Totally disappointed

[Bodhiman]

I\'m really sorry to say this but i\'m totally disappoined with the quality of Giga. I hope I\'m wrong... but theres this noise that is happenin in GS. I have a continuous soft hiss, which apparently is quite audible to everyone i asked. I monitored from my ADAT outputs, i\'m using a Steinberg 24/96 card.
As soon as GS opens i hear the hiss, so it is not some kind of sample that is causing the noise.
I also use Reason, so I can really make out the difference in the programs. Moreover I am still waiting for Tech Support to give me another copy of GigaPiano coz the copy they gave me was not workin, so I am still not even in a position to install GS fully.
Quite a disappointment. :-(
I have no option now other than to check out Halion.

[Gav]

Just so that you know, it is not an issue with GigaStudio itself. Plenty of people are up and running with no such noise problems. I happen NOT to be one of them and have experienced the very thing you are speaking of.
I have narrowed the possible culprits down though. It\'s not GigaStudio or the SCSI drivers since I can do a Capture to Wave and it comes out perfectly clean. I\'m suspecting there\'s an incompatibiliy with my video drivers since I can hear window-dragging and mouse-moving noise through my mixer. I know there have been some issues with video drivers crashing some windows in GigaStudio. Tech support helped me fix this problem.
Just thought I would give you that info in case it is encouraging. I\'ll update you if I get any furthur in the struggle.

Gav

[Neal Keane]

Gav,
You might check how your line level cords are positioned. I\'m getting noise through my speakers from mouse movement, too. It seems to be related to my mouse cable being too close to the speaker cables...some kind of cross-talk inductance.
Neal

[Chadwick]

I\'m using Giga through a creamware Pulsar 2 card, and the engineer I work with reckons Giga is the quietest piece of gear in the studio.

I\'m told that Giga\'s basic (single voice) output level is deliberately set low because they need to leave room for you to sum the other (potentially) 159 voices. Some samplers use compression algorithms to make a single note sound louder and many notes at the same time get their dynamic range reduced. Giga doesn\'t do this, but it means if you\'re playing a single note through a soundcard which has a (relatively) high noise floor, you\'ll hear more noise than if you were using a piece of software with a sompression algorithm running on its output.

I\'d have a close look at your soundcard\'s settings - although I think Steinberg cards are RME oem\'d which means they\'re great.

Also consider the +6db switch in the hardware config panel.

[Haydn]

I\'m getting a 90 db signal to noise ratio with all outputs active using Echo Darla 24 soundcard. I have to crank my amp up full blast to hear the hiss which could even be my soundboard.

I used to only get a 60 db SNR with my Soundblaster Live! that I used to use. The echo has an external breakout box which really cuts down noise.

[abi]

I too have this problem, even since gigasampler... I found out that this noise dissappear when you disable dithering (Settings -> Sampler).

Hope this helps.

[Bodhiman]

Thanks all for replying to my post. I\'ll check out all the advice. I have tried most options, but Abi\'s. The thing is, I have a totally quiet machine, & when Giga opens... hissssssss... I thought it would be the analog I/O which is on the card itself, but when i heard Giga thru the optical I/O too it was there. Fortunately I don\'t get any other noises like mouse movements.
By the way is there a way of auditioning GigaSamples without loading them into a Giga?
Thanks again all, will check out Abi\'s dithering idea and let u all know.

[gigaDiga]

Hi Chadwick,

I love the compression idea... making one note loud and then compressing down many notes so they don\'t clip... was that suggested to Nemesys, do you know? It\'d be a pretty cool feature IMHO.

gigaDiga

[Chadwick]

With a low enough noise floor, surely you don\'t need the help of hard wired compression? You just end up losing dynamic range - which is another thing we\'re all trying to maximise. Look at Warren Trachtman\'s headaches.

As far as the \'compression\' thing goes, I\'m just repeating something I read ages ago. Maybe someone with a bit of design experience could make things clearer.

I\'m sure it\'s not something as crude as a simple compressor on the output - we\'d all notice that surely.

Dan Dean recently commented on how much better one of his libraries sounded through Giga and an Egosys card than the EIV version. I wonder if this lack of compression in Giga has something to do with the better sound?

[This message has been edited by Chadwick (edited 08-21-2001).]

[Simon Ravn]

This compression thing sounds really stupid, sorry... I can hardly believe it is going on in hardware samplers. So... If you play a piece where you have a very quite passage with only one instrument, then you do a crescendo with more instruments coming in pretty quickly and then the output level of most instruments will actually drop - some quite significantly? This can\'t be a very desirable effect - I\'d rather be without this, thank you....

[Kenn159]

I\'m getting a 90 db signal to noise ratio with all outputs active using Echo Darla 24 soundcard. I have to crank my amp up full blast to hear the hiss which could even be my soundboard.
I used to only get a 60 db SNR with my Soundblaster Live! that I used to use. The echo has an external breakout box which really cuts down noise.

Hi Haydn
I also have a sb live and a darla 24 and have noticed that the Darla is alot quieter than the SB live .
Just wondering what program you used to test the darla 24 to get the signal to noise rating of 90 db? Because I would also test my cards specs.
Thanks , Ken

[Haydn]

Kenn159,

I was getting the values from Sound Forge in record mode. This is not an exact method and could be off by 10db as I don\'t know how accurate the Sound Forge Meters are. But I was amazed when I put it in record after getting the Darla24 on the level difference between it and the Soundblaster. I do not hear any hiss on my CD recordings with the Darla board. This is even with 20 channels of audio recorded in Cakewalk. The hiss from the Soundblaster is quite audible even on my car speakers traveling down the road.

[Bodhiman]

Ok, I\'ll have to take back what I said about my disappointment with Giga. Thanks Abi. the sound is gone since i unchecked the Dither option. I guess I shouldn\'t jump to conclusions that quickly.
Anyone there know how I can audition sounds on an AKAI CD without converting it Giga(so I can audition 1st & then convert to giga). Actually if i can audition without loading the entire bank into Giga.
Thanks.

[Chadwick]

Chicken Systems Translator and Amazingsound\'s CDxtract both have sample level audition panes in their comversion programmes. Just find open a particular Partition/Volume/Program, pick a sample name and hit play - voila!

It\'s not as good as being able to audition whole programmes or combis, but it gives you a good idea of what is going to come across.

[Bodhiman]

Thanks Chadwick, I use CDXtract. But apparently both GS & CDX don\'t work at the same time. Unless of course there is some settings to be done.