POD Farm - OS disruption?

[Ice]

This is off-Reaper topic but this has been driving me crazy.

This is not about liking or not liking POD Farm and whether I should move on I HAVE for the most part, but there are a few sounds from POD Farm that I actually like, that I can't copy elsewhere.

The crux of it is, is anyone still using POD Farm (especially v1) with todays OS? I'm on Mac 10.10.5 (not current of course but the problems seemed to point to OS - see below)

At first I thought it was a 32-bit vs 64-bit thing, as the plugin seems to behave slightly better when opened with 32-bit versions of the DAW's (both Reaper and PT10 (which the old temp mixes were done on). But I just can't get the plugin to sound like it used to with the same saved settings, even using the stand-alone app with the same old Toneport I've always had. It will open and pass audio, but the processing just isn't kicking in and its very strange. The sound is drastically different than it used to be.

I'm looking at Bias Amp and the Kemper to capture and save these sounds I like, but the guitar tracks were never printed! So the temp mixes I've been listening to were all printed thru the plugin. SOOOO, even if I wanted to profile the tones, I really can't at the moment.

I haven't been keeping close track as my music projects have been few the past few years, but somewhere along the way, the same settings just are nowhere close to what they used to be.

I'm about to try installing Mac 10.8.5 on a boot stick, and putting PT10 and the old POD Farm on that to see if the settings will work as expected. Maybe then I can Kemper profile them and be done with it. But I've tried many times to get back to the sounds the way they used to be and its just not working any more.

[karbomusic]

I'm on PC but have POD Farm and using it on a few tracks currently but not seeing any issues. Is the incoming signal from the item loud enough?

[Ice]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

I'm on PC but have POD Farm and using it on a few tracks currently but not seeing any issues. Is the incoming signal from the item loud enough?

Thanks and yes I've played around with levels quite a bit.

The main head scratcher is I can open up the old sessions that were used to print the temp mixes with the full signal chains intact, but those POD Farm tracks are pretty much just sounding like DI tracks.

Every now and then, in PT10 or Reaper 32-bit, it'll sound nearly like its old self again for a few seconds, then not.

I've never seen a plugin that actually opens, behave this way.

[karbomusic]

Hmm.. I don't know. The only thing I can think of is I've seen some rare VSTs that won't pass audio if the buffer size in the sound card isn't a power of 2. Voxengo's pristine space has this issue but it doesn't pass audio at all when this occurs.

When using Reaper 64 bit, is the plugin 32 or 64 bit? If 32 you might play with VST bridging settings but that's a total crapshoot guess.

[Ice]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Hmm.. I don't know. The only thing I can think of is I've seen some rare VSTs that won't pass audio if the buffer size in the sound card isn't a power of 2. Voxengo's pristine space has this issue but it doesn't pass audio at all when this occurs.

Interesting! I always make the buffer a power of 2 it turns out, but I didn't know about this.

When using Reaper 64 bit, is the plugin 32 or 64 bit? If 32 you might play with VST bridging settings but that's a total crapshoot guess.

Not sure about that. I'll have to check. I keep trying to check "rolled back in tech" as far as I can go since I know I tracked and mixed these temps in PT10.

I've tried every iteration I can think of other than rolling back the Mac OS. I'll try that later this week and see what happens.

The fact that the stand-alone POD Farm app also has the same problems, sort of eliminates the DAWs. Thats what made me think it may be the OS. I was on 10.8.5 when these tracked.

[zeekat]

Do you use the POD farm with some Line6 interface, or a third party one? While L6 interface has an auto input gain thingie, the third party one requires remembering about the input gain knob in the plugin (or app), which from my own experience you can sometimes overlook. And this is the kind of thing that can leave you with tracks undergained so hard they sound like dry DI

[cturner]

Mostly use Pod Farm on Win10, but I have the trial version installed here on a Mac running 10.11.6. Ran some audio through the Audio Units loaded into Amadeus and all seemed well, this at 64-bit. Are you running the 2.59 version of Pod Farm? Checked the buffer settings in the app version? Bad install of Pod Farm? Factored out the Line6 drivers?

