BrainModular

Hi there. I've been playing with Usine a bit, and I really enjoy it. When I am able to get it to work, that is. I'm not sure if I'm just missing something in trying to get Usine set up, but I keep running into roadblocks.

First, I can't use it as a stand alone because whenever I close it, it blue screens. I spoke with Olivier about this issue before, and it seems to have something to do with my interface drivers (Mbox2). This is fine. I can live with just using it as a plugin.

I've been using it as a VST in Reaper. Usually it will work well for about 20 minutes before I start running into issues. I downloaded the synthesis pack and started playing with it. I found that if I open one of the VST interfaces with the "open VST" button, then press the same button again to close it, the plugin won't respond anymore. I have to close down the whole session. After a certain point, Everything freezes up and I just have force quit Reaper. This is in a session that's completely empty except for Usine.

Can any of you offer tips, how to get better performance, get it to play nice with Reaper, anything like that? I'd really like to be able to use Usine reliably as part of my music.

Best,
-Zach

EDIT: Should mention. I'm on Windows 7 64-bit, but I run Reaper in 32-bit.

I don't really know what to say. I haven't spent too much time with Usine VST in the latest updates but I have never had the types of stability issues you are are experiencing, and I have just tested Usine VST in Reaper now and don't see any obvious issue. I am also using window7 64 bit and Reaper 32 bit (intel i7) Can you try with ASIO4ALL and your internal sound card to rule out the Mbox? Perhaps also try disabling multiprocessing in Reaper. Maybe this is somehow causing a conflict with Usine VST?
That's all I can think of at the moment.

yes, i've same configuration ( Windows 7 64-bit, Reaper in 32-bit. ) and no problem here

Try to run this tool to look for a device or program who can cause problems :

DPC Latency checker

also test your system components. perhaps you have a bad stick of ram or something? prime95 offers a great overall stress test
http://www.mersenne.org/ and memtest86 can give your ram a thorough workout. http://www.memtest86.com/download.html
If all of the above comes up clean, try resetting Reaper to defaullt settings?
Oh, btw how much ram in your system? If you have 2GB or less for windows 7 I could se you running into problems quite quickly.

Thanks for the advice.
Used DPC, got a max latency of 2808 with Directsound and 1886 with Mbox. The program says both of these are fast enough to handle streams without dropouts.
Restricted Reaper to one CPU, didn't appear to affect anything.
The "Show VST" issue I mentioned only appears to affect items in the synthesis pack, so no big issue I guess.
PrimeTest and MemTest both seem to require a certain amount of time that I don't have the luxury of expending right now. I'll try those out later.
And I have 4GB of RAM.

Don't forget to try bypassing the mbox by using ASIO4all.... that will at least eliminate one possibility from the chain.