Strummed Acoustic 2

Skull-IPA

I saw some closed posts on trouble getting Strummed Acoustic 2 to play correctly, but didn't see solutions. I'm using with Ableton Live. I've never experienced a Native Instruments plugin as problematic as Strummed Acoustic 2 and 100% regret the purchase.

I can practice and practice and practice and everything sounds great. As soon as I hit 'record' the problems start. Sometimes I don't hear anything. Sometimes it starts mid-way through a pattern, and sometimes it plays a note and stops. As soon as I stop recording, everything plays normally. Maddening.

I should've researched more and realized it's an old plugin, but for $99 I thought it must be decent, especially my other Native Instruments plugins work great.

I also don't understand why I can only use 12 keys on my keyboard to produce notes/chords with this plugin. The twelve keys above that and the 12 keys above that are the EXACT same notes! There's no range and, unlike other Native Instruments plugins, there's no way to turn off what is clearly the 'Voicing' feature (which I always turn off in my other NI plugins).

You can probably tell I'm frustrated. This plugin is so counterintuitive and difficult to use compared to others. I was tempted to get Sunburst Acoustic Deluxe, but was worried about the same issue. In other words, not sure about buying NA plugins again.