Who can recommend his soundcard for GS ?

[Horst]

Hi,
I am currently using a SB AWE 64 Gold with its analog outs plugged into a reverb device. It sound acceptable.

What I am really looking for is a card, that allows me to add different amounts of reverb to certain instruments like with a Roland-Synth.

I would only need two or three different channels but more would be welcome.
Finally I would like to have a very clean analog signal with a fine sound.

What I do not want is to have six outputs, a mixer and all the cables and stuff.

Also the reverb section should be high-quality and not affect the main-processor too much, as the main processor is used up by GS.

Does anyone know a card which does this (and its price-range) ?

THANX!
Horst

[KIA]

Horst

It seemed no-one wanted to reply to your message so I thought I would try to help..

You have a number of useful options.

1. Soundblaster Live. £149ish.. downsides are that it only outputs 1 stereo out and the Digital out is set to 48Khz only.

2. Yamaha SW1000. £449ish.. downsides are latency is a bit high (drivers are still Beta\'s) that will change soon however & the only other issue is you still only get a stereo out. I have one though and it really is a great sounding card.

3. Mixtreme Card £800 ish.. no real downsides has multi out support lots of DSP power and works..

There are a lot of other cards out there but the ones I listed above all have the ability to put Reverb/Chorus on GS sounds..

Other non-DSP cards would include ALL the event Card (Gina,Darla, Layla) ARK 20/20, Frontier Designs Dakota,ISIS card (£249) and....erm..erm I have forgot the others for now perhaps someone might add to the list..

Hope this Helps

KIA

[Horst]

Hi KIA,
this is just to say thank you for feeling mercy with my poor little mail.

Indeed it looks like spending another fortune for a mixtreme and a reverb plug-in or to stay with one stereo output or to go for one of the latter cards (layla...) and fumble around with mixers and cables...
Or has anyone else found a good option to have individual reverb for GS-Instruments in realtime ?
Horst

[KIA]

Horst

My home set-up is a Mackie 16-2 desk with a second hand Lexicon LXP1 reverb.
A dog slow PC running Cakewalk V9,hip-hop ejay (a must)and GS LE (My PC wont run the full version of GS.
V-drum kit,JV1000 and EMU Proteus orchestral kbd with Genelec 1029a monitors.


Until the SW1000 came along, I was putting reverb on GS from the Lexicon and if I am honest, I think the Lex reverb is nicer than the one in the SW1000. So as a thought, why not go external...

KIA

[Horst]

Hi KIA,

I understand that your SW-1000 has one Stereo-analog out (for GS) and that you plug it together with all your other equipment into your Mackie Mixer. I understand that the effect sends of your Mixer trigger your Lexicon reverb - right ?

My problem seems to be somewhat different: I would like to add different amounts of reverb to instruments that play on GS. So - if I went external as you recommend - this would mean that I cannot use the SW-1000 but some Multi-Output card that would be connected to a Mixer - right ? (Layla, Darla, Blabla)

I also hope that it would sound better because I feel that while putting all instruments onto one analog out, the individual dynamic and differentiation of the instruments suffers. Do you think an external D/A converter (e.g. Flying calf from Midiman) could improve this ?

As a mixer I would like to use something nice an tiny like the Midiman-18 Mixer. I could - by the way - also add in my Proteus/2 Orchestral into this setup.

What do you think of all this ?

Thank you.
Horst.

[KIA]

Horst

Sage advice on the Multi Out card ...

The only reason I am using external gear at the moment is that the SW1000 drivers are Beta 1 and have 2 major problems.

1. Latency (very bad)
2. 1 Stereo output support.

Beta 2 drivers (which will happen) will address these two issues and allow better latency and also 6 stereo outputs or 12 mono outputs.. but I am just \"existing\" as it were till they arrive.

I hope this helps..

I would then do all my output mixing in XGEdit and Cakewalk

[bmtong]

I wish to answer your original question. If you want to apply different amounts of effects (EQ, Reverb, etc.) to different MIDI channels in GS, you\'ll need a card with multiout support for GS, *and* you can apply different amounts of effects to different outputs.

This makes perfect sense to me since your bass drum\'s gotta have different EQ and reverb from your strings, and not everyone wants to do everything on a traditional mixer and some external effect units.

From Nemesys\'s list of supported card there is only one card under the \"Multi Channel Soundcards with DSP Effects\" heading: Soundscape Mixtreme.

