So I've been a faithful fan of Powertracks Pro Audio since... well, Jesus, 1997/1998, when I decided I wanted nothing more than to sit in front of a computer and record full albums by myself.

Well, I've been doing that ever since, with some decent successes (was courted by Warner Bros. in 2001 for a deal before the negotiations fell through) and with the last two versions of Powertracks for Windows I've spent more time being pissed off and disappointed at the software than I've been recording on it.

First of all, %90 of the latest version's "feature set" is what most of us would call FIXES. Now, if you remember clearly, the last version of Powertracks had NO PATCHES. I had crashes, issues with every possible VST in the planet, audio skipping, driver resets, you name it, and constantly checked the site for a patch. NONE. No patches.

They put out a new version of Powertracks and it's patches for tons of the problems that were wrong with the previous version. Basically, outside of a few new actual features and some mostly cosmetic changes, it felt like they sat on every bug and issue fix from the previous version, kept in any patch that would be released and just put those in a new version, you know, months/years later. I couldn't be more disappointed.

If all I wanted was cheap sounding 1998 grade karaoke midi tracks I would be at home, but unfortunately loading most VSTs will bring me some form of slowdown, crash, etc, and recording all my bass, guitar, vocal parts as wav tracks will be fine until I start adding any DX effects to them. Mind you, I can load them in Protools or nuendo without issue (yes I had to bring in the evil beasts to get work done). Only Powertracks has been crashing with them on. I've managed to still get a bunch of songs done this way, but having to restart pro tools every 10 minutes is wearing my soul thin.

Chalk it up to WINDOWS 7/Vista or any Windows version that isn't XP, but the last two Powertracks have just crapped the bed for me so many times that I don't even know what to do anymore.

Can we please make sure we get some regular patches for this new version? I'd hate to stop buying and supporting software that I've learned inside out for over a decade now. I feel like knowing this software inside and out will be wasted if I have to completely jump ship, and the way this is going I may have no choice.

For the record, I have a Creative Soundblaster X-FI Platinum on Windows 7 and have also added an M-Audio MobilePre to my setup just so I could use a cheaper version of ProTools.

Have you reported your problems to PGMusic? They can't fix what they don't know about. I don't mean posting here (it's just a user forum), but actually sending detailed descriptions of what's happening to support@pgmusic.

I've been told to reinstall things... which I've done a number of times with no effect. The main thing is that everything else works fine as long as it isn't with PowerTracks so I look to it being the issue, not the hardware or the VSTs themselves.

Hmm... So I'm not alone in my disappointment with the recent version of PowerTracks. I too have used it for some years entirely satisfactory but since updating to 2012 I can no longer use it as before. (See my post "Random faltering, clicks and beeps in audio playback").

What are some of the VST's that do not work. From my experience, there are a few, but most work great. There a few VSTi's that will not work due to host timing issues like jamstix, and others.

I get random crashes and issues whenever I run just about any VSTi. In other words they work. 7 out or 10 times I use one particular one I may be able to get things done without crashing but then the next time I load it up it will crash or crash during recording or even just after loading something.

From what I have seen here and over in the BiaB for Windows forum, I think I will just stay with my BiaB 2008 and my PT 2010 for a while longer. I am pretty much just a basic MIDI to external sound module guy anyway - not big on VST's and audio loops. Have never even installed the original REAL Drums/Tracks that came with the 2008 package. I was getting ready to upgrade both of them, but I think since they are currently working fine, I won't try to fix them or make them better.

Regards,

Ted

Adam, what you describe is not normal, and while i have had some issues with PT, nothing like that, and i have had it on several computers over the years.

I have to beleive it is a computer problem.

Now since other DAWs work, that sometims seems to answer the question, but my experience is that not all DAWs work with every system.

All VSTi's work except the ones that require tempo lock for me, and most everyone else here.

Personally for me if PT was all that PG had, I would use other software, as it does not ahve everything i want or need. I use RB because of the generation features, and again it is pretty stable for me.

