NEW: kXSFi - a VSTi Soundfont manager for Cubase SX

Rivera

Hello LeMury, and all KX users. LeMury, your KXSFi is fantastic, the only thing is, will we be able to mixdown in Cubase SX and add VST effects to soundfonts anytime in the near future? Currently we cannot.

Daniel Drummond

Yes, you can do that already! Go to KX DSP windows and connect virtual cables from FXBUS 2 and 3 (kx synth's defaullt output) to an asio pair of inputs in Epilog. Then you can open an audio track in Cubase and set it up to monitor that particular asio input. In that audio channel you'll hear the soundfonts played in the midi track. In that audio track you can add any effects you want and have them printed into your music at mixdown.

dungle

Just to clarify one point of Daniel's; The mixdown will nead to be "realtime" rather than "off-line".
Of course if the you do a mixdown of SF tracks on to audio tracks using realtime mixdown either separately or in groups or whatever, then or later, you can do a normal offline mix with VST effects etc, in the usual way.

Lex Nahumury

JoshuaChang ,
I already send you the latest version to your e-mail days ago.


TravelRec,
Yes, in contradiction to my first befindings, kXSFi does NOT work with the kX shipped sfman32 version.
For XP users it is simple. They can use the "standard" XP version.
So there is no need to distribute that dll version, since it's already in XP's driver cache.
Please read my last post regarding the "right" sfman32.dll version that works with kXSFi.
( or read the included kxsfi.txt )
To avoid confusion amongst users please provide the correct info on your website.
Thanks in advance.

/LeMury

Rivera

Oh well, in a way is kind of unfortunate. I had the illusion and the hope I could mixdown my soundfont tracks to audio on the fly and at the touch of button just like I do my other VSTi instruments, with added effects and all. A very efficient, fast and neat way to lay down tracks I may add. In any case, I am probably asking a little too much from these great drivers, although I still belive that soundfonts are still very useful and that that area of the drivers should be payed more attention to, the hardware is begging for it.

P.S: Thanks for your quick responses and the advice on the FXBUS connections (I will do just that).

Rivera

Lex Nahumury

Daniel and Dungle already gave the right instructions on how to mixdown SF playback.
That is the way to do it, and will (probably) not change in the future.

You have to understand that kXSFi is not a 'real' VSTi.
It does not generate or process any Audio data at all.
(If you look at SX's mixer, you will see that there is no VSTi audio strip for kXSFi)
So there is no audio data to mixdown from kXSFi.

kXSFi is not a SoundFont sampler, it is a SF loader/manager/midi router!
It loads SF banks into the kX Synth,
retrieves bank & patch names for display in SX,
routes midi playback to kX Synth2,
stores it's SF settings into your SX project,
reloads those SF settings on project opening.

In short; It does what SX's buid in SF manager should do.

I hope this clears things up a bit.

/LeMury

Rivera

Thanks for clearing up my confusion LeMury, it is now very clear to me. No matter, your KXSFi is a very convenient way of loading soundfonts into Cubase SX, because with a GM soundfont loaded into the KX synth and selected in the sync setup, I cannot choose other individual instruments on the selected MIDI tracks, but with KXSFi I can (I must also say that I never tried the Cubase SX SF manager, so I don't know if it does the same thing). It is working great on Cubase SX 2.01, Thank you.

_Rivera

Lex Nahumury

>>I must also say that I never tried the Cubase SX SF manager, so I don't know if it does the same thing
No, it doesn't. It does not work at all.
That's the only reason why I wrote kXSFi.

>>It is working great on Cubase SX 2.01, Thank you.
Good, np.

/LeMury

TravelRec.

Hi LeMury!

Okay, I understand. Nevertheless I´ve posted the file (with a note); for those people on earlier OSses this may be helpful.

Comments about kxsfi: I´ve tested it with some MIDI-Karaoke songs and I found out that sometimes all is a little bit out of sync. All in all the song is playing but especially the drum tracks are not exactly in timing. If I record the whole synth output into an audio track all music is a bit too early, say a 1/32 note at 120 bpm. So there are timing problems if you have some audio material and want to add, say, a MIDI-basstrack, then the bass runs before the other audio material. Maybe you could reproduce this or an other user may have discovered the same.

Regards!

TravelRec.

P.S.: working on cubase sx 1.06 and kx3537

Lex Nahumury

Hi TravelRec,

>>I´ve posted the file (with a note); for those people on earlier OSses this may be helpful.
Yes, ok, very good.

>>.... some MIDI-Karaoke songs and I found out that sometimes all is a little bit out of sync.
Does this only happens with certain midi files, or always.

