I have no use for it :( + suggestions

Silver Blade · Sep 17, 2003, 01:48 PM

I've been following the kX Project development for a while now, and am really impressed with the amount of work that's gone into it and the atonishing results I've achieved by using the kX driver instead of the Creative Labs' one.

However, I do have a few things that I'd like to know and also some suggestions.

Firstly, the DSP and routings... Some useful effects are included, and I've played around with them. My main concern is that I have no use for them, but seeing as I have this nice powerful DSP chip on my card, I wan't to make use of it.

My second concern is that the routings aren't very intuitive. Hard to explain really. It just seems awkward, so I've left it alone.

I mostly use Propellerhead's Reason for making music. I have my own MIDI sequencer I've written, but I don't use it much any more.

The first improvement that could be made is to have the DSP routing window resizable - I don't run at 1600x1200 for nothing!

A more challenging but rewarding improvement might be to actually make the DSP boxes fit into a "rack", Reason-style. So you can tweak them from the front, and have a "turn around" button, that displays the cable routings at the back.

This wouldn't be impossible to do, and I think would make it easier to understand what's going on.

I did contact Propellerhead Software a while ago regarding the possibility of making a program with a similar interface to theirs, and they said they don't have any patents on it, so the only problem would be if bitmaps were copied from them.

One thing I guess I could do is assign the audio output channels of Reason to effects loaded into the DSP chip on the sound card... Just thought of that...

Daniel Drummond · Sep 17, 2003, 02:30 PM

Maybe you could help KX developers to do what you want, as you have programming skills. Surely a lot of good things could be done with kx drivers, but only a few people here actually know how to program (Eugene, Max M., LeMury, Eyagos, Hanz Petrov and maybe a couple more)... Maybe you could develop what you want and make it available to everybody! And yes, you can assign the audio output channels of Reason to effects loaded into the DSP chip. That can be acomplished easily using the KX DSP window. Take some time to check and understand the routing, because it's really worth it. Here in the forum there's plenty of information on how to use them...

kokoon · Sep 18, 2003, 02:46 AM

thats easy - reason surely has ASIO support so i guess you can route all the signals in & out as much as you wish.

Silver Blade · Sep 18, 2003, 07:40 AM

Only out... It's a bit annoying. You can only record MIDI and play back audio. Sometimes I want to be able to play sounds directly in, or have something generating MIDI events (some sort of MIDI splitter would be nice, so I could link 2 or more devices together to the same sequencer track...)

But anyway, I had a play around, and filled up the DSP memory with Reverb, Chorus and Delay (on outputs 3/4, 5/6 and 7), and mix those effects with the original outgoing signal.

The reverb seems a little dull and metallic. It sounds more like playing in a large metal box rather than a hall. Tried another reverb effect and got the same result

Delay is only mono, too. That doesn't really matter. What does is that the sliders for the settings sometimes mess up the sound and you get no delay, but the original signal still comes through.

Chorus I think is the nicest effect of the 3.

Shame I can't load more in - I'd like to have the vocoder running as I'm sure Reason's one eats up a LOT of CPU power...

Daniel Drummond · Sep 18, 2003, 11:07 AM

Have you tried the reverb in Max M's UDF package?

Silver Blade · Sep 18, 2003, 11:09 AM

No... Where might I find that?

Daniel Drummond · Sep 18, 2003, 11:31 AM

Here: Plugins in Uniform ("UFX") and you'll also get 2 newer EQ's (including parametric) and improved peak meter...

Silver Blade · Sep 18, 2003, 01:01 PM

Jeeez... I have 512kbit/sec ADSL connection and what do I get? a 380 BYTE/sec file transfer rate!

Maybe I should offer the author some hosting space on my site! lol. Screenshot looks nice.

How easy is it to develop custom effects with kX? I don't fully understand how it's done. Do I just need to write some code in the DSP assembler, or do I actually have to create a program in C or C++ or whatever?

Daniel Drummond · Sep 18, 2003, 01:41 PM

I know nothing about programming, but if you post this question in the dsp/effects forum, I'm sure someone will help you out on how to get started.
In the meanwhile, take a look here http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/docs.php?language=en for documentation.
Also, download the KX API / SDK from here http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/dsp.php?language=en

As far as I know you can use a simple language called dane and the kx editor (included with the drivers - right click kx icon) to start coding simple effects. You may also open the existing effects to see how they're coded and try to learn from them.

Maybe you can use your programming skills to contribute with some effects! Right now I know that a kind of a mixer/recording console and delay effect are being developed by LeMury (who also started creating a leslie effect). There's someone who is developing a crossfeed plugin and another who is creating a midi sequencer... Dsp/effect forum is the place to go to get more info on this.

Good luck!