Using a MIDI controller with my computer?

S

Slider19

Gawd
Joined
Jun 25, 2002
Messages
903
Back in the old days when we had such things as soundfonts and SoundBlaster was the only sound card known to man, I used to have a Midi keyboard and connected to my Sound Blaster 2(?) and worked pretty well for an amateur (i.e. crappy) musician like myself.

I still have a large collection of soundfonts that I hope to use again. Do Creative cards still support soundfonts and is there any updated software that would work with Vista/Win 7 that would allow their use?

If not, or if there are better options for creating music on my computer, what are they?

Thanks
 
The other option is that I keep my Audigy 2 ZS. Any advantages for basic music creation or gaming by upgrading from this card?
 
Yes, new Creative cards still use SoundFonts. The X-Fi series support them quite well. Also, SoundFonts are fairly standard across the industry these days, many software synthesizers support them. So you can get software VSTs/DXis that'll play SounFonts. I believe even Native Instruments Kontakt will load them, though it also has its own format.

However SoundFonts are samples, not a controller. They are just what you use to reproduce instruments. You also have many more options these days. Software synthesizers are all over the place, some amazingly high quality. I personally like the ones EastWest sells. They are a bit of a pain in the butt, but great sound quality. I am talking gigabytes of samples PER INSTRUMENT.

For controllers, MIDI is still how it is done these days, but generally the MIDI signal is sent over USB. If you get a modern MIDI keyboard, it'll have a USB interface that you can hook to your computer. You can also buy USB to MIDI converters like this one if you wish to use old hardware.

So, as for options it really depends on your budget. You tell me how much you have to spend, and what you are interested in, I'll give you options to buy.
 
Thanks for the info, it's helpful already. My budget is on the low end but not with any hard limits. Basically, I also game, which is I'm leaning towards one of the XFis, around ~$150 or less.

And I really like the idea of a MIDI controller with a USB interface. Are there any latency penalties to this? I'm willing to pay a decent amount for a good keyboard controller. Your recommendations would be appreciated.

On the software front, I really know nothing, so your recommendation on what the options and pricing are would be very useful. Thanks for your help and sorry for the typos, I'm posting from my iPhone as my computer broke down :(
 
I personally have had a bad experience with m-audio - but will take a chance again soon on a keystation 61. If you're not a "real keyboard player", I think something like that should be worth looking into. You should be aware - "...a decent amount for a good keyboard controller" is open for interpretation :). Those damn things range from $50 to $2k!

If you google for soundfont vsti, you'll get a few results. If I had a bunch of soundfonts, I think that's the direction I would go.
 
I have the Keystation 88es and while it is somewhat plasticky, I think its quite good for the price i paid.
($175)
 
I'll probably spend no more than $200 for a keyboard, unless I find something I really want that's more expensive. What exactly is a VSTi? Is it a way to use soundfonts in different software suites?
 
vsti's are virtual instruments. For example - Sycraft mentioned some of the libraries from East West. They have a giant one called Collosus that comes on like 10 DVD's and give you a full assortment of instruments. You would load the vsti into a host software like Cubase or Nuendo or Reaper or Live or Sonar or (etc...) and you are able to sequence from the host. There are a ton of vsti's, some free, to provide just about any type of instrument you want. You want drums - you can buy battery or BFD or (etc...). You want a sampler - you can buy kontakt or emulatorx or (etc...). Goes on and on.

Some include both a standalone and vsti version....but the idea of using vsti's makes creating music via the computer a very modular task.
 
So, they are basically a type of soundfont? And are there any latency issues with using them and any hardware requirements that would their best use?
 
Slider19 said:
So, they are basically a type of soundfont? And are there any latency issues with using them and any hardware requirements that would their best use?
Click to expand...

Sort of in an analogous way but they aren't really related except in use. There are however actual software soundfont players you can get, can't think of any names right now though. I believe many software sequencer packages and trackers include on by default but I'm not 100% on that either.

As for latency issues, my setup sits around 5ms latency currently with a quad core proc and decent sound card using USB based midi controllers. USB has pretty high bandwidth so it's not really an issue. Standard midi is actually a lot slower in that regard. I can go lower down to about 2ms but I start getting buffer under runs if I have too many VST channels running. I have found that 5ms is pretty much undetectable for my purposes especially considering quantization after the fact.

