What are software arrangers that are available today? Does software have harmony feature just like the Yamaha's?

XGworks is halfway there. It's like Band in a Box. You key in the melody and the chords and it will add the arrangement for you. Great for arranging your fake book.

Bryan

I view software arrangers as having 2 distinct catgories. The first is those that can be played in realtime similar to the way one would use a hardware arranger. These are suitable for live work with a laptop. The second is those that are based on step / chord entry recording. These are more suitable for recording midifiles for original or reproduced songs.

In the first category, I've tried One man band, Real Time style performer and Live styler. I actually purchased OMB, and think it's a good program that does what it claims to do. Also available from Soundtrek is Jammer Live. I haven't tried this one at all but it has gotten mixed reviews here in the past. None of these include a vocal harmonizer.

In the second category, I have and use XG works, Band in a Box, and Jammer pro v5. XG works is a sequencer which uses Yamaha styles and chords and style variations are step entered on a grid. It allows for vocal harmony if you have a VH100 vocalizer board installed in the computer or a hardware synth. BIAB is a program that will "auto create" a song via sevrral parameters the user sets. Chords can also be step entered at various intervals. Midi files cannot be imported except that in the later versions small files can be imported into the style creator for use as user styles. JammerPro is similar but works in different ways than BIAB. The latest version allows for quick editing of style parts via a midi piano roll, which is a big improvement over version 4. It is also a sequencer based program with it's own interface, and allows for import of and editing of midifiles. It also uses different algorithims to vary the recorded midi data. For me it allows for the most realistic sounding backing tracks of the 3.

AJ

Can you tell me if
Live-styler, Real-time style performer,
One man band, BIAB, and Jammer can all play Yamaha PSR2000/1000 style files?
Thanks.

Dunno about the others, but XGworks will play Yamaha style files. Just copy them into the style folder.

Bryan

Live styler, Realtime Style performer, and OMB are all based on the Yamaha style format. BIAB and Jammer user their own format and do not play Yamaha style types. They are both capable of using user styles which could be made from a Yamaha style's midi data. Jammer has released a new version, and style dtata can be imported via midifile or created in a piano roll sequencer.

AJ

Pilot and Bluezplayer,thanks for the help.
Does anyone know anything about
MidiYoke, MidiOx, or Hubi's Loopback device?
I would like to have a software arranger
play a software soundfont player, but would
like as little latency and CPU usuage as
possible. Is this realistic, or too much
for one computer(1.8GHz P4) to handle all 3 programs at once(arranger,midi-loopback,soundfont player)?
I wish the great Frank Rosenthal would
chime in with some insight.

I use MidiOx and MidiYoke with no trouble on a P233. I use it to run both XGworks and Cakewalk at the same time. I connect the keyboard (PSR740) to XGworks for the XG Editor and use Cakewalk for the StudioWare. Yhe output of both are set to MidiYoke Junction 1 as is the input of MidiOx. The output of MidiOx is connected to the keyboard. Hubi's loopback works just as well but I like the extra features of MidiOx.

Bryan

Vquestor, I checked in today and notice your question concerning Midi Yoke, etc.

Yes, Midi Yoke and others will work well with what you want to do. I have tested it with Live-Styler and Sonar XL running Live-Synth and a 128 MB Soundfont Wavetable. It comes closer every day to where I will beable to abandon my Audigy Soundcard!

As an overall generalization, Sonar/DXi/Windows drivers have higher latency when compared with standalone or VSTi instruments. It is a challenge to get it to around 10ms in Sonar. This is not so much an issue when you have a software arranger playing something like Live-Synth since you compensate for this in real time when playing lead instruments (low latency). However, latency for lead instruments is a more important issue.

It is good to see you are still interested in the software arranger approach.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-16-2003).]

Frank,
I always keep an open mind on this issue. Could you remind me again, what is the make and model of the controller keyboard you are using? What do you like about it?
Starkeeper

I saw a Roland A30: 76 note controller keyboard on sale for $395 cdn in the local Bur & Sell mag. That would be approx. $295. in U.S. dollars. The add said it has semi-weighted keys. Does anyone have any experience with this board?
Starkeeper

Starkeeper, I use the Roland A-37 controller keyboard. The things I like are as follows:

* It is a 76 note keyboard. You need this much if you are going to use the lower octave to switch/change arranger functions, e.g., fills, endings, etc. Also good for splitting the keyboard for playing organ, etc.

* The keys have a good feel - similar to the G1000, 9000 Pro and so on.

* Has all the usual midi controls which can be saved in flash ROM to 128 locations. It has velocity switching and aftertouch.

* Has two midi out ports which facilitates sending the the keyboard splits to separate software samplers, e.g., Live - Styler and Kontakt (lead voices).

* The keys and buttons are of sturdy construction. The keyboard is light weight. I have used it for one year with no problems of any kind. It works as advertised!!!

