Hi, I dl'd the demo whilst I wait for my upgrade to arrive.
I was excited because I have a brand new 3.2ghz 800 mhz hyperthreaded
dell dimension computer with audigy2 soundcard, 2gig of matched ram running on a virgin fresh install of Windows XP.
Bad News First...(Technical erroring)
________
Unfortunately the software on my system is very/extremely buggy and in fact it only took me seconds before it was crashing. There seems to be
some very bad issues concerning redrawing the screen, it doesn't work properly, after doing operation x/y/z the screen loses integrity and
does not redraw properly for example when I put a new module into the rack, and other things, depending on the play mode, etc.
As well there are stutters and glitches when anything but a most basic sequence is loaded and playing back. Especially if you do further changes.
Sometimes the glitch resolves after a couple of loops worth of time, but other times it does not.
Also there are random surges in the amount of cpu useage, like when you do something, suddenly cpu useage goes sky high, sync is lost, then it comes back, sometimes though, it's frozen, and the screen wipes/redraws bad/etc.
By just touching a couple of dials I got a rewire.dll error and it came up a few times like that as it cr4ashed to desktop.
I tried opening the rewire mixer and it immediately brought up Storm2 instance,
but unfortunately, the timeline/orange bar thing, refuses to go more than a quarter of a bar long so whatever the rewired elements were playing, they loop madly. I hold no aspiration that the rewire aspect is working properly at all.
All this was done with antivirus off, all system tray programs off, etc.
Basically the demo has got major technical issues, this is unfortunate indeed.
Good news...well, interesting anyway.
Firstly, the h30+ module can now record longer than a few bars!
That's promising as it works like should have done in version 2 but never did. (microphone latency issues though are pretty bad....maybe ASIO is the only way to go however other software I have has no such delay between singing, and recording a line...)
The new GM synth revolutionizes the potential of the software extremely,
and, some of the sounds are just wildly useful, exciting, and
inspirational. Like the strings section, and the guitars.(basically fantastic, the GM module is whicked).
The layout has obviously changed. Gone is the clean modular view
of all things, replaced by a more complicated but quite useable
idea where the user can decide on what to show to a degree.
Even though I liked the Storm2 interface for its simplicity, I could
get used to the new idea because it has a lot of extra functionality.
Without the bugged out nature of the demo I would have given
maximum points for the conceptual expansion of the Storm software.
Unfortunately, the demo is just a bit of a mess:( at the moment, and I could not
rely on it to do things I need like for example using the storm recorder to record x bar loops etc. Mainly because it's glitching regularly/unregularly/ freezing/stalling/coughing/...you name it...yesterday Storm 3 was doing it).
Who ever beta tested this software obviously doesn't use it the way
I do because if they did the software would still be being prepared for public useage, it would not be released....
On that basis, I give Storm3 9/10 for the idea behind the expansion,
but I only give the software 4/10 for execution of the concept, as is,
I could not use it to make professional content, and on that basis for the first time since using Arturia products, I am dissappointed with them.
If there is a patch planned to resolve the issues great!
Otherwise, not so good........
peace out
forager
