A few problems I've finally sorted out! ...

[R.J.Dubya]

So I'm trying to follow along the getting started manuals, but nothing seems to work as it says.

First of, I can't even load samples into maxi-patch. I drag a wav/aiff over to the box, and nothing happens. When I drag a folder, the box outlines, but then when I let go, nothing happens. ???

I managed to open the "VST" AU Pinky Pluggo in Ableton Live, but again, can't drop any samples into it from the finder like it says in the getting started manual. So I tried the open file method. Well, the preview doesn't work at all. Nothing happens when I press the play button. So I just grabbed any old sample. Upon playing the control vinyl, it did control the sample, but the sample played about four times too slow. And no waveform showed up in the display either.

I need some serious help. I'm trying to do as suggested and get used to the maxi-patch AO standalone version first, but I'm not having much luck.

None of this makes much sense right now. I haven't used anything that came on the cd with the package, I don't know what it's there for. I've installed pluggo runtime, which appearantly I need for pinky pluggo, but I haven't used, and don't what it's there for.

And other than the getting started document for pinky pluggo and maxi-patch, i can't find any manuals to guide me.

I'd appreciate any help I can get.

I'm on a macbook pro C2D, OS 10.4.8

Cheers

[dlpinkstah]

How can anybody help you if you don't even fully describe your physical system??? We're not psychics here.

For the record: Whenever you post a problem report on this forum, you must include (5) important things:
(1) make and model of your computer (CPU speed, RAM, OS Version, etc...),
(2) make and model of soundcard,
(3) make and model of turntables (and what phono cartridges, etc),
(4) make and model of outboard mixer (if any),
(5) MOST IMPORTANT: HOW ALL COMPONENTS OF YOUR SYSTEM ARE INTERCONNECTED. If you don't provide a full description of your system when writing to us, there is very little we can do to help you.

[R.J.Dubya]

How can anybody help you if you don't even fully describe your physical system??? We're not psychics here.

For the record: Whenever you post a problem report on this forum, you must include (5) important things:
(1) make and model of your computer (CPU speed, RAM, OS Version, etc...),
(2) make and model of soundcard,
(3) make and model of turntables (and what phono cartridges, etc),
(4) make and model of outboard mixer (if any),
(5) MOST IMPORTANT: HOW ALL COMPONENTS OF YOUR SYSTEM ARE INTERCONNECTED. If you don't provide a full description of your system when writing to us, there is very little we can do to help you.

Point taken, however I'd say that besides the OS and computer (which I provided), the above information isn't immediately necessary to find out where I might find some further documentation, and to see if these are some common problems. I do prefer to try to follow manuals before I look for help elsewhere. However I can't seem to find any.

But anyways, I'm more than happy to share that if it will help:
1) Macbook pro 2.16 ghz, 2gb ram, OS 10.4.8
2)Motu ultralite
3)technics 1200 mkII, ortofon nightclub cartridge
4)gemini umx-9
5)I am currently simply going straight from one turntable to my ultralite through the mixer, which is just being used for the preamp. (I have an x-session pro for assigning midi in ableton Live to use as a mixer). I realize it's best to not use the mixer as preamp, but get a dedicated preamp, however, I am most concerned right now with simply loading samples into maxi-patch, and getting familiar with the interface, so I'm not expecting optimal results from going through the mixer first. This should not stop basic functioning of the program though.

So I guess my first concerns are:
-Find out how to load samples in maxi-patch, and why drag and drop doesn't work as well as for pinky pluggo)
-To find out how the files on the cd I recieved with the package relates to Pinky pluggo, and how they both relate to the pluggo runtime. And find some more documentation help me learn about the software.

I didn't list all my details at first because I didn't see it as relevant to these first couples issues.

Hope that helps. I'm really hoping to get this all working, but I'm at a loss.

Thanks
rjw

edit: ok the title may have been a wee bit over dramatic. There, that's better.
What can I say, I've been wanting to scratch digital files for so many years, and now I'm so close and yet so far.

[piZMo]

as far as i'm aware pluggo runtime is what allows you to use max/msp developed software to run on the system

[R.J.Dubya]

as far as i'm aware pluggo runtime is what allows you to use max/msp developed software to run on the system

So pluggo runtime needs to be installed to be able to open pinky pluggo as a vst? (even though you don't actually have to open pluggo runtime itself?)

[dlpinkstah]

That's correct. "Pluggo runtime" is just a set of libraries that allow patches developed using the Max/MSP tools to run as plugins inside other host applications. Once you've installed Pluggo runtime, you should never have to worry about it again. It gets called automatically by your host app whenever a "Pluggo" plugin (like Pinky_Pluggo) gets loaded.

