Gigastudio and sound cards

[Astro]

Hi gigapeople,

I am new to gigastudio160 and sampling in general so I apologize in advance for what will be, to many of you, bonehead questions. I have a Delta 66 sound card which is GSIF compatible so I know it is well suited for use with GS (Gigastudio). The rest of my system is very up-to-date and far exceeds what Tascam says is optimal for good operation. However, my question is: Being that the Delta is not a midi sound card, what do I need? I have a second sound card for midi, a Sound Blaster MPU-401 which has been fine for what little midi I have used in the past (I generally write for acoustic instruments and supplement with synthesis and have avoided getting involved with midi except for occasional sequencing). Is the Sound Blaster good enough or do I need something more intense?

Not being real familiar with all this yet I don\'t know how important the nature of the midi sound card is. Does this make any sense? I hope so.

When I got my Roland VS-2480 I thought it involved a steep learning curve but it is NOTHING in comparison to what I have gotten myself into this time!

Thanks,
Mike

[dnortana]

Hi Mike,

GigaStudio 160 has the capability to accept four different MIDI channel inputs, giving you a total of 64 possible MIDI control tracks at once. I don\'t know the soundblaster card, but I assume it only has a single MIDI connector for input? In that case, you would only get 16 possible simultaneous MIDI tracks out of Giga. This may, or may not, be a limitation for you, depending on your scoring and sequencing needs.

The other factor is the amount of MIDI delay you are experiencing with the Soundblaster MIDI input. If latency is not a problem for you with this setup, you may have a perfectly acceptable solution for your needs, and there may be no need at all to upgrade the MIDI path.

I think it\'s fair to say that most people running Giga as a standalone unit are using a four channel MIDI device. In my case, it\'s a MOTU Micro Express (parallel), others use MIDIMan, MAudio, etc, units. You can do a search on this forum for MIDI, and you\'ll get more information than you could possibly need.

Hope this helps,
Trond