is pretty easy, but the sound is never exactly the same. 99% at times. 90% at others. The 960 uses a different scale, like Diffusion=360 whereas the 96 would be Diffusion=88%, so it's not a matter of matching up the numbers.

Which reminds me - I'd pay good money for the closet approximation of the presets from the 960L, programmed for the PCM96... Good money...

[Jorg]

Will there ever be any PC support?? Or is it more likely to always be exclusive to Mac users?

[Frank]

Hi,

Yes , are we gonna see support for windows this year. Nobody Special, you seem to be somebody special and in the know; do you know? :-).

Thnx