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Topic: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista (Read 16310 times) previous topic - next topic

Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

I have recently been forced to buy a new portable, this has Vista as an operating system. (no comment !!!!)

On my old XP portable, it had  pcmcia card slot in which I could use a Soundblaster pcmcia Audigy card (Audigy 2 ZS Notebook) which supported sound fonts.

My new machine has Express card slot.  Soundblaster now make an Express card sound card (X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook)and you would think, wouldn't you, that this would also support sound fonts. But it doesn't.

After several emails to Soundblaster, I discovered that not even their external USB soundcards support soundfonts under Vista. They would not say if there were plans to make a soundcard for Vista portables that supports soundfonts.

I next tried synthfont with midiyoke as the device that fed the output from NoteWorthy to Synthfont. The reproduction was terrible. Don't go there.

I next tried Garritan Personal Orchestra - Version 2.  This worked brilliantly although it is not as easy to manipulate as a soundblaster soundcard with sound fonts.  Garritan Personal Orchestra uses Northern Instruments Kontact Player version 1 to play the sound samples. In addition, you need to use some software called Garritan Studio to link NoteWorthy Composer to Garritan Personal Orchestra.
The sound reproduction is very good. So I thought I would go ahead and purchase Garriatan Personal Orchestra  ............


They have upgraded to Version 3.  This uses Northern Instruments Kontact Player version 2 to play the samples and guess what !  Garritan studio cannot use Kontact Player version 2. So the connection between NoteWorthy and Garritan Personal Orchestra version 3 cannot be made.

An email was sent to  to Garritan to enquire if, after purchasing Garritan Personal Orchestra version 3, you could then download Kontact player version 1 and thereby be able to use it with NoteWorthy Composer. They replied that Northern Instruments would not permit this.


However, they did say quote  "this fall we'll be coming out with a new version that most likely will interface with Noteworthy." end quote.
I'm not sure what to make of the "most likely" but there it is.

So I thought that I would relay all of this so that anyone else trying to get decent sound reproduction using a Vista portable will at least know the steps I have tried and the potential of a future version of GPO.

Now if NoteWorthy and VST .......... but that's another story. 
Rich.

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #1 –
Wow. That was a large expenditure of time and money. Thanks for all the time and money it will save me.

It also shows what great lengths will be tried to get quality sound from NWC2. This speaks well for NWC's visual playback, which is unlike (and perhaps superior to) all other notation programs.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Richard Woodroffe –
Now if NoteWorthy and VST .......... but that's another story. 

Actually Richard, I don't think it is another story...  Though I have yet to explore VST to any extent, with the advent of vista and the changes m$ is forcing on us in the sound arena it is perhaps time that NWC became a VST host too.

The biggest problem I have here is that I am yet to find a full GM VSTi synth - they all seem to be single instruments...  This is much too complex for most of us when we simply want easy, reasonable sound quality.

PGMusic's Band in a box ships with the Edirol VSC DXi GM synth (DX plugs into vista) - of course, BiaB is a DX/VST host too...

Overall though, the biggest problem I have is that my beloved Yamaha XG softsynth will NOT work in vista and is no longer available so there will be no updates either :(

One solution that may attract some is an external MIDI hardware synth - Ketron have a unit called the SD2 which I've heard great things about - but it's a reasonable cost and needs external power and a MIDI interface - and you still need to plug the audio output back into your sound card - or an external amp.  The SD4 has also been recently released - it costs more but supports USB...

I won't be buying one myself - at least not yet...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
One solution that may attract some is an external MIDI hardware synth - Ketron have a unit called the SD2 which I've heard great things about - but it's a reasonable cost ...
$499USD retail, $390+ (ebay, amazon) is not my idea of reasonable as an add-on for a $40 sequencer.

As I see it, the only reasonable current Vista solution is an SBLive! card and SoundFonts. Laptops are out of luck.
Registered user since 1996

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #4 –
G'day Rick,
PGMusic have it for USD $379.00 - It is a lot of money - "reasonable" was intended to be somewhat facetious...
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Lawrie Pardy –
The biggest problem I have here is that I am yet to find a full GM VSTi synth - they all seem to be single instruments...  This is much too complex for most of us when we simply want easy, reasonable sound quality.

Just for a bit of additional information - the GPO version that works for me (non VST set up) - working in conjunction with Garritan Studio and Kontact Player will allow up to 64 instruments which is great for orchestral pieces although much more complex to set up and also (for example) to get dynamics to work.

I am hoping that their suggested new version "in the fall" will also allow such a range.  If it does, there is no reason to think that the VST hosting applications would not also be able to do this. (Or maybe I'm misunderstaning what you are saying)


As far as cost is concerned, as usual, it is well worth searching the net.  Until I found that Version 3 would be no good to me, I was about to buy one that worked out 20% cheaper than the usual price quoted. It was just at the limit of my range but I really would like to have some decent sound reproduction.  I just hope that I find a similar range when the version that "most likely will interface with Noteworthy" is available.


