Audigy2 - Do latest drivers solve polyphony problems?

Archived from groups: creative.products.sound_blaster.audigy,comp.music.midi,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Doc,

> Does the latest driver release from Creative fix this? <

I encountered this exact problem with the Audigy 1 when it first came out
quite a few years ago. I was working with the Creative Labs people at the
time, and they promised it would be fixed in the next driver version, but it
never was. I heard it's still present in the Audigy 2, but I tossed my
Audigy 1 way back then once I started using soft-synths. So...

Are you using an original Audigy? If so, the bug is probably in the hardware
itself since new drivers can't fix it. If you have a newer Audigy, then it
looks like the developers at Creative have dropped the ball yet again. This
is from the opening of my Audigy review article, linked below:

"At the end of June, 2002 I bought a new computer and decided NOT to install
my Audigy card. The Audigy has been plagued with bugs since it was first
released, and although my contacts at Creative Labs promised all of the bugs
would be fixed by the end of 2001 that never happened. (You'll read about
these bugs later in this article.) Therefore, I have joined the legions of
FORMER Creative Labs customers who have jumped ship over the past half year,
and the SB Live that came with my new computer now serves only as a MIDI
metronome for Sonar.

Instead of the Audigy I'm using the LiveSynth Pro DXi software sampler to
play SoundFonts. Although LiveSynth Pro has a few bugs of its own, they are
not as crippling as the Audigy bugs so I can still get work done. Further,
using a plug-in software sampler opens up several new capabilities not
possible with an Audigy or SB Live. Most important, I can apply different
effects, like EQ, to each instrument by using more than one instance of
LiveSynth Pro. Although LiveSynth Pro requires the CPU to work harder than
does a hardware sampler like the Audigy, this is no longer an issue with
modern fast computers."

Above text is from www.ethanwiner.com/audigy.html

--Ethan

Archived from groups: creative.products.sound_blaster.audigy,comp.music.midi,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 06:57:34 GMT, "Doc" <docsavage20@xhotmail.com>
wrote:

>I've had this Audigy2 for a while but just today tried a fairly involved
>midi project - a custom bank of 15 orchestral instruments and found that
>certain notes are being cancelled out when I engaged the string section. No
>string section, everything is great. Strings by themselves and everything is
>fine. Add the strings and the rest of the instruments and notes begin
>cancelling.
>
>I thought, gee, but surely that can't be, I'm not using any more than about
>15 voices at any given time and isn't this supposed to have 32 or 64 voice
>polyphony and all but unlimited Soundfont capacity?
>
>Well, after doing some reading, I discovered that the Audigy apparently does
>in fact have midi polyphony issues.
>
>Does the latest driver release from Creative fix this?

The "unlimited memory for Soundfonts using system RAM" is not the same
as unlimited polyphony. I think the Soundfont engine is 64-note
polyphonic. This sounds a lot, but remember some sounds may use more
than one voice.

I fear this is a design decision, not a bug to be fixed.

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

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"Laurence Payne" <lpayne1NOSPAM@dsl.pipexSPAMTRAP.com> wrote in message
news 19bg1540e74ub6i6d9rc2jo3fs7job7ii@4ax.com...

> >I thought, gee, but surely that can't be, I'm not using any more than
about
> >15 voices at any given time and isn't this supposed to have 32 or 64
voice
> >polyphony and all but unlimited Soundfont capacity?
> >
> >Well, after doing some reading, I discovered that the Audigy apparently
does
> >in fact have midi polyphony issues.
> >
> >Does the latest driver release from Creative fix this?
>
> The "unlimited memory for Soundfonts using system RAM" is not the same
> as unlimited polyphony.

Re-read what I said. It's cutting out when there are less than 15 voices
playing.

> I think the Soundfont engine is 64-note
> polyphonic. This sounds a lot, but remember some sounds may use more
> than one voice.

These are all custom banks, using only one sample per note.

Archived from groups: creative.products.sound_blaster.audigy,comp.music.midi,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Doc wrote:

> So much for the so-called "Japanese Business model". (Creative is basically
> a Japanese company, isn't it?)

Singapore.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

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"Doc" <docsavage20@xhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2nyNe.334$I93.10@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...


> Will it work in conjunction with Cakewalk?

After looking around, I see Cakewalk puts it out. I wonder if it would work
with my CWPA8? Yeah, yeah, I know, there are newer releases, but I'm just
getting versed in CWP8 and am one of these folks who likes to stick with
something for a long time when I'm comfortable & familiar with it.

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"Ethan Winer" <ethanw at ethanwiner dot com> wrote in message
news eCdnQnYnNWmQpjeRVn-3g@giganews.com...

> Instead of the Audigy I'm using the LiveSynth Pro DXi software sampler to
> play SoundFonts. Although LiveSynth Pro has a few bugs of its own, they
are
> not as crippling as the Audigy bugs so I can still get work done.

After further research, it seems that the folks that made it went out of
business? Is it now unavailable?