[Ice]

Originally Posted by zeekat

Do you use the POD farm with some Line6 interface, or a third party one? While L6 interface has an auto input gain thingie, the third party one requires remembering about the input gain knob in the plugin (or app), which from my own experience you can sometimes overlook. And this is the kind of thing that can leave you with tracks undergained so hard they sound like dry DI

Its a Line 6 Toneport DI. I've explored in excruciating details if its a gain issue and it doesn't seem to be. I know what you're saying though. I've had that happen when the signal chain changes getting into the Toneport, or plugin for that matter.

[dug dog]

My old 32 bit Win XP machine passed away recently and when I switched over to Win7 64 bit I noticed odd behaviour with the Toneport DI (this is the one that came with the old Line 6 Gearbox).

I am able to use the Toneport as an interface and Podfarm will work in stand alone mode, but I can't use the Podfarm VST in a project where the Toneport acts as an authorization dongle. I get a Line 6 error message that says I need to connect an authorized device and I haven't been able to figure out how to do that. Of course, L6 no longer supports this device.

[dug dog]

Not sure if that has any bearing on your issue, though.

[Ice]

Originally Posted by cturner

Mostly use Pod Farm on Win10, but I have the trial version installed here on a Mac running 10.11.6. Ran some audio through the Audio Units loaded into Amadeus and all seemed well, this at 64-bit. Are you running the 2.59 version of Pod Farm? Checked the buffer settings in the app version? Bad install of Pod Farm? Factored out the Line6 drivers?

I never upgraded to POD Farm 2. It seemed like they were dropping support (just was my impression - no facts to support that!) and I was getting what I wanted out of POD FARM 1.12, so never went to PF2.

And this is why I'm rolling back to 32-bit DAW's like PT10 where the tracks were originally recorded and mixed.

I haven't done a lot of music the past few years as software has been changing. I have noticed over time as I dabbled back in old sessions that POD FARM was acting strange, but its degraded beyond usability for me now, even rolling back to PT10.

Last night I went to re-install POD FARM 1.12, and the installer couldn't choose ANY volume I had as a destination.

I'm going to try installing MAC 10.8.5 on a new volume in the next day or so and see if I can get it running the way I expect on that. If I get it going I'll be able to "Kemper" it at least.

[Ice]

Originally Posted by dug dog

My old 32 bit Win XP machine passed away recently and when I switched over to Win7 64 bit I noticed odd behaviour with the Toneport DI (this is the one that came with the old Line 6 Gearbox).

I am able to use the Toneport as an interface and Podfarm will work in stand alone mode, but I can't use the Podfarm VST in a project where the Toneport acts as an authorization dongle. I get a Line 6 error message that says I need to connect an authorized device and I haven't been able to figure out how to do that. Of course, L6 no longer supports this device.

Yep thats the same Toneport I have. I forget what the bundle was called but it came with an expansion pack of extra amps and such. "Gold" maybe?

I also have an iLok asset for PF1 so maybe thats why it will still "open" as a VST. I don't get any authorization errors. It just doesn't sound anywhere near correct. It doesn't sound like anyone else is having the same problem.

I'll report back once I try the 10.8.5 boot drive.

[dug dog]

Originally Posted by Ice

It doesn't sound like anyone else is having the same problem.

I suspect there aren't many people using this old Toneport device.

I'm happy that my stand-alone version of PFarm works (v1.12) but really wish I could get the VST to work. Oh well....

Good luck and please keep us posted.

[Ice]

Originally Posted by dug dog

I suspect there aren't many people using this old Toneport device.

Agreed - probably not many using PF1 either!

I'd let it go but there's this one particular tone I can't seem to duplicate with anything else.

[dug dog]

Originally Posted by Ice

I'd let it go but there's this one particular tone I can't seem to duplicate with anything else.

