Amadeus Pro is Disappointing compared to AmadeusII

Discussion forum for Amadeus users

Moderator: Martin Hairer

Post Reply
zbartrout
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 8:44 pm

Amadeus Pro is Disappointing compared to AmadeusII

Post by zbartrout »

I have to say I am quite frustrated by the poor performance of Amadeus Pro.
I just "upgraded" and found that it take 3x as long to open a WAV file.
When performing a task such as Normalization, the progress bar starts out saying that it's going to take 6 secs then after about 20 secs it say 8 then after a minute it says 12 sec. In the end it took about 3 minutes to normalize a 45 minute file.
I paid for this? Amadeus II works fine on this machine, dispite the notes that say otherwise. Can someone enlighten me as to the benefit or even better, grant me a refund.

I've been a paid user and advocate of Amadeus II for over 4 years now.

I'm working on Mac Pro 10.5 with 16GB of RAM.

-Scott

Sonic Purity
Posts: 82
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:58 pm
Location: Pasadena, California, U.S.A.

Re: Amadeus Pro is Disappointing compared to AmadeusII

Post by Sonic Purity »

zbartrout wrote:I have to say I am quite frustrated by the poor performance of Amadeus Pro.
I just "upgraded" and found that it take 3x as long to open a WAV file.
When performing a task such as Normalization, the progress bar starts out saying that it's going to take 6 secs then after about 20 secs it say 8 then after a minute it says 12 sec. In the end it took about 3 minutes to normalize a 45 minute file.
I paid for this? Amadeus II works fine on this machine, dispite the notes that say otherwise. Can someone enlighten me as to the benefit or even better, grant me a refund.

I've been a paid user and advocate of Amadeus II for over 4 years now.

I'm working on Mac Pro 10.5 with 16GB of RAM.

-Scott
From a fellow Amadeus user...

Hi Scott,

I started with Amadeus II circa 1999 on OS 9 (and still use that configuration sometimes on my venerable 8600/300). Mostly today i am using OS 10.4.11 (no interest on my part for 10.5 yet, and no Intel Macs here) on G4 systems with 1.5 to 2 GB RAM (the maximum for each particular system).

I did upgrade, and have both the final Amadeus II and a recent Amadeus Pro on these two OS X G4 Macs. I am finding that i still tend to use Amadeus II more, primarily because i am doing stereo work, and it does just what i need… no more, no less. Yet, i do not regret having upgraded to Amadeus Pro (possibly because i got a good deal in a promotional software bundle for a full new Pro license, which was about half the upgrade fee).

There are a number of functions Amadeus Pro performs that Amadeus II does not (and a few still vice-versa), most of which i have not paid attention to. Big ones that stick in my mind are multitrack functionality (yet still works well as a stereo editor, a pleasant surprise after seeing how a few other multitrack audio software packages handle stereo files [thinking mainly of ProTools here]) and audio CD writing from within the program (Index Points, Pleeze!!!). Seems to me that using markers is a bit easier in Pro than II. Though i have not used Amadeus (any) to record for awhile, i recall the recording meters suck less in Pro than in II (latter-day versions of II ceased to be able to record at all on my OS 9.1/8600 system)... i’d still love to see the metering from the Vintage Mac OS program Coaster (no longer in development, and last i checked, the author recommends Amadeus instead) in Amadeus... those were great meters.

Mainly, on my much slower-than-yours systems, i have not noticed slowdowns such as you cite (yet, i seldom deal with the WAV format), otherwise i might feel similarly to you. Also, it is my understanding that Amadeus Pro is a complete rewrite, and i remember well that it took Amadeus II awhile (years) to really get "dialed in" and stable. With one programmer and not a whole team of paid professionals able to work on Amadeus all day every day, i expect Amadeus Pro to continue to positively evolve, though not necessarily swiftly. Martin H. is a clear presence on this forum, and seems to do very well addressing issues as they come up and popping out new beta versions in a very timely fashion.

