3.) Late-Breaking Info Not Included in the Session User’s Guide
4.) Known Problems and Quirks with Real Time Applications
1.) System Requirements
• Session Software 2.0: Macintosh IIci, IIvx, IIfx, Centris 650, Quadra 650, 700, 800, 840av, 900, and 950 with an AudioMedia II card or Power Macintosh 6100, 7100, 7200, 7500, 8100, 8500, 9500. Session needs a computer configuration of at least 16 megabytes of RAM.
• A 13-inch high-resolution monitor or larger with 4-bit, 16-color capabilities. A 16 inch or larger color monitor is highly recommended.
• System 7.1 or higher for 68000-series systems (e.g. Mac II-, Centris, and Quadra-series computers), and System 7.1.2 for first generation PowerPC systems (6100, 7100, 8100). (System 7.5 is highly recommended for either system.) System 7.5.2 is required for second generation PowerPCs (7200, 7500, 8500, 9500).
• Running Session on a Power Macintosh without additional hardware (e.g. Digidesign’s Audiomedia II card) requires version 3.1 or higher of Apple’s Sound Manager system software. Sound Manager 3.1 is included with your Session system and is automatically installed by running the Easy Install from the Session installation disks.
• 32-Bit Addressing. For non-PowerPC and 840AV computers users, open the Memory control panel to enable 32-bit addressing and restart the Mac. PowerPC and 840AV users will not see a 32-bit enable option since these computers only run in 32-bit mode.
• Digidesign does not provide a functional warranty for the AudioMedia LC or the AudioMedia I. Every effort was made to support the AudioMedia LC and the AudioMedia I within Session. However, due to actual hardware differences in these cards, the overall performance could not be guaranteed. Therefore, although running Session on the AudioMedia LC and the AudioMedia I may appear to work fine, you may experience operational problems that may not be resolvable through future software revisions.
• Currently Session does NOT support third party video capture cards for playing back imported QuickTime movies. Although Session may work with some third party cards, we are unable to confirm that they fully work at this time.
• Caution: There are Extensions, Control Panels and Macintosh parameters that may adversely affect the performance of Session. These include:
AppleTalk — Use the Chooser to disable AppleTalk. Leaving AppleTalk active will compromise the audio recording quality in Session.
Cache Size — This Memory control panel setting will allow users to change the size of the cache. The default size is different for each CPU/RAM configuration however, so please note that changing the buffer size may lead to unwanted audio artifacts. A value of 128K has proven to be a reliable setting on most Macs. On higher speed CPUs, such as Quadras and Power PCs, this value may be increased up to 512K with no ill effect.
Calculate Folder Sizes — If the Views Control Panel is set to “Calculate folder sizes,” it may cause enough CPU/disk overhead to cause Session to report DAE -9073 errors (disk too slow). Disable this setting to prevent the errors from occurring (doing so will also speed up the opening of folders in the Finder).
CD-ROM & Removable Media Extensions/Control Panels — Many CD ROM and Removable Media extensions/control panels have been linked to audio quality problems, and in severe cases, system crashes. The easiest way to prevent these problems is to remove any CD-ROM & Removable Media extensions/control panels and restart the Mac. On some systems, simply having a CD-ROM/Cartridge inserted in the drive (and mounted) can correct the problem, though removal of the extension/control panel is the most reliable option.
Debuggers — The copy protection used by Session disables most debuggers, including MacsBug. Session will crash however, if the Jassic debugger is running when you authorize or launch Session. Removal of the Jassic debugger is the only work around to the problem at this time.
E-Mail — QuickMail, Eudora, Microsoft Mail and others should be disabled before running Session.
QuicKeys — In general, Digidesign has not found any problems with QuicKeys and Session, but please be aware of the keyboard shortcuts defined in your QuicKeys and make sure that they will not conflict or duplicate those used by Session. Please verify that you are using the latest versions of both QuicKeys and CE Toolbox.
Screen Savers — After Dark, Møire, Pyro and others should be completely disabled or removed before running Session.
SCSI Probe — Though this control panel is generally safe to use, you must disable (or change) the Command-Space Bar mount command as this key command is used by Session for recording.
Serial Switch — On Mac IIfx or Quadra 900/950 systems, the Serial Switch control panel must be set to “Compatible” mode. Restart the Mac after setting this switch. (Note: this control panel file is included on the Session installer disks. To install it, run the Session installer and choose “Custom” install options. Then select “For Mac IIfx & Quadra 900/950 Only” and click “Install.”)
Virtual Memory — Session will not launch if Virtual Memory is active. To disable it, open the Memory Control Panel, disable Virtual Memory and restart the Mac.
