Surface Pro, Vst, and Evanessance2

[stewbow]

Here's a live recording using my 1 day old Surface Pro, Vst's, and Evanessance2

The Surface Pro is amazing

The piano is New York Grand in Kontakt, and the guitar and vocals are from Dimension Pro, the style sounds are from a soundfont called Evanessence2.

I've only just noticed the record section at the bottom right and it's a brilliant idea.

Starts off with a bit of "You've got a fried" and then wanders around a bit.

Stuart

[Dan]

Waw   It sounding very good.
When you think that you can plug any midi keyboard, to this amazing small Surface Pro, and get that best sound !


Where is the organ sound from?

[stewbow]

The organ s the C3 sample in Kontakt Vintage Organs, the foot sustain pedal automatically change to the Lesley Speaker control, really nice.

[pax_eterna]

By the way, a really good host for using SF2 files is Jeskola http://jeskola.net/xs1/

It has inbuilt editing controls (ADSR) reverb chorus plsu a lot more, and it is 16 channel multi - and.....it's free

[Dan]

I think for SoundFonts, the best is to use the vArranger inbuilt SF2 synth.
Just put all your SF2 files in the SAMPLES folder, and that's it

[pax_eterna]

All I am suggesting is an alternative Dan - have you ever seen/used Jeskola?

Dennis

[Dan]

It seems that all SoundFont players that I have tried before had a problem and was not really usable as a Realtime arranger like vArranger.

The main problem was to be able to have many SF2 files and change the sounds with Banks and program changes on the 16 channels immediately.

The vArranger SF2 virtual synthesizer allow you to play music like if it was an external MIDI module.

[pax_eterna]

But the vA SF2 won't allow the use of multi gig SF2 libraries will it? It (the sf2 library) has to be under (in real terms - not theoretical) 1 -2 gig in size, yes?

[Dan]

For now 4GB

[pax_eterna]

Not on a surface - there is not 4 gig available that is why I wrote "in real terms" . The reality is that on a base Windows 8 system on the surface with 4 gig, once the system is loaded up to run vA, there is probs only about 2 gig left for sf2 files to fit in...and even then the surface will have some RAM overhead issues in the actual use of them..

And then if one wants to also use some VSTs as well, the available RAM drops even further. Ideally if all one used was the vA SF2 player and nothing else, it would work okay -not brilliantly but okay. However they are all still pretty much GM sounds, and, to me anyway, the difference is chalk and cheese

Please I am not saying the vA sf2 player is bad, it IS a good tool, particularly for PC newbies and it gives a decent (albeit - cheesy) sound for instant "out-of-the-box" satisfaction to new vA owners. I am just posing some alternatives.

Now if vA saves the state of each part for a song ( or style ) then whether it can have remote access of banks and voice slots is well, irrelevant imo. Because as soon as you load the saved vA song file, it SHOULD then load the saved patches and vst or sf2 file used for each part, as I understand it anyway - so I might be wrong.

btw I took a snapshot of the Jeskola player view so you can see the depth of control one can tweak for each sound...

[Dan]

vArranger synth has also all those edits possibilities

vArranger was designed to be able to switch from one style to another one without any gap.

Loading sounds from hard drive between songs will for sure stop the sound for some seconds.
The same for Right hand sounds

[pax_eterna]

Hmmm when using Jeskola in other projects I noticed no time lag on changing presets - perhaps because there were no "on the fly" changes and all the patches remained constant for the project loaded? And that was not in vA.

But in using it dynamically as you say there could very well be load time glitches.

As I said the vA SF2 player is a great tool Dan and it move vA ahead in a big way when you introduced it.

Dennis

[stewbow]

I've got a 1.5 gig soundfont plus 6 VST voices loaded, 1.85 gig in total, memory usage is 70% CPU 10%, no glitches, instant access.

If it sounds like it's out of a box, then it's Pandora's Box, 'cause these sounds are Wicked (as the kids say)

[pax_eterna]

Yep as I wrote (if you read it ) it leaves about 2 gig spare....

[pax_eterna]

jeez why does having a discussion about these things have to end in people getting all defensive - I was not repeat NOT criticising vA at all , merely offering something alternative to use. Sheesh I thought it was just a friendly discussion about different things.

[stewbow]

Just putting forward my journey with this software

[Dan]

I am not defensive. I just say my advice that this VST will not be as easy to use for vArranger users as the vA synth

[pax_eterna]

Sorry Dan and Stewbow - it was not directed personally at either of you. Just a flow on from other forums I guess.

[stewbow]

I understand, you've just got out of bed and it's only 35 decrees and you're trying to take it out on us

[pax_eterna]

LOL, no out of bed for about 6 hours now, and its a comfortable 17 degrees Celsius (about 70 in your money)....One tries to post helpful stuff (not here per se) and gets shot down...when it is only an idea, not syaing everyone has to go out right now and run whatever it is...

You guys were not coming from that angle which is why I apologised!

Anyway, moving right along,  nothing to see here folks

[Dan]

Lol thank you for talking us about Jeskola.

