Gigastudio, Pulsar and Cubase VST

[Isozz II]

Hi all Giga Users,

im in troubles since it\'s come for me the moment to upgrage my system to a more serious sound card than my two old SoundBlaster Awe 64.
My home system should works this way: gigastudio is my software sampler, and the soundcard should be able to route giga out to cubase inputs while recording my live performance. i dont plan to use digital in/out and stuff like that at the moment, but since im buying it now, it would be good if the soundcard could allow future expansions.
I thought to a second hand Pulsar card a friend of mine would sell me, its internal mixer looks really powerful and impressive, but i have read somewhere of some Gigastudio and cubase problem afflicting this card. Can someone comfirm this ? Or can someone give me any suggestion concerning another card (echo? dsp factory?).Giga Gsif compatibility is my main worry.

Thanks in advance for your precious help,

Regards
IsozzII

[Chadwick]

A lot depends on what you want to spend and what you want the card to do.

The new Pulsar drivers have a good GSIF with them, and the DSP and synths look very impressive.

The other card with good GSIF, a great mixer, built in DSP Fx, the ability to load external plugins and expansion options is the Mixtreme from Soundcape Digital.
http://soundscape-digital.com/Products/Mixtreme/Intro/ (\"http://soundscape-digital.com/Products/Mixtreme/Intro/\")

Lots of people are having problems running their sequencer with Giga, but I don\'t think this is necessarily a soundcard issue.

Right now I have a PC with Pulsar 2 and Logic 4.5 which won\'t install Giga properly, but I\'m sure it\'ll be sorted in the next few days. It seems every system and install procedure is different and requires different solutions when things go awry.

As far as I know, most people have been able to get Giga and either Logic, Cubase or Cakewalk running together, one way or another.

Personally, I am now looking forward as much to the synths and modulars in Pulsar as I am to the endless wave sampling in Giga!

Good luck

[This message has been edited by Chadwick (edited 09-01-2000).]

[LHong]

Gigastudio, Pulsar and Cubase VST are good combination! It would works, that\'s all you need (flexibilities)...Make sure you meet their sytem requirements.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Isozz II:
Hi all Giga Users,

im in troubles since it\'s come for me the moment to upgrage my system to a more serious sound card than my two old SoundBlaster Awe 64.
My home system should works this way: gigastudio is my software sampler, and the soundcard should be able to route giga out to cubase inputs while recording my live performance. i dont plan to use digital in/out and stuff like that at the moment, but since im buying it now, it would be good if the soundcard could allow future expansions.
I thought to a second hand Pulsar card a friend of mine would sell me, its internal mixer looks really powerful and impressive, but i have read somewhere of some Gigastudio and cubase problem afflicting this card. Can someone comfirm this ? Or can someone give me any suggestion concerning another card (echo? dsp factory?).Giga Gsif compatibility is my main worry.

Thanks in advance for your precious help,

Regards
IsozzII<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[MarQueze]

Hi all,

After some hanging around at this site I finally made the decision to sell my DSP factory and go for a Pulsar 2.01. I have Gigastudio running and VST5.
I read on this board that this combination should work.

I\'ve got a Celeron 600@900, 256 Mb ram, seperate 10000rpm SCSI driver for gigastudio and a similar drive for audiorecording.

Still I can\'t get the combination to work without problems. I think I performed all the standard audio optimizing actions. Still I get cracks/pops when using gigastudio and HD recording at the same time.

Any suggestions?

thanks for the help,

Jelle Bloemsma
The Netherlands

[Chadwick]

MarQueeze,

Are you keeping your Gigastudio sound files (gigs) on the audio drive? I only keep the actual programmes on the first drive, with gigs on the audio drive.

I can\'t actually get Logic AUDIO to run on my PIII800 (256mb ram and 2 drives) with Gigastudio. I\'ve had to demote it to midi sequencing only http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif

If I have the Logic audio drivers (ASIO) enabled, after a few Giga tracks I get ASIO error messages, and Giga starts to get really sloppy as I get over the 120 note poly mark.

