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Impact Soundworks Super Audio Cart

Hi. I had been in contact with Taylor from ISW support, and he told me yesterday to try the new 6.2 update.



Here's video proof that it didn't resolve a thing.

Furthermore, I have multiple corrupted projects (meaning that they instantly give you the spinning beach ball - for minutes or just infinitely - right after having been loaded) containing ISW's Shreddage 3 Stratus and Archtop. These guitars can be loaded up just fine and of course sound fantastic, but files containing the guitars start acting the same way as the SAC problem, after reloading.

These files may contain 40 other VST instances, the problem is ONLY ever resolved when I eliminate specifically the Stratus or Archtop instance. (In the startup mode that ignores audio units, it's the only way).
 
So did anyone ever find a solution to this issue? Months later, Kontakt 6.2 released and for me Super Audio Cart is still unusable in DAWs.
 
The hopefully final fix for this issue is going to be in Kontakt 6.2.2. For various concerns the actual fix didn't make it to 6.2.0 or 6.2.1 (6.2.1 was a hotfix for a pretty nasty issue that Kontakt had with multiple outputs in AAX plugin format).
 
EvilDragon said:
The hopefully final fix for this issue is going to be in Kontakt 6.2.2. For various concerns the actual fix didn't make it to 6.2.0 or 6.2.1 (6.2.1 was a hotfix for a pretty nasty issue that Kontakt had with multiple outputs in AAX plugin format).
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Hi ED,
I hope this gets resolved w/ K6.22,I haven't bought any new libraries from ISW since I bought SAC.
Is this also an issue with the new Shreddage series?I have held off upgrading because of this.
Thanks
KG
 
EvilDragon said:
Nope, the issue seems isolated to SAC only as far as both ISW and NI can tell.
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Well.. an asterisk here..

the extreme extent of the freezing issue is absolutely unique to SAC, but I must say that I have had many projects in Logic that froze on load anytime either Shreddage 3 Stratus or Archtop was somewhere in the file. The only fix was to go into logic with the audio unit disabled, and to empty Kontakt for these specific tracks.

No other tracks showed these issues, ever. Only Stratus and Archtop. Sometimes a project works totally fine, with 30 instruments loaded in them, and them becomes corrupted from the very moment Stratus is among the instruments. Freezing the tracks solves the freeze-on-load issue. Which is ironic and extremely funny, ha ha. ha.

I still love Impact, I bought their Ventus Duduk yesterday. I love Stratus and Archtop for their sound, so I will keep using them.

I 'returned' Super Audio Cart two weeks ago, and got a refund. Because I have bought it last year, and never got to play it once without it crashing. They were also always great with their support, even though the issue persisted. According to them, the SAC stuff should be resolved in the NEXT Kontakt build. If it does, I might purchase SAC again, because it's a promising product.
 
To be frank that really only seems to happen in Logic and no other DAW, from what both ISW and NI noticed. Is this something you can confirm (i.e. try loading S3 in something other than Logic or Garageband which is basically Logic lite)?
 
I'm pretty happy with Logic overall, so I'm not using any other DAW at the moment. I agree that it's highly probably a Logic issue, but even then, it's only an ISW issue within Logic as well.
 
I have has these exact same problems with SAC in Cubase on PC. The 6.2 update to Kontakt helped I do believe. I was able to finish the project I had started. It still feels iffy though, usually when loading a new instance.
 
Looking forward to that 6.2.2 release. I’m on the tail end of an Apple Arcade game I needed it for, without using SAC (or SACPC which was also giving me issues). Really unfortunate because it honestly would have been a better soundtrack with it. It really is one of my favorite libraries I’ve ever used—fun sounds, easy to mix with, nostalgia. Hoping that ISW keeps producing stuff in this vein after the fix.
 
Nic De Houwer said:
I agree that it's highly probably a Logic issue, but even then, it's only an ISW issue within Logic as well.
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It's an issue on Kontakt's side with Logic. Not really anything that ISW did in the script (although there IS a lot of stuff going on in there, but still Logic is the only DAW that has such symptoms).

I can understand you liking Logic, but at least having a go in a different DAW (even if just in a demo version) just to let us know if the same thing happens or not for you would be beneficial. It probably wouldn't happen, but a confirmation would be nice.
 
lancemontgomery said:
Hoping that ISW keeps producing stuff in this vein after the fix.
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NI's 6.2.2 fix aside, Super Audio Cart will be housed in a brand new improved engine later in 2020 or early 2021. This engine is going to be, I would say, 3-4x as powerful in terms of its features, with an improved flow for the user experience and a much more streamlined and easier-to-debug codebase, accomplishing more complex tasks with fewer but more elegant lines of code. It will also fully integrate all the component systems (synth engine, FX rack ((Console, in this case)), and the modulation matrix) into a single script tab to eliminate "PGS" script communications, which is what we use to transfer data from one script tab to another (setting a modulation in the matrix tab affected a knob on the FX tab for example).

I suspect the high use of PGS communications (for example, loading a patch will tell the mod matrix to send its entire payload of data over to the other tabs) is what caused some Kontakt instability... but only in Logic, because of how Logic handles VST communication/waiting? A "PGS hang" only found in a product like Super Audio Cart because of the existence of a separate-tab modulation matrix (lots of internal data), which to my knowledge hasn't been done in any other Kontakt lib before. Generally, most Kontakt libraries people own, especially pro composers, are of an orchestral or acoustic nature that don't do a whole lot of large data processing and transferring, and generally only have 1 tab, which is why it seems like an ISW problem and we get the ol' "I own so many Kontakt libraries and this is the only one that's breaking".

Any similar issues with Shreddage 3 that people have may also be a result of this same problem, but with TACT (similarly a large amount of separate-tab component data that demands constant synchronization). Shreddage 3 will not be foreseeably re-organized though (would break existing DAW projects and presets), so we're hoping the 6.2.2 fix should quell any last concerns for it.

It's hard to say for sure if that is actually what is causing the problem, but I made the decision to optimize it anyway since it can only bolster how easily and smoothly the new engine will run, with across the board a reduced amount of operations in the code. FYI, this optimization is not possible in the original SAC. It can only be done in advance of designing the entire engine from scratch. So basically, "we can't try to test what's wrong unless we just completely started over and tried again". Now that we're in 2019, and Super Audio Cart has had a good run, it's deserving of a full upgrade. I've learned a lot in 3 years of scripting and it'll definitely be apparent in the experience of the new product.

You can also expect more flagship synth design products to be housed in this same new engine. There are some other products of ours that are ready for some goliath sequels. :)
 
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I’ve had Super Audio Cart on my wishlist for a long time but have avoided it so far since I’m a Logic user. Hopefully the new Kontakt will fix it. Who would have thought that of all things to have problems, it would be samples from 30 year old video game hardware!
 
Happy to report that after installing Kontakt 6.2.2, Super Audio Cart now runs perfectly! I'm able to open multiple instances of the library in Logic Pro X and there are no crashes or endless "spinning wheels" of death. Thank you Native Instruments and Impact Soundworks for fixing, now I can finally start exploring the retro sounds and working on my chiptune project. :)
 
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