Scarbee Fingered Bass - GSt hangs on load

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi,
So my copy of Scarbee Fingered Bass arrived today. Anxious to try it out I copied the Gig files to my sample drive and attempted to load one in GigaStudio. No go. Each time I try, it gets about half way and just hangs. Never comes back. Alt-Ctl-Del does nothing. Hard reset required.

I tried some other libraries (some larger) just to make sure there was no problem. They were fine.

I doubt this is really a Scarbee problem, but this is the only library I\'ve ever had a file load problem with...

Has anyone else seen any problems like this?

Thanks,
Mark

(P3/500, GigaStudio 160, 768MB)

[Mark_Knecht]

Small update - the libraries load, but very slowly. Studio Bass takes about 2-3 minutes to load. Plays, but sounds funny sometimes...

[Chadwick]

I\'ve got a P3800 and 1gb memory, and I find the basses take a mnute to load - but that\'s all.

The Scarbee basses always sound consistent to me. What do you mean when you say they sound funny sometimes?

[SCARBEE]

Hi Mark,

Sorry to hear you have problems. How much RAM do you have? You should be able to load both libraries with no problems even at 256 MB ram. However remember only to load 1 gig from each lib at a time: J-Slap 1 + J-Fingered 1. If you load all gigs on the CD\'s you might have troubles... And also remember that J-Slap 1,2 and 3 uses the same program changes, so you can not have them loaded at the same time. This goes with J-Fingered too.

So try to load:

1) J-Slap 1 + J-Fingered 1

or

2) J-Slap 2 + J-Fingered 2

or

2) J-Slap 3 + J-Fingered 3

hope it helps

cheers

Thomas

[SCARBEE]

Hi Mark,

Sorry. Now I see you have only J-Fingered and you have 768 MB RAM. There should be no problems then. If you want to use the default program numbers (you will!) and want to listen to the demo-midi-files then you should load the J-Fingered before other libraries. Otherwise you will end up with the wrong program numbers.

Try to defrag your HD where your gigs are.

Thomas

[Mark_Knecht]

Scarbee,
Hi there. Thanks for the reply. (I knew you would, which is one reason I bought your library in the first place!!)

OK, there were no real installation or usage instructions with the library. (Not that there normally need to be.) All I did was copy the Gig files off of the CD and onto one of my sample drives. However, that sample drive ran out of space, so after everything was done I copied them to another sample drive that probably wasn\'t defraged. This may have fragmented the Scarbee files so much that the loading delay is caused by that.

I tried to start up a defrag last night, but it was taking a huge amount of time, so I shut it down after an hour. Will try again this evening.

One thing that would help, I think, is a good list of exactly which demo MIDI files go with which Gigs, or maybe even which instruments in the Gigs. I don\'t have the demo names with me, but there were about 6 of them? Is there a specific instrument that should be loaded to work best with ech of the demo files?

What I noticed last night was that the demo file I loaded had basically 3 areas of MIDI notes. Real bass notes in the middle octaves. It also had some extra notes up high, which corresponded to some of the little noises that are in the library, and some notes down low that didn\'t correspond to anything in the instrument I loaded. So I think I loaded the wrong instrument to work best with this MIDI file, or possibly I should have loaded two instruments but haven\'t figured that out yet.

This probably is in the help files somewhere, but I didn\'t have time to find it yet.

Beautiful help files by the way! I really like the way you explain the string note to octave note mappings. Very, very good!! I personally think it might be better to get all the info into a single file instead of three. It\'s not clear to a new user what the difference is because they all appear so similar.

My sequencer is PTLE/001, so the program number thing is not very good compared to the more MIDI based systems like Logic and CuBase. Now that I sit here reading your instructions Thomas, possibly I used the library wrong? I was loading a single instrument into Port 1, MIDI channel 1, and not specifically loading the Gig file.

Again, I don\'t really think there is anything seriously wrong here. Probably just operator error.

Thanks in advance,
Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 03-12-2002).]

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi,
Defraged the samples drive. Made no difference. Tested that all my other libraries are loading fine. They did.

Did more testing. Jam Bass 1 (the instrument inside of J-Fingered 1.gig) loads, but takes around 8-10 minutes to do so. Once loaded, it seems to work. Sounds good, but this definately isn\'t usable in the state it\'s in on my system...

Tried loading a Performance file. Gave it 30 minutes. It was loading, but still wasn\'t finished!

Anyone have any ideas? I\'ve looked my memory settings, DMA. Everything seems normal.

Thanks,
Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 03-12-2002).]

[PeterRoos]

Mark,

Can you check the System.ini file?
Click Start button, Select Run, type System.ini. This will open Notepad.exe with this file (probably).

Can you post if there is a section [VCache] and if so, what the lines are? I have seen cases in which incorrect values can cause file reading to be rather slow.

Peter

[Mark_Knecht]

Peter,
Thanks for the response. I\'m not at the machine right now, but I\'m pretty sure that there is no [VCache] entry in the system.ini file right now.

