rant(ish) xml parameter settings lost (again)

That I'm posting at all tips this in direction of 'rant' (and by time I wasted on the time on it, more then 'tipped').  Based on past experience not particularly expecting useful impact

Upgraded to AA 3 (skipped 2 except for tests) last summer.  Gradually I've been using it more and more, integrating it more thoroughly into work flow.  I t has remained a more or less behind the scenes player, essentially the 'editor' I use but to which clients are seldom exposed or even aware.  Generally speaking either a physical control surface or 23 in. Screen with a mixer emulation occupying all the real estate tends to be a more functional client UI.

I still tend to not 'track' with AA but as it has been more tightly integrated it is becoming more visible among the software tools I use.  Twice in the last week something in the software, my systems, etc. Etc. Has failed miserably, and publicly . . . That reinforces everything I believe about Adobe and what has frequently been a negative experience attempting to depend on their productions in commercial situations (yeah I know millions of people world wide can't possibly be wrong (just ask AIG clients)) . . .

I'm not 'blaming' the software but this is frustrating and doesn't encourage me to depend on AA to do anything more then be the 'editor' in the background.

First was a very public failure in a 'looped' over dub session.  That was  really not a failure of the software, but yet another instance of described features having some curious articulation (similar to my curiosity as to why, after years and years and the generally accepted  'Save as' behavior of windows programs Adobe would make [cntrl A] execute something as bizarre as it now does!) . . . . Anyway . . . Little thing over all, big thing with regard to 'client' interface where pre roll post roll functioned in real life differently then I had thought it did from initial tests, very different from what client was expecting . . . Already fighting the 'Pro Tools' uphill battle that one half hour session could be potentially very, very financially damaging (personally I still think AA kicks PT's ass in a great many areas but musicians are addicted to magical thinking by definition and I'm not in this game for my health)

Anyway.  That's not today's issue. For the third time since I installed V3 I just lost all presets . . . Every single damn one.  They were there last night 2 AM when I set up for today's session.  Client walks in 10 AM and I want to rapidly A/B a number of options with dynamic EQ, compression, reverb and not only are the options I set up last night gone but everything but factory defaults are scrubbed!

In the final stages of a project on which i've been working for a year.  18-60 tracks per tune, 14 tunes with different mixes for different distribution channels.  The 'presets', or more effectively labeled 'saved parameter settings', saved automation lanes & sessions are a necessary part of the project.  There are rhythm acoustic guitar tracks recorded last Feb. For which it is really, really beneficial to be able to treat mandolin tracks recorded last weekend  in similar and harmonic ways. I've done two 'disc's (as if the album concept still had traction) of live material for this band (during past year).  But this project was to support a functional answer to 'why studio?', and even more importantly 'why project studio?' . . . Not as little brother step child to 'commercial studio' but as a more effective compositional tool and collaborative partner . . . The band has come a long way from 'if we can't do it live we don't want it on the disc'  (and if that had remained their dogma I'd be perfectly happy tracking live shows and providing them with the best possible representation of that . . . But my contention has always been that the 'studio' can be (doesn't have to be) an instrument in collaborative music production.  The length of time of the project was not a function of limitations of 'studio' or specifically 'project studio' but of their budget and their lives (day jobs, families etc.)). 

I have saved my 'pre set' files.  But in neither of the past two wipes did that return everything to where it had been before . . . In fact in the second instance the back ups (one iteration of them in any case) were somehow corrupted by the process as I tried to unify the presets on the stationary and laptop systems).  In any case I now have to (on my own dime so to speak) review every session, every potentially active session, every track, every Fx, every parameter, review automation lanes for those Fx, double check the double checking with multiple iterations of audio mixes . . .

Even at this point I'm not 'blaming' software, software designers, software vendors.  I tend to push most, if not all, my tools to do things they were never designed, not intended to do and having been struck up side of head, blind sided by Mr. Murphy's sense of humor on more then one occasion I try to build in belt + suspender safety nets . . . . For the next two weeks I'm already working 16-18 hr days on this project (final vocal harmonies scheduled for Austin this week end) and in the current economic climate there is simply no one I  can delegate to review the mixes, nor is there delegatable 'grunt work' on the mixes at this stage. 