>>If I record the whole synth output into an audio track all music is a bit too early,
>>say a 1/32 note at 120 bpm.
So it's not drifting, but a constant 'time shift'?

>>.. if you have some audio material and want to add, say, a MIDI-basstrack,
>> then the bass runs before the other audio material.
You mean the Midi (bass) track runs ahead of the audio tracks?

>> Maybe you could reproduce this or an other user may have discovered the same.
Anybody else experiencing this????


Hmmm,......My first guess would be some kind of 'VSTi Latency Correction' used by Cubase,
since it appears to be constant, ahead and not drifting.
Anyway; I will check this myself and see what comes up.

/LeMury

EDIT:
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well I just did a prelimenary test recording of a large midi drum track.
When I playback both the fresh recorded audio track and the midi drum track
all I hear is the well known "flanging" effect due to the small time difference.
But I cannot find/hear real musical "timing errors" you described.
-kX 3537
-XP pro sp1a
-SX 1.06
-Intel P4 2.8ghz HT, 1 Gb ram

TravelRec.

Hi LeMury!

Thanks for quick answer - now to the point:


>>.... some MIDI-Karaoke songs and I found out that sometimes all is a little bit out of sync.
**Does this only happens with certain midi files, or always.

I think it happens with that sounds where many instruments are playing, only piano and guitar and toms or so are running properly


>>If I record the whole synth output into an audio track all music is a bit too early,
>>say a 1/32 note at 120 bpm.
**So it's not drifting, but a constant 'time shift'?

More or less, for my ears the drums are drifting a little around (like a drunken drummer ), not much, but audible, for slow instruments there is all okay

>>.. if you have some audio material and want to add, say, a MIDI-basstrack,
>> then the bass runs before the other audio material.
**You mean the Midi (bass) track runs ahead of the audio tracks?

Yes, correct - the audio is exactly in time (a look into the wave editor proofs that) and the bass runs before, shifted around 1/32 note.

>> Maybe you could reproduce this or an other user may have discovered the same.
**Anybody else experiencing this????

???


**Hmmm,......My first guess would be some kind of 'VSTi Latency Correction' used by Cubase,
**since it appears to be constant, ahead and not drifting.
**Anyway; I will check this myself and see what comes up.

Okay, Latency correction - a bit too much correction for my taste , but anyway, thanks for your great engagement!!!


Regards!

TravelRec.

Lex Nahumury

TravelRec,

>>Okay, Latency correction - a bit too much correction for my taste .........

Ehh,..that is a "VST feature", not something I explicitly implemented in my code.
It is used to sync VSTi-s on slow machines and off-line processing.

>>I think it happens with that sounds where many instruments are playing,
>>only piano and guitar and toms or so are running properly

Well, I just did another test. I took C:\WINDOWS\Media\flourish.mid wich is quite
busy and fast, and loaded a standard GM sf set in kXSFi.
Everything played back and recorded without timing errors.

So I can not reproduce those anomalies.
Unless other users experience/report the same problems I'am starting to
suspect your 600Mhz PC (no offense) might be to slow.
This may sound strange, since one may think it only involves midi playback,
but Cubase treats kXSFi just like a real VSTi.
Only now, there are no audio data blocks to process/generate, thus no audio latency.
Who knows what scheme Cubase uses to sync out latencies.

Besides that, kXSFi introduces extra CPU overhead.
Hardly noticable on a modern PC, but together with the above theory
that could cause those small timing errors you experience on a 600Mhz PC.
Even more so because you reported that it mainly happens during busy midi data traffic.

That's the only explanation I can come up with so far. Sorry!

/LeMury

PS;
Have you tried Eugene's new sfman32.dll?
If you can't use kXSFi maybe that is a better solution for you.

JoshuaChang

oh,thanks

PITmaster

Use SFZ. It's freeware. No whole soundfont loading to memory is required, it may work with HD only. Many instances are available. It sounds very, very good and the most important thing for me - it's real VSTi so mixdown is possible. I can't image work without real, off-line mixdown.

I love this plugin. The creative's synth is no more useful for me, in fact.
You can get it from here: http://www.rgcaudio.com/sfz.htm

PITmaster

Daniel Drummond

PITmaster, SFZ does work but it uses host cpu resources. The whole point in using KXSFi is the fact that it relies on the audio cards cpu, releasing the host's cpu for other tasks. I mean, if we have such a powerful synth already inside of our cards, we should get the most out of it...

Rivera

I fully agree with Daniel. Exploit the hardware to it's limitations!

TravelRec.

Hi ´gain!


>>Okay, Latency correction - a bit too much correction for my taste .........

