Polyphony

[Archangel]

Hi,

I have Gigastudio 2.2 in Win98, and a Sound Blaster Audigy. When my sequencer plays and that Gigastudio comes at about 64 voies of polyphony, notes play, but some of the notes cut short.... is it a hardware limitation of the Sound Blaster Audigy?

Archangel

[pendragon]

Sure, you need a Gsif compatible soundcard wich you don\'t have.

[Bill]

The default setting for Giga, when you install it, is 64. You need to go to the settings tab and slide the slider up to 160. You don’t need a GSIF card to get full polyphony.

[pendragon]

What?!, common GS and a SB?? it\'s even funny to expect a bulk soundcard like sb can do that http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

[KingIdiot]

I\'m getting 160 note poly on aninternal soundchip on my LAPTOP! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

With a SoundBlaster I\'d fully expect to get high poly count. Latency is more of the problem when you use DirectSound drivers.

The main reason for low poly count is HArd Drive Bottle neck. Then I would think PCI bottle neck

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Really...I am an Idiot

[Mark_Knecht]

KingIdiot,
Actually, assuming 48KHz samples @ 24-bit, 160 voices would be about 31MB/Sec sustained throughput.

I don\'t think PCI would be bothered at all by that, assuming you didn\'t have a lot of other things going across the bus. (I\'m assuming the sample data comes off the disk, across the PCI bus and into memory, and then GSt takes the data and sends it back across the PCI bus as a few channels of data to your sound cards.)

However, I am very sure your right about the disk issue, assuming all your samples were on one disk. Getting 31MB/Sec sustained throughput from one disk (IDE anyway) is pretty much the limit right now. I\'m currently trying to get around this by putting samples on multiple 1394 drives, and it is apparently working... (I do have some clicks and pops I desperately need to get rid of...)

Fun! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

Cheers,
Mark

[Simon Ravn]

Mark I dont know where you were taught math, but I get 160*48000*3 to approx. 23mb/sec. And since GS doesnt handle 24-bit, and I think all samples are 44100 hz, the real demand for 160 voices is 14mb/sec.

[ninriggs]

I use a Sblive for gs as my only other card is a sw 1000 yamaha card..which i use to run audio smoothly in sonar.. I dont have any problems using the live for Gs only that its limited to only 2 outputs. The main reason behind this (as the sw1000 is a gsif card)
is that in sonar i need the best card for the audio as it seems gigastudio never has any problems with polyphony

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-=Riggs=-

[Haydn]

I used to get full 96 note polyphony from my Sound Blaster Live. The SB actually used less system resources than my current card. The latency was pretty good considering it\'s not a GSIF card. The card was on the noisy side though.

[Mark_Knecht]

Simon,
Your right. I slipped a digit and multiplied by 4 instead of 3. And while I agree that *2 would be more appropriate today, you can\'t blame a guy for dreaming! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

Still, the disk drives are the issue, and not the PCI bus. I\'m find from doing measurements that the demands are significantly worse than just looking at the sustained throughput required by the above (previously incorrect) calculation. The issue is very easy messed up by seek times on the drive, because the samples are not guaranteed to be called in order, and because thee\'s no way for the system to cache what it doesn\'t know it\'s going to need.

Also, we are talking MB, and not Mb or mb here. Correct? http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif Hey, at least you called me on it! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

Mark

[Archangel]

Hi everyone,

I went in the GS configuration, and I found the \"polyphony\" slider. It was set at 64. I put it at 160 and everything is alright.

With my Sound Blaster Audigy, I went to 133 voices this weekend without any clicks, problems, or whatsoever. I used my sound blaster reverb. And I don\'t have a killer system , I\'ve got an Athlon 800 with a 7200 RPM Quantum LM 30Gb Hard drive . All my samples are on this disk and Giga/Win98 is installed on my main hard drive (a mere 3.5gb Fujitsu drive).

Well, I\'m quite impressed at how a non-GSIF card is performing. Still, I don\'t understand why more than 2 outputs are necessary.

Archangel

[marco b]

Well, I\'m quite impressed at how a non-GSIF card is performing. Still, I don\'t understand why more than 2 outputs are necessary.

Archangel[/B][/QUOTE]

GSIF With 32 Inputs Is must!
If you want your piano with little amount
of reverb, bass with no reverb, strings with
huge rev, you need to use 8 aux busses/sends
in DSP mixer. With SBLive/audigy/Other DirectX you have only 2inputs/outputs, with
GSIF card you have 32 inputs/so many outputs
that your soubcard allows. That\'s the biggest
diffwrence for me and, of course, sound quality and low latency is another.

[Archangel]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>GSIF With 32 Inputs Is must!
If you want your piano with little amount
of reverb, bass with no reverb, strings with
huge rev, you need to use 8 aux busses/sends
in DSP mixer. With SBLive/audigy/Other DirectX you have only 2inputs/outputs, with
GSIF card you have 32 inputs/so many outputs
that your soubcard allows. That\'s the biggest
diffwrence for me and, of course, sound quality and low latency is another.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Okay .... well, I put reverb equally on each sample, that\'s why I never use more than 1 output. But the different reverb settings on different channels seems interesting. Does software reverb take a lot of load on the CPU?

Archangek

[marco b]

It depends on your CPU, but in my P3 700 Mhz
NFX 1 Reverb takes about 5-6 % of CPU power.
I think It\'s very economical and still it
sounds very good ( my opinion only, but check
out all reviews, they\'re praising NFX effects).
Nowdays, you easily find good and cheap 24bit
soundcards with GSIF drivers!!!
MAudio AUDIOPHILE, Hoontech DSP24VAlue,Echo Mia,Audiotrak Maya, Egosys Waveterminal 2496 etc.)