Frank, here is that new thread you requested.

Thanks for the exciting news about
Vsampler3 and Ensemble.

BTW, have you looked into SampleTank XL 2.0
VST? It is supposed to respond to program
changes also.

I also just tried Live-Styler 5.0 and Forte
will not open because it says "no midi ports"
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks.

[This message has been edited by Vquestor (edited 11-10-2003).]

Vquestor, Are you using midiyoke?
Available at http://www.midiox.com/
Dowlnload "midi YOKE". Midi-ox is something else, (also very useful).

Frank, who is "Branda of Germany"?
The name rings a bell. Are there photos of his setup available?

I put the separately dowloaded dll's
(Mxmidi16.dll, MxMidi95.dll, and MxMidi32.dll)
into system 32.
Do the 2 dll files:
xaudio.dll and livestylerDll.dll from the live-styler installation directory also have to be put into system 32? I didn/t but I'll try that also.

Jick, yes, I am using MidiYoke.
I just fixed the problem by deinstalling
DirectiXer. Now I just open Vsampler standalone, and LiveStyler, and it works!!
So Forte is not even needed in this scenario.

Vquestor, I have not tried the recent version of Sampletank. The previous version did not have sufficient benefits to warrant serious consideration (quality of instruments, effects and the usual GM - XG issues). So I have not gone back to it. Sonic Reality may be just as good a choice given that they do sampling for Sampletank.

Saddly, I gave VSampler 3 DXi a fuller run on my Music Computer with the following results:

1. It crashed my computer a number of times and is not yet ready for prime time. The crashes occurred trying to make adjustments in midi/audio options within VSampler.

2. The feature of copying the drums to bank 128 helps but it is not enough. VSampler assumes a complete GM standard including drums only in channel 10. So as is the case in many Yamaha styles drums can be found in other channels like 9, 10 and 1. This results in out of tune pianos playing - sad. I tried using M. Bedesem's MidiPlayer to change the styles to GM. This solved some of the problems but I was still left with VSampler picking only the Standard XG Kit rather than the called for say Jazz XG Kit - Oh my. Also, if you combine all the drum tracks to channel 10, you do not have the flexibility to apply separate kits, effects and volumes to the separate drum tracks - Oh my.

Well there is some progress. It is just not good enough. Best is to change the drum banks from 16256 to 127 and use VSampler in the standard mode.

3. The hanging notes on my general purpose computer seems to have been the result of the combination of Live - Styler and MidiOverLan. Using Midi Yoke on my music computer resulted in no hanging notes. In general, I would say Midi Yoke is the safer virtual cable to use.

Vquestor, I assume you set Live - Styler accompaniment out port (say Midi Yoke 1) to forte - LiveSynth Pro in port(Midi Yoke 1). This should work. You need to be careful in not setting up midi loops between forte and Live - Styler. There are so many possibilities for this to happen.

Vquestor, you do not need forte if you are going to use only one sampler for your accompaniment and your right & left lead/melody instruments.

Jick Duck, you placed the files in the right folders. The xaudio.dll and livestylerDll.dll files stay in the Live - Styler's main folder. You can check out Branda at the following site:
http://www.branda.de/

I hope this helps.

Frank,
Gosh, I guess it was too good to be true.
After I also played around with Vsampler,
it was also playing wrong voice assignments.
So I went back to Forte with LiveSynth
MidiYoked to LiveStyler. Things were better
for a while, but after a few minutes, LiveStyler just stops working or closes itself completely. I wonder if this is a limitation due to it's being a demo?

Vquestor, I think VSampler needs some tweaking but it is close to working properly for our needs. There is a version 3.03 on the VSampler site but not on Cakewalk's. My version is 3.02 which may explain some of the strange happening. If worse came to worse, I think I could get it to work properly along with the appropriate changes to the Yamaha styles. At the moment this is the next best alternative - Oh no!!!

The Demo version of Live - Styler should not be quiting on you. Usually demos either do not permit saving or stop sounding but not disappearing from the computer screen. You may have some installation tweaks to make with in Live - Styler which may solve this problem. You might try and only run the accompaniment part and set all the other left/right voice midi ports/channels to off. Similarly set only the import port to your keyboard to the appropriate midi port and leave the other two off/unassigned. I have had similar things happen but with some tweaking I have been able to get Live - Styler to where it never faults - touch wood!!!

Furthermore, ensure that you have only the required midi ports/channels running in forte/LiveSynth Pro (e.g., Midi Yoke 1)

[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 11-11-2003).]