Rich.

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #6 –
Hi lawrie,

I am fairly interested in your comment about yamaha no longer working in vista, is this in fact a hardware card or is this actually the software only version. if its the software only version which I have,  I have managed to make it work within vista. however I dont currently have it installed as I am far more enamoured with other solutions at present, and it can have an inpact on the vst instruments I am currently using. 

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #7 –
I would be tempted to investigate whether I could replace Vista with XP on my laptop, but although this is not impractical with a desktop it may well not be possible with a laptop.

Tony

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #8 –
Hi, Richard -

Based on the specs you posted, I was just curious if the laptop you bought might happen to be a Dell (only because it sounded similar to my experience).  I don't know what all you would do with yours, but I did have one for 3-weeks and I purchased the Creative X-FI XTreme Audio Express (which actually isn't a real X-Fi sound card).  What I found out is that under Vista, with either the onboard soundcard or the Creative Audio Express, neither "what-you-hear" (or what some call stereo mix) or input monitoring (being able to listen to what's being recorded through the mic-in or line-in ports while it's recording, is enabled under Vista.  There's a lot of discussion about that on the Dell forums and several people have indicated that they have sent their laptop back because this is a showstopper (it was for me).  That being said, my understanding is that this isn't an issue with the XP audio driver.  I understand it is possible to downgrade to XP, but you may not find drivers for all the components (especially since it's a new machine).   Even if you have another brand of laptop, you might want to see if these features (stereo-mix and input monitoring) are available, before it bites you later.  If you don't need these features, then no big deal, but just thought I'd mention it.

I do plan to get the Ketron SD-2 for Christmas this year.  It's an external box (connects via USB), but it's not very big and you'd need to provide an amplified sound source.  But, the demos I've heard have been awesome and some of the folks that have posted their own music using it has sounded great.  I understand they are about to release the SD-4 (which costs more), but maybe the price of the SD-2 will come down some then.

By the way, I ended up with an HP high-end desktop in the end, which I've had for about 8 months now and am still extremely happy with.  The laptop was intended to be a desktop replacement with a portability factor, but for me, it just didn't work out well for what I wanted it for.  Oh, and I finally found out that it just wasn't going to work after many hours on the phone with Dell and Creative, and them having me try this and that to get it to work, when I have a sneaky suspicion that they knew all along that it wouldn't work, but just wouldn't come out and tell me so.  That's another reason I returned the unit.

Some folks speculate that the problems with Vista and soundcard drivers on Dells and others may be related to Digital Rights Management, where maybe the music industry is forcing the computer vendors into disabling certain features.  I don't know for sure, but in light of recent lawsuits and heavy-handedness (some of it justified, but some of it seems to be like trying to kill a spider with a steam roller) by the big players, I could definitely see how that might happen.

Sorry, I'm done venting.  It was a good idea in concept, but it just didn't work out for me.  I hope you have better luck with yours.
John

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #9 –
Hi, Richard (again) -

By the way, the XP version of the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio Express drivers (under XP) does support soundfonts.  The Vista version doesn't.  Don't know why they disabled it (because it works with other higher end desktop cards under Vista), but not this one.
John

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #10 –
One small correction to your post, John: replacing Vista with XP isn't a downgrade, it's an upgrade.;-)

Cheers,

Bill

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #11 –
Hi John,

The machine I have is an Acer Aspire machine - but I too had the issue with the "what-u-hear" functionality.  This was also missing for me which actually stopped me from recording to wav/mp3 from the Garritan.  Fortunately my son had heard of this issue and indeed, this seems to have been related to Digital Rights Management.  A search on the internet found the way round it (at least for me)

Control Panel, Sounds, Playback devices, right click and then show disabled devices, right click on stereo mix which will now be shown. then properties - then enable "use this device".
 
So I now have the stereo mix / what u hear (hurrah !)

However apparently, there are many more issues with Dell machines as can be seen in many of the forums.

I haven't taken all this further yet - I'm waiting for the mysterious next Garritan version to see what that does.

Tony - much as I prefer XP as an operating system and much as I prefer not to have the NTFS filing system on my machine (I don't like all the restrictions it then enables on a machine which is mine !) - I would be reluctant at the moment to re-format as XP although I have to say that John's note that the X-Fi Audio Express drivers do support soundfonts under XP make me seriously consider this as an option.

Rich.

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #12 –
Hi, Richard -

Yes, on the Dell, when you uncheck "disabled devices", you see exactly what was there before.  Stereo Mix isn't even listed as a greyed-out disabled device; it's just not even there.  I do understand that they may have a new driver that has stereo-mix under Vista, but input monitoring is still not available.