It also says \"Guillemot and Hoontech has announced GSIF compatible products\". But that means you have to wait. And, if Guillemot\'s offering is like their ISIS then it is an input/output card only. If budget is a concern that you cannot get the Soundscape Mixtreme (the card itself is priced reasonably, but you have to pay extra for the various I/O options), wait for Hoontech and see what they come up with. I wish it will be just a new driver for their DSP24...

[bmtong]

I just checked out www.hoontech.com (\"http://www.hoontech.com\") myself. Yes they are working on GSIF support on their DSP24, but I found out that DSP24 is a pure I/O card, not \"DSP\" as its name suggests.

[Horst]

KIA,

I am slightly confused...so I hope you can clear it up for me again:

When the SW-1000 will run with its proper drivers, does this mean it will support 6 Stereo-Outs and you can add individual SW-1000 reverb to each out ?

Do you then get six stereo-output-jacks or only one or do you have the choice ?

Let me finally ask for the price of the card.

Thank you
Horst.

[jwross]

I have a DSP24 on order right now. First one to be sold by the US importers (there are two, and only one of them is willing to sell it yet). I should have it next week. I will not be testing it with Giga thought, it is going in my recording machine not my Giga machine. With the copy protection hassels of Giga I just don\'t have time to test that. With all the grief I went through building the Giga machine, I\'m not chaning anything for a while (I am sure Nemesys support is happy to hear that).

Having said that... I hope Hoontech does work to make another of their cards compatible with Giga. The DSP24 (and BM is correct it is an IN/OUT card not a DSP card) has an digital input that will allow you to take the sound from their DSP cards and route it through the DSP24. I assume that will allow me to use DSP power from a DA16 as a daughter board type situation. So it isn\'t as bad as it seems. In fact if the DA16 had GS/IF that would be incredible. They are very reluctant to do GS/IF for that card, I don\'t know why.

Also, giving credit to Hoontech... on specs alone the DSP24 kills MOTU (not too tough to do) and Maudio (much tougher).

The hottest item out there should be the SeaSound Solo. I have talked to their product folks and GS/IF is in the planning stage. Now if they just had some to ship! I passed on the Solo because there just aren\'t any of them to buy.

John

[Horst]

Hi bmtong,

thanks for all that information. Seems like the mixtreme is the only choice for today, if you do not want to go external (where you have a number of choices).

I think that the market will change soon and my request will in one or two years be easily satisfied by a number of products.

A final question: A pure I/O-Card do you mean that with this sort of card you can send GS samples onto any of the outs if it is GSIF compatible ?

Thank you
Horst.

[korg]

Kia!

I read your expirience on your sw1000xg card. But I had to buy a 10$ sound card to get the GS working!!!! And sw1000 isn\'t answering the GS although i downloaded the beta 1 directX driver from yamaha. Is your sw1000 working properly with GS? Or do you have the same problems? Somebody wrote me that he had the very same problems by starting his GS on sw1000. I mean..... this is crazy!!!

Your oppinion?

korg

[jphardy]

I have an order pending for the Aardvark Direct Pro 24/96 which is expected to ship in two weeks. I will report my experiences with the card after using it for a while. Some features:

- 4 mic/line inputs
- premium mic preamps, phantom power
- 6 outs
- 24 bit / 96KHz
- 80 MIPS DSP (reverb, compression, EQ)
- Software: mixer, HD multi-track recorder
- Giga compatible
- MSRP $699 (I believe)

Echo announced their \"Mona\" card which has similar specs (but no DSP?) for $995, due out \"early 2000\".

[Horst]

Hi jphardy,

Is the EQ and reverb integrated (into the price also) or do you have to buy a plug-in ?

The six outs are Mono-outs ? ...are anlog outs ?

Reverb or EQ can be routed individually to each out ?


Thanks for info!
Horst

[KIA]

Korg

I have to make the assumption after listening to your problems that either..

a. Your SW1000 drivers are not installed correctly.

b. Something else in your PC is causing an argument with your Yamaha SW1000.

I would ask you to look in your device manager and see if anything is being highlighted (do this in safe mode)
remove anything spurious...
As my mails mention, the drivers for Gigasampler support are not GSIF native only directX which is not the best solution.

you can mail me on keven@etcetera.co.uk
rather than keep this thread going..

KIA

[jphardy]

For Horst:

The DSP handles the effects, no burdon on the CPU.

Take a look at the following site:
http://www.aardvark-pro.com/direct_pro_lit.html (\"http://www.aardvark-pro.com/direct_pro_lit.html\")

Joe Hardy