New To Music Maker - Need Assistance

John-Herriges wrote on 8/4/2020, 1:14 PM

Greetings All,

I am new to this forum and I'm absolutely new to DAW's. I wanted to start learning and downloaded the MM FREE version to get started with. I'm hoping you guys can help with a couple of things.

Using MM - v29.0.1.16 running Windows 10 64 bit on a Dell inspiron with 256 GB hard drive , 16 GB of RAM (12 Gb available).

After getting the hang of some basics I purchased some of the add on upgrades from the store - Creative Suite, VST support, and Plus affects. My current problems have mostly do with plugins. I've downloaded MT Power Drumkit 2 and Steven Slate SSD5 (both 64 bits) sample to play around with.

1 - When attempting to load the MT drumkit -The track shows in the arrangement view with but with an error to the effect: "The following VST plugin - MT PDK2 - cannot be loaded . There may not be enough RAM available". I click OK on the dialog box (no other options) and the error message goes away and the track disappears from the arrangement view. No idea what's going here - I have plenty of RAM.

2- With the SSD5 plug in it loads tracks in the arrangement view just fine. The "notes" are there and I can open the Midi editor and do most things "Midi". How ever when I hit play I get no sound either from the "play" button or within the Midi editor and when I "hit" the Midi notes in the editor I get no sound even though the sound is enabled and - the notes are "On". I have loaded several other plugins and not have any this issue with the others. I must be missing something. (?)

3. Lastly - is there any way to reduce the size of the icons in the instrument view.? Originally, I was getting 2 on a row in the instrument view but somewhere along the way they double in size and now get only one icon per "row". Would like to get the back to smaller size but have not found the trick. Any ideas?

Sorry for the long post but hopefully the group can offer some insight to help me resolve these concerns.

Thanks, John Herriges

Comments

emmrecs wrote on 8/4/2020, 1:35 PM

@John-Herriges

Welcome to the Magix user to user forums.

First, have you checked the list of known bugs in this latest version of MM here? It is possible that what you are experiencing with those two VSTis might be fixed once the bugs are removed, hopefully!

There may be other users who post here who also have those particular VSTis and so may be able to offer advice to you.

Second, you say you originally downloaded the Free version and then purchased some of the add on upgrades from the store. For future reference, the advice here is always to actually buy one of the upgraded variants of MM, either Plus or, better still, Premium. Most, if not all the upgrades you have already bought are included in the Premium variant, along with many more, available at a single price which is much less than buying the individual add-ons.

The size of the instrument icons can be reduced if you, very carefully, drag the right hand edge of the track portion of the workscreen to the right. This will force the icons to reduce in size, until the app decides that you clearly want to create only ONE icon column, at which point you will get exactly that, but with even larger icons! Dragging the edge carefully backwards will restore the two columns (with smaller icons).

HTH

Jeff
Forum Moderator

John-Herriges wrote on 8/4/2020, 3:39 PM

Thank You Jeff.

I was able to reduce the icons. I was shifting the track window but this time I did it "very carefully". I did report the issues with the plugins to the Magix Support suspecting bugs... hoping for an update soon.

John

johnebaker wrote on 8/4/2020, 4:12 PM

@John-Herriges

. . . . When attempting to load the MT drumkit . . . .

Are you referring to the MT Power Drum Kit 2?

If so then the issue may be VST version error - for the free version of Music Maker (MMM) you must have 64 bit VST.

I have the dll and pdk file installed in the same folder and it works with no issues.

As you have the free version of Music Maker did you put the 2 files in C:\Users\Public\Documents\MAGIX\Common\MxSynth ?

. . . . SSD5 plug in . . .

Check your audio settings are set as shown below

If you do not have Realtek HD Audio, the Advanced options may be different, however you need to set output to the equivalent shown above, also increase the buffer sizes as shown in the image.

HTH

John EB

John-Herriges wrote on 8/4/2020, 7:50 PM

Hi John,

Yes it is MT Power Drum Kit 2 and it is 64 bit. The plugin path I am using is c:\Program Files\Common Files\Magix Services\MX Synths\VstPlugins. I moved the plugin files to the path you suggested but none of the plugins showed up in MM so I moved them back.

Now, I have odd things going on. I have two MT Power Drum Kits icons in the instrument folder. No idea why - I have only set of the dll and pdk file in the folder - must have a ghost file some where that I've not found. I've opened and closed MM several times, restarted several times and I get different results each time. One time one of the icons opens fine and I get the RAM error with the other. Previously I would get the error with either file. On my most recent pass they both opened with no RAM error.

I have been able to load and play tracks with MT Power Drumkit which is progress - however the sound is not good - it is choppy and crackling. I have ASIO4All installed and I've set the audio settings to your recomendation but sound is still crackly. I switched over to Magix Low Latency with same result - I do have Realtek audio. I've tried many settings and none seem to improve the sound quality - so a different issue.

No luck at all with SSD5 plugin .... it actually played the load track once but that was it. Repeated attempts after that were fruitless ..... still no sound.

Thanks for your help. Any suggestions on the sound quality? All of my other instruments and recordings have been playing fine..

John H.

emmrecs wrote on 8/5/2020, 4:19 AM

@John-Herriges

Re. the crackling. This is almost certainly due to your Audio Buffer being unable to handle the data throughput. Try adjusting the settings which John highlighted, to increase those figures; personally, I would start with the Audio Buffer number, currently 4. Eventually, this is bound to increase the perceived latency (a sort of "delay" in hearing the sound) but should enable you to listen to the audio without those very annoying skips and crackles.

HTH

Jeff

John-Herriges wrote on 8/6/2020, 12:03 PM

Hey Jeff,

I've now played with and changed every setting I could find, Buffer Number, Multitrack Size, Preview Size, and the advanced settings - from min to max and just about everything in between. Nothing has made a significant improvement. Deleted the file and download a fresh one - same result.

Not sure what else I can try at this point. Any other thoughts?

Still have odd issue with MTPowerDrumKit showing two icons - one loads and the other gives me the RAM error.. Very Strange. Have searched high and low for a duplicate somewhere but have found nothing.

John H