I tried running Giga from Logic on another machine and it was fine - but I\'m not about to go out and buy another PC, another audio card, and another midi card just so that I can get full polyphony.

I\'m not saying this is the same problem as yours, just that the audio part of Logic, and Giga audio were too much for my PC to handle at one time.

If anyone\'s got these two running on the same machine with loow latency, full poly on Giga and zero error messages on Logic, I\'d liuke to hear from them.

[MarQueze]

Hi Chadwick,

Thanks for the response. Yes I\'ve got the gig files and audio files on seperate drives.
My windows installation (windows Millennium) and programs are on a normal IDE drive.

I\'ve played around a bit with the Pulsar ULLI settings. It seems that the lower the latency settings the more cracks/pops I get (cracks/pops are in the audio tracks streaming from my HD).

When I use the highest latency settings (25ms) I still get occasional hickups.

The strange thing is that when I look at my the system resources that are being eaten up it only shows that only 25% of my processing power is eaten up (by 4 tracks of audio and a simple 5 voice piano chord progression) http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/confused.gif .

Tried to play with the buffer and blocksize settings too in the VST audio system panel but it seems these settings have NO effect at all.

Jelle Bloemsma
The Netherlands

[Chadwick]

Sadly, as I said, the store tech has thrown up his hands and told me I can run Giga, Pulsar 2.01 and Logic midi, but I can\'t run the audio tracks side of Logic.

Damn! I was looking forward to the Prophet 52 and B4.

[MarQueze]

Well that\'s what I\'d like to do too!
The B4 plugin is really amazing.

Maybe I shoudn\'t sell my EMU E6400 just yet... OR get a separate PC for Gigastudio.

[Chadwick]

Separate PC for Gigastudio seems to be the answer nagging in the back of my mind at the moment http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/frown.gif

[Chadwick]

I\'m experiencing midi delays into Logic from either Gigastudio or Pulsar synths with very low polyphony requirements (50-60 notes), no DSP stuff, no audio tracks and only 11 midi tracks.

As a consequence I\'m beginning to wonder about the quality of the Pulsar GSIF....

Any comments?

[LHong]

Chadwick and MarQueze,
Polyphony requirements (50-60 notes) are alot, aren\'t they?
you must be kidding! I think you want to say \"50-60 voices\"?

Well, as far as I know, with the single PulsarII you can have up to about 64~80 voices in the sampler players or synth devices based-on PIII/Athlon-256MB, it depends on how you play it, without pinano/rhodes styles (pedal ON/OFF, afterTouch, etc), you can have alot of polyphony (Notes). See most of real analog-synths only has about 8~24 voices or 8 polyphony. Let say you have about 8 polyphony for each of 2 piano, 2 harps and 2 rhodes tracks, you will need about 320-640 voices to handle it.

As I know, the GigaStudio has huge of latency, nothing you can do with it. I have the Gigasampler run with pulsarII @ 3~7ms and cakewalk!@33ms latency and with the GigaStudio, pulsar set to 23ms, cakewalk@92~132ms latency, why? The best way that we want to hear from Nemesy to reduce its latency. In the MIDI-seq, try to delete some of pedal ON/OFF in the piano part, you will see the crackles and pops will be disappeared. When it screws up, you can see the timing counnter on the seqencer will slow down, even the tempo is screwed up too, why? it is huge latency, the GigaStudio couldn\'t catch up at realtime. The Gigastudio is specified about 3~5ms latency, I don\'t think that Nemesy meets the specs (35ms?)