I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble loading files into Maxi-Patch. It should be a snap, as described in the "Quick_Start.pdf". You can drag folders (not files) to the little folder/file selection regions in the middle of the Maxi-Patch main window. Bear in mind, though, that when you drag in a folder, it scans all folders beneath that one too. So it can take a minute or so before it finishes scanning and actually populates the pop-up menus with the names of all the folders. So just be a little bit patient when you drag in an entire folder, especially if that folder is the root folder of a large sub-tree of folders. Wait until the little spinning wheel stops and you should see that the pop-up menus in those little folder selection regions get populated.

If that doesn't work for you, you can also, as it states in "Quick_Start.pdf", drag in individual files from the OSX finder and drop them directly onto the audio and video file player decks (found on the right and left-hand sides of the main window). Again, this is all covered quite thoroughly in "Quick_Start.pdf" so I don't understand what the problem is.

[dlpinkstah]

Hey, just thought of what might be your problem: When you downloaded the apps, did you choose the "UB" (Universal Binary) versions? If you downloaded the archives which don't have "UBX" in the name, you probably got the legacy PPC-only code which would explain why it's not working properly on your Macbook, which has the Intel chip.

So just to be sure, please delete all the Maxi-Patch versions you downloaded. Revisit the downloads page and this time be sure to download the archives that have "UBX.zip" at the end...

Another thing that could trip you up is if you have that cursed "Stuffit Expander" application installed on your machine. When Stuffit tries to open our .zip archives, they get all messed up. If you have Stuffit, please make sure you don't use it to expand any of the .zip archives you download from our site.

[R.J.Dubya]

Hey, just thought of what might be your problem: When you downloaded the apps, did you choose the "UB" (Universal Binary) versions? If you downloaded the archives which don't have "UBX" in the name, you probably got the legacy PPC-only code which would explain why it's not working properly on your Macbook, which has the Intel chip.

So just to be sure, please delete all the Maxi-Patch versions you downloaded. Revisit the downloads page and this time be sure to download the archives that have "UBX.zip" at the end...

Another thing that could trip you up is if you have that cursed "Stuffit Expander" application installed on your machine. When Stuffit tries to open our .zip archives, they get all messed up. If you have Stuffit, please make sure you don't use it to expand any of the .zip archives you download from our site.

Aha! Now we're getting somewhere!

I do have stuffit expander, it's what I've always used to unzip things. I didn't realize it messed thigs up! I've never heard that before.

Do you have a recommendation for a free unzipper?

All the other stuff was covered. It was definitely the UB version of everything. But there was never anything loaded. Never any spinning beach ball. I tried loading files and folders to every square millimeter of that interface. And I followed the getting started guide very closely from the start. Must be stuffit. Could this cause preview to not work when loading audio files in pinky pluggo in live too? or is that a bug?

Do you know of other programs it messes up? I'll get to reinstalling, thanks,

There is hope! This is good!

rjw

[dlpinkstah]

Ahaha!! The evil Stuffit monster strikes again.

I put a nice big warning about this at the top of the downloads page. But maybe I didn't make the typeface big enough?

Here's what it says:

"OSX Users: PLEASE DO NOT USE STUFFIT EXPANDER TO UNZIP THE ARCHIVES! Instead, please just use the built-in OSX unzip utility, BOMArchiveHelper.app. Find it in /System/Library/CoreServices/."

Here's what you need to do. Delete the folders that you downloaded and decompressed using Stuffit. If the actual .zip archives themselves are still lying around on your desktop, then all you have to do is control-click on the .zip to bring up a menu. Select "open with..." and the "BOMArchiveHelper.app" should appear in the list of choices with which to open the archive. If not, you can always find it in /System/Library/CoreServices/.

[R.J.Dubya]

Ok, I finally found the problem with the drag and drop. The folders that I used with all my sound fx in them were in a folder whose name had a slash in it, and pinky didn't like it. I guess because it confused it's directory file path. It was called "SFX/Samples", and that caused problems. The thing is, the folders inside that had no slashes but they would not load either, nor any audio file therein.

Unfortunately, all the samples I was trying to load were in this folder, and I didn't discover until I tried moving one of the folders within it to the desktop, and it worked. At first i thought it was a permissions issue, so I checked that endlessly, and finally changed the name, and now it works fine. It was probably dumb naming a folder with a slash in it, I should know better, but it totally evaded my attention.