I hope it all works out for you.  One thing you might want to consider is something like Acronis True Image.  If you've got an external USB drive, you can image your current configuration to a file on the external, and then install some other O/S.  If it doesn't work, you can easily revert back to your original configuration by restoring the Acronis Image.  It's not free, but not expensive (it's saved my system a few times - I've gotten up and running with a complete configuration after a hard drive crash in a couple of hours and haven't had to re-install any software); I think they have a 30-day free trial, so you could at least give it a shot.

Does the Aspire have stereo line-in or just a mono microphone input?  If so, then I might consider Acer next time I want to go the laptop route.  I'd be curious to see (after these issues are resolved) how happy you are with the unit.

Oh, and if you go the Acronis route, let me know and I can give you a couple of pointers to make sure all works smoothly.
John

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #13 –
Is there no Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer sound card for laptops? I understand that this sound card does support sound fonts under Vista while the Extreme Audio does not. Go figure!

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #14 –
The Xtreme Gamer does support soundfonts, but it is a desktop model.  The Xtreme Audio Express is the only one designed for an Express slot (which is replacing PC-Card slots) in a laptop. 
John

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #15 –
John

The Acer (at least the Aspire 5520) has both a mono microphone input jack and a stereo line in.
I went the Acronis route in my early XP days - but had some problems with it and so gave up.

I was using version 9 and was testing it out.  This was a real test where I was using a spare disk to try and restore a system onto it using a restore dvd set.  When I tried to restore, on changing from disk 1 to disk 2, the process always failed. I tried several makes of DVD to no avail.

So I then tried to back up to an external USB drive, but in DVD format. On copying the images to DVDs, the process failed at the same point even though all had been sucessfully verified.

I moved onto a product called NTI backup which did do what it said on the tin - but I do have one or two niggles with it.
Do you recommend that I give Acronis another try ?
I would like to have something that I have complete confidence in.

Rich.

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #16 –
G'day genomeman,
Quote from: genomeman –
I am fairly interested in your comment about yamaha no longer working in vista, is this in fact a hardware card or is this actually the software only version. if its the software only version which I have,  I have managed to make it work within vista. however I dont currently have it installed as I am far more enamoured with other solutions at present, and it can have an inpact on the vst instruments I am currently using. 

You interest me sir...  It is the software version I'm speaking of.  We have tried everything we've been able to think of to no avail.  I would be most interested in how you succeeded!

I am yet find a simple enough VST solution for my modest requirements - I really don't need to be assigning instruments outside of NWC and I haven't really found a GM set that isn't a soundfont and thus requires something like synthfont.

EMU recently released their "Proteus VX" plus an included "v2 Proteus X Composer Bank" as a freebie - I'm having a bit of a look at this as it seems to be an interesting, practical introduction into a relatively easy to use VST host.

Given that VST seems to be way of the future, an easy, intuitive VST host with a good GM bank supplied with it all at the right price could be a real seller.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #17 –
G'day Tony,
Quote from: tony smedley –
I would be tempted to investigate whether I could replace Vista with XP on my laptop, but although this is not impractical with a desktop it may well not be possible with a laptop.

The real consideration here is whether you can obtain XP drivers for the laptop hardware - if you can then no probs.  Otherwise some stuff won't work properly - or perhaps not at all...

It may be well worth investigating, though the reality is that we are stuck with vista - the next version of windoze is due late '09 or early '10 and will still be basically vista - by then we won't have any choices left as far as XP is concerned...

How about a native linux version of NWC?  This is the ONLY product keeping me in the windoze world for my personal computing.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.
 

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #18 –
Hi, Richard -

I'm using Acronis TrueImage v11 and have no problems with restores, as long as I...

1)  Boot from the CD first and image the computer that way.  Yes, I know that it's supposed to work directly from within Windows, but I found a few times it didn't.  Now, I just boot to the CD (so Windows isn't even loaded) and do the backup from there.  It sees all my hard drives and my external USB drives.

and 2) Make sure to set the option to verify the backup after completion.

Once I started doing it that way, every restore (and I've wiped out all my partitions and restored several times) has worked fine.  I have to say, I did keep my fingers crossed the first couple of times I did that, but once I gained confidence, I haven't worried about it since.
John

Re: Garritan Personal Orchestra, Soundblaster, soundfonts, synthfont and Vista

Reply #19 –
John

Thanks - Can I just confirm .....

You boot from the Acronis CD which you created from the Acronis software.
Backup to a USB external hard drive (is this as one backup image or is it in several  iso images so that you can then put onto DVD ?)
Verify the backup.

Every complete restore that you have done, is first started from the bootable CD?

Are you able to restore specific files from these images or does that have to be from a non-disk image backup.

With the restore process, (if single file restore is allowed from the disk image backup), can this be done from windows without using the boot CD?

Finally - any Vista problems known about ?

Thanks

Slightly OT - but then it is protecting my NoteWorthy files (and my local copy of the Scripto for that matter) so it would be good to have confidence in the backup/restore process.

Rich.