I finally worked out the issues with my laptop. I did a complete reformat/reinstall then I used XPLite from LitePC to "diet" XP down in size. I removed everything I didn't need, and installed the demo for OMB8 along with my Hypersonic 2 XXL and MIDI-Yoke. Then I hooked up both my P-250 and my DGX-305 through USB. Amazingly having both connected at the same time is actually working now, it didn't before. And the sounds are amazing! The GM Library of Hypersonics GM4 module is great, but I've found that most styles from my DGX uses the same channels for Bass, guitar, piano, pad etc. so I have managed to save different band setups (Jazz quintet, rock band, modern pop etc.) with instruments using the entire hypersonic library. And boy does this sound good!

I've posted a short demo so you can hear! This is using my Jazz quintet setting, using the XXL Acoustic bass, Jazz drums, GM Jazz guitar, Jazz organ and a rhodes piano for the solo. this sounds lightyears ahead of my dgx, at least in my opinion

Just pay attention to the sound, not the playing It was done in just one take with no editing or cheating...
http://espen.stua.biz/fly-me-to-the-moon.mp3

I would love to hear sound samples of other peoples software setups!

Doc-Z

Doc-Z, it is good to see you using your version of a software based arranger system....Doc-Z2006. It sounds very good .... you are way ahead of me. I may as well disappear into my closet and watch the rest of the world pass me by.

As you test even higher quality software based acoustic instruments you will be even more certain of your approach to music making.

Good luck!!!

Thanks man, I'm still curious to hear what your setup sounds like. Your posts on your own software based arranger system made me want one myself So get out of that closet!

Doc-Z

I've posted another demo on my site. This is using the Frankly Soul style from the Yamaha Tyros. I used OMB to play the style, triggering chords with my DGX-305. Sounds are comming from HyperSonic.
http://espen.stua.biz/souldemo.mp3

I think it sounds pretty good! Man you should hear this through my PA, sounds like the Blues Brothers are playing in my apartment!

Doc-Z

Doc-Z, your examples using Hypersonic 2 sound very good indeed. Does Hypersonic respond to program change commands coming from the styles or midi files? How about effects such as reverb and chorus? What do you think of Steinberg's Dongle world?

I have some of Steinberg's stuff, Voice Machine, Cubase and VStack. I may have to invest in Hypersonic given your examples. I am still hoping all the things with NI's Bandstand will be enhanced including quality of the sounds and loading times in response to program changes.

If you have the GM-4 gm library or Hypersonic 2, it responds great to program change messages. Then you have to switch on GM mode, and only the GM patches are available, switch off GM mode and all patches are available, but then you need to assign program changes to the correct banks. But it works great, but the great thing is that you can edit the patches while playing back a style, then save that to a bank file, then switch off program change messages from your midi software, and now you can load your "band" setups the way you want. You can also setup your own GM bank using the patches you like best, and use that as the GM bank recieveing program changes. The possibilites are endles. The dongle actually works good for me, not had any problems yet. I've found that running the stand alone version of Hypersonic gives me much better performance than using a host application, latency is as good as zero, and it switches lightning fast. It's like having a Motif synth with arranger capabilites, it's great! The flexibility and ease of use, combined with great sounding sounds, that are in my opinion way ahead in some places from many of todays hardware units makes HyperSonic 2 worth every penny!

Doc-Z

The only downside is that the pianos take a while to get used to.. They are great sounding, and cut through a mix quite well. But they are all in the style of a Steinway grand piano, so if you are a Yamaha piano fan, with punchier mids and crips highs you may feel the pianos in Hypersonic a bit dull. But with some tweaking and adaption you get used to them. I still haven't gotten a good blues sound out of it, but I'm still learning, the editing capabilities are vast.

Effects both reverb and chorus respond to midi controller events, you may also use other effects, 4 per track, and 4 global effects, all things in Hypersonic can be controlled through midi events, using the "Learn" function you can assign different controllers to different things..

It may seem that I'm working for Steinberg, but I don't Maybe I should apply to work as a "Hypersonic Arranger Demo Guy"

Doc-Z

Doc-Z, that's very good news indeed. I will haul out my Visa and acquire Hypersonic 2.

Thanks for quick and kind reponse.

