Great Work Flavio but

Hi Tom,

Yes I have one machine (an AMD 2100+) thats set up with a fresh install of 2K/ME in a dual boots setup. I’ve even been using some special tweaks to remove virtually everything thats not necessary ( including IE, OE, WMP, and a host of other resource hogs). The drivers are all the very latest and the graphics problems are considerable. Thanks for your considerate and respectful attitude which I appreciate. Its nice to come across people who are actually willing to listen. I haven’t seen any issues with remote access or breakins through the networking features in N but now that you made me aware of it I’ll keep it in mind. In my case I no longer have even a network card in this machine and will never be in contact with the internet or a network of any kind. However there could be issues with N trying to access a network and causing glitches. Its a definite possibility.

I think v3.3 is the best N there was or is and I’m taking 4 off my machines. 3.3 was stable, usable, and the graphics behaved. They aren’t as solid as they could/should be but I don’t think anyone had a problem with it- certainly not me.

4 is a different story altogether. I see where Flavio is going with it and since I enjoyed 3 so much I was not going to pass on 4. However it appears that 4 is much more of a pre-release version than something that should have been for sale at the time it was released- even now as far as I’m concerned.

I think it would have been much more appropriate to add a few of the new features to 3 before expecting people to buy an upgrade. With 3.3 being so stable it would have been better to go to 3.4 than to charge us for a those features in a newer, buggy version (and we see that there are a number of them).

I’m sure Flavio will tackle all the problems - eventually. I don’t think he moved to 4 for the money. I think it was poor judgement and maybe a lack of time to devote to the project. Plus he is a kid (anyone in their 20’s is a kid. ask anyone in there 30’s, 40’s or 50’s) and we know they can be a little erratic at times, but I will say 3.3 doesn’t seem like it created by a kid.

To Mr. PickNGrin and others using 3 and considering 4:

DON’T BUY 4 YET!

Just use 3.3 until Flavio gets 4 to where it should be. I’m surprised you had a lock up with 3. Until I used 4 I never had to post or e-mail about anything except reg codes. Like the guy in the other thread (Jerm I think) wrote- he never had any contact with the board or support.

One thing I don’t like about 4 (aside from the functional problems) is the extra color bars and other decorations on the menus and elsewhere. Thats the least important thing we need. 3.3 is plain but it functions well and thats what counts.

no cents

I don’t have much time to devot to this idea at the moment but I thought I would post this anyway. Looking over my Event Viewer today out of curiosity, I noticed a sting of errors and checked properties over one of the error alearts to see what was causing them. This is what I found, remember I’ve had ntrack version 3 completely uninstalled from my system for some time now.

Faulting application ntrack.exe, version 3.1.0.0, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x000114b6.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Sorry I don’t have time to chase that link, have to truck right now.

Maybe this will shed some light at least to some the problems being caused by unknown reasons.
Also, after thinking back with version 3.3 24bit and 4.0 24 bit all my freezeups started when I switched from 16bit to 24bit.

Tom

Quote (Tom @ Feb. 08 2005,16:09)
I don't have much time to devot to this idea at the moment but I thought I would post this anyway. Looking over my Event Viewer today out of curiosity, I noticed a sting of errors and checked properties over one of the error alearts to see what was causing them. This is what I found, remember I've had ntrack version 3 completely uninstalled from my system for some time now.

Faulting application ntrack.exe, version 3.1.0.0, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x000114b6.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Sorry I don't have time to chase that link, have to truck right now.

Maybe this will shed some light at least to some the problems being caused by unknown reasons.
Also, after thinking back with version 3.3 24bit and 4.0 24 bit all my freezeups started when I switched from 16bit to 24bit.

Tom

And then another from a string of a dozen error messages all takeing place within 15 to 20 mins.

Hanging application ntrack.exe, version 3.1.0.0, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

AND THIS ONE STILL FROM THE SAME ERROR GROUP:

Product: n-Track Studio 4 -- Error 1305. Error reading from file C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp

trck2setup.msi. System error 1008. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

AND SO ON:

Faulting application ntrack.exe, version 3.1.0.0, faulting module ntdll.dll, version 5.1.2600.2180, fault address 0x0001888f.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Tom,

Thats interesting. Did you install into your old 3.3 directory?

Maybe he just never changed the version number within the exe file. Its also possible he recycled the 3.3 exe and just changed the .dlls for v4.

I don’t have 4 and my system and am back to enjoying 3.3. I don’t need the headache of the shoddy graphics in the middle of a project.

