Problem adding riffs to song in OSX

[flytrap]

I'm trying out Riffworks with a Toneport UX1 on a G4 Mac Powerbook 1Ghz/512 Ram. Everything runs good so far on "riff 1" and I can make multiple takes, but as soon as I go to create another riff to record the audio starts cutting out and gearbox ends up playing a 1/2 second after I hit the strings. Anyone heard of this problem? I know my system is just short of processor speed requirements but everything works fine through the Toneport and Logic Express. Please help cuz I need this program bad. Thanks.

[TerryR]

I don't know anything about Macs, but on the two computers that I have, RW1.1 runs much better on the one with 1.25 GB of RAM (1.1 GHz Athlon). The one with 512MB (1.0 GHz Pentium III) is a bit sluggish. So I get the impression that more RAM can compensate for a slower processor (sort of). Unfortunately, the Pentium III computer is maxed out at 512 (stupid Gateway). But it was free to a good home. It's a nice little practice amp for GuitarPort.

[ShredRex]

1GB of ram is recommended, anything less than that causes lots of problems. Trust me on that one.....

[flytrap]

Argggh! I really want to use this program but I want to make sure it will run good for me. Is anyone using RW line 6 edition under Mac osx? I'd be curious to see if it is a memory or processor bottleneck for me. I didn't want to have to upgrade anything since the lease is up in 6 months.

[ShredRex]

I am getting more ram for my windows machine, going from 1GB to 2GB because I honestly don't think 1GB is enough. And I am running a AMD XP Athlon @ 2.2GHz (2800+)

The class of processor will matter alot more to me than the actual clock speed, that and FSB, which in turn dictates how fast your ram is as well. Bear that in mind.

[dave]

flytrap,

My development machine for the MacOS version of RW is a G4 laptop (1.67GHz) with 1GB of RAM and I can run really well with that.

Could you go to "AppleMenu->AboutThisMac->MoreInfo" and tell me what your graphics processor and graphics memory are? We did a bunch of graphics optimization on the mac, but it only helps until you hit your graphics memory limit.

Its tough to compare RW to Logic Express because of all the things we do behind the scenes for you. One of the reasons we require a little more RAM and CPU that most DAW applications is that we're creating a bunch of stuff on the fly. In Logic, you create a track and then record to it. In RiffWorks, we do all that automatically when you loop.

Could you explain a little more what you're hearing? You mentioned that it cuts out (is that like a stuttering?) and that the audio plays a half second later (does it sound clean, but a half second late?). Knowing the answer to those questions can probably help narrow it down quite a bit.

It may be at the end of all this that we have to say that you need more RAM or a faster CPU, but there may be some tweaks you can do on your computer that would prevent that. Hopefully.

Dave

[prawntoast]

flytrap,

My development machine for the MacOS version of RW is a G4 laptop (1.67GHz) with 1GB of RAM and I can run really well with that.

Could you go to "AppleMenu->AboutThisMac->MoreInfo" and tell me what your graphics processor and graphics memory are? We did a bunch of graphics optimization on the mac, but it only helps until you hit your graphics memory limit.

Its tough to compare RW to Logic Express because of all the things we do behind the scenes for you. One of the reasons we require a little more RAM and CPU that most DAW applications is that we're creating a bunch of stuff on the fly. In Logic, you create a track and then record to it. In RiffWorks, we do all that automatically when you loop.

Could you explain a little more what you're hearing? You mentioned that it cuts out (is that like a stuttering?) and that the audio plays a half second later (does it sound clean, but a half second late?). Knowing the answer to those questions can probably help narrow it down quite a bit.

It may be at the end of all this that we have to say that you need more RAM or a faster CPU, but there may be some tweaks you can do on your computer that would prevent that. Hopefully.

Dave

Dave
If I could jump in here. I have been having issues with this too. Like the OP when you record on Riff1 everything is OK. Then when you click on the Create button, the 'Spinning Beachball of Death' SBOD appears, the audio pops through the speakers, then GearBox starts running at about 1 - 1.5 seconds behind what you play. RiffWorks just seems to hang for ages making the riff and you have to restart GearBox and RiffWorks to clear the problem.

Sometimes RiffWorks hangs so badly that nothing other than a power-down/power-up will clear the problem - the force quit option just doesn't respond.

I never noticed this activity during the beta - it appeared around RC3 and continues in the current RW2 release.

Again, like the OP, my Mac is under the recommeded spec (1.25Ghz PowerPC, 1Gb RAM).

Cheers,
Al

[dave]

Prawntoast,

Does it happen all the time? Or just occassionally? So this happened in RiffWorks Standard as well since you saw it in the beta? What version of the GearBox driver are you using? And can I assume you are still using a GuitarPort? I've mainly been using a TonePort UX2 these days...

Dave

[flytrap]

What prawntoast said is exactly what is happening with me. When I click the create riff button there is a quick noise and then the spinning beach ball. After that, nothing works correctly, gearbox has a serious delay and RW plays back but is stuttering and has scratches in the audio. After quitting both apps I can open them again and it works fine until I try to create a 2nd riff.

Dave, My graphics card is a Nvidia 64mb. I'm also running Gearbox 2 with updated firmware and drivers so I could try version 3 and see if that helps. Also, later on I will change the audio save location to my firewire drive which is faster than my onboard drive to see if that helps.

I've been looking for a program like RW for a long time. It's so much cooler than the slew of recording software out there.

[dave]

flytrap,

Sounds like its pretty reproducible. Could you file a support case, so I can track the progress of this? Sometimes its easy to forget a forum thread if there is no activity over a weekend or something like that. Just go to the support page and then the contact support link. I don't mind still talking about it here, I just want to make sure things stay tracked.

In the support case, could you include which Line 6 device you're using and what the driver version is? I've been developing on MacOS for quite some time now and I haven't seen this bug, so I need to find some way to reproduce it here.

Hopefully, we can get this working for you soon!

Dave

[prawntoast]

Prawntoast,

Does it happen all the time? Or just occassionally? So this happened in RiffWorks Standard as well since you saw it in the beta? What version of the GearBox driver are you using? And can I assume you are still using a GuitarPort? I've mainly been using a TonePort UX2 these days...

Dave

I've been getting this behaviour consistently, I thought it might just be my Mac as no-one else was talking about it on the forum, so I have just re-installed my Mac from scratch and I'm in the process of reinstalling everything. I use Gearbox 2.0 with a UX1 (I've still got GuitarPort but never use it any more).

I participated in Line6's GearBox 2 beta, so I've been using it since early July. I have the latest driver installed using 1.13 Monkey.

[flytrap]

Thanks Dave, I just submitted a support inquiry. Also, I updated to Gearbox 2 (not 3 as I said before) and it was still having the same problem.

How can you change the location for saving audio files? I couldn't find it anywhere.