Archived from groups: creative.products.sound_blaster.audigy,comp.music.midi,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Doc" <docsavage20@xhotmail.com> wrote in message
news:JsyNe.338$I93.134@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
> "Doc" <docsavage20@xhotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:2nyNe.334$I93.10@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
>
>> Will it work in conjunction with Cakewalk?
>
> After looking around, I see Cakewalk puts it out. I wonder if it would
> work
> with my CWPA8? Yeah, yeah, I know, there are newer releases, but I'm just
> getting versed in CWP8 and am one of these folks who likes to stick with
> something for a long time when I'm comfortable & familiar with it.

I believe DXi instruments were only usable in Sonar. You could buy Cakewalk
Home Studio for a little of nothing now and it will do tons more than any of
the Pro Audio line did (including run Livesynth).

Archived from groups: creative.products.sound_blaster.audigy,comp.music.midi,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Just a general comment:


Ricky Hunt wrote:
> You could buy Cakewalk Home Studio for a little of nothing now and it will do tons more than any of
> the Pro Audio line did (including run Livesynth).

.... and if you later decide you want the full Sonar, Cakewalk has decent
upgrade prices. It may may actually be cheaper to buy Home Studio and
upgrade than to buy Sonar at list price.

(They also have some "competitive upgrade" prices if you're a user of
one of the other DAW products and want to try switching to the Cakewalk
family. Not quite as far discounted, but worth being aware of.)

I wasn't pushing Home Studio very hard, but it worked just fine for the
basics of multitrack audio and MIDI recording and editing. I'm _really_
not pushing Sonar very hard, but so far I have no complaints with it.

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Laurence Payne <lpayne1NOSPAM@dsl.pipexSPAMTRAP.com> writes
>I think the Soundfont engine is 64-note
>polyphonic. This sounds a lot, but remember some sounds may use more
>than one voice.

Presumably decay will have quite an effect.

Caveat: I know absolutely nothing about sondfonts.
I imagine they are, in effect, a .wav per note.

If so then some instruments could have a very long tail after the note
has finished sounding. An open string, for example.

Another thread discusses "release loop means the sample will play out to
it's natural decay once you release the key". The implication is of a
sound after the note is off (very properly so, too).

So it seems to me, with the confidence of total ignorance, that many
instruments will have several notes being played at any one time. Very
probably the note being sounded and the decay of the previous note at
the very least.

A piano with the pedal down could have several chords being sounded
simultaneously. In this case one instrument could quite easily be
sounding 30+ notes.

But even in an orchestra, with a modest line up, say first and second
violins, viola, cello, bass, clarinet, flute, oboe, bassoon, a couple of
brass and a soloist comes to 12 voices.

With the decay extending into just the next note, even for a
millisecond, that will presumably need 24 voice polyphony.

Add an instrument with a long decay and polyphonic in its own right, say
a piano, then I can imagine a 32-note polyphonic device might quite
quickly run out of capacity. I imagine the audigy might do 32 on each of
the two midi sections further restricting capacity on one.

Like many things, more powerful requirements need more powerful
machines. I begin to see why those hugely serious about synthetic music
end up assembling files from a multitude of .wav files not in real time
where polyphony ought not to be a problem at all.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.

Use oz@farmeroz.port995.com [ozacoohdb@despammed.com functions].
BTOPENWORLD address has ceased. DEMON address has ceased.

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Doc,

> I was going to try and figure out how to contact you and ask you about it.
<

Email me from my web site www.ethanwiner.com and I'll have more to say about
all of this.

> It's hard to fathom why Creative keeps doing this. <

Mike nailed it: Creative's main market for this stuff is gamers and others
who are not musicians or engineers but want a sound card better than the one
built into their PC's motherboard.

> I really like the Soundfont format ... can you use basically any soundcard
for sound output? Will it work in conjunction with Cakewalk? <

I agree with the others that you should get either Sonar Standard or Home
Studio, which I think is basically Sonar version 2 or 3. These newer models
are infinitely better than any version of Cakewalk Pro Audio.

I like the SoundFont format too, and I'm very comfortable working with
Vienna and looping in Sound Forge. The format got a bum rap early on because
it was associated with SB Live sound cards, but it's based on Wave files so
it's capable of very high fidelity. There are now many software samplers
that can play SoundFonts, so I see no reason to change. I have many YEARS
invested in the format, including recording many of my own instrument sample
sets, and it still does everything I need perfectly. I don't care about
streaming samples like Giga because I get live players when I want real
strings and other sustaining instruments.

> Right now I'm flying a 933mhz PIII. Is that enough computer? <

I'm sure it is. My last computer was a 1 GHz P3 with 512 MB of RAM and I was
able to play a lot of tracks and soft-synths all at once.

--Ethan

Archived from groups: creative.products.sound_blaster.audigy,comp.music.midi,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Ricky Hunt wrote:

> I believe DXi instruments were only usable in Sonar. You could buy
> Cakewalk Home Studio for a little of nothing now and it will do tons more
> than any of the Pro Audio line did (including run Livesynth).

It won't lock to SMPTE. This may or may not be important to you.
But if you do ever need to lock CWHS to a multitrack of any kind, you'll
have to buy Sonar (or go back to CW Pro Audio).

--
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=- jpm@it-he.org
Anti-walkthroughs for Deus Ex, Thief and Ultima http://www.it-he.org
Reign of the Just - An Ultima clone http://rotj.it-he.org
The DMFA radio series project http://dmfa.it-he.org
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KAW u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
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