I've managed to create a usable Megavoice Steel guitar to use with the Tyros styles in Hypersonic. It needs a bit more tweaking to sound as good as the Tyros, but it's kinda cool to be able to create a sound that is usable with the megavoice styles. I'm hoping to be able to mimic all the Megavoices, but for now I just made an acoustic steel guitar. Listen to this demo:
http://espen.stua.biz/megavoice.mp3

Yeah I know it needs some tweaking, those slides and hammers take a while to get right, but I'm getting there

Doc-Z

I've spent the weekend playing with Band in a box 2006. Got a little frustrated with it at times and I hate the fact that you can't seem to use it in 'real time' play.

I played the demo of one man band v8.0 and this seems to let you play in real time using my synth to change chords. Still it cuts out after thirty seconds because it is a demo. I am thinking of buying the prog if it does what I want it to.

Still I like very much some of the features on BIAB like the ability to record a vocal line and how you can export to midi so easily. I love the tc helicon harmony feature for the vocals as well. Very swish!

Am I missing something or will BIAB definately not work in real time? (Like OMB does).

I am going to check out Jammer live and I assume by the name that I will be able to use it in real time?

Sorry for all the questions but I am green when it comes to this subject (and not just this subject truth be told ). I was going to go out and buy an arranger to compliment my Roland Synth (and probably still will) but for now I am happy exploring these new possibilities!

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Best wishes
Tony

Just in case it makes a difference I am using the Roland synth hooked up to the mixer and then to the pc via m-audio audiophile card and also using the synth as the midi sound engine (GM2).

HI Tony,
BIAB does not let you play in realtime.
Jammer Live does, but there's not a great deal available in the way of styles. You can create your own apparently.

OMB also has a sequencer, plus an arranger section that can save as a midifile.
The arranger function works a bit like BIAB ie type in chord progression & drop n drag style parts & you've got a midi backing track in a matter of minutes.
One great thing about omb is that you can edit psr styles.
ie you can list event edit a track, you can save individual tracks & do a mix n match to create new styles, you can also save a whole part ie variatons, intro's etc & copy them to another style.
You can even convert & modify the velocity of drum tracks ie the style may have xg drums but the soundsource is gm, you can create conversion tables.

For the $50 or so dollars, it's a pretty amazing program.

best wishes
Rikki


[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tony W:
[b]

[This message has been edited by rikkisbears (edited 03-12-2006).]

Sounds really good to me too. What is Hypersonic 2 (vst or soundfonts) and how much does it cost? Thanks for sharing those sounds.
With your P250 or DGX305 you can trigger fills, variations, etc with the lower notes of the keyboard? How well does Hypersonic sound using the Yamaha style files?
Starkeeper

Hypersonic is a VST / DXI / Standalone sound module, with synth workstation capabilities. It's like a Yamaha Motif in software format. It has a big library of sounds and great editing capabilities. It's got a phrase arpegiator, the ability to create your own bank setups using your own patches. All patches can be triggered through midi messages. It comes with a preset GM library, that can be used with GM sounds for those who don't like to setup banks and patches by them selves. It's got a phrase arpeggiator, the only thing it hasn't got is a sampler, all samples are embeded in the system, so it's basically a ROMpler. The power of this system is wild! You get a great bang for the buck, the sounds are in my opinion superior to most hardware synths on the market today. If you have One Man Band software you can use yamaha styles to trigger HyperSonics sounds. You have to use MIDIYoke or some other kind of virtual midi patch bay to transfer the midi signals, but once you've done that you can run HyperSonic in GM mode and the patches will change without any editing what so ever. But if you put in some configuration work, you can access the full blown power of hypersonic. I'm currently working on a patch bank with Megavoice compatible patches for playback of Tyros styles. I will post more examples as I go along, but for now you can listen to the examples of what I allready posted. Fly me to the moon, is played by me in realtime using the Jazz Club style from the DGX-305, that is the same style that the Tyros has. FranklySoul is the intro and outro from the same style from the Tyros, megavoice.mp3 is my first attempt at creating a megavoice compatible patch, it needs more editing to be complete. I'm blown away by the power of this workstation! As for the costs, it's a bit expensive for a plugin, but it's worth every penny in my opinion! It retails at $399, but I've seen it on the web for $299. But for that money you get ALOT of music! Add the $50 for One Man Band, and it's not too shabby... if you allready have a keyboard and a computer with 512MB ram or more... well then $350 + some configuration time, and you've got yourself a Tyros

Doc-Z

Doc-Z

So you don't need a wrapper or vst host to use Hypersonic?
I have a computer with 512MB ram and Soundblaster sound card.
I have OMB.
I have a 61 key keyboard. 76 keys wud be better
I have Yamaha style files.
I have a 2.1 speaker system.
Starkeeper

Hi Doc,
do you require some form of steinberg software to actually get the dongle , or is it part of the hypersonic software.