Here’s an interesting fact. The version number showing for the 3.3 exe is 3.1!! This means that he either doesn’t change the version numbers to keep them up to date or the .exe files remain the same for several versions.

hmmm…

1 [Another possibility is your shortcut still points to the old version which maybe you forgot to uninstall…]



1 This is the kind of response some people immediately jump to- its all your fault, your equipments fault, or a combination thereof. Thats an absolutely rude and obnoxious way to respond and hints at lot of inner anger and pettiness within that person. Some people are so inclined to do this that they’ve formed a habit of it. At that point they no longer hear , listen or read the other person’s thoughts and the only “help” they offer is a knee-jerk accusation thats designed to help their shrivelled ego. I digress here, but unfortunately thats the basis for a lot of “help” and “advice” on this forum and probably many others.

I think you should do what Gr4him does- just fill out a bug report and send it in. It looks like we not only have to pay for this “upgrade” but we have to do some of the work ourselves.

Keep those posts coming Tom. You’re going in the right direction!

no cents

Quote (nocents @ Feb. 08 2005,21:23)
Did you install into your old 3.3 directory?

No I didn't. I was a little nervious about uninstalling v3 So I copied the contents of the V3 ntrack folder to a new folder and named it something and picked all but the music files out of it. Then uninstalled v3. And installed v4 cleanly into the FASoft folder, then went back to the new folder named "something" and moved that folder into the FASoft folder. That process was a little diffrent but I didn't loose any material that way. The uninstall of V3 was done from windows add and remove program.
Quote (nocents @ Feb. 08 2005,21:23)

Here's an interesting fact. The version number showing for the 3.3 exe is 3.1!! This means that he either doesn't change the version numbers to keep them up to date or the .exe files remain the same for several versions.

hmmm....

The 4.04 beta build 1759 has the same version number (3.1.0.0) as well. (For those wondering what this is, the way I did it was to right-click on the ntrack.exe file in the installation directory then click Properties). It looks like it doesn't tell us much, unfortunately.

I think you should do what Gr4him does- just fill out a bug report and send it in. It looks like we not only have to pay for this "upgrade" but we have to do some of the work ourselves.

I also think this may be the most effective way to do it. I know it takes time, and time is money of course (Flavio's included), but AFAIK that's how bug reporting for commercial software often works, right? You buy a certain version of a program, get some free updates/patches/etc. to fix bugs which may apply to you if you (or someone else by chance) reported them. Inevitably, though, your free updates stop, and you have to pay for an upgrade, or just hold off otherwise. Isn't this pretty much standard in the commercial software business? Anyway, yeah, I'd go with the bug report, if you decide it's worth the time/effort...

Tony

Hey nocents,
My n,exe also shows version 3.1.0.0 but opens as 404 1760 … With the help of the windows event viewer I should be able to give a pretty good bug report. I just recorded a couple of experimental tracks. It took me 13 munites, during thoes 13 munites I had 10 errors reported in the even viewer, which also means I was booted 10 times in 13 mins and still managed to complete my music tasks. Most of errors happened while was doing EQing experiments and a little realignment.
Thanks for your help!

Hi Tony,
There is alot of truth to what your saying especially with betas! But you know, what good is a boat with bells and whistles if she don’t float? Especially if you’ve been sold on the fact that she will. So we are all a little right and a little worng. It’s easier to be wrong when your program is screwy because it drives you nutz! Thats my excuse and I’m definately sticking to it! :D

You know the v4 versions don’t seem to need registration at all! Wonder if we should bug report that? :D Sorry Flav, I couldn’t resist that little pressure reliever. It’s going to be special when it’s done, infact it’s pretty special now. I’m glad some of us are not having problems, in fact sometimes I don’t have problems and when i dont’ the program is a real pleasure to use! So here’s to the future! Hopfully sonner than later!

Quote (Tom @ Feb. 08 2005,16:09)
Looking over my Event Viewer today out of curiosity, I noticed a sting of errors and checked properties over one of the error alearts to see what was causing them. This is what I found, remember I've had ntrack version 3 completely uninstalled from my system for some time now.

Tom, I didn't see any mention of what the date/timestamps indicated for these errors events--is there a chance they were mostly from that N-track/ZoneAlarm problem you were having where N-track was crashing frequently? Just wondering...

Tony

Did I mention the free version worked great -I only had trouble with V3 after I bought the full version. Never did fix it, finally bought a new PC and it works great!
-Upgrades have always scared me, at work we’ve had so many bugs delivered to us in upgrades I lost track of them all. I even put off upgrading Windows as long as I can.
I love V3! I recommend it a lot and I have for fact brought in a few sales for Flavio.
-Happy satisfied customer.