I made it through today's sessions.  But while neither the band's management nor my principal collaborator in the band are cursed with unrealistic expectations this 'glitch' is still a PR nightmare.  Neither attempting to keep the curtain drawn on 'studio magic' nor attempting to explain (in inappropriate detail) are actually effective communication choices.  Unfortunately, musicians being what musicians are, even with age and experience of these guys, not all members are without unrealistic expectations and this is a production 'glitch' prominent enough on which to hang 'blame' for the failure of those expectations to materialize.  Not fair, not reasonable on their part but that is nature of the beast:  "If we'd just gone to 'Sound in Motion' in Acid Springs and used PT then we'd have had two (or more) top twenty singles and be playing on Conan by the end of the year!"  Without this glitch the expectations would still have failed to materialize they would have still blamed me, but their anti-, counter- marketing ploy would be far less effective, have less impact if it were primarily my personality they hated.  They might still hate my personality, even my aesthetic choices but bitching about my 'technical' choices is far harder to counter.  The glitch won't destroy my credibility, other then lack of sleep will have little direct impact on bottom line, but it might well be the straw, the issue over which I fail to retain a fairly lucrative client.  We have worked intensely enough over the past year that it would not surprise me for them to move on in any case, in the pre-death-of-the-industry days it might well have been something I'd encourage anyway

That said I'm still pissed that the 'glitch' happened.  I have been less then infatuated with effectiveness of 'xml' files for this type of function in nearly every application that deploys them. By version 3 AA should not be this awkward and inept with regard to back up and clean up of multi track sessions.  I have used Reaper for tracking (hesitantly at first, but I figured they were a good candidate for Linux) since about '05 and have never experienced the kind of difficulties and general kludginess AA exhibits for multi track sessions (admittedly I use Reaper much more modestly (primarily for tracking) . . . But

While personally I continue to deploy Reaper for tracking and AA as an editor the failure of any vendor, primarily at this point adobe or Stienberg Nuendo, to field a reasonable challenge to PT means that for the next commercial (project) studio, probably some time in the next year or so, I'll still have to budget for Pro Tools (and I still hate pro tools) . . . It remains the dialectic antithesis of what propelled me into recording in the first place (where syntrillium was a theoretical alternative Adobe remains, no matter what they think they expend on R&D, an acquire and gut market driven vendor . . . We'll sell you yesterday's buzz word hot feature for twice what you can find it elsewhere . . .  Strategy being, primarily, to eat the little guys before they become competitive)

Posting this primarily because I need so 'distance' before I start the review . . . Spilled a cup of coffee, not on equipment but on pants and floor . . . Don't want to clean it up and am angry enough to not make good decisions

Commercial software let's me accomplish things that I could not do without them . . . . I don't expect, ever, to find commercial software optimized for the way I'd like to work . . . .but my session 'info' files (already designed to function effectively with large screen touch monitors, although I have not yet bought one) are built on a two decade old spreadsheet/database format that while it has some 'security' holes lets clients pull up, shuffle among multiple takes multiple mixes, review microphones, amps, performers,  we can compare live takes with studio takes 'on the fly' .. . . Review subtle rhythmic variations by the same, contrast with different, drummer with considerable ease.  That has evolved over a period of more then 15 yr..  Was using hyper text mark up (html) prior to advent of WWW, navigated migration from DOS to Win16 to 32 bit code and is now migrating to Linux.  If I had to attempt to write it from scratch my head would explode but have never experienced a glitch even similar to adobe's bridge dysfunction and disappearing xmls  it's UI undoubtedly sucks, is an 'app' that works solely for me . . . I used a $700 front end when I started on it in late '80's, but the 'data' (and most of the formatting) migrates easily to 'free' linux front ends!  At this point it almost could function as an editing front end (if I were a better code writer . . . . Just thinking about what I'd want built into a multi track recorder and editor just does make my head explode, but rolling in royalty free VST's has been disturbingly easy).  While it is irrational at this point I'm probably more pissed with Syntrillium then Adobe.  My experience with Adobe was never anything other then what one would expect . . . As an insignificant bug of a retail client I am at best the 'enemy'.  They have never, really, claimed the relationship to be anything else.  Syntrillium, unfortunately, tipped me into being a consumer.  In my more irrational moments I muttered, 'suckered me! Into consumerism.' 

Anyway . . . Time for another cup of coffee

Geez I hope you don't own a gun 

I read all that and took in most of it and yes I've been there and still am - nothing more embarassing then the session going into meltdown in front of the client.  It only has to happen once for you to be very wary.

Is this AA's fault - in my case probably not - I will know more after i replace my third video card in about an hour.

You know the saying  - if it wasn't for bad luck you would have no luck at all.