I have an old cubase floating round somewhere that used the old serial dongle. Maybe I could upgrade my cubase if required.

Just out of interest, can you change the drum mapping.

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by doc-z:
[B]

I had to purchase a dongle, it was not included in the package, that cost $20 so it wasn't a big deal..

Yes you can make your own drum mappings, you can make your own kit of the samples you want, in the places you want. You can make velocity switched patches, you can do everything a sampler can do, just not import new samples, but you can make up patches using the vast library of included samples, just like a normal ROMpler.

You can use it inside a host, or stand-alone. I run it stand-alone for realtime work, since it gives me the best latency. As for using it with a soundblaster, I don't know how the ASIO drivers for those cards are, I'm using a Terratec Producer 22 card, and I get near zero latency. You need MIDI-Yoke from www.midiox.com or something simular to transfer the midi signals from OMB to HyperSonic, since OMB doesn't support rewire.

Doc-Z

Doc-Z, I could not help but notice your comparison between Hypersonic 2 and Yamaha Motif sounds. I think Yamaha acquired Steinberg somewhere in the recent past. Am I right on this assumption?

January 2005 http://mixonline.com/news/headline/yamaha-steinberg-pinnacle-1222044/index.html

Bill

Unfortunately the thread on the Synth Zone, "Yamaha buys Steinberg Yikes!!" is no longer available, but there were quite a few negative posts. Yamaha is not big on supporting old products (even old software). Should be interesting to see what direction they had in mind when they bought Steinberg. Maybe they will manufacture a keyboard with softsynths and compete with Niko, Abacus, etc.
Starkeeper

A lot of the sounds sound the same as the motif... But some are alot different. My guess is that the old samples from HyperSonic 1, developed by Wizoo, are different, and have a more Korgy sound, but the new Hypersonic 2 samples are very simular to the Motif, Hypersonic 2 was realeased a long time after version 1, and people were getting tired of waiting for a new version, so my guess is that Yamaha after aquirering steinberg helped in the development of Hypersonic 2. There are alot of simular functions to the motif, phrase arpeggiator and phrase library for instance, the editing modes and insert effects are very yamaha.

Doc-Z

I've completed my Megavoice Steel Guitar patch, it took a while to get the right samples at the right places, but I think it sounds pretty good. I probably will try to tweak it a bit more to get the volume of the samples right, but it's now usable with Tyros megavoice styles.
http://espen.stua.biz/megavoice3.mp3

Now I just have to make the rest of the voices, and try to create a soundbank with patches on the correct places.

Btw. Does anyone know what the "EFX" parts of bass and distorted guitar megavoices are? are they slides? how do they work? anyone?

Doc-Z

Hereby, I testify that Hypersonic2 kicks royal butt.
I played for 2 hours yesterday, and I couldn't convince myself to go to sleep. So many sounds, so good quality, so little time.
Buy it!

Hi Trident,
obviously you've bought it. How does it compare to your other softsynths?
I'm getting a new laptop soon, this time with a bit more memory, unfortunately I lost my Rikki 2006 arranger system , laptop overheated and I've lost a lot of my soundfont edits, so if I have to start again, I may consider this program instead.
best wishes
Rikki
[QUOTE]Originally posted by trident:
[B]

Rikki, can I have your email?
or If you don't want to publish it, mail me at
t r i d e n t @ f r e e m a i l . g r
(remove the spaces) and notify me here that you did
Theodore

More info on the dongle please. I googled the web for a definition and a dongle is a hardware device to protect against piracy. Steinberg makes you buy a dongle for their software!!!! The dongle is not supplied with the software?? Exactly where is the dongle connected?
Many Yamaha styles use XG voices not GM. Does Hypersonic work flawlessly with XG voices?
Starkeeper

[This message has been edited by Starkeeper (edited 03-17-2006).]