[pax_eterna]

thanks for understanding Dan Yes it is a reasonable host for sf2's I found it when I was working on that "other" project good for static patching presets. Me, I cannot wait for SampleTank to go 64 bit -very soon apparently.

[BjayG]

One of the issues that may have been mentioned elsewhere on the forum - but I have not noticed it - is the need for tuning Windows for use with audio applications and is particularly important if you are pushing Windows hard. 

Certainly there is unlikely to be a problem with midi only applications - but it gets a bit more critical once you start adding VST and the like and particular with older or underspecified machines.  Windows is designed for a pleasant user experience and not for real time applications so ought to be tuned accordingly.

As an example - I had an old Core 2 Duo 2.4MHz laptop (with 4GB memory + Windows 7) connected via firewire to my Motif-XS8 and it got very temperamental with certain VSTs (e.g. Ivory II Piano) and particularly if the sustain pedal was used.   I discovered that it was necessary to tune the machine quite drastically to stop dropouts and remove stuttering (even down to configuring the supplied graphics card on one computer).  And BTW in case people using firewire with Windows don't know - there can be serious problems related to having a firewire interface with 'incompatible' chips - in that the result can be dropped connections and all manner of clicks, pops and other horrors when using audio.  The firewire interfaces usually recommended for use with audio are those containing chips made by Texas Instruments.   Its now impossible to buy firewire on laptops so external USB audio is a much better way to go (it is anyway).  Also using Synthogy Ivory Piano II as an example - I found that this machine would max out its CPU when using the supplied Cantabile host - but would work extremely well when using Brainspawn Forte as the host (the latter being designed specifically for robust professional live play) - so it suggests that the implementation of the VST host program is equally important to computer performance.

Anyway - back to the subject - there are lots of articles on the Internet (search for 'OPTIMIZING WINDOWS FOR AUDIO') for getting the best out of Windows for use with audio.  This is mainly for use with DAWs - but the problem and solution is the same.   Here are some samples:-

https://www.steinberg.net/en/support/knowledgebase_new/show_details/kb_show/optimizing-windows-for-daws.html

http://global.focusrite.com/answerbase/optimising-your-pc-for-audio-on-windows-7?id=1071

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/395036-optimizing-windows-7-daw-audio.html

I hope this helps.

Barry

[KOOY]

I mostly use the vA Synth engine to play my SF2 sounds. Its fantastic BUT has some real issues. The naming of the SF2 sounds are completely off. So if you use a piano SF2 sample and put it on bank 2, space 76 you get the piano sound but the name on the sliders is the equivalent of the GM bank so Pan Flute. Thats not good.

I also encounter that the audio crashes completely. This happens every session when i use vA. It can happen within 3 minutes but also after 3 hours. But it always crashes. When i unplug my audio USB card (Presonus Audiobox USB) and plugin back again AND choose the settings for the audio card again. Then the system continues normally. I thought it was because i used 3 GB of samples, but i also get this problem with 300Mb of samples in memory.

I also tried it without the Presonus audio box and the asio4all driver. Same problem occurs.

Luckaly Dan told me he was working on these problems. So all will be fine soon.

My setup is Win7 64 pc with 12 GB of ram.  using one VST effect and my own samples.

[BjayG]

Dear Kooy,

I just did a google search on 'Presonus Audiobox USB hangs' and it appears to be a common problem mentioned on the Presonus web site.   The forum there a couple of years ago was getting quite animated about this and the suggestion then was to contact Presonius support for their advice.  So it could be that it's fixed now - so if you have not already done so then I suggest you try updating to the latest driver. 

I hope this helps

Cheers
Barry

[KOOY]

Thanks Barry, but i use the latest driver and got the problem with and without the Presonus. On the laptop and the Pc. BTW the Presonus never ever crashed the audio on the DAW's that i use or other audio software. The Presonus that i' ve got is now one years old.

And i am not the only one who has this issue.

I don;t know if its a combination of reasons that cause the crashing of the audio. I first thought it was the memory use of the sample library but i also have the problem with only 300Mb of samples loaded. Then i thought it was the VST effect that i used so i tried several other ones. No solution so far. Then i thought it could be the Presonus so i disconnect it and used the asio4all driver.

So i am out of options at this moment.  Dan is working on the solution.

[Lylo]

Here's a live recording using my 1 day old Surface Pro, Vst's, and Evanessance2

The Surface Pro is amazing

The piano is New York Grand in Kontakt, and the guitar and vocals are from Dimension Pro, the style sounds are from a soundfont called Evanessence2.

I've only just noticed the record section at the bottom right and it's a brilliant idea.

Starts off with a bit of "You've got a fried" and then wanders around a bit.

Stuart

Hello, really good job. 

[Dan]

KOOY I Will send you a debug version to check where the problem occurs

[Dan]

KOOY, I have released a new update.
I hope this will correct your vArranger synth stopping problem.
Let me know !

[ninh]

Hi Dan,

Can I have new released VST version please.

Thanks,

Ninh