What I would do is to record them (Giga+synths) as dry signals to audio, then use them at the final mixdown with pulsar-DSP effect processing. In this case you don\'t have any limitations in No. of voices. Let\'s say you have about 16 MIDI tracks you want to run along-side with the Giga and pulsar, just simply record the Piano/rhodes parts first (one or two tracks while to mute/archive others), for the drum, guitar, bass, etc you can recording 16 tracks at same time and so on you could have about 30 audio tracks ready to mixdown without needed the Gigastudio. Of course then you can have some mixing with other soft-synths in the pulsar or VST instruments as you wish.
I think you\'ve might already done that, right? so, how many 44.1k/16B stereo tracks that your PC can handles?
Just a dumb thought,
LHong

[elle]

Gstudio 35 ms latency...these are serious accusations Llong!. Is there are true, GS is in deep trouble.
Dave??

[Chadwick]

LHong,

I didn\'t make myself clear.

For me, Polyphony is the number of notes being played by the Giga at any time - all midi channels added up. A voice is a distinct sound patch.

50-60 notes is the number of notes which Giga is trying to playback in this arrangement. There was only ever a single pulsar synth playing a two poly patch alongside the Giga stuff.

It\'s interesting that you can\'t achieve better than 35ms latency on Gigastudio when running Cakewalk and Pulsar as well.

I wonder what you would get with a different audio card?

Maybe this latency is not a problem for you, and the Pulsar synthesizers have more value than dropping the Giga delay.

I can\'t use your hard disk recording option for a couple of reasons.

1. I keep going back and changing midi tracks as we work.

2. LAP4.5 won\'t allow me to run its audio drivers at extremely low poly count in Giga.
I tried recording a gigapiano part on top of a couple of other giga tracks and the piano was unplayably latent....

Check out this response from Uli on a similar thread. Note that he is running Gigastudio, platinum 4.5, AND VIDEO and getting 100 poly:

I use GS 160 (with over 100 voices) on a simple PII 400 with 265mbRam
together with LA
Platinum 4.5.
System runs on 10GB IDE hd and gigs on a 16GB IBM scsi.
The audiocard is an egosys waveterminal 2496.
Since the last update (2.019 I believe)
there are no problems (even with intime use
of a video, played back by a miro DC 30.)
using all four nemesys ports.
So GS and Logic 4.5 work together.
It must be something with your configuration
of the PC.

Personally I think we should be talking to Creamware about their GSIF.

Maybe it\'s time Nemesys \'rated\' the GSIF of different manufacturer\'s audio cards on their hardware page.
It\'s such a critical factor in buying the card and it seems to me that not all GSIF are created equal http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif

[LHong]

Chadwick,
I agree with you what you say are correct, we are in a same boat and what/why we are here for. I’m sure you want a solution for it, right? We can share the hardware and software behavior that what we see and what we know. Sometimes it is funny that we can solve someone’s problems but we can not solve our problems. Do we over-look it? I wish to have all the GSIF hardware compatible in the market with the Cakewalk, Logic and Cubase in my studio, so I can rate them to determine which one runs best for my PC environment but the question is who can affords it? There are a few people here are currently using the GigaStudio with the pulsars, I don’t know why they’ve never post the success, maybe never be successful?

About this message:
“Check out this response from Uli on a similar thread. Note that he is running GigaStudio, platinum 4.5, AND VIDEO and getting 100 poly”
Who says it must be kidding you! Let’s me ask you a question about Gigastusdio160, what is the “160” mean? Is 160 voices or 160 polyphony? If it is voice, so how it can be 100 polyphony when the GigaStudio only has 160 voices, unless he runs it with simple drum sounds like cymbal or side-stick. The possibilities are he could has up 160 polyphony but when the GigaStudio has accomplished up 160 voices it will truncates all the rest, the lower MIDI channels will take higher priority, the result of the stuck notes in this case. Therefore, the higher polyphony means that you can run the GigaStudio smoothly up to the voices as limit (160).

