Thanks to a couple posters here, I found and love the Overloud TH-U guitar amp sim. I just a noticed a problem using it in C3, however. Has anyone else experienced this?
If I switch from one song that has the TH-U plugin in a rack to a different song that also has an instance of the TH-U plugin in a rack (different rack, different instance of the plugin), then after C3 loads all of the plugins for the 2nd song, it hangs - just before it renders the main window for the new song.
I THINK I have narrowed it down to this plugin. I tried going back from C3 version 3590 to 3589 - no change. The other possibility that could be contributing to this is that I recently updated by Windows 10 to the May 2019 update. But this is the only time I am noticing a problem going from one song to another. (I tried other transitions where 2 instances of the same plugin are used, with no problems. But I haven’t tried every single plugin yet.)
Corky, good question. Mainly because of the way I started creating songs and racks, and then being too lazy to change.
I basically created a distinct rack for each different “sound” or “patch” (which might consist of multiple plugins - both instruments and effects), and haven’t used rack states very much.
So I have 3 different racks that use TH-U for example, all of which produce a guitar-like sound. In one rack, it might be an EP routed through TH-U (Marshall sim) for power chords; in another I have a Strat-like patch in Omnisphere routed through a Fender-like amp sim in TH-U; another rack i route a lead synth sound through a AC30 sim to get a mildly distorted, bright “singing” lead sound.
Other examples too. But I have’t tried to consolidate those multiple instances of TH-U into one rack. (Similar story for other plugins). I realize that this approach is not very efficient, but I find the approach easy to use and very flexible in terms of getting just the sound I want in each rack/song.
Sorry for the rambling. But I hope it helps explain my setup.
So here’s what I have found after a little more trial and error:
The Profiler was not any help since the issue causes C3 to hang, including the Profiler.
I noticed with Verbose Logging turned on that, in most cases, when I switch from one song to another, even if I have different instances of the same plugin in both songs, I see log entries like: VST Plugin- Omnisphere (0x000000001F03E6C0) - Stopping processing… VST Plugin- Omnisphere (0x000000001F03E6C0) - Stopped processing
… and a little later … VST Plugin- Omnisphere (0x000000001F03E6C0) - Closed
But with TH-U, if I go from one song to another where both songs have instances of TH-U (different presets), C3 never gets to the VST Plugin- TH-U - Closed entry.
I removed Racks from the equation by creating 2 very simple songs with nothing but an instance of TH-U in each song. I did similar experiments with a few other plugins (Omnisphere, PianoTeq, a couple Waves fx plugins). None experienced the same issue. I am suspecting that this is a case of TH-U not shutting down each instance in the right way, but I can’t really prove it.
But a question to @brad, if this is indeed what’s happening, is there anything I can do to force C3 to handle this without hanging? Or do I need to try to work with Overloud? Or perhaps rethink my Song/Rack strategy, as Corky has hinted?
I am consistently able to repro this problem with TH-U “on my machine”, but I would appreciate if someone could try this on their machine, I am uploading 2 nearly identical songs with nothing but an instance of TH-U. I don’t even need a VSTi to produce a sound to trigger the problem. If I first load one of these songs, then switch to the other (File | Open Song…), C3 just hangs.
If I open a different song with no TH-U and then open the 2nd song, no problem. Also, if I stop the C3 Audio Engine while switching songs, again no problem.
I downloaded and used your 2 songs. It is normal switching here…no hang on C3. The presets switched perfectly. These, of course, were not in a rack, so that didn’t matter.
Also my routing out was the simple “main speakers”, and I used no input route. Are you using more complicated routing (just a guess out of the blue)? That is where I personally would go next, or maybe remove/re-install TH-U.
I think I figured it out. I downloaded and installed the latest version from Overloud, and realized that I jumped from version 1.0.5 to 1.0.13. Not necessarily saying there was a bug in the older version, but something was apparently fouled up with my PC.) In any case, I do not have any issues after installing this version.
Thanks again Corky for helping me eliminate different options and narrow in on the answer.