Fender Studio Pro 8.2 - Discussion Thread

[madFloyd]

I think you maybe misunderstanding the question. I am very aware the D&D is common between many plugins.

What I am asking is - can you show me a plugin - that replicates your specific workflow (BOTH Drag MIDI from track to plugin AND drag MIDI from plugin to track) that actually does this exact thing correctly in another DAW - but does not do this within FSP?

VP

When you say "show me", are you requesting a video? I've already mentioned several plugins. Do you have any of them?

I don't have every DAW; besides SP I only have Cubase, which supports drag and drop (both ways) with these plugins.

 

[Vocalpoint]

I don't have every DAW; besides SP I only have Cubase, which supports drag and drop (both ways) with these plugins.

I have a bunch of those you mentioned.

But if you are saying you can both drag MIDI to AND MIDI from some of those you listed and it works in Cubase - that is good enough for me.

VP

 

[Vocalpoint]

All

Kontakt v8.14 is now available:

Installing now...testing to follow.

VP

 

[Vocalpoint]

Test complete - on Studio Pro v8.1.3. Looks like we have ourselves a winner.

Did my usual three session tests - could not see any lingered Studio Pro.exe instances in Task Manager.

Also - bonus - v8.14 of Kontakt feels like a race horse. Fast, fluid and oddly more responsive than I remember.

Noticed that Komplete Kontrol also has an update this morning to v3.55 - installed that with no issues within FSP using KK with a handful of K8 instruments that I breezed thru.

If anyone else hits any snags - post them up.

I am now going to move to SP v8.20 and do the same tests later this morning.

VP

 

[Verne57]

This really isn't about loving SP or hoping that it is perfect - for me - it's more about WTF is up with Kontakt.

NI is now involved and the fact that this is happening in other DAWs now - points a pretty obvious finger.

Odd thing is - unless a user is aware this is happening (it went on here for easily 6 weeks of more before I noticed) - you would never know anything is up. Kontakt operates just fine - despite whatever is going on here.

That is - until SP starts acting strange out of the blue due to executable instances piling up in the background.

For me - a series of truly odd unexplained crashes were my first real clue something was going on. Since 2011 - I think I had 4 crashes due to plugins and in the last 4-6 weeks - I have at least 30 diagnostic crash reports piling up - all of them sudden and all with no logical rhyme or reason.

What I think is happening - since I use Kontakt/Komplete Kontrol here - A LOT - is after opening song after song - each usually with some connection to Kontakt - I simply ended up for 5 or 10 or who knows how many instances of the Studio Pro.exe locked in memory that the program simply went south due to all of this.

It has been bugging me for several weeks...and now it appears we might finally know why.

VP

I too have experienced a lot of crashes recently and like you say, I think there is a high probability it's due to having many zombie copies of Kontakt and/or FSP running.

EDIT: I see Kontakt has confirmed the bug and a fix is forthcoming. Yay!

Now we'll see if the FSP crashes diminish.

 

[Teksonik]

I still maintain that out of all the DAWs out there - Studio Pro is quite possibly the most strict when it comes to enforcing the overall rules of the VST SDK spec and because of that - crashes are definitely not out of the question.

Yet FSP still doesn't have plugin sand boxing. Strictly enforcing the "rules" doesn't do much good if it causes common plugins to crash the DAW. From what I've been told by various plugin developers there is room for some interpretation in the VST SDK. In fact here is what A.I. has to say about the subject:

"Yes, there is a massive amount of room for interpretation in the VST SDK, particularly in VST3. This gray area between the technical written specification and its real-world implementation is one of the biggest challenges in audio software engineering.
While the VST SDK provides a strict C++ interface based on a COM-like model (the VST Module Architecture), how those methods behave in practice is frequently left to interpretation. The ambiguity impacts plugin developers in several distinct ways".

If a plugin functions without issue in one DAW but not another who is to blame? It's a dance that's as old as the industry. The DAW developer blames the plugin and the plugin developer blames the DAW and the end user is left in the middle.

But when a DAW developer's support is blaming six different plugins for causing crashes, (plugins that don't crash other DAWs) without even being willing to explore the possibility that the DAW may be at least in part responsible as Fender support is still doing to me now that gets us nowhere. For example, from what I've been told FSP's CLAP support may not be fully or properly implemented yet and that comes from a Fender insider.

Like I said I love FSP and it will be my main DAW going forward. But as I've also said many times before on other forums, loyalty is good but blind loyalty serves no one.

 

[Vocalpoint]

But as I've also said many times before on other forums, loyalty is good but blind loyalty serves no one.

Neither does plugin sandboxing.

I am going to venture a guess that with the skill this DEV team has - cannot imagine this topic has not been brought up - umpteen times.

My take - if they wanted FSP to have a sandbox - it would have a sandbox.

Also - we have beaten the "plugin misbehaving/VST3 SDK tuning" into the ground in here over months of discussion. I remain just fine with bad plugin coding being "outed" by Studio Pro every single time it occurs - yes - even if that means a crash now and then.

A sandbox (to me) is simply a fancy way of saying "We know you might be suspect - but that's not our concern - so do your thing in there".

In other words - an excuse to allow sketchy plugins to continue their sketchy ways.

For the record - Native Instruments confirmed that Kontakt v8.13.1 was faulty and was the cause of what we have been reporting the last few days. They acknowledged (and reproduced) the error and fixed it in v8.14. A sandbox (most likely) would have done exactly nothing to shine a light on this issue.

Solving issues like this - even if they get ugly sometime - I believe - benefits every FSP user. Sticking problems in a box - solves nothing.

VP

 

[Navar]

Solving issues like this - even if they get ugly sometime - I believe - benefits every FSP user. Sticking problems in a box - solves nothing.

That's definitely not what a sandbox should do, when done right. But anyway, sandboxing is not the holy grail.
Would love to see more communication between different vendors. I've sometimes experienced this kind of finger pointing between different vendors and to be honest, I'm not wasting my time on this "he said, he said" stuff.

 

[BobF]

Loving Dim Solo