Maybe we can start a dialog about what people are using for all of the memory management settings. Currently my machine is pretty vanilla:

File System: Network Server
Read Ahead Optimization: Full
Disable Write-behind caching: No
Virtual Memory: Let Windows manage it
[VCache]: Nothing in system.ini

I\'d certainly be up for getting a set of standard values that folks could try, and maybe some explanations about the reasons. I\'d even be willing to put a web page up somewhere, or maybe one of the library vendors could do that. Warren Trachtman has some good info at his site. I\'ve done this sort of debugging a lot on other machines, and have tried a few setting here in the last day or two that haven\'t helped.

Again, thanks very, very much for the interest, suggestions and support.

Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 03-13-2002).]

[Chadwick]

Mark,
I think there are probably a few relevant tweaks for your system here:
http://www.tascam.com/support/faq/pc_optimize/index.php (\"http://www.tascam.com/support/faq/pc_optimize/index.php\")

[Mark_Knecht]

Cheers Peter!
[vcache] it was. They values were set to 4096/4096 and chunksize set to 512. I removed the chunksize entry and changed the min and max sizes to 16000 (as per the Tascam link that Chadwick provided) and the Jam Bass load time went down to under 1 minute.

Now, the previous pages I had looked at for settign this parameter always used binary number, so this entry might better have been 16384, but it wasn\'t. Any info on why? Or whether it matters?

Thanks both of you!

Mark

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PeterRoos:
Can you post if there is a section [VCache] and if so, what the lines are? I have seen cases in which incorrect values can cause file reading to be rather slow.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[PeterRoos]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:
Cheers Peter!
[vcache] it was. They values were set to 4096/4096 and chunksize set to 512. I removed the chunksize entry and changed the min and max sizes to 16000 (as per the Tascam link that Chadwick provided) and the Jam Bass load time went down to under 1 minute.

Now, the previous pages I had looked at for settign this parameter always used binary number, so this entry might better have been 16384, but it wasn\'t. Any info on why? Or whether it matters?

Thanks both of you!

Mark

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Hi Mark, cool!

With the values you mentioned, you were giving Windows a hard time, I guess (smaller than some fixed buffer sizes, like the sector/cluster sizes).

I believe 16384 is actually a rather low value. Try a few tests with 32K, 48K and 64K. This may give significant differences.
Use integer multiples of 1024 (K), so don\'t use 16000.

I don\'t use chunksize. As far as I know the VCache values are straight decimal values (kilobytes).

Happy sampling,
Peter

[SCARBEE]

Mi Mark,

Very strange! I would reinstall all the gigs. I have had no other reports of this kind of problem.

About the demoes. You can use any bass with the demoes. It is quite fun to hear the difference between the sounds this way. All the demoes are based on the \"Studio Bass 5-8\"

The lowe notes with velocity 0 are key-triggers which controls the articulations.

cheers

Thomas

[Mark_Knecht]

Scarbee,
I did eventually figure out the key switch stuff. When I reported earlier that the library sounded funny, it turns out I must have hit a key switch and dropped into a trill sample or something. Anyway, now it all makes sense and is working fine.

I\'m sort of wondering, as I study the way this library works, what\'s the best way to use it. There are so many layers, and so many different sounds across the keyboard, that it\'s not obvious how to approach getting it into a song.

Obviously, get some bass lines together at average velocities, so that I get the song sounding right, but then I need to figure out how to approach using the other little effects in the library to add realism (like you have done so well in your demos!) without starting a PhD project...

I think we may need a new Scarbee Bass User\'s Group! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

Cheers,
Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 03-15-2002).]

[SCARBEE]

Hi Mark,

There is a scarbee forum that you can join at my website. I would enjoy a discussion about how to use my libraries best.

I am currently using the \"Composer Bass\" to lay down the initial track and then convert the track to
e the \"Bass Strings E-G\". When you have done this it is so easy transposing and it also gets very logical. You can use your ears to decide which string to be used on a note - just like on a real bass.

Please check out the Bass Groove factory\" The grooves are made this wasy.

Thomas

[SCARBEE]

Hi Mark,

About the help files...

The 3 help-files are totally the same!
The reason why there are 3 copies are this:

If you have loaded J-Fingered 1 into GigaStudio and then press \"info\" you will open the help-file. The name of the help-file needs to be exact like the name of the .gig. If I had made 1 help-file called J-Fingered - you wouldn\'t be able to access this from the \"info\". And if I had made 1 file called \"Scarbee J-Fingered 1\" it would only work when loading J-Fingered 1, etc.

So there is a logical explanation afterall...

cheers

Thomas

[dwdonehoo]

Sorry for the OT, http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif but: Mark_Knecht, are you going to be stopping by the GDC? You are in Los Gatos: no excuses. http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi,
I hadn\'t intended going, but it might be fun. Send me a link with directions or other info.

Thanks,
Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_Knecht (edited 03-17-2002).]

[dwdonehoo]

Mark:
http://cmp.bluedot.com/re/attendee/gdc_02/openPages/eventScheduler.esp?process=true&track=Audio&searchResult=true (\"http://cmp.bluedot.com/re/attendee/gdc_02/openPages/eventScheduler.esp?process=true&track=Audio&searchResult=true\")

Look for the GDC discussion further down the page. Monday evening (late) I will post my suggested time for us locals to get together.