Well, I think that we misunderstood about the problems that we have between the GigaStudio and Pulsar (might be Cakewalk and Logic), I see you have a trouble to get more than 120 voices within a PC, it is a difference problem that I have. I can have up to 160 voice with the MIDI-Sequencer, but I want to run fully functional GigaStudio (160 Voices) with a few audio track plus some pulsar-analog-synths. It becomes a problem that why that I found out the latency is the bottleneck. I must repeat that with the Gigasampler, I can run about 16 audio tracks alongside without any problems, why? I must set the cakewalk and pulsar in highest latency. And you are right, we should ask Creamware about it to have a right solution for it. I hate to hear that Nemesy and Creamware would blame each other, “it is not our problems, you see other users are happy with bla, bla …” or something like this, I guess. But I see that is so interesting that I couldn’t tell Creamware to offer the setting of ULL (Ultra Low Latency) to the setting of UHL (Ultra High latency) due to compensate in the GigaStudio’s latency but I also see this would be a good idea, why not?

Now I understand why someone says that to have the GigaStudio fully functional we need about PIII-800Mhz with 768MB-RAM ($1,000). Do you believe that? Anyway, back to making music instead of wasting our time here my friend! If you don’t mind, just send me your MIDI files then probably we can verify it. I’m confused it because of what you were saying about the compatible GSIF for pulsar. I hope it is not true, otherwise I will be in trouble, I spent about $2,600 for 2 pulsars, I have a plan to buy SCOPE-SRB ($2,600). However, maybe it doesn’t matter to me since I’m using the audio tracks for the final mixing down, I remember in the old days I had to record one track a time (analog multi-track recorder), now even better, I can have them in multiple recording. Don’t forget that a real PRO also uses same methodology.
BTW, I like to hear more about the successes on other soundcards, your input would be greatly appreciated.
Peace,
Lhong@aptix.com

[Chadwick]

LHong,

I still don\'t know what you mean when you say \'voice\' and \'polyphony\'.

Could you give an example?

I\'ll happily send you my midi files ( if you promise not to critique them!!). They\'re just noodling, and may not make as much sense without the associated Giga patches.

I\'m really not interested in recording a couple of midi tracks and then capturing them as audio. Seems a huge waste of resources and makes me commit to a sound early. You kind of lose all the advantages of using a computer when you think about it....

I\'ll keep you posted.

I\'ve already had someone from the emagic forum suggest I use serial with Unitor instead of USB.

Someone on the Creamware forum told me to chekck the sys.ini file for a Matrox PCI setting.

I\'ll let you know.....

[LHong]

>>>I still don\'t know what you mean when you say \'voice\' and \'polyphony\'.
Could you give an example?

Well, I think your definition about the voices and polyphony are close enough:
\"For me, Polyphony is the number of notes being played by the Giga at any time - all midi channels added up. A voice is a distinct sound patch.\"

I\'d like to add a little:
The polyphony is constant, when you play 4 notes (polyphony), it\'s stay in same \"four is four\" but the voices can be changed depends on the way you play. It is determined by the path (contruct of sampler), the C3 might be not exactly takes same voices like C5 for example, it is also related to the MIDI controling events like sustain, wheel, afterTouch, expression, etc. whenever you play a polyphony, it\'s never be same voices. On the otherhands, gigapiano/harps/orchestra/rhodes have a huge of samplers (~800MB) due to be produced the best sounds, it would takes large amount of the processing. Try to read the metter on the GigaStudio when you have same polyphony with diference paths, compare them on the CPU, memory, peak (pinano and guitar/bass with wheel-ctrl or/and pedal-sustain). For instance, When you play 8 polyphony on the gigapiano, it could take up to 64~120 voices (sustain ON). So how to believe someone can has 100 polyphony on the Gigastudio, is it too good to believe or I miss something here? You need to be careful when you have large amount of polyphony, it will automaticaly truncates by Giga when it is exceeded to the 160 voices, that why Nemesy gives you the peak metter, it susposes to monitor what No. of voices have been reached. Congratulation, if it can be reached 160! How many of you are successful? RAM? CPU? soundcard? audio tracks? NFX?