The 1st sample has very good bass and electric piano, but the cymbals sounds weird to me. It sounds like someone cracking a whip. Comments.
Star

Starkeeper,
I'll try to explain as I know, others please feel free to step in and orrect me if I am wrong.

As you said, a dongle (despite sounding a little naughty ) is a device protecting unathorized use of computer programs.
It is a hardware device, containing some sort of serial number or code or something in a chip that is embedded in the device. You plug it to an I/O (input/output) port of a computer. It can be a parallel dongle, a serial dongle, or a USB dongle, reffering to the connection used.

When you try to run a program, it has a special code that scans for the dongle, communicates with it and finally concludes that a legit dongle is present so the program can run freely. If the dongle is not found, the program simply refuses to work.

Steinberg has a usb dongle which is probably a special USB key, that can store multiple licences targeted to different programs and sometimes allow for transferring the license from one dongle to another, so you can sell the program and the license that comes with it.

Sometimes dongles were the cause of most of the nightmares of users, back in the old days it was not uncommon to see a line of 10 dongles one plugged to the other and then to the parallel port, forming a horizontal thing that protruded for a foot or so from the back of the PC. Imagine dongle A wanting to be always the first in line, while dongle ABC would only work if it was before dongle 5 and after dongle 3 and only if the program it protected was launched first, and so on.

That is it, some things you wanted to know about dongles and some things you could'nt care less for.
Theodore

Ok, to clearify some things..

Dongle is a USB device simular to a USB storage unit, it recides in your USB port containing the licence number for your software, without this the software does not function.

Hypersonic is neither a GM, nor a XG sound bank, but it is shipped with a GM compatible soundbank, so you will need to configure your sequencer/arranger software to select the right patches. What I did is that I renamed the GM bank to another place, and then I made up a new bank consisting of the sounds I like. But I'm planning to work out a complete set of Tyros compatible banks to use with my styles and omb. I've allready made megavoice compatible patches for guitars, now I'm working on basses. It requires some configuration work if you want this to work with Tyros styles. In OMB you can select GM as the output device, and then you may use the GM soundset in Hypersonic, which is quite good, then you don't need to configure anything.

Doc-Z

I believe I understand what a dongle is, but why would Steinberg charge $20.00 more for their dongle, if the their software (that you paid for) won't work without it?
Starkeeper

Hi Theo,
email
rikkisbears@hotmail.com

best wishes
Rikki

Rikki,
I replied using my work email. Looking forward to hear from you.
Theodore

Doc-Z, Trident. Can you post samples of the flute, and organs.
Are there other samples on a web site?
Does it have a Leslie sim?
Steinberg has a site in Canada, but I don't find a price for Hypersonic on that website.
It runs on XP Home or XP Professional.
Starkeeper



[This message has been edited by Starkeeper (edited 03-21-2006).]

Bumpety bump.
Does Hypersonic have a Leslie sim?
I was searching the web for Hypersonic sound samples and came accross this web site: http://www.cheap-software-megastore.com/index.php?target=desc&progid=5876
CHeap Soft for a low price. Is this some kind of scam or pirated software?
Hypersonic for $39.00????
Starkeeper

Hi Starkeeper,
at that price , it sounds a bit fishy to me.
Hypersonic2 has a retail in Australia of approx $690 AUD. To be able to buy the same program for $39 USD, sounds too good to be true for a legitimate version.
best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Starkeeper:
[B]

Starkeeper,
It has a Leslie. You can use the mod wheel to speed up or down, it has the drawbars

Can't say it sounds good or bad, I haven't actually SEEN a real B3, leta lone play one.

on the whole it is nice sounding, but i don't like the orchestral onstruments it has, not that I am going to use them anyway

can you receive a 10MB mail?

Hi Trident. I should be able to receive a 10MB email. The network block some types of files, such as vbs files. A zip file or mp3 should be ok. I appreciate what you will send me.
Starkeeper

Starkeeper, mail sent.
Let's hope it will come through

Hi Trident,
I did receive your email with the MP3 attachments, which include samples of the Hypersonic softsynth library. I would like to hear more acoustic samples. Will try to make some simple MIDI files tonite.
I just want to thank you publicly for sending those voice smaples.
Starkeeper