Windowshade - If a window is pulled up (using Windowshade) and a session is saved on a 7.5 system and later opened on a 7.1 system, the menu bar of the window will be the only item visible, with no way to “open” that window. The workaround for this is to save the session in 7.1 and then close and reopen it. This will bring the window back. Also, if you double-click on the title bar to make the window “roll up” and then double-click title bar again to make the window come back, the screen cursor becomes an arrow, regardless of which tool is selected.
2.) Manual Corrections
There are no corrections at this time.
3.) Late-Breaking Information Not Included in the Session User’s Guide
• Maximum Number of Tracks - The maximum number of tracks that Session version 2.0 supports is the following:
68000-series computer with an AudioMedia II card 4 Disk Tracks
60 MHz Power Macintosh 8 Disk Tracks
80 MHz Power Macintosh 12 Disk Tracks
100 MHz or Greater Power Macintosh 16 Disk Tracks
Please note that the speed at which Session builds its mixer and draws graphics will degrade significantly with very large sessions. Future releases of Session will include speed improvements in such areas as graphics, etc.
These ratings are based on the manufactured speed of the computer set by Apple. CPU clock accelerators will not change the number of available tracks, but they will increase performance in other areas such as screen redraws. Note that such clock accelerators have not been tested for compatibility and therefore are not supported.
• DAE Playback Buffer Size — DAE includes a File Menu command called “Set Playback Buffer Size”. This is factory-set to ‘2,’ and may require adjustment on 12 and 16 track systems. If you experience unwanted audio artifacts such as skipping or clicks, or if the “Disk Too Slow or Fragmented” dialog appears, set the buffer size to the next higher value. Verify that your disk is not heavily fragmented before adjusting the buffer setting. If the drive is fragmented, use an optimization program, such as Norton’s Speed Disk, to de-fragment the disk.
• When playback of your sesion is generating too many DAE -9073 (Disk too slow) errors, make the session easier to play back by bouncing any dense playlists to a new audio file. Then add the new audio file into your session and replace the bounced playlists. This will reduce the number of regions the computer needs to scan across the hard disk, thus making it easier for the computer to play back the tracks.
• Online Recording — When recording online, the amount of time it takes for Session to lock-up and begin recording will vary depending upon the number of tracks that are record-enabled, the speed of the CPU, and the speed of the drive(s) you are using. If timecode dropouts are encountered Session will continue to record for a short time and attempt to lock-up again. If Session fails to lock-up, try increasing the pre-roll time of your time code source to make sure it’s up to speed by the time Session is supposed to lock-up, and try again.
• From the Finder in the Get Info dialog box there is a note that recommends turning on Virtual Memory. For non-real time applications this is a proper thing to do; however, Session is a real time application. Session is unable to run with Virtual Memory turned on, so please disregard the note in the Get Info dialog. (This note only appears on PowerPC systems.)
• Microsoft Office has a conflict with Session’s command keys. To fix this problem to go into the control panels and open “Microsoft Office Manager,” then disable the “Enable Quickswitch.”
4.) Known Problems and Quirks with Real Time Applications
The following is a list of known bugs and/or limitations and available workaround solutions for them.
• Tascam DA-30 DAT machines — An incompatibility exists between the Tascam DA-30 and AudioMedia II when performing S/PDIF digital transfers. Due to the way the DA30 interprets the S/PDIF digital signal, a clocking problem that can occur about 50% of the time whenever a S/PDIF digital transfer is attempted to the DA30. A loud noise burst (when the DA30 is record enabled), or a click (written at the start of the transfer) can occur. The workaround is to toggle the digital input selector on the DA30. This resets the clock and overcomes the problem in most cases.
If the problem continues to occur, a modification can be performed on the AudioMedia II card that permits DA30 compatibility, but please note that this will create compatibility problems with the Panasonic DAT product line and some Sony R-DATs. Customers can request this modification from Digidesign for a nominal fee of $25.00 plus shipping. Contact Digidesign Customer Service to obtain a Return Authorization.
• RTK (RAID Toolkit) Primer version 1.6 is NOT compatible with Session. Using hard disks initialized with this driver will cause Session to freeze, even under very light load conditions. Our testing has shown Anubis 2.54 and HDT (Hard Disk Toolkit) Primer 1.5.1 to be compatible with Session. Hard disks initialized with these drivers have not exhibited problems during testing, even under extreme load conditions.
• Quitting DAE while Session is running can cause Session to crash. Any changes in your session that have not saved will be lost, since Session is unable to save the changes without the aid of DAE.
This situation can occur after resetting the playback buffer size for DAE. After making any changes to the DAE playback buffer size, switch back to Session to quit and allow Session to quit DAE. Then relaunch Session, and DAE will automatically relaunch with the new DAE buffer setting.
• If you destructively edit the length of a region or an audio file in Sound Designer II and return to Session, the time stamp of the file will be reset to 00:00:00:00.
