EMU 0404 Proteus X and Audigy plus KX

mufasa

Hi,

Not a question, just some info for those who are wondering about using these two sound cards together. I seem to having this working on my system, I'm using Cubase SE.

The history is that I had an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro that unfortunately KX does not fully support. So I pulled the Audigy from my system and bought the new EMU Proteus X synth which comes with an 0404 sound card. The EMU worked fine in my system, but the Proteus X synth loads the system terribly (it does not run on the sound card as the SB synths do). Further, the MIDI timing is a bit sloppy. I wanted my Audigy synth back so I would have a zero CPU load soundfont player, so I said the heck with it and put the Audigy card back in (along with the 0404). KX recoginzed the card an re-enabled itself without messing up the EMU drivers and EMU mixer (Patchmix DSP).

I cleared the DSP window fed the Audigy MIDI synths (ASIO 2/3) to an FXmix2, and the MIDI effect sends (ASIO 13/14) through appropriate effects (reverb and chorus) to the same FXmix2, and fed the output of that to SPDIF. The SPDIF out is then fed to the EMU SPDIF in (via a coax cable).

All audio goes through the EMU 0404 (as it did before) but now I have the Audigy synths available as well. I'm using kxsfi VSTi wrapper (kxsfi.dll) in Cubase SE (although the KX version is 3537, but it seems to work!). Cubase SE uses the EMU ASIO driver for audio, so the EMU is still the sytem sound card, the Audigy is just an extra HW synth engine.

Just my experience, your mileage may vary.

Hope someone finds that useful, I know I would have.

BTW: One more hint is to use the "System Restore" feature before trying HW changes like these in a working system. Set a "restore point" first. Makes it a lot more comfortable to experiment (which seems to be necessary).

rushko

thanx for info, I'm planin to buy EMU 0404 and I'm usin SBLive!(wth Kx) mainly for the SF2 support, so Ithink I can use spdif also to connect it with EMU. workin with SONAR here cause it supports soundfonts. thanx again

mufasa

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to encourage using EMU products (I do not!!!). I should have made that clear. I meant more if you were in my situation with a KX powered SB and an EMU 0404.

If I were to do it over again I would either:

1) Buy an Audigy that IS fully supported by KX and use only that.
2) Buy a semi-proffessional sound card (not EMU).

The Proteus X was a big mistake, the Proteus X synth is unusable for drums or bass due to jitter problems. The Emulator product suffers the same timing problems (been reading hundreds of posts in other forums about all the timing problems). The Patchmix DSP mixer is OK, but compared to simple and powerful KX DSP window, it's a joke. Strange routing limitations and terrible documentation.

All that said the 0404 seems to work fine (better audio specs than Audigy), just the mixer is nowhere near as brilliant as the simple KX concept.

kenone

Hmm I have an Audigy2 ZS Plat pro and a Proteus X running side by side, I don't get it when you say the audigy is not fully supported? what bits missing then?

The proteus X has a very small impact on the cpu, if you have enough ram!

I am very happy with the setup I have now, and I would buy E-mu Again

Hey I am using Cubase SE too, spooky, we have the same setup hu.

Ken

mufasa

kenone -

The problem with the Audigy 2 ZS Plat Pro has been acknowledged by Eugene in his "issues and ideas" thread:
3538c 'known' issues and ideas

Look for "i2s incorrect init" in his first post. The noise floor is excessive. It may have been fixed (I don't think so but I don't know).

Don't want to get too off topic but...

The Proteus X (and EMU-X) timing problem has been going on for 3 months and 2 updates and still persists (better with each update, but not right). It has been acknowledged by EMU as well. Granted the last fix was a big difference, but the feel of the timing is still off, just not as obvious. There are many, many posts about it, here's one on the EMU forum:

http://www.productionforums.com/emu/...?TOPIC_ID=2166

No other external, hardware or VSTi synths I (or others) have tried have these jitter problems. I've been doing this a long time so I'm pretty sensitive to noise and timing and very fussy about it.

Regarding RAM, I have 1Gb on a fairly new 3GHz Intel P4 which is enough to run the patches from RAM (no streaming). But try a simple test. Do one bar of eighth notes on a hi-hat or similiar and loop it and listen carefully. Is it solid? Are there slight variations?

Regarding CPU load, that's very patch dependent of course, but the good ones beat the hell out of my system.

I'm skeptical of your success, but if it's working for you, great! That's all that counts. For me, I'm done with EMU.

crashxtreme

Hi Kenone

I just built a new pc just for music and bought the proteus X... can you please help me set it up properly I have been trying and failing for the last 4 days.

Thanks

Crash