I hope this helps.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-16-2003).]

Thanks Frank. Sounds like a real nice keyboard.
Starkeeper

Thanks for the help Bryan and Frank.

BTW, it's very nice to hear from you Frank.
Could you please fill us in on the current status of the FLR2003?

You mentioned that Sonar/DXi/Windows have
high latency when compared to standalone
and VSTi instruments. I believe the newest
version of SonarXL 2.2 has ASIO driver
compatibility, so maybe there is some
improvement there. Also, is it correct
to assume that the FXpansion "DXi wrapper for VSTs" would not reduce any latency, but may actually increase it?

I just tried the "CONSOLE" demo VST/DXi standalone wrapper with LiveSynthPro, and it didn't work at all (I, of course, may not
be doing it right). Have any of you tried CONSOLE with any VSTi or DXi plug-in players such as Bismark BS-1/16, Jeskola XS-1,
or LiveSynthPro?
I have WinXP-home and noticed that SurReal
and Reality are not XP compatible yet.
I had tried both on a Win98 computer
and they looked promising.
Has Kontakt, Vsampler, or SeerSystems corrected the bank select issue yet?
Is it true that the upcoming Vsampler3 may not even need MidiYoke?
Sorry for all the questions.
Thanks.

You might consider the best of both worlds.
http://www.openlabs.com http://www.openlabs.com/products.php http://www.openlabs.com/ekochart.php

Although the eKo is not considered an Arranger at the moment, there is possibly the ability to do that in the future with OS updates, plugins, Hardware upgrades, expansion capabilities, and when other manufacturers start developing add ons and upgrades for the eKo.

Check out that feature list! Quite impressive to say the least.

Also notice that the eKo will be in retail stores as of June 23rd, 2003. This month!!! The big question is: "How does it sound?" The truth is nobody that I know of knows WHAT it sounds like or how good the quality of the voices are. There are no demos on their web site.

I guess we'll soon find out though. I think loop based sounds will be a big part of the eKo but there's no telling for sure until we musicians go in and demo it and find out the facts from fiction. Very interesting concept to say the least this eKo is! Time will tell if it's all it's made up to be and what the makers of it intended it to be.

Best regards,
Mike

Vquestor, yes using the ASIO drivers helps. I have been able to operate at around 10 to 20 ms latency with it in Sonar. If you do not use ASIO the latency is up around 50ms (not good). In contrast, I have no trouble operating at 5 to 10ms latency in Cubase SX. At this point I do not know what is doing what (wrappers, Sonar, drivers, etc.).

I too have tried to use Console and did not get most things to work. In addition, Bismark BS-1/16 and Jeskola XS-1 do not do a very good job with program change numbers including the drums. LiveSynthPro is many times better at this including picking up the correct XG Drums in sYnerGiGS. The FXpansion VST to DX wrapper seems to work ok in that I have not noticed any increase in latency. I have tried to use it with Harmonizers (VoiceMachine, DeccaBuddy, etc.) and could not get proper Midi activation to work with it - in Sonar 2.2 XL.

There are only rumours that Kontakt may implement midi Program change numbers. So far nothing. Vsampler 3.0 works except it does not call up the drums properly. You would not need Midi Yoke for it given that it installs its own drivers. And you are right SeerSystems Reality is still not Windows Xp compatible - they say by Xmas of this year.

With respect to my flr2003 system I have spent considerable time (and money) to get Harmonizers to work and finding ways to get rid of my Audigy Soundcard (LiveSynthPro, etc.). I currently have 3 harmonizers - Clone Ensemble, VoiceMachine and Akai's DeccaBuddy. The best of the bunch is VoiceMachine - but it does not work. It works in older versions of Cubase but not in Cubase SX. There is a heavy duty delay when responding to your voice. I have phoned Steinberg and they admit a problem and will update VoiceMachine - When? - Who knows. The other 2 harmonizers work as addvertised. DeccaBuddy requires midi notes to be sent via separate channels for each harmony (up to 4). You can use a mix of midi notes and setting the harmonies manually to a 3rd or 5th, etc. The trouble with this is you also need to set the key of your songs. The good news is that you can save these in 4 presets - enough for any one song. I purchased DeccaBuddy from AkaiPro a few weeks ago but can no longer find them on the Internet - are they out of business? Clone Ensemble works as advertised. You can make up to 32 clones of yourself. These clones (harmony) are determined by the software not by midi notes. But then it only costs something like $25 US.

Idatrod, the eko should sound better than any keyboard available on the market. It will work the same as my system except everything is contained in the keyboard (processor, hard drives, sound cards and so on). It is a PC with a keyboard attached and has a good control surface. But it is expensive - very expensive!!!