However, in the analog world, the voices and polyphony seems to be same. Most of the analog synths are specified in polyphony (4~12), because it\'s designed to contruct amont of osillators (4~16), don\'t matter how you play (one/two voices for each polyphony), but the digial-synths and Sampler must be specified in the capacity voices can be used like I described earlier, the best digital-synths on the market can takes up to 128 voices ($1,500~$6,000). how many voices and output channels for the real rack-mount Akai-S series can takes? 160 voices? 16 outputs? digital I/O? I\'ve given a good credit to Gigasampler and pulsar on this.

I think most of you have known better about it, I just put my two cents worth! you just keep me busy on this, don\'t you?

Back to your other questions and concerns due also to answer other questions in your mind:
>>>I\'ll happily send you my midi files ( if you promise not to critique them!!). They\'re just noodling, and may not make as much sense without the associated Giga patches

No problem, I\'m more than happy to help, send me the MIDI file in GM compatible, I will set its paths to GM-500 plus Gigapiano and others that I have purchased from Nemesy (20 CDs) or some akai colection sounds. If it is as well as GM then I should have an idea what you try to do, right? how about along with the pulsar II project as well. I will try my best, I will let you know what I found, might be not! I like to see what kind of the polyphony that you are working with! you might gave the gigastudio hard time! How about you provide the MIDI file then I will cut the CD for you, I\'m just kidding! I\'m sure someone has done that.
On weekend mail me at: lvhong@msn.com weekday at lhong@aptix.com (you could send both)
Why I want to see the MIDI file? Everything what you try to do should be stored in the MIDI sequencer, unless you are done it at realtime recording, my client has done it but it gave me the hardtime to mixdown (I don\'t have good compressor/limiter setup), more works but the result is best (human feel) of course it is a audio track.
I see in the MIDI event with many of un-necessary controls which would takes huge of CPU, Memory, voices, it means that the giga can\'t takes more polyphony and sometimes even gives you many troubles like Pops and cracles. Well, the idea is to optimize your song to best used of voices since you only have 160 voices with 800Mhz, 266MB, whatever goes to the limit first then you will be in trouble. For instance, someone likes to have the sustain control everywhere in the songs or use automated-velocity and even automated-expressions, panning, master volume, effects. These are waisted CPU and memory too, many of others can be optimized it as well.
>>>I\'m really not interested in recording a couple of midi tracks and then capturing them as audio. Seems a huge waste of resources and makes me commit to a sound early. You kind of lose all the advantages of using a computer when you think about it....