While the horse has well and truly bolted try some of these utilities - two in particular may help to recover from a meltdown with a lot more grace.
www.mediasweeper.com.au

My experience is that most problems are are result of driver clashes and video seems to be right up there in my hit list along with mobo drivers.

I can't offer any more assistance but I feel your pain.

I still tend to not 'track' with AA but as it has been more tightly integrated it is becoming more visible among the software tools I use.  Twice in the last week something in the software, my systems, etc. Etc. Has failed miserably, and publicly . . . That reinforces everything I believe about Adobe and what has frequently been a negative experience attempting to depend on their productions in commercial situations (yeah I know millions of people world wide can't possibly be wrong (just ask AIG clients)) . . .

I'm not 'blaming' the software but this is frustrating and doesn't encourage me to depend on AA to do anything more then be the 'editor' in the background.

This is a view that I have a lot of sympathy with, even though I've never let it bite me. I absolutely won't use Audition as a master recorder on a session where money is passing hands, but I'm perfectly happy with it as an editor.

As far as the .xml corruption is concerned, you said:

Even at this point I'm not 'blaming' software, software designers, software vendors. 

Well I might be.

One of the problems with Adobe's use of .xml files is that as far as I understand, they don't make a copy of the stored .xml when the software runs, but use the actual file itself, and re-write it at the end of your session incorporating any changes you've made. There are, I would have thought, some obvious snags with this, the main one being that if anything at all happens to it during the session, you've lost it - completely. And the only software option at this point is to reinstate the install default.

What would almost certainly be better would be to operate on a copy of the file, and at the end of the session the software should make a copy of this file and store it as a backup, and store the new file (with any changes you made) as the file to make a copy of for running the next session. That way you'd not lose anything like as much in the event of a disaster, and because it would only be operating on a copy, there'd always be the option to re-copy it - so less chance of failure anyway.

While personally I continue to deploy Reaper for tracking and AA as an editor the failure of any vendor, primarily at this point adobe or Stienberg Nuendo, to field a reasonable challenge to PT means that for the next commercial (project) studio, probably some time in the next year or so, I'll still have to budget for Pro Tools (and I still hate pro tools) . . .

If you need an integrated system that's a lot better than PT, then as long as you don't want to record a million tracks at once, have a look at Sadie, or at a push, Pyramix.

Steve, as usual, has blasted the nail on the head.  I'm sorry to say that I completely sympathize; I'm dealing with exactly the same mess right now.  However, when all my effects presets vaporized, it was all of them -- no factory defaults even.  At this point I don't have the time to try to figure out how to do a restoration, because my previous travails have also resulted in some corrupted preference data.  To add to the rant, I have made feature requests through the official channels for years about making our preferences portable and translatable, and nothing has ever been done to achieve this except to make the need dire instead of merely helpful. 

One bit of data for Oretez and all others so sorrowfully stricken: the loss of preset data should not have any effect on the stored data within a session.  I've tested this somewhat in the past, and I'd be pleased to be told I'm wrong, but the session data stores the effect parameters, and NOT a link to a preset.  All your channel-by-channel checking should yield a happy result.  You could even recreate presets from your channel effects and busses.  If this is not the case, please let us know so we can wail some more with you.

I wish I knew what triggered the effects refresh that wipes the data clean.  It might have to do with the presence of DX effects, or something else.  I have a hunch that with DX disabled this won't happen, but I'm not in a position to prove it.

All this is distressing enough, but worse still tonight was popping in a CD for some people of today's version of a mix, only to find that AA3.0.1 mixed down one or two of the tracks out-of-sync, by about a quarter second.  Being far from my computer, there was no way to let them hear a sane version.  [scream mode] What makes this stuff happen?  All I did was export!  This is paid work!  [/scream mode]

There now.  Do we all feel a little better?  Or at least enough to resume the head-bashings?

This is a view that I have a lot of sympathy with, even though I've never let it bite me. I absolutely won't use Audition as a master recorder on a session where money is passing hands, but I'm perfectly happy with it as an editor.

Sure I have had a few crashes and it is hard to look like it was something you had planned  but we have been using AA's multitrack to record live bands (yes for money) for at least 2 years.  We used to record to a portable DAW but got sick and tired of editing through a letter box 

Sure you only need 1 crash to look like an amateur (and I probably don't need any help) but hey you use a computer to do anything and you run that risk.

Do we want AA to lock us into a certain brand of hardware to guarantee stability - not me

And I'm sure (although I doubt they would admit it) there would be the odd crash with PT, Sadie and even Pyramix.

Does any of this help - I doubt it but while we are all in the mood.....