Did I mention the free version worked great -I only had trouble with V3 after I bought the full version. Never did fix it, finally bought a new PC and it works great!
-Upgrades have always scared me, at work we’ve had so many bugs delivered to us in upgrades I lost track of them all. I even put off upgrading Windows as long as I can.
I love V3! I recommend it a lot and I have for fact brought in a few sales for Flavio.
-Happy satisfied customer.

Quote (Scantee @ Feb. 09 2005,11:54)
Quote (Tom @ Feb. 08 2005,16:09)
Looking over my Event Viewer today out of curiosity, I noticed a sting of errors and checked properties over one of the error alearts to see what was causing them. This is what I found, remember I've had ntrack version 3 completely uninstalled from my system for some time now.

Tom, I didn't see any mention of what the date/timestamps indicated for these errors events--is there a chance they were mostly from that N-track/ZoneAlarm problem you were having where N-track was crashing frequently? Just wondering...

Tony

Hi tony
I didn't work on the errors that much last nigth because I had to compare a sound. But I did glance at zonealarm quickly once and the same thing was ging on. Infact I could remove ntrack from the program list in zonealarm and for a few mins I had no problems.
And yes there is a log of all this action, I haven't ruled out the fact that I might fix this myself, ntrack doesn't have to be perfect for it to be a very good and effective program for me.
Thanks for your consirn, it's much appreciated!
Tom
Quote (PickNGrin @ Feb. 09 2005,13:11)
Did I mention the free version worked great -I only had trouble with V3 after I bought the full version. Never did fix it, finally bought a new PC and it works great!
-Upgrades have always scared me, at work we've had so many bugs delivered to us in upgrades I lost track of them all. I even put off upgrading Windows as long as I can.
I love V3! I recommend it a lot and I have for fact brought in a few sales for Flavio.
-Happy satisfied customer.

Amen! I get a little tense with upgrades sometimes myself, I can sure relate! And since there are so many happy customers I have to believe that my system has to be screwing up too, or is at least part of the problem.

You have to admitt it's amazing that nocents can go back to v3.3 and be happy with it. So he is making a good constructive point too! Especially when he has so much to compare with.
Can't wait to be happy!
Tom :D

Hey Tom,

Are you on happy pills? :laugh:

I was really never unhappy with V3, especially 3.3. I think there are some people using v2 that are happy with it. Sometime “upgrades” can be “sidegrades” or even
downgrades." N4 just seems to me to be more of an experimental version than anything else. There were a number of people voicing this feeling back when 4 first came out. Maybe Flavio was trying to please the people that were begging for a new version and 4 came out only partially cooked. In my opinion it may have been much better to go to 3.4 and 3.5 adding a few new stable features. 4 could have remained beta and that would have allowed the impatient N user to experiment and find the bugs.

I’ve tried Sonar 3 & 4 along with Samplitude and prefer N track. I find Sonar very irritating. It reminds me of the old “Star Ship Enterprise” control room with 1000s of colored buttons. Samplitude is much sleaker but its got its own funny way about it that you have to get used to. They have a good handle on what to leave off the screen and the graphics performance in terms of feel and look is good. Overall its like a sports car in terms of performance but we’re doing recording so a sports car is not necessary. We need to feel like we’re in front of the computer to record our music and nothing else. Thats what Ntrack (3.3) feels like for me so I’m happy with it and don’t want to move on.

I’m sure 4 will get straightened out but I’m in no hurry even though I paid for it. I now look at that money as my contribution to R & D at Fasoft.

no cents

Hey Tom,

Are you on happy pills? :laugh:

I was really never unhappy with V3, especially 3.3. I think there are some people using v2 that are happy with it. Sometime “upgrades” can be “sidegrades” or even
downgrades." N4 just seems to me to be more of an experimental version than anything else. There were a number of people voicing this feeling back when 4 first came out. Maybe Flavio was trying to please the people that were begging for a new version and 4 came out only partially cooked. In my opinion it may have been much better to go to 3.4 and 3.5 adding a few new stable features. 4 could have remained beta and that would have allowed the impatient N user to experiment and find the bugs.

I’ve tried Sonar 3 & 4 along with Samplitude and prefer N track. I find Sonar very irritating. It reminds me of the old “Star Ship Enterprise” control room with 1000s of colored buttons. Samplitude is much sleaker but its got its own funny way about it that you have to get used to. They have a good handle on what to leave off the screen and the graphics performance in terms of feel and look is good. Overall its like a sports car in terms of performance but we’re doing recording so a sports car is not necessary. We need to feel like we’re in front of the computer to record our music and nothing else. Thats what Ntrack (3.3) feels like for me so I’m happy with it and don’t want to move on.