Some of your problems may well be associated with the Creative Soundblaster X-FI Platinum in Windows 7. I had this soundcard installed with my updated HP Pavilion DAW last year and it took me months to iron out various problems associated with Win7 plus this card.

I found that several VSTis would not load into Win7 environment - the exe file of one was rejected by Norton Anti-Virus as a Cloud Virus. Some of these problems have been overcome. As regards to the Creative Card, I have found that the MME audio drivers were not stable but liable to crackle occasionally in Play mode and useless in record mode - even those drivers resident to the operating sytem were no improvement. I now use the Creative ASIO driver which works perfectly for Play and record via the Soundcard. Unfortuately, render with a few of the VSTis by ASIO has been ineffective as, for some reason, the VSTi Patches are removed during the process and blank Audio tracks result. On other occasions, part only of track has been produced irrespective of the highlighting.

However, for this process and the few VSTis affected, a return to the MME drivers works fine.

If I use MME drivers everything seems to be completely off tempo. Never tried it again after that. My drums necessitate the usage of VSTi to get a better and more realistic sound than if I were to be using SoundFonts.

The issue I've been having is solely with the latest two versions of PowerTracks. Everything before that worked fine, even when I was once using crappy Windows Vista.

I can't even get PowerTracks to work properly with an M-Audio Mobile Pre setup that I recently was gifted, while that works fine with Protools 9. I would be abandoning PowerTracks completely at this point if it wasn't for the fact that I have songs that are unfinished in Powertracks that I need to export since the SEQ files are not something that any other music software out there will import.

Since I updated to 2012, I now have a product that does not work for me and in the last few weeks has cost me a lot of wasted time trying to fix.
First, I now have a problem using ASIO that even PG themselves have failed to come up with a fix for and have apparently now abandoned me. I can no longer use PT (as I have for years) with ASIO and have to do all ASIO tracking and mixing in Cubase, which is not my favourite program but it works faultlessly, as PT used to.
Resigned to that, because rendering MIDI to audio in PT is fairly straightforward (my lite version of Cubase doesn't do it), I started using PT just for that process before importing the audio into Cubase for mixing, but now it won't even do that as the CoyoteWT DXi default synth has ceased playing back - it records and I can see the MIDI notes in the track and see the VU meters activating in playback but no sound and it won't render to audio.
I'm bitterly disappointed that the program I really liked and used with no problem for years (on exactly the same computer set-up as now) is apparently now just a bag of useless junk.

Can you re-install the last version which worked to a separate folder to use until some resolution of your problems with 2012 are resolved???? If you intend to use Cubase, can you use the Drag and Drop feature in PT to move seq files to Cubase???

Hi Lynn - thanks for your reply.
I have two other threads running on these problems.
The first one "Random faltering, clicks and beeps in audio playback" has run and run. If you can be bothered looking through it you will see all the things that have been tried including going back to 2010 version, but whatever the problem is now seems to be embedded somehow because that would not work properly either. PG support also did a remote access session but they have not been able to fix it. They did offer to try doing another one but that has never materialised.
I believe this problem started after I updated to 2011, however I did very little recording between then and when I updated to 2012 so it wasn't a major issue and one I foolishly thought would be fixed if I updated to 2012.
The most recent problem is in the thread "No playback in CoyoteWT". Still ongoing.
My Cubase version is LE4. It doesn't render MIDI to audio, only VST instruments. It doesn't recognise .seq files either.
It's fast looking as if I'm going to have to salvage what .seq files I can to .wav or whatever and reluctantly abandon PT.

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you will see all the things that have been tried including going back to 2010 version, but whatever the problem is now seems to be embedded somehow because that would not work properly either.

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Well there you go. That's your issue because if I'm to believe all was well with a previous version and now that same version doesn't work IT'S NOT PTs. Something in your system is screwed up. Non of the PG programs make registry entries so once you delete the folder it's gone.Nothing is embedded that was the result of a PG product.