Turns out I don't think stuffit was being used as the default anyways. Thought it was but I just switched machines and I don't think i had it set as default, so when I first tried reinstalling everything, it made no difference, but I soon found the cause anyways.

Also, the issue of not being able to preview samples loading in pinky pluggo' s browser is ok now. Turns out you have to hold down the play button for a bit before it plays, a regular click doesn't trigger it. Did you guys notice this? Not a big deal though.

So it's lookin' good now, working nice. The only issue I've had is that pinky pluggo has crashed Ableton Live a few times, but I guess at version 1.00, it may yet have a bit of room for stability improvement eh??

I totally appreciate the help guys! Thanks a million,

rjw

[dlpinkstah]

Wow! I was totally barking up the wrong tree, dude. My bad.

So kudos to you for figuring out that our file browser has some issues to be worked on....

And one more question, what version of Live are you running on your Macbook?

[R.J.Dubya]

I'm on the latest 6.0.3 version of Ableton Live. It's the only one I've tried with it, since I just got my new mbp and only installed the latest when I moved everything.

The vinyl manipulation sounds great though. It's funny, I always wondered why you couldn't preamp the turntable pre-fader with pinky, so I tried with my mixer, and now I see that it actually works fine except for one thing: The time code is (obviously) not transmitted when you've cut the fader out and pulled the record back, so although scratching/crabbing sounds fine at first (great actually), the sample loses it's position after a few pulls on the record. Interesting, I was wondering why that wouldn't work. Guess I'll be getting me a little phono preamp then.

By the way, is there a way to change the default setting to '4th generation vinyl' in pinky pluggo rather than 5-cd control, which it defaults to?

lates,

rjw

[brianc]

By the way, is there a way to change the default setting to '4th generation vinyl' in pinky pluggo rather than 5-cd control, which it defaults to?

What I've done to deal with this is to save my Live session with the plugins, effects, etc. loaded. When I open up that session, Live has the 4G vinyl parameter saved, and it's all ready to go.

I know this doesn't change the default like you asked, but it's one option.

[R.J.Dubya]

By the way, is there a way to change the default setting to '4th generation vinyl' in pinky pluggo rather than 5-cd control, which it defaults to?

What I've done to deal with this is to save my Live session with the plugins, effects, etc. loaded. When I open up that session, Live has the 4G vinyl parameter saved, and it's all ready to go.

I know this doesn't change the default like you asked, but it's one option.

Ya, I was thinking about that possibility. Another thing perhaps would be to save a live clip of an empty audio clip with pinky pluggo. Every time you open it, it's setup how you want. Or you could probably just save a live rack with pinky innit.

One other thing I can't figure out: In both maxi-patch and pinky pluggo, whenever I load an audio file, there is no waveform in the display, just a straight line. But the file is there, and I can hear it when I scratch, but the timeline moves across the flatline, no waveform. It would be nice to see the waveform displayed. Am I missing something obvious? Some setting I haven't noticed?

Thanks,

rjw

[dlpinkstah]

The issue of audio file waveforms is covered in sections (5) and (6) of the "Quick_Start.pdf" file which can be found in the same folder with Maxi-Patch that you downloaded. So remind me why I bother to write any documentation at all if you guys won't even read it ?

Anyway-- here it is again (repeated) for you:
Note: The same waveform stuff applies equally to Maxi-Patch and to Pinky Pluggo.
5) Audio file Waveform Display : At the bottom of each audio file player region is a waveform display. For each new audio file you load into Maxi-Patch, the waveform data for that file will need to be calculated before the waveform can be viewed. To begin this waveform data calculation, simply shift-double-click on the waveform display. A progress indicator will start displaying with the words "calculating waveform data..". Once the waveform data has been calculated, it is stored in a file with the same name as the audio file, but with the".wvf" extension, and subsequently every time you open this file for playback the waveform data can be recalled instantly.

6) Batch Waveform Calculation: Under the "MsPinky & Me" Menu on the menu bar at top of Maxi-Patch main window is an item labeled "Batch Waveform Calculation". Selecting this option brings up a window in which there is a drop zone for folders containing audio files. When you drop a folder onto this zone, it automatically scans all the files in this folder (and all folders underneath it recursively) to find if each audio file has a corresponding waveform data file. If it does not, the waveform data file is calculated. The names of the folder currently being scanned and the name of the waveform data file being generated/checked are displayed, as well as the waveform data of the currently checked file. NOTE: the process of scanning through and calculating the data for all files in a large collection of music may take a very long time!