It should works about 16 MIDI tracks and a fews audio tracks (2~6), depends on the CPU and RAM (your should run better mine). It is also depends on the polyphony and the programs (paths) as well.
Some kind of mixdown workaround process (see the earlier posted), assume you have done with the composition, what is a next step? for those people don\'t have DSP, they must dues with the effect processing in the entired GigaStudio or Logic, Cubase, cakewalk projects. The advantage is that you have completed hardware mixing ultilities, you could have an external effect or FX pluged-in as well, how you do that without the audio tracks (Giga is too slow for pulsar). The audio tracks are standard interface, it connects your music to the audio world tools, you bring your environments into professional way that everyone can support you. It is also a inter-changeable between other programs too like cakewalk, cubase, logic, cooledit, and many other plug-in are waiting to steel your money as well.
I\'m undersatnd that what you are thinking about, but reality, I see the real price I must pay on this. I\'m talking about flexibilities and sound qualities...I know most of people here are all having the SoundBlaster at studio or somewhere, why we want giga and GSIF souncards. With the SB-LIVE that give us total of 1024 voices with huge of soundfont2 available in the market. We can download the standard MIDI file or simple have some sourse of auto-composing program like band-in-the box or Jamer-pro, click a few buttons you can have about up to 100 songs a day, I\'m correct? why do you need this kind of funny and complicated tools? how much they costed you so far? Yes, I want to mention about the audio quality! let\'s say your tastes are simple, easy jobs for the audio recording, so how your audio-CD quality compared to the CD quality on the market? I know some of you might cut the audio CD every weeks, so tell me how much you spend on your studio (other gears and time)? is it just a few buttons to have the job done? there is no free lunch, you pay what you get! and you get what you pay! (don\'t over pay).
What you are saying correct but I also see today Gigastudio can\'t provides the best quality at the master production and that why we\'re must relying on other tools (Pulsar, Logic, cakewalk) and even many other gears, something you have to do are you have to do unless the money is not a matter to you then we start to talk about the solution. Maybe no One can provides it yet? I\'m sure they do. Nemesy and Creamware can provide the solution \"reduce the latency to a minimum\" (will be desribed more as follows)
I know you want to mixdown them right on the GigaStudio with pulsar? it can be done if the GigaStudio provide more voice like 640-1024 voices and it must be supper low latency (3~5ms as its specs), otherwise you will need very fast CPU (1~2Ghz) and huge of RAM (1GigaBytes). That why I see that you are thinking about the 2nd PC for it! it is a same idea that you want to dedicate the CPU for the Giga. I also see the GigaStudio is a hungry of CPU and RAM if you have about more than 1GB of samplers (Gigapiano + Rhodes = ~1.5 GB). I might be wrong? someone is still using PII/PIII-128/256MB and be happy with it? I see the Nemesy and Creamware also specified it, I also see Cakewalk does that as well, let me do quick calculation, when I have three programs running at same time: 500MHzx3=1.5Ghz, 256MBx3=768Mhz. Hey, what do you think about these numbers? they are not including the latency (delay), if each programs has about 35ms, total about 35msx3=105ms, it is about 1/9 of second. Well, that why you can hear its cracles or its pops, it is also a result of mis-match latency. Now you see how important of low latency is, at the realtime they must shares same resourses (CPU, RAM, ETC), they must be calculated perfect timing (synchronization) into soft/hard DSP (Digital-Sinal-Processing) by streaming data into DAC (digital to analog converter) and ADC (Analog to Digital Converter). Therefore, one of the program doesn\'t meet the timming, it could causes the audio (monitor) goes to hell! that is also a reason when I adjust the Pulsar and cakewalk in higher latency and it works better, why? just asking the buss to slow-down and to wait for the latest client and somehow the client doesn\'t show up then the buss can\'t wait and you know he (Giga) missed it!

>>>I\'ll keep you posted.

I\'m so busy for making music, but I don\'t mind if there is something I can help others

>>>I\'ve already had someone from the emagic forum suggest I use serial with Unitor instead of USB.

The Pulsar will works best when you only have the pulsar with nothing else, including USB, seiral, paralell, modem, etc. Especial in the PCI slots, might be working fine with SCSI controller. The PCI Video card is not recommended, you must have it on the AGP slot. One TIP on this is the pulsar should be placed in the middle PCI slot, due to avoid any possiblities in Shared-IRQ (not allowed for the Pulsar). In case if you have other soundcards, try to un-load from the system, it would helps, if you have modem, try to have it on the ISA. Why? don\'t ask! PCI over-flow? don\'t you see it yet!

>>>Someone on the Creamware forum told me to chekck the sys.ini file for a Matrox PCI setting.