If it's just for the purpose of modelling it with Kemper or whatever, maybe someone else can duplicate it for you. Worth a shot.

[Jimmy James]

Going to PodFarm 2.5 is totally worth it bro. You will wish you did it sooner. I have none of the problems you are talking about.

Do you maybe have di and wet happening? I have had to turn the di feed off before so I will only get the processed sound.
Anytime I had a DI sound,it was a routing problem or I really had DI on.

[Ice]

Originally Posted by Jimmy James

Going to PodFarm 2.5 is totally worth it bro. You will wish you did it sooner. I have none of the problems you are talking about.

Do you maybe have di and wet happening? I have had to turn the di feed off before so I will only get the processed sound.
Anytime I had a DI sound,it was a routing problem or I really had DI on.

Its not a mix of DI and processed.

I might go to PF2. I've gone too far down the road to not try to get to the bottom of it.

I also remember another reason why I never went to PF2. At the TIME, I hadn't started using Reaper yet and PF2 didn't (and still doesn't) do AAX. Thats not a deal-breaker anymore, but it also might not help me resurrect old stuff that is PT based.

[cturner]

Originally Posted by Ice

I never upgraded to POD Farm 2. I was getting what I wanted out of POD FARM 1.12, so never went to PF2.

Yikes! So 32 bit, expects Carbon and could run on PPC machines.

One thing you might try: in the Info Box of the app (Command-I) try turning off "App Nap".

I'm going to try installing MAC 10.8.5 on a new volume in the next day or so and see if I can get it running the way I expect on that. If I get it going I'll be able to "Kemper" it at least.

If you can, try going back to 10.6. Things really changed in 10.7 Lion with the removal of Rosetta and all the other support for non-Intel machines.

Good luck!

[Ice]

Originally Posted by cturner

Yikes! So 32 bit, expects Carbon and could run on PPC machines.

One thing you might try: in the Info Box of the app (Command-I) try turning off "App Nap".



If you can, try going back to 10.6. Things really changed in 10.7 Lion with the removal of Rosetta and all the other support for non-Intel machines.

Good luck!

Good thoughts. I couldn't remember what OS I was using for these old tracks. Its been a while and I remember on 10.8.5 everything blissfully seemed to work JUST right. I held out as long as I could and I hated when I finally had to go to 10.9.x.

I know I have an OS installer for 10.8 but not sure about 10.6.

Good thoughts though - thanks!

[Ice]

Just an update:

10.8.5 and POD Farm 1.12 works great. It was a bit of a mission to get 10.8.x installed, since the 10.8 installer doesn't run on OS 10.10.x!!!!! Sigh. But I got it done and at least now I have the presets back in some form that sound like I expect.

I didn't bother yet installing PT10 and iLok and all that stuff, but stand-alone 1.12 works.

Hardly a definitive find though. It could still be driver conflicts that have crept up over time on my 10.10.5 boot. I haven't done a clean system install in quite a while.

In the long run not sure what I'll do. There doesn't seem to be an upgrade path for me from PF1 to PF2. After all this time, still no AAX support for PF2. If they were serious about supporting it that should've happened by now IMO, given the amount of people using PT.

Kempering the presets looks like a way to go, but don't have a Kemper yet. And then you lose the 2 amps at once as well as multiple instances, etc, etc.....

But this video alone make me want a Kemper:
https://youtu.be/L_XaZqgvr3U

[dug dog]

Glad to hear you got it working.

Out of curiosity, which PF tone was it that you've not been able to replicate with anything else?

[Ice]

Originally Posted by dug dog

Glad to hear you got it working.

Out of curiosity, which PF tone was it that you've not been able to replicate with anything else?

Such a simple one really! A rat pedal in front of a Connor (Cornford).

I can get CLOSE with a number of other modelers and plugins, but never just that sauce.

[Dezb1]

I use pod farm and a tone port ux1, been using them for years with no problems.