Also worth noting is that Ableton Live does some sort of funky driver compensation that allows you to get your latency down to zero without much more overhead. Not sure how it works but it's sweet. Also not sure if it's truly real time, but for me the difference is impossible to notice.

If latency is your main concern you definitely want to steer away from gaming cards and go for a DAW card from m-audio or another company that makes similar cards that do ASIO.
 
Various things to address:

VST: This is a format for audio plugins, and a rather popular one. Basically the idea is various programs, like effects and synthesizers, are most useful if used inside of a program you use for composing and editing music. Well, for that, they need to be in a format that the editor knows how to load and use as a plugin. VST is very often that format. So VSTs are used to mean audio plugins.

VSTi: This is just used to differentiate a VST that is used for actually playing sound, from one that is a processor of some kind. So an EQ would be a VST, whereas a piano synthesizer would be a VSTi.

Virtual Instrument: Kinda like a SoundFont, but not quite. A SoundFont is just a collection of samples in a standard format. You need something to play it back. A VI is generally the whole deal, samples, software, and all the rest. It is good to go out of the box. Also, they are often much larger than soundfonts. A big SF2 for hardware might be like 100MB. Even for SF2s played in software, you don't tend to see things in teh range of a gig much. VIs? Hell, they can be hundreds of gigs.

VI Hardware Requirements: Depends on the VI, but in generally they need a fairly beefy computer. A good amount of CPU (dual or quad core for use), lots of RAM (4GB or more) and perhaps a dedicated disk. Basically they load a ton of sample data in to RAM, and then stream more off the disk in realtime. Also they often use a ton of voices at once, so need a good bit of CPU power to mix them.

VI Latency: Depends on the VI in question, but also your hardware. If you have a soudncard that supports ASIO and can do low latency (the X-Fi qualifies) then they can usually have latency in the single milliseconds.

USB Latency: No problems here. MIDI is a very, very low bandwidth interface, it is completely unchallenging to send it over USB. Only latency you'll get is from the MIDI signal itself.

Keyboard Recommendations: Look at M-Audio and Edirol. Should be able to find both in your local pro shop. Both have lower end options and they are nice for the money.

Software Recommendations: Depends on what you want. My first recommendation is almost always the EastWest VIs. They are massive (multiple DVDs) and sound great. Colossus is a good choice if you aren't sure what you want. It has instruments of all kinds for you to choose from, 40GB in total. Main problem with the EW sets is they are pricey. Worth it, but pricey. If you like SoundFonts and want one that covers a lot, the Papelmedia one is a good choice. Cheap, and covers all of General MIDI. Do note that it is probably too large to load on an X-Fi, you'll need a software synthesizer to play it.

Edit: One other all around VI I forgot to mention that is cheap is NI Bandstand. It's about 2.5GB for all the GM instruments and sound pretty good over all. It is also a total package, samples, player, effects, and so on. I quite like it (for reference I own Colossus, Bandstand, and the Papelmedia font, among others). If you want some sound samples, I can post them.
 
Last edited:
Wow, great stuff. The only possible contradiction I saw in both of the posts above is what sound card to choose. Is the X-Fi able to do proper ASIO with low enough latencies for near real time playback or do I need to look at an M-Audio sound card option as well?

I might even keep my audigy 2 ZS for gaming and install an M-Audio card as well - if that's possible.
 
The X-Fi can do very low latency ASIO. If your system is fast enough I think you can tune it down to 64 samples, which is less than 1ms at 96kHz, though you might get dropouts with that small a buffer. In practice I've used it with 512 samples which is 11ms at 44.1kHz which is small enough you won't notice the delay.

You can very well keep your Audigy 2 and get an M-Audio card. Only thing with that is that you end up needing to do something to switch the outputs to your speakers. That was one of the reasons I jumped on the X-Fi when it came out was that I was sick of having to have a mixer to have a pro and consumer card in my system. With the X-Fi I just switch modes.
 
I have an Elite Pro right now. I'm looking at getting an X-Fi HomeTheater HD possibly. I use Cakewalk Sonar as my sequencer/editor program. For VIs I use EastWest Play mostly, but also NI Bandstand and SFZ, a SoundFont player that comes with Sonar.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top