What is it with RAX on the Mac?

spitfire31 · Post by **spitfire31** » 20 Mar 2008, 07:39

Hi guys,

As happy as I was to see RAX being rescued by AudioFile Engineering, this happiness is now transformed into frustration and disappointment.

The whole idea with RAX is for it to be a robust and stable AU host for live playing, isn't it?

Well, on my Mac G5, 10.4.10, one crash follows the other with no provocation except I'm playing mainstream AU:s.

RAX hangs, the CPU:s choke, have to force quit.

It just now happened again, when I tried a VI classic, GForce's impOSCar.

None of my AudioDamage plug-ins will make a sound when inserted as FX. The problem has been confirmed at AF E but the blame is on AD. Still, AudioDamage is one of the companies advertised on the AF E RAX webpage!

I have no complaints about support from AF E â€“ Brett always responds quickly. But the blame is always on the plug-ins, not on RAX!

But isn't it a bit strange that AU:s that work perfectly in Live 6 and DP 5.12 will crash RAX, every time?

Maybe it should be rather high on AF E's agenda to make RAX a wee bit more tolerant, so that it can play the same AU:s that other hosts can?

For me, RAX is just unusable in its current form.

Best,

Joey

Post by **kanker** » 20 Mar 2008, 09:14

Have you sent AE any crash logs?

willb · Post by **willb** » 20 Mar 2008, 09:26

Most of the Audio Damage plugs that do anything time-based seem to have had trouble when running in a host that doesn't provide tempo information. (I've had this problem in Sample Manager.) I haven't used Rax in a while -- do you need to enable an internal clock?

spitfire31 · Post by **spitfire31** » 20 Mar 2008, 09:27

kanker wrote:Have you sent AE any crash logs?

Yes Captain, Sir, many...

The idea behind this post was to see if other users have encountered similar problems.

Happy Easter!

/Joey

spitfire31 · Post by **spitfire31** » 20 Mar 2008, 09:31

willb wrote:I haven't used Rax in a while -- do you need to enable an internal clock?

No, the tempo info is always there, as I understand it â€“ I don't have to do anything in particular to make, for instance, a delay follow tempo. If I just change the tempo setting in the top left hand corner, Zebra 2 follows without further ado.

/Joey

Post by **Big Daddy** » 20 Mar 2008, 15:06

I gave up on Rax sometime after version 1.2 - It went from being a fairly stable, low CPU gem, but after the update which added the graphics stuff and OS 10.4 compatibility, it was so CPU hungry (no graphics running) that I couldn't use it any longer.

Shame really - I wanted to use it live on a laptop.

Oh well...

Post by **Matthew Foust** » 20 Mar 2008, 21:51

Just know we take issues like this very seriously. Rax is a bit of a challenge as we didn't write it, so sussing out issues takes a wee bit more time than they do in our "all-original" applications.

This particular problem could be caused by any number of issues. We only ever blame the AU's themselves if the crash logs clearly show that the crash is happening in the AU itself and that's the case with the logs we've seen in this case. Could it be our issue? Certainly. Is it likely? Generally not. We are in contact with all of the AU developers in this specific case to get to the bottom of it.

I think most of our users would attest to our responsiveness to problems. In cases like these, it takes more time as we have to work in conjunction with other developers and, as I mentioned, we're working with something that was not written by us. This is NOT to say that Plasq didn't do a good job, that's simply not the case. It's just that it's a different style and we have no context for why one decision might have been made over another.

The good news is that Rax 3 is less than a month away from public beta and it is a 100% rewrite of the application. We plan on posting an announcement with videos and screenshots soon. I will also be posting info here with regard to system requirements, new pricing, etc.

Post by **Big Daddy** » 21 Mar 2008, 19:27

That's great to hear!! Any chance we'll see a Rax lite, with minimal doo dads? Just looking for a stable UA host for live applications, but don't need any bells and whistles.

spitfire31 · Post by **spitfire31** » 02 Apr 2008, 00:43

Matthew Foust wrote:The good news is that Rax 3 is less than a month away from public beta and it is a 100% rewrite of the application.

That is good news!

What is not so good news for some of us is that RAX 3 apparently needs Leopard.

Tiger is running ever so sweetly (touch wood) for me on my G5 and my MBP and I really don't want to rock the boat. Tiger does everything I currently need and I haven't found any compelling and obvious OS 10.5 features to suffer the inevitable upheaval connected with changing to an adolescent system

Best,

Joey

autodidactic · Post by **autodidactic** » 02 Apr 2008, 05:21

spitfire31 wrote:
Matthew Foust wrote:The good news is that Rax 3 is less than a month away from public beta and it is a 100% rewrite of the application.
That is good news!

What is not so good news for some of us is that RAX 3 apparently needs Leopard.

Tiger is running ever so sweetly (touch wood) for me on my G5 and my MBP and I really don't want to rock the boat. Tiger does everything I currently need and I haven't found any compelling and obvious OS 10.5 features to suffer the inevitable upheaval connected with changing to an adolescent system

Best,

Joey

+1 I'd also like to see Rax3 tiger compatible. I'm running a very harmonious 10.4.9.

kubrick2001 · Post by **kubrick2001** » 02 Apr 2008, 10:03

for me these are the most important stuff :
- stable
- cpu-friendly
- no need for fancy visualizers

I hope it stay tiger-compatible.

tremolounge · Post by **tremolounge** » 19 Apr 2008, 09:09

Second all these motions:

-- Tiger-friendly (I have no plans to go to Leopard -- what for?)

-- dump the doodads

-- low CPU (oh, and near-instantaneous startup!)

autodidactic · Post by **autodidactic** » 14 May 2008, 08:25

Matthew Foust wrote: ...The good news is that Rax 3 is less than a month away from public beta and it is a 100% rewrite of the application. We plan on posting an announcement with videos and screenshots soon. I will also be posting info here with regard to system requirements, new pricing, etc.

Alright sir, spill the beans!!

Can we get a little sneak preview please? Even just a screenshot?

Post by **Matthew Foust** » 14 May 2008, 22:17

Ha! I still have 5 days!

For real, Rax 3 is at a point where I can make screencasts. The remaining tasks are remote controls and syncing. Otherwise, multiple outs, VST support, ReWire support, etc. are all done. We also have cool nuggets like support for monome devices.

I'll post some goodies on Vimeo pronto.

Post by **Matthew Foust** » 15 May 2008, 07:17

Wait, I'm almost a month late. My apologies. (There's a good excuse, really!)

Screencasts coming.