**Ehh,..that is a "VST feature", not something I explicitly implemented in my code.
**It is used to sync VSTi-s on slow machines and off-line processing.

Yeees, I know, I know! That was no critics to YOU! (should be a joke!)

>>I think it happens with that sounds where many instruments are playing,
>>only piano and guitar and toms or so are running properly

**Well, I just did another test. I took C:\WINDOWS\Media\flourish.mid wich is quite
**busy and fast, and loaded a standard GM sf set in kXSFi.
**Everything played back and recorded without timing errors.

This makes more testing necessary...

**So I can not reproduce those anomalies.
**Unless other users experience/report the same problems I'am starting to
**suspect your 600Mhz PC (no offense) might be to slow.

HoHoHo... no other problems so far with midi and audio and vstis --- but who knows???

**This may sound strange, since one may think it only involves midi playback,
**but Cubase treats kXSFi just like a real VSTi.

I thought something like that too, but a bit strange ´cause other VSTi really running well, maybe your VSTi is too fast ???

**Only now, there are no audio data blocks to process/generate, thus no audio latency.
**Who knows what scheme Cubase uses to sync out latencies.

Yes, I understand. I see your kxsfi more like a routing machine than as a generator.


**Besides that, kXSFi introduces extra CPU overhead.
**Hardly noticable on a modern PC, but together with the above theory
**that could cause those small timing errors you experience on a 600Mhz PC.
**Even more so because you reported that it mainly happens during busy midi data traffic.

Hm, no noticable difference in cpu usage with or without the plugin

**That's the only explanation I can come up with so far. Sorry!

No problem for me, only wanted to kill some bugs (if there are any). If I am the only one with this issue you can be happy that your plugin works for all the others. I could live without SF, all other things are really working hyper fine .

**Have you tried Eugene's new sfman32.dll?
**If you can't use kXSFi maybe that is a better solution for you.

Yes, tried it, but what I should say? No sound at all from synths!!! Installation was right, but this sfman32 dosen´t work for me - anyway...


Greetings to my neighbour!

TravelRec.

Lex Nahumury

Hi TravelRec,

>>>No problem for me, only wanted to kill some bugs...

Yes ofcourse, I'm glad you reported it.
Btw; Es war nicht meine absicht dein rechner zu beleidigen.
Finde es grad super was du so alles aus dem kasten zauberst.

Schone grussen aus Holland nachbar.

/LeMury

TravelRec.

Hi LeMury!

Oh, what a surprise! Next time I´ll only write in german , it´s much easier !!!

But - I´m not offended and my puter isen´t it too (it´s a machine without feelings, but can make good sounds (with kx and your plugs!!!)).

And you should wait a while until we´ve finished our side project called "en passant" (www.projekt-enpassant.de), then you´ll really see (or finally hear) what we get from this old "Kasten" !!!

Have a fine day! Must work now for a little.

Bye neighbour!

TravelRec.

TravelRec.

Hi LeMury!

Newest report here:

The time drifting is gone today, np to play many midis together, maybe yesterday my ears were broken....
But I´ve collected my experiences in a zip-file for you as an example. This could be helpful to you to find something or not. Take the recordings there as a comparision between (original) synth1 on the card and the kxsfi which routes midi to kxsynth2. Please take a look to the mysterious holes in sound with the kxsfi. All files are recorded with a single drum track - not more or less. Download the file here:

www.electricstart.de/lemury.zip

Greetings!

TravelRec.

alberto

Hi
the same thing of Daniel happens to me:
In Cubase sx 2.0.1 i can load everything in SX 2.01, but gets no sound at all.
When i open kxsfi this massage appears :"Error opening: [0]"
How i can disable synt2 in cubase sx?

Daniel Drummond

Alberto, that doesn't happen to me anymore. Just download the newest version of KXSFi and it will work.

alberto

where it is the link?

Daniel Drummond

Read the whole thread alberto...

Lex Nahumury

Hello TravelRec,

Sorry for the delay.

>>The time drifting is gone today, np to play many midis together, maybe yesterday my ears were broken....

Ok,..but still a bit strange don't you think?

>>Take the recordings there as a comparision between (original) synth1 on the card and the kxsfi which
>>routes midi to kxsynth2. Please take a look to the mysterious holes in sound with the kxsfi.

Very strange. To me it sounds like a sudden unwanted volume/velocity change. Not 'missing' notes.
Do you agree?
Is this exacty reproducable, or is it random?

>> All files are recorded with a single drum track - not more or less.

Could you send me that midi file or sx project + the used SF?

Thanks for the report,

/LeMury

TravelRec.