(Besides the program crashing)
After about a couple of minutes, the box that says send an error report and the email address and website pops up. Everything stops and I have to reload the style to start playing again. Is this a demo limitation? I'm using my own style.

I forgot to say that when I select a solo preset there is some hesitation and noise.
Can this be fixed

Jick Duck, you are getting into areas I know little about. I believe however you should not be experiencing the faults you have identified in the demo. If I were you I would try and Email N. Stellberg and explain what is happening and see if he can solve these issues.

If that does not work then you may need to use other alternatives. Have you tried OMB? How does it work on your system? By the way if you are not stuck on Yamaha styles, there are a number of other reasonable style players:

Evolution (style support small)
Music Companion
JammerLive (not Windows XP compatible)
RMCA (not so good)

I just received a response from Soundtrek that they may begin work on JammerLive in December 2003 - but they said that last year at this time - and nothing happens.

I have just been contacted via Email by N. Stellberg to try a version of Live - Styler where you can call up NI's B4 and control it via Live - Styler. This is all very interesting and exciting. The more things are tried the more innovation we as users will realize. Although, my first inclination as stated previously is to have the producers of such software focus on very robust style players and other related arranger functions (harmonies, etc.) and less on esoteric things. This is especially true given that you can do most sampler, synth and effects things using a host such as forte Ensemble. Yes, and an excellent XG to GM converter built in would be nice


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 11-12-2003).]

Frank, thanks for your suggestions. I have
been carefully assigning Midi Yoke as you
recommended, but still get a shutdown of
the program right after an error message.

I agree with you totally, that the robustness
of the style player program should be the first and foremost priority. The demo of OMB 5 is a much more stable program than LiveStyler5 on my system(so far).

I also think the midi file and mp3 player
features in LiveStyler are unnecessary, since
both tasks can already be accomplished by free and efficient programs(vanbasco and winamp).
Unfortunately, for software arranger Yamaha style players, OMB and LiveStyler are the only games in town.

I was wondering is it very difficult(for someone with your knowledge and experience)
to use ALIVE to create soundfonts of all
Yamaha drumkits that could be used in LiveSynth to play the styles correctly?
It seems to me, that ONLY you,I,or hopefully someone else, can make the appropriate soundfont to turn Forte and LiveSynth into a properly functioning Yamaha DEVICE that will allow proper functioning without Yamaha style
modification. If not, perhaps you can contact SynerGigs to make such an
"XG soundfont" to sell at a reasonable price.

Thanks.

Vquestor, I might not be understanding you correctly but sYnerGiGS plays GS, GM and XG midi files and styles as well as any other software wavetable available today. I have contacted Darrell Marjoram on when he plans to complete the full XG wavetable. He has given no indication, however, 23% of people frequenting his site and voting are in favour of this as his next project. It is the highest on his list.

The problem is more in the other direction, i.e., using other Wavetables (Hyper Canvas) to play Yamaha styles or midi files. Yes you can take and transfer the sYnerGiGS drums to other soundfont wavetables using Alive and you are in business with different sounding wavetable. I have done that with the following:

Ntonyx
Akai
Fluid
GeneVoice
JurgenGM
MerlinGM
Personal Copy
Sonic Implants
Sound Canvas (soundfont version)
SonicReality
Utopia
Xiod

What do I use? Well, sYnerGiGS modified with better accoustic instruments, e.g., pianos, strings, guitars, brass, etc.

Now Vquestor if you mean someone should attempt to sample Yamaha's keyboards - well some of its being done but it is not so easy. The following is an example:
http://www22.brinkster.com/guraydere/

Sampling is an art and science unto itself and would not want to attempt this in the twilight of life - how sad!!! Given that most of todays top of the line keyboards have at best medicore to moderate quality acoustic instruments sounds, you would be into looping, layering, LFOs, etc. to make them sound acceptable. This is to hard for an old man. This is, of course, true for drums as well.

You could as you have suggested use the sYnerGiGS Drums/LiveSynth Pro with other wavetables, e.g., Hyper Canvas (drums turned off). The sYnerGiGS Drums are of moderate quality - not quite as good as some others.

Now for the Live - Styler crashes I have no answers other than not giving up to soon. I had them initially but eventually did the right things on my system for it to work properly. Mine was more to do with midi port/channel assignments. Have you tried the factory reset? Did you do a full install? Sometimes some of the initializing files are missing or corrupt.