I’m sure 4 will get straightened out but I’m in no hurry even though I paid for it. I now look at that money as my contribution to R & D at Fasoft.

no cents

:angry: suUUur I'm on happy pills lol Hey two nights ago I got a nice little $150.00 speeding ticket! Last night I uninstalled 4.0.4 and reinstalled v3.0.3 and thought wow this is nice! I can reset the record options in one clean sweep, nice! Yes I remember this. It felt stable and solid, and I lost that parianoid feeling of flinching when I click a button! Then Ok record a test strip now that you have it all set up tom! Boink! as soon as I hit the record button, she closed! :cool: I'm trapped! :cool: I'm trapped in V4.0.4 ####! But tomarrow I can say TGIFFF! Thank god it's finally ####in Friday! :D But I'm happy! No pills just cool music, cool people, and I happen to love ntrack.
So your hooked too that's cool! It's good that you have experianced the others and can pass that along, I appreciate that!
I've got my new CD about 2/3 complete and I'm diggin it, but I know it will all fall in place! I've been preaching to myself to not rush this one so what the ___!
I have everything to be happy about! True storie!
Quote (nocents @ Feb. 10 2005,18:32)
There were a number of people voicing this feeling back when 4 first came out. Maybe Flavio was trying to please the people that were begging for a new version and 4 came out only partially cooked.

Ah yes, I remember those days well :)
I've tried Sonar 3 & 4 along with Samplitude and prefer N track.
I tried Sonar 3 and played with Reason and Adobe Audition some last year before I settled on N-track. I almost dropped the $300+ for Sonar 3 Producer when someone mentioned a volume envelope bug that Cakewalk refused to give a free patch for because they were too far into ver. 4 development or whatever, so you'd have to buy ver 4 to get the fix ($599 at zounds right now). I went to the Cakewalk forums and found out it was true. I said, "Screw that!", and placed a little $69 bet on N-track that I would at least get my money's worth. I feel I won that bet, even just looking at the bug-report responses I've gotten (two submitted, two fixed, no charge except for time...somewhat minor issues, but still annoying to me). I could have paid much, much more for Sonar before seeing any bug fixes! Software is never perfect, and N-track seemed to have a good bug-fixing track record. Plus the free plugins out there totally bring N-track up to a whole different level than it's at without them, for free.

But I'm like you, in that I absolutely favor stability and robustness over eye candy. I personally would have rather seen a more bug-free version of 3.3 than that infamous initial 4.0 release *cringes in remembrance*. 4.x still ain't perfect, but I'm happy where it's at now, considering it's gotten a lot of nice new features since 3.3, yet still works well enough for me to record and mix my music, all without a single additional charge to my credit card. (Of course, bug-reporting/testing takes time, and time is money, but I'm glad I spent that time on N-track rather than Sonar 3).

Anyway, here's to getting those graphics problems you are having resolved soon!

:cool:

Tony
Build 1770 - Thursday, Frebruary 17, 2005
Fixed problem with tooltips for volume evolution nodes not appearing correctly when vertically scrolling the song
Fixed problem with plug-ins latency compensation not correctly applied to frozen tracks
Big windows are automatically made smaller to avoid occupy too much of the screen

Now we're starting to really get somewhere! Tony, it looks like we'll all be getting our graphics problems fixed if this keeps up. While I understand your sentiment ("infamous initial 4 release" and "cringes in remeberance") I found it to be more of an irritation than anything else- just premature- it was, premature (thats a direct quote from the movie Zontar- you can verify it). N track moves at a different pace than the big programs so a little more patience is required. The outlook is good and by 4.1 these irritations will be a distant memory.

no cents

N ain’t alone in terms of dealing with the beta/point release/new version dilemna. There is a very interesting article in a recent issue of Computer Music about this very topic. I work in the IT world and we all shudder when we see terms like ‘improved workflow’ and ‘seemless upgrade’ associated with a new version of something. The plain fact of the matter is that test often is production, and that we are the true beta testers.

Of course N ain’t alone in this beta business. However I have yet to see any major company come out with a version claiming to be production that had as many flaws as the initial 4.0 did. Any company purporting itself to be a creator of professional commercial software would become a laughingstock overnight and a failure financially the next day if it put out an N4.0. I think I made it clear that I don’t hold fasoft to the expectations of a multi-million dollar company. He works in his own organic way and it just requires a little more patience. Still, N is proven and shouldn’t be immune from criticism when it falls below the standard it set for itself.

no cents

Hey nocents,
You know you make good points!
V4.0.4 build 1768 is really impressive. There is a new and better build tonight that address graphics. With 1768, I’m seeing the entire screen go grey while the tracks load quickly. Then after the tracks are in, the track line comes into view. I like it! I think it’s time for you to give it another test. I’m loving 4.0.4 1768, am now going to try 1770.
Tom