Personally, i like having both versions as options, at least until Pro does every single thing II does at least as well as II does. Within the last year, i have had some basic multitrack work that did not require the bloated overhead of ProTools for which APro was ideally suited and worked well, plus some other now-forgotten project which used another now-forgotten Pro feature that was either lacking or not as well implemented in II.

From what i have read, most people here seem to consider Amadeus Pro to be between a solid Good and Great already, and barring unforeseen circumstances, it should keep getting better. You may well be able to get a refund if you want out, yet i suggest reading what others may say in this thread and having another look at what all Amadeus Pro does before giving up on it. Perhaps with additional documentation (what, i do not know) added to your preliminary bug report findings (the slow WAV opening), Martin may be able to do something to rectify the situation (unless the problem is Apple’s code).
))Sonic((

CDJonah_alt
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:57 pm

Amadeus Pro is Disappointing compared to AmadeusII

Post by CDJonah_alt »

As another user responded, I use both AII and A-Pro; I did do a timing
test; an aiff file took 20 seconds to load on AII and 30 seconds on
A-Pro. I would expect Wav to be similar as the files differ only in
minor details.

If I am doing standard stereo editing, I still use II -- I know it much
better -- but if I need to multiple tracks or if I want to merge
multiple things to stereo, even if you can use paste over in AII, the
ease of changing the merging in A-Pro makes things much easier.

I genreally find in programs that if a new program has fundamental extra
capabilities, the simple things may well take longer.

Chuck

Sonic Purity wrote:
zbartrout wrote:
I have to say I am quite frustrated by the poor performance of Amadeus Pro.
I just "upgraded" and found that it take 3x as long to open a WAV file.
When performing a task such as Normalization, the progress bar starts out saying that it's going to take 6 secs then after about 20 secs it say 8 then after a minute it says 12 sec. In the end it took about 3 minutes to normalize a 45 minute file.
I paid for this? Amadeus II works fine on this machine, dispite the notes that say otherwise. Can someone enlighten me as to the benefit or even better, grant me a refund.

I've been a paid user and advocate of Amadeus II for over 4 years now.

I'm working on Mac Pro 10.5 with 16GB of RAM.

-Scott
From a fellow Amadeus user...
Hi Scott,

I started with Amadeus II circa 1999 on OS 9 (and still use that configuration sometimes on my venerable 8600/300). Mostly today i am using OS 10.4.11 (no interest on my part for 10.5 yet, and no Intel Macs here) on G4 systems with 1.5 to 2 GB RAM (the maximum for each particular system).

I did upgrade, and have both the final Amadeus II and a recent Amadeus Pro on these two OS X G4 Macs. I am finding that i still tend to use Amadeus II more, primarily because i am doing stereo work, and it does just what i need… no more, no less. Yet, i do not regret having upgraded to Amadeus Pro (possibly because i got a good deal in a promotional software bundle for a full new Pro license, which was about half the upgrade fee).

There are a number of functions Amadeus Pro performs that Amadeus II does not (and a few still vice-versa), most of which i have not paid attention to. Big ones that stick in my mind are multitrack functionality (yet still works well as a stereo editor, a pleasant surprise after seeing how a few other multitrack audio software packages handle stereo files [thinking mainly of ProTools here]) and audio CD writing from within the program (Index Points, Pleeze!!!). Seems to me that using markers is a bit easier in Pro than II. Though i have not used Amadeus (any) to record for awhile, i recall the recording meters suck less in Pro than in II (latter-day versions of II ceased to be able to record at all on my OS 9.1/8600 system)... i’d still love to see the metering from the Vintage Mac OS program Coaster (no longer in development, and last i checked, the author recommends Amadeus instead) in Amadeus... those were great meters.