WOW, Frank, I had NO idea that you had
already done XG drum wavetables with so
many soundfonts!
It is also very good news that SynerGIGs is working on a full XG soundfont.

No,I was not implying sampling Yamaha keyboards from scratch, but instead,just using quality sounds that play properly to the Yamaha protocol.
Since you want the highest quality sounds and quality samples already exist,it's just a matter of converting instrument banks with the proper note mapping(I know it's a lot of work). Using BANKS is the key, although I'm sure you will still have to juggle instruments for proper drum mapping. There is also a great program(you probably already know of) called AWAVE for bank and sample conversion,which may be of help to you.
I have never heard of a "Soundfont edition of Sound Canvas".
Roland has some of the best drumkits I've
ever heard - have you found any that you feel are better?

I will try the factory reset for Live-Styler,
and if that doesn't work, I'll do a complete
deinstall/reinstall.

Thanks for the help.

Vquestor, just so we understand each other, I just removed the drumkits from these Wavetables and replaced them with the ones frum sYnerGiGS. It gave me a new sound when using my accompaniment.

The drumkits for sYnerGiGs are pretty good but not as good as the ones used by the screen writers and serious composers, e.g., DrumKit From Hell, etc.

There are all kinds of people converting keyboard/soundcard sounds to soundfont. You can find some Roland Canvas versions on this site:
http://www.hammersound.net/

Yes, I use a number of sample conversion programs, e.g., Awave, CDXtract, etc. Kontakt and VSampler can also do some conversions reasonably well. I have this comfortable feeling that my computer is well stocked with music programs. I am a lucky old man who can fiddle away his remaining time with no trouble at all. There are not enough hours in a day!!!


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 11-13-2003).]

Frank, you are a very lucky man (old or
otherwise)indeed!
I'm sure your ever-improving FLR soundfont
must sound incredible. I hope you can
post a sample MP3 of a song using it sometime.
Keep up the great work.

I'm also very impressed with your project Frank, and as Vquestor just said, it would be great if you could post some MP3 samples. It's always interesting to listen to other systems, and you have teased us for such a long time with your descriptions. So pleeeease, give us some samples of what your system is good for.

Vquestor & MonSound thanks very much for your kind comments. I am not trying to tease you with the excellent sound of my system. In fact, it is the software & sound developers who deserve all the credit. I am very reluctant to show how poorly I can play and therefore do not post any of it. However, you can always get an approximate idea of what the system sounds like by going to some of the developers sites:
http://www.samplebanks.com/ http://www.bardstownaudio.com/frames/home.html http://www.artvista.net/index.html http://www.garritan.com/ http://www.gigasamplers.com/gigasamplerpercussion.htm http://www.kirkhunterstudios.com/ http://www.scarbee.com/ http://www.projectsam.com/ http://vrsound.com/ http://www.swgames.com/westgate/

I have purchased many of these and other (QL Brass, Whole Lotta Country, Sonic Implants B3, etc.) sounds for use in my lead/melody voices utilizing Kontakt. You could check them out at their sites. These instruments, of course, sound a great deal better in real time - but it gives you an idea. There are other even higher quality sampled acoustic instruments (VSL and EW/QL Symphonic Orchestra) but at a much higher price (approx $3000 US).

With rare exceptions, I only use Soundfonts for my accompaniment. If it weren't for the drums, I would probably abandon Soundfonts altogether. There seems to be very little innovation happening with Soundfonts. That is not to say that there are not some very good quality Soundfonts around. The good news is most of them are free. Even I will use them occasionally to mess-up a pristine clinically clean Tenor Sax to make it bite, growl, smoke, out-of-tune and so on. If you play the blues you gotta do it!!!

The plus in the approach I have been advocating is that you can build your own system that meets your needs and your budget. Further, I maintain that at less than the cost of todays top of the line keyboards you can vastly improve your sound quality. The cost is - a slightly lower quality control surface - but it is worth it!!!


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 11-14-2003).]

Does anyone know if it is possible in live styler to press any fill button and then have the arranger go back to the variation it was playing before?
This is how it is on my Ketron X4 (without the jump feature enabled)
ex. variation B is playing.
I press fill A, fill A plays, then variation B plays again without having to press variation B.

Jick Duck, I know of no way. You could put a request in to N. Stellberg. He is pretty good at implementing features.

Or if your timing is good you could press the fill and then the appropriate variation. This would take some practice!!!!

[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 11-14-2003).]