• OMS “Forget Port” dialog — Occasionally, when working with OMS, OMS may produce a dialog box that describes a problem with serial ports and MIDI. The dialog requests that the user either “Forget port” or “Reset port.” This problem can occur if the OMS setup describes a MIDI interface being connected to a serial port, and OMS cannot find it because it is disconnected or turned off. This dialog will not interrupt Session recording; choose “Forget Port” to continue working with Session, or correct the problem with serial ports/MIDI interfaces and choose “Reset Port.”
• Session cannot access a MIDI interface directly, it requires OMS.
• Clicking on Finder During Launch — On some faster Macintosh systems, it is possible to enter the Finder while both Session and DAE are launching. This action may result in Session reporting “Could not complete your request because of a program error.” If this occurs, do NOT continue to operate the program after exiting the error dialog. Quit and relaunch the Session application if the error message appears.
• If you are unable to set a mix fader to 0.0 by dragging it, then Option-click the fader instead to set it to 0.0.
• Session can behave erratically whenever a network cable is connected to the Macintosh. This is typical of real time applications. Since the network ports have a high priority for hardware system interrupts, Session must wait until the ports are done before proceeding with its operations. Subsequently this can cause Session to miss vital information. So for best performance disconnect the network cable from your Macintosh.
• On a 68000-series Macintosh if Session crashes upon quitting, disable the computer processor cache in the Cache Switch control panel and restart the computer. After the computer has restarted, re-enable the computer processor cache in Cache Switch control panel and restart the computer again. If the computer experiences a complete system freeze upon quitting Session, restart the computer first and then repeat the procedure above for disabling and re-enabling the computer processor cache. This will allow Session to operate correctly after experiencing such a crash. This is not a problem when running Session on a Power Macintosh.
• Corrupted Record Tracks — When Session allocates space for record-enabled tracks and begins the recording process, it allocates the total remaining free area of the allocated hard disk (unless you've selected a finite amount of record time on-screen). If Session crashes during a recording, resulting sound files created by the record-enabled tracks may be corrupted and will occupy the remaining disk space. If your disk has practically no space available after a crash, you should suspect these new track files as they may be corrupted. Delete the files to free up the remaining disk space.
• If you encounter a low memory error while running Session, it is very important that you immediately save the changes in your session. Then quit Session and set Session’s memory allocation to a larger amount. This can be accomplished by clicking only once on the Session application icon, choosing the Get Info command from the File menu in the Finder, changing the Preferred Size setting in the Memory Requirements box, then closing the Get Info dialog to allow the change to take effect. This procedure will ensure that you won’t lose any important data.
• If you use the Finder to change the name of an audio file that is currently being used in a session, or delete a file being used in a session with the Finder, you will get a “Could not complete your request because file not found.” dialog the next time Session looks for the file. If you need to change the name of a file, change it before you add it to the session.
• If you have other Digidesign hardware other then the AudioMedia II in your system when using Session, DAE will require more system RAM.
• If you are using the AudioMedia II card for your playback hardware, the level meters for tracks 3 and 4 will be summed together with tracks 1 and 2. This can cause tracks 3 and 4 to appear clipped prematurely. This only happens during playback. The input meters for tracks 3 and 4 (with Inputs 1 and 2 selected) will indicate accurate and discreet levels during recording.
• When fading out into a Silence Region, use the “Shift-Tab” key stroke to set the end boundary point. When fading in from a Silence Region use the “Shift-Opt-Tab” key stroke to set the beginning boundary point. If you select part of the Silence Region the transition to silence will be abrupt.
• Moving the mix faders with the mouse during playback can sometimes cause clicks and pops. This doesn’t happen when using Gain Automation. For very dense and dynamic changes in gain, use Session’s mix automation capabilities for best results.
• Using the Import Other Movie Audio command in the Movie menu to import audio from an Audio CD may result in garbled files with non-Apple CD ROM drives.
• Because Session uses the Sound Manager to play back files in the Import File dialog it is important to set the Sound Control Pannel to 44.1kHz instead of 22kHz.
• If you are using Session with the minimum RAM and you launch DAE before launching Session, Session will quit when you launch it. This only happens when running Session on a Power PC without the Audiomedia II card. It works fine on a Power PC with an Audiomedia II card.
We suggest you always allow Session to launch DAE. If DAE is launched, quit it, launch Session, and then Session will launch DAE.
• To flatten a QuickTime movie, the movie must be at the beginning of the session. If the Movie Offset is set to a location other than the start time of the session, the Mix Audio & Flatten Movie function will NOT be selectable.
• On a Power PC use of the Debugger has been known to crash the computer. When using Session it is best if the Debugger is disabled. If however the Debugger is running and the computer drops into the Debugger with an “Unmapped Memory Error” try typing “GP” followed with the Return key. This should get the application running again.
• Importing, Bouncing and Sample Rate conversions may take a long time on 68000-series computers. These features were designed with the PowerPC in mind but were extended to work on older Macintoshes.