Mind you if I have another crash I will scream - but I have changed the video card for the 3rd time and I will report back.

And I'm sure (although I doubt they would admit it) there would be the odd crash with PT, Sadie and even Pyramix.

There appears (quite reasonably) to be a hierarchy of crashability. The most likely to crash are 'native' systems - ie, ones where you use the soundcard of your choice with software designed to run with anything. Rather less likely to crash are the non-native systems where the software and hardware are inextricably linked to each other - that's Sadie and one version of both PT and Pyramix.

But by far and away the least likely to crash is dedicated hardware with no M$ operating system in the way of it - like my HD24XR. Dead easy to set up, absolutely foolproof use on location, and will record for a ridiculous length of time without stopping to complain about the file size, because it uses a file system that doesn't have those problems. But edit on it? You must be joking! I wouldn't even attempt to use it for a drop-in. Dead easy to transfer the files out, though. Quality is stunningly good - this is the only machine that's been compared favourably to a Radar from that POV (has to be the XR version though - the basic version is like any other multitrack).

I also have a Fostex flash/external drive-based 2-track recorder, but the jury's out on that at present. It's easy enough to use, but I don't think that it's as intuitive as the HD24.

When moving from my original Korg I was looking at the HD24 and yes it was impressive.

Yet given all the possible problems of sitting over an M$ OS I was impressed enough with the editing alone of AA2 to decide to go this way.

Once I had the studio setup www.suitespotstudios.com I couldn't wait to try recording 20+ tracks.

Until my motherboard/upgrade/quad vs duo meltdown (nothing to do with AA) the ONLY problems I had were in Spectral View - which of course is now fixed.

But back to the heart of this thread.

As I mentioned earlier I have now replaced my third video card (again no problem before the crash).  The video cards still work mind you - so I suspect driver problems.

I carefully uninstalled any previous driver etc and installed the new card.

Is there any noticeable difference - not really - other than I haven't had a crash for the last 7 hours and I have been mixing and some serious editing (and polishing) a band for just about all that time.

AA hasn't missed a beat - did I save ?  You betcha - saved early & often (just in case)

Is this the start of a wonderful relationship - I hope so - keep you posted.

After you've been grinding away on it for a little longer, would you mind listing for us the hardware that does and doesn't work?  I suppose some other specs are in order, too...

Thank you!

I just hope I'm not going to regret this 

Am I tempting fate - I don't know??

Wel I changed the video card for the third time back on the 18th March and since that time (touch wood) I have not had a single crash.

Having said that I have a big editing job in a few minutes - again touch wood.

Anyway - in the last 6 days I have recorded and edited fairly significantly without a single problem

Is there something magical about this ATI Radeon HD4650?
I doubt it.

I suspect that it was the fact that I took the time to uninstall anything that looked like a video driver and then reinstalled the latest driver for the card straight off the bat.

Client about to arrive - will post more after this next session - fingers crossed 

How good is that!

Went off without a hitch - over 4 hours intense editing & mixing - no problems - too good

So all good since the new video card & driver installation

Two more days and no cursing yet from Runaway!

I've just realized that some critical work will be affected by the loss of some EQ presets for a current restoration project... no, I don't have a current backup of my AA3 settings file, which is now just a few kB long and has little to nothing of use in it.  (Yep, need to practice what I preach.) 

I know I'm tempting fate but hey all is good!   

AA hasn't missed a beat.

no, I don't have a current backup of my AA3 settings file

You really should try the AuditionFX www.mediasweeper.com.au - makes it even easier to back this stuff up - so there really is no excuse 

I have a number of big editing jobs over the weekend.  You won't hear from me unless there is a problem - don't expect to hear from me 

I've just realized that some critical work will be affected by the loss of some EQ presets for a current restoration project

Just a thought ..

Those 'presets' or at least the settings will be stored in a previous session file if you used them in that session.
I suspect that there is a way of extracting them and substituting into another session and then resaving - if this doesn't make any sense its probably because I'm typing while I'm thinking and its hard enough to do one at a time let alone both.

Two more days and no cursing yet from Runaway!

Its now 2am on Monday morning had a couple of recording sessions over the weekend and an editing session - would have done more but I had to play in one of my bands and work on this stupid import export thing 

But bottom line - no problemo with AA - not even a wiff of a problem and let me tell you that there is no better feeling than not worrying when things are going to go end up.

In fact I even forgot to "save early and save often" things were going so smoothly.

But no need to get cocky just gotta make sure to save anyway