That\'s right if you have the Maxtrox PCI card in the system. I think here is where the problem came from and most of developers have seen it as well, something like this:
PCIChipSet=1

Conclusions: If I understand correctly that you have about PIII-800Mhz, 320~384MB-RAM, GigaStudio160, PulsarII and Logic Audio Platium 4.5. This setup should runs better than mine. I don\'t know which audio driver that you\'re using but I see the ASIO2 and interleaved-wave drivers are as low as 1ms latency, have you tried the individual wave drivers (higher latency, about 2~3ms). Anyway, I think that your system is not working right, I\'m not sure mine are working right either but at least I can share with you something here as folows:
Here is something you can try and don\'t forget that the Pulsar is not a soundcard (SB), it is a complicated DSP system, how long you have it? how much you know about pulsar\'s functional? 85%~100%. Of course as you know in order to tweak it to best taking performance (effects, I/O, audio, analog-synths, sampler players, ADAT-I/O, etc) with other programs like GigaStudio and logic/cakewalk are not that simple. See as follows, some basic, I think you already knew it and even tried it, just double check, might be you did over-look somethings:
1> Disable USB on the BIOS or on windows setting (USB is used PCI-Bridge, it is not allowed to use in the system with pulsar/Scope)
2> The Video card should be on AGP slot rather than PCI
3> Avoid to have other hardwares on PCI slot (SCSI Ctrl or other Pulsar/Scope are fine)
4> Remove all other applications as possible if they are not relative to Audio, the 98lite version is best solution if you are lazy to remove things. Check other optimizations in windows, some of those might not works on your system, find and verify the best for it. I don\'t trust it, the combinations of giga with pulsar and Logic might take the oposite action?
5> On the windows setting for pulsarII, un-check \"Calculate perfect position information\", maybe also the \"Stretch samples\" if the samplerates are same. Change the Output preload between 50%~100% to see which one would take best (mine about 75%)
6> On the Pulsar UULI, try it on 13~25ms, no audio I see 13ms is best
7> Vcache: Min=Max 25~40% RAM (mine about 20~35%)
8> Here is the key setting would be a major effected to the Giga and Pulsar: It is a Pulsar GSIF performance for GigaStudio, it depends on No of voices and No. of output channels. It is also a trade off, less output channels gives you more voices and more output channels gives you less voices. From the pulsar project, try to adjust the GSIF device from 2~32CH, then choose the best that works for you. See as follows are based-on Athlon750Mhz-380MB system:
a> 2~4 channels: 135~160 voices
b> 4~8 channels: 120~145 voices
c> 12~16 channels: 100~132 voices
d> 20~32 channels: 80~125 voices
Hope this helps, just a litle for you if your setup is met the requirements as shown above, but still having the problems, I would feel sorry about it, you can find other soundcard that works best for you or get hold of Creamware and Nemesy Tech Support. And maybe my hope is somehow would be helpful for a newbee, who have a similar environment.
BTW, I\'m using the GigaStudioV2.0, I\'m worry about to upgrade it to the current version since I see someone here are having a trouble to keep the program alive without crashed in short time, which version is good now? and what do I get? Bug fixed? performance? features? I need your help on this!
Best regards,
LHong



[This message has been edited by LHong (edited 09-17-2000).]

[Chadwick]

Whew! Lhong - long post...

Okay:
\"When you play 8 polyphony on the gigapiano, it could take up to 64~120 voices (sustain ON\"

I understand what you\'re saying, but for clarity I don\'t think we should call this example \'playing 8 polyphony\'. Yes it\'s and 8 note part, but like you said - it\'s using 64-120 voices.

In my books, this 8 note arrangement is requiring 64-120 polyphony.

When I play this kind of thing on the Giga, I watch the polyphony meter carefully. I never quote the number of notes I\'m playing - only what\'s on the meter. The reason is because Giga can be sustaining, playing layers etc.,

So I always talk in terms of polyphony meaning how many notes the Giga is trying to play. If I say the arrangement is using 50-60 note poly on Giga - that\'s what the meter reads, not the number of midi notes I\'m playing added up.

The midi file is pretty simple. The only controller data is sustain pedal. The keyboard doesn\'t even send aftertouch, so I don\'t have to worry about filtering.

Don\'t bother with GM though. I just loaded up sounds into successive channels and played.

