Serious issues with HH5

[Ariajazz]

Hi all. I decided to open this thread in order to explain some serious problems that I've found in Usine Hollyhock which, by the way, is an awesome piece of software, unique in its kind. I've been an USINE user for 10+ years since the old v5.20.

I have posted some of these problems before in this forum but have not had any effective and definitive answers or solution to them. So I wanted to get your attention as HH users and developers to see if you have experinced the same issues.

1) PRESET MANAGER (all versions of HH): It is slow and noisy, it introduces glitches to the incoming audio signal when recalling a preset. It happens in all modes of PM scope (patches, racks, workspaces). I've tried many different configurations and no way, the glitches persist, no matter what I do. This is a very serious issue, to the point that this feature has become useless for me, it cannot be used in a live situation. Believe it or not, I had to go back to Usine v5.80 and its conductor module which is silent, smooth and instant acting.

2) DMX settings do not appear in the LIGHT tab of the settings menu so DMX cannot be activated. I've tried in four different computers with the same result in all of them. This happens only with HH5. I get the following error message when HH5 loads:

"Create procedure failure in device: DMX"

3) HH5 latest beta version 5.2.221003 freezes and crashes when dealing with ASIO drivers. I tried ESI and PRE SONUS drivers and HH behaves like this with both. This NEVER happened before, but I must say that HH5 has always been picky with the ESI driver. And what is worst, ASIO4ALL, which is a "saver" in these situations is not even detected by 5.2.221003 version.

Again, this is an amazing piece of software, like no other, and I consider that this kind of issues have to be fixed. Maybe it is happening only to me, that's what I want to know and this is the purpose of this thread. All this made HH useless to me in many situations, specially live performance, where presets are needed. I repeat, I had to go back to USINE v5.80 again, which is some how not as stable as HH, with many less features, but at the end very effective and it does the job.

Waiting for your replies with your experiences and opinion.

[SylvainT]

Hello,

Regarding presets, I do not have any problem.
Can you share something to point it ?

Regarding the last version, known issue, will be corrected.

Best

Sylvain

[senso]

Hello,
I'm not sure to understand the purpose of this post.
- the version 5.2.221003 is clearly announced as a Beta Version, so it's normal to encounter some issues?
- be sure that all you troubles are specific to your config and if you really want to help us please send a bug report to the support, with the maximum of details !

senso++++

[Ariajazz]

The purpose of the post is to check if someone else is experiencing these issues and if any solutions have been found. I thought about sending a bug report first but then decided to share this information with the Usine community to get some opinions. Don't get me wrong, Usine is an amazing software and I have done many tests with different configurations, even reinstalling everything: OS, drivers, programs, plugins, etc, tried it with different computers and interfaces but the issues persist.

By the way, Does HH support uDMX interfaces? This could be part of the problem for the DMX issue.

[senso]

Usine supports Open DMX USB. Most of issues come from driver install problems.
Check your installation?

[x.iso]

preset recall can cause stutters or freeze up if you don't take care to check what modules should save states to presets and which ones don't have to. it's quite easy to accumulate huge data set that needs to be loaded instantly, so you get lags. I think it also depends on specific bottleneck your system may have, so in some cases it can get worse faster, or never really cause a problem.

[Ariajazz]

Hi x.iso. Thanks for replying. I think you did told abouth that I while ago. I've done it and have disable all modules that dont'n need to be chaging it status when a pesets ar recalled by unchecking "save in preset" options in those modules. I've done many tests having only Usine modules and others using only VSTs. last one I did I unchecked save in preset option in all of them and glitches disappeared but, what's the point?, VSTs parameters is what I want to be changed when recalling presets. I started to check that option in VSTs one by one and glitches started to appear increasingly.

My system is pretty decent (AMD Ryzen 5 with 8Gb of RAM) Windows 10 has been optimized for audio processing and all drivers have been reisntalled, no luck, problem persists, no matter where I place the preset manager. The glitches and interruptions are only present in the incoming signal of the sound card. I'm still experimenting on how to solve this.

[x.iso]

Hi x.iso. Thanks for replying. I think you did told abouth that I while ago. I've done it and have disable all modules that dont'n need to be chaging it status when a pesets ar recalled by unchecking "save in preset" options in those modules. I've done many tests having only Usine modules and others using only VSTs. last one I did I unchecked save in preset option in all of them and glitches disappeared but, what's the point?, VSTs parameters is what I want to be changed when recalling presets. I started to check that option in VSTs one by one and glitches started to appear increasingly.

My system is pretty decent (AMD Ryzen 5 with 8Gb of RAM) Windows 10 has been optimized for audio processing and all drivers have been reisntalled, no luck, problem persists, no matter where I place the preset manager. The glitches and interruptions are only present in the incoming signal of the sound card. I'm still experimenting on how to solve this.

do you expose all of VST parameters or just what's necessary? some VSTs have way too much parameters to save and recall at once. usually I find internal preset switching in VST itself having chance to be seamless, but not when it's done via parameter change from DAW. I don't know what are the technical challenges, but for instance in Bitwig when I switch presets on the fly it's normal to have to wait a second or two for preset to actually change (although before preset loads it just plays existing state of device).
also, curious if you're using VST3 or VST2.

[Ariajazz]

X.iso. As you asked, I do only expose what is necessary from the VSTs and actually I manipulate their parameters directly from the VSTs GUI. I do no deal with VSTs internal presets, at least when audio is playing. My workspaces are quite complex and involve some patch on/off modules. Recently I discovered, after intensive testing, that if they are recalled by preset manager glitches and artifacts are introduced into audio. I eliminated some of this modules and things went way better.