Mainly, on my much slower-than-yours systems, i have not noticed slowdowns such as you cite (yet, i seldom deal with the WAV format), otherwise i might feel similarly to you. Also, it is my understanding that Amadeus Pro is a complete rewrite, and i remember well that it took Amadeus II awhile (years) to really get "dialed in" and stable. With one programmer and not a whole team of paid professionals able to work on Amadeus all day every day, i expect Amadeus Pro to continue to positively evolve, though not necessarily swiftly. Martin H. is a clear presence on this forum, and seems to do very well addressing issues as they come up and popping out new beta versions in a very timely fashion.

Personally, i like having both versions as options, at least until Pro does every single thing II does at least as well as II does. Within the last year, i have had some basic multitrack work that did not require the bloated overhead of ProTools for which APro was ideally suited and worked well, plus some other now-forgotten project which used another now-forgotten Pro feature that was either lacking or not as well implemented in II.
From what i have read, most people here seem to consider Amadeus Pro to be between a solid Good and Great already, and barring unforeseen circumstances, it should keep getting better. You may well be able to get a refund if you want out, yet i suggest reading what others may say in this thread and having another look at what all Amadeus Pro does before giving up on it. Perhaps with additional documentation (what, i do not know) added to your preliminary bug report findings (the slow WAV opening), Martin may be able to do something to rectify the situation (unless the problem is Apple’s code).
------------------------
))Sonic((





------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Amadeus forum mailing list
Unsubscribe / change settings at http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/forum_list
_______________________________________________
Amadeus forum mailing list
Unsubscribe / change settings at http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/forum_list

User avatar
Martin Hairer
Site Admin
Posts: 1975
Joined: Wed Nov 08, 2006 11:49 am
Contact:

Amadeus Pro is Disappointing compared to AmadeusII

Post by Martin Hairer »

Hi Scott, this kind of slowdowns can be observed if the access to the
hard drive selected in Amadeus Pro's "Temporary Files" preference pane
is slow. It can also happen if Time Machine is backing up your hard
drive while you are using Amadeus Pro, since TM occasionally blocks
disk accesses by other programs.

As Chuck was saying, Amadeus Pro should perform similarly to Amadeus
II under normal circumstances. One reason I can see why Amadeus II
would perform better on your particular machine (i.e. one with *lots*
of RAM) is that it tries to keep as much data as possible in RAM
whereas AP keeps most of it on the hard drive. This strategy results
in better performance on most machines (i.e. those with about 1GB of
RAM) because it reduces swapping. On your machine, I would expect a
performance hit, but more along the lines of what Chuck is mentioning
rather than a factor 3.

However, if you are interested, you can download a custom-built
version of Amadeus Pro at <http://www.hairersoft.com/Downloads/AmadeusProRAM.zip
which should use RAM only up to a total amount of 2GB. I would be
interested in whether this runs significantly faster on your computer.
Regards,

Martin

HairerSoft
http://www.hairersoft.com/


_______________________________________________
Amadeus forum mailing list
Unsubscribe / change settings at http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/forum_list

rfwilmut
Posts: 255
Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:19 pm

Re: Amadeus Pro is Disappointing compared to AmadeusII

Post by rfwilmut »

Sonic Purity wrote: i’d still love to see the metering from the Vintage Mac OS program Coaster (no longer in development
There is quite a useful meter available for $20 from ProLevel:
http://www.katsurashareware.com/pgs/prolevel.html

User avatar
Lou Kash
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:39 pm
Contact:

Post by Lou Kash »

For "hi-end" metering there's Spectre. I purchased it just recently at an attractive discount price, but even at its regular price it should be worth every penny. Its flexibility is amazing!

Unfortunately Spectre is not fully compatible with Amadeus, unless you install Soundflower (and you make it WORK in the first place...) or JackOSX.

Although Spectre can also easily receive the signal from Apple AUNetSend (or Wormhole), but in Amadeus it works only if you open the AU and play the file as a preview while you have to select the most recent AUNetReceive host in the Spectre preferences... Quite complicated.

Post Reply