>>It should works about 16 MIDI tracks and a fews audio tracks (4~8), depend on the CPU and RAM(yours should run better mine).<<

I hope you\'re not serious about 16 midi tracks. Or else I hope that what you mean is that sequencer can\'t play many Gigastudio tracks when it\'s doing audio. Of course, my experience is that the sequencer can\'t play ANY Giga midi tracks when it\'s trying to do audio.

On my old Atari only doing midi, I would occasionally reach 64 tracks. Mind you, usually half of these were triggering single note sound effects. Not an efficient track layout, but it made everything easy to find and edit.

In my situation, even with a few audio tracks, 16 midi tracks is laughably inadequate. If I ever find that I can\'t build at least 64 midi tracks - to be played by external modules as well - I\'ll load Quake 4 onto this bloody PC, take it home, and order an e5000 for work!

I don\'t really need to do mixdown on this gear. We have an Otari Radar and that\'s great for compiling on. Mind you, I was hoping that with good samples, good effects, the Pulsar synths, and the rest of my midi gear, that I\'d be able to build a mix of everything (except live instruments and voices) on the gear without submixing to the Radar.

<<That\'s why I see that you are thinking about the 2nd PC for it! it is a same idea that you want to dedicate the CPU for the Giga.>>

I don\'t want to buy a 2nd PC because of the duplication and expense, and because I\'m willing to have Logic just run midi, not audio. What annoys me is that even with Logic just running midi, I\'m not getting \'reasonable\' performance.

With a Pulsar card, Giga and Logic\'s audio drivers disabled, I expect to be able to do a hell of a lot more than an 11 track arrangement running 50-60 note poly on Giga, a simple 2 note pulsar synth thing and a bit of pulsar reverb, before I run into midi delays!

<<The PCI Video card is not recommended, you must have it on the AGP slot.>>

I understand this, but it\'s a bummer, as I read on this forum that people were having good results with the Matrox. Nemesys didn\'t knock it when I gave them my spec either :-(

I can\'t do much pulsar tweaking at the moment because I can\'t read German. The local Creamware agent thinks my English version must be \'lying around the office somewhere\'.

<<It is a Pulsar GSIF performance for GigaStudio, it depends on No of voices and No. of output channels. It is also a trade off, less output channels gives you more voices and more output channels gives you less voices. From the pulsar project, try to ajust the GSIF device from 2~32CH, then choose the best that works for you. See as follows are based-on Athlon750Mhz-380MB system:
a> 2~4 channels: 135~160 voices
b> 4~8 channels: 120~145 voices
c> 12~16 channels: 100~132 voices
d> 20~32 channels: 80~125 voices>>

I don\'t quite understand how you get these polyphony figures. But if that\'s right, I think it\'s deceptive of Creamware not to say up front that fully utilising the Pulsar\'s channels could reduce the functionality of Gigastudio by up to 50% !

I think the Pulsar is a sexy environment. I love the idea, and it will work very well with my k5000 knobs when I assign them to Pulsar synth knobs BUT I\'d be glad to dump the card for one which gives me low latency and full 160 note poly while running Logic\'s midi side.

(and Logic audio/vst would be a nice little plus)

As far as updating is concerned. I\'m using 2.01.19 and it seems pretty solid. I installed it because in the readme file, one of the fixes said - \'didn\'t work with Logic\'
Very detailed description eh!

There have been a few lockups with S-converter when I click on a drive icon and the machine has to wake up and spin the drive, but apart from that my problems appear to be only(!) the ones described above.

Be careful installing more recent versions of the patch - I\'ve read one or two horror stories.

[LHong]

Thanks for Upgrade pointer, Here is other User Forum site for Scope and Pulsar, of course in English.
http://discserver.snap.com/Indices/106901.html (\"http://discserver.snap.com/Indices/106901.html\")


[This message has been edited by LHong (edited 09-18-2000).]