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Harmony

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Posts posted by Harmony

    Am I able to remix?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    I didn't mean to imply that theory would make you rigid or stifle creativity; only that it is not necessary. I hate to see people scared off thinking that they have to know this or that in order to make music. It doesn't have to be rocket science...but it can if you want it to be.

    Also, I'm a huge fan of understandability and repeatability, but neither is necessary to create what many consider to be great art :P

    Am I able to remix?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Here's a different question.

    How well do you need to know music (not MIDI and soundfonts) to make something decent? Do you have to know chord progressions, voicing, etc?

    In spite of all of the formalism and technology attached to it, music is at its core an art. As such, to make something beautiful, you don't need anything except creativity, and the patience and practice necessary to be able to translate that creativity into a finished product using what tools you have available. Formal music knowledge, or expensive toys are in absolutely no way required. They may make things easier, but the possibility of greatness is always there without them. Just have fun and the rest will follow.

    Latency with MIDI Controllers

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    It's just that you can configure how low you can get that number by changing the DMA buffer size on the Driver Profiles page in Sonar.

    :shock: Sir, I am in your debt. I've always glossed over that page because I assumed that when the wave profiler sets those values, it automatically optimizes them based on your soundcard. Now I see what you mean by overridding the M-Audio driver (which the lowest setting for me is 128 samples) to reduce the number of buffered samples. Awesome.

    As a test of the raw power of my DAW, I lowered the the 48kHz 24bit buffer sizes to 32 samples and I'm able to get 0.7ms reported latency! For some reason, lowering it further does not change the reported latency. I loaded up SFZ with ns7free kit (huge soundfont with long cpu hungry sample tails), TASCAM's GVI CV Piano (big VSTi), M-Audio's Drum&Bass Rig, a Sonitus compressor, and an FxReverb on the master bus. Even with all of that, no pops and clicks for a little 8 bar improv I did. Add another SFZ and the pops and clicks showup. Still I'm very glad that you mentioned the driver profile page :)

    It's not so much that it's an estimate

    By estimate I meant that the reported number is only a conversion of the buffer size to milliseconds based on sampling freq: (128samples) * (1sec / 44100samples) * (1ms / 1000sec) ~ 2.9ms

    I don't think this takes into account AD conversion for input or DA conversion on output, so the sound you hear may be offset by something other than this reported value.

    Metal keyboard tone

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    The intro to that song rocks...then it goes all typical metal and loses me around 0:58.

    I'm sure more experienced ears would give you better advice, but assuming you're trying to mimic the synth at 2:34 and not the intro synth, what you have sounds good to me...if a little on the flimsy side. Have you tried beefing it up with some tight chorus and a little distortion?

    Latency with MIDI Controllers

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    So are you guys doing anything fancy to measure latency, or are you just looking at the slider in your app's control panel?
    Yeah, I'm just looking at the values given in Sonar, which I realize are only estimates. How good of an estimate, I don't know. There should be a more precise way if someone really wanted a solid number.
    So, like... all their keyboards?
    ha, yeah I guess "low to mid-ranged keyboards" and "Casio" are pretty much synonymous. To their credit though I was helping my mother shop for one of their Privia series digital pianos, and the PX-700 felt and sounded everything like what I would call "high-end." Plus it had MIDI ports :)

    Latency with MIDI Controllers

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Generally, Cakewalk's WDM code outperforms other DAWs. I think they spend more time optimizing their WDM code, especially since they're not cross-platform (it's in their best interest).

    Hmm, makes sense.

    With that said, I generally get about 5 to 10 times better latency using ASIO over WDM and I'm a SONAR user with a multiple computer setup where latency compounds.

    On my master computer, I have around 5.7ms latency.

    I'm really curious as to why I get the opposite behavior. Obviously it may have to do with our differing soundcards and their drivers (what soundcard are you using btw?), but do you get a similar AISO vs WDM comparison using a single computer running SONAR? Is there some other variable I'm missing?

    Latency with MIDI Controllers

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Anything with a MIDI port on the back can act as a MIDI controller.
    Right, but unfortunately Casio has stopped putting MIDI ports on their low to mid-ranged keyboards, including the WK-8000, so he'd be forced to use the usb port. As you mentioned, I guess their target market doesn't really include too many people who have or would want to buy a midi interface.

    Latency with MIDI Controllers

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    I can't back it up with anything other than personal experience, but WDM has absolutely always outperformed AISO for my setups, ranging from win98 + Cakewalk Pro Audio + SBLive to my current WinXP + Sonar6 + FastTrack Pro. I can get ~2.9ms latency with WDM but nothing less than 5.something with my soundcard's AISO drivers. If you think I'm setting something up wrong Ty, I'd honestly like to know. Google WDM vs AISO and there are more than a few people out there who have had the same positive experience with WDM. I'm pretty sure that the 30ms latency is compensated for by the sequencer and thus does not affect the MIDI controller latency, as is the concern for Antipode.

    Also, although it's a personal preference thing, with AISO drivers Sonar does not allow me to adjust the buffer (effectively the latency) from with the program. Thus, when I want to use large VSTs or whatever, I have to close Sonar, adjust the buffer size in my soundcard's control panel, then reopen Sonar. Hassle.

    In the end it really doesn't matter very much at all and the only strong preference I have is for what works. My advice: Try WDM. Take the 5 seconds necessary to switch to AISO and try it too. Use whichever one was faster/more stable/most compatible with your setup.

    Latency with MIDI Controllers

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    RAM primarily affects the latency indirectly. Your soundcard and its drivers are the big factors, so choose wisely. Although I'm not exactly sure why, AISO drivers are often preferred. However WDM drivers (which most Windows compatible cards support) can be just as good or better. I've never heard of that particular soundcard, but you should be able to find AISO drivers for it, or use generic drivers like AISO4ALL (which is actually a WDM driver in disguise). Then, depending on how many instruments you want to load simultaneously, you should easily be able to get less than 10ms latency. Fast enough?

    Ideal Production Computer?

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    I'm running an e6600 with 430W power supply and I've have no probs so far (integrated graphics card though). I've also have no problems with Kingston's 'budget' RAM . A little while ago, 4GB (DDR2 667MHz) went for $120 at newegg.

    EDIT: zircon's right about the 4GB or RAM not truly being useful to the 32bit OS, but the addition RAM can be allocated to an onboard video card so that ALL of the rest of the 3GB that windows will recognize will be used for programs. Of course this only goes for folks like me who are too cheap or strapped for cash to get a dedicated video card :)

    Computer Hardware For Mixing

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    daffyd, the soundblaster works fine because it's a 24-bit card as well as offering a lot of features other cards don't usually offer (optical, spdif, etc). the internal card is just as good, too.

    I've got no prob with the soundblaster as an audio card, although for music making there are better ones available for the same amount of money, but try clicking your link and you'll understand why Dafydd didn't think your audio card would work as well as you think :wink:

    Computer Hardware For Mixing

    in Music Composition & Production

    Posted

    Oooh, unfortunately (if the specs I'm seeing are correct) that mobo doesn't support the newer intel CPUs or newer faster RAM. So, like zircon said, a new PC is probably the best solution.

    Uh, um. WMD drivers?

    WDM drivers are an alternative to AISO drivers. Depending on your system, one may work better than the other. AISO has never worked faster than WDM for me, but again it all depends. In SONAR there is an option to select between the two if your soundcard offers both. Not sure how to do it in Cubase, but maybe someone else 'round these parts could help you do that.

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