Frank, one of Open Labs touts is that the price "starts" at under 2 grand. But I noticed on their 'Store' link that the lowest price is actually $2,245. To go to there price list go to this page: http://store.openlabs.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ECommStoreFront.woa then click on "eKo Systems" at the top left if anybody is interested. You may have to scroll down a bit to see the prices.

Your right Frank. If a person wants all the bells and whistles he or she will have to pay a dear price for it. They don't even list a price for the 88 Key Hammer Action model. From looking they haven't even made the 88 Key model yet. It looks like 76 Keys is as high as they go for now.

eKo 61 Key model, basic: $2,245.
eKo 76 Key model, fully loaded: $7,412.

And I agree Frank that eKo "should" be the best sounding Keyboard ever. The reason being is because of all the extremely high quality sampled sound banks that can be loaded into it. Example: 1 Gigabyte Triple Layered Sampled Stereo Grand Piano patch. No problemo!!! Or an 80 Mb Sampled Live! Nylon Guitar patch. Mere pittance!!! Talk about going hog wild in sound possibilities and capabilities. Just talking about it gets me excited. I can't wait to demo the thing.

Best regards,
Mike




[This message has been edited by Idatrod (edited 06-17-2003).]

Idatrod, I agree with your assessment of the eko. For it to do well in the marketplace it will need to be priced competitively with other alternatives, e.g., standalone PCs, midi controller keyboards, etc.

I should have indicated in my previous response that I also spent some time with Roland's HQ Hyper Canvas. It works very well as a VST instrument in Cubase SX. If I could easily convert my Yamaha Styles XG Drums to GM/GM2 compatible drums, I would be away to the races. I could ditch my Audigy Soundcard and use one very high quality soundcard (e.g., RME) for everything instead of the 2 I now use. In general, I could then use Cubase SX and run the following all at the same time:

LiveStyler on HQ Hyper Canvas
VoiceMachine - Vocal Harmonizer (once it works)
Kontakt - Lead/Melody voices

It would have been nice to use VStack but it does not bring in Audio (voice). I would not have been able to use a vocal harmonizer which depends on midi notes.

I think I am very close to a completely software based arranger system - my original goal.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-17-2003).]

Hi Frank,

Why not Halion instead of Kontakt....

elle, good to hear from you.

There is not a very good reason at this point for selecting Kontakt given the recent Halion update. Both are good samplers and Halion may have the edge when recording audio within Cubase SX. There are still some problems with the Kontakt DFD - but this will be fixed - soon. In addition, I intend to use my system more for live performances where this is not an issue.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-18-2003).]

Frank,thanks for all the great information!
Wow, I guess the FLR2003 will soon be
road worthy. With your software on a laptop
with perhaps one of the new firewire
interfaces, like the M-audio FIREWIRE 410
or Ego Systems QUATA-FIRE www.esi-pro.com/listProduct.php?ctgr=7
you could take your system anywhere.

I am sorry to hear that even the latest
version of SonarXL (2.2), has such horrible
latency even with ASIO drivers. I had always
gone with Cakewalk in the past, because of
their touted "user-friendly"ness, and
superior editing of midi files.
But,I have always found their latency unacceptable. I guess it's time to look into
Cubase.
Have you tried the standalone soundfont player called "Audio Compositor"? If so,
how does it compare to LiveSynthPro?

Doesn't Yamaha make their own softsynth
like the Roland Hypercanvas? I haven't tried Hypercanvas, but have heard that the Roland HQ-Orchestral is absolutely superb(and expensive).

Idatrod, this eKo thing does look
interesting, but out of my price range.
Nevertheless, it is a big step.

Vquestor, Sonar 2.2 XL is not that bad when it comes to latency but for me I prefer if it were 10ms or less. In addition, I have not figured out how to run live more than one Audio Channel in Sonar. I am certain there is a way. I have always used Cakewalk in the past but have not had Sonar for more than a few weeks. In some ways Cakewalk Plus Bill Gates is a safer business relationship then Steinberg with no one.

I have tried and paid for Audio Compositor. It works but is also limited by latency and quality of the effects. Here I am not entirely certain, but it can only hold a certain number of waves or bits at one time. I could not load sYnerGiGS edit it and save it without error messages. Otherwise it works. LiveSynthPro is better. You can use the effects of the host and use any size of GM Wavetable.

The best hope is SeerSystem's Reality or Roland's HQ Hyper Canvas. It certainly would be nice if VSampler 3.0 or Kontakt came out with a midi program change feature. In fact, I already have a Kontakt GM wavetable by Sonic Reality - ready to go!!!

And yes, Yamaha has their own softsynth and it is very good for its size and playing back midi files but.... It is only 4 or so MB and has latency problems. The quality would be lower then their lowest quality arranger keyboard - not bad but not good enough.

My system with some optimization including your noted suggestions would be ready for live performances. In fact, on other forums a number of live entertainers are doing just that with laptops and good controller keyboards. It is going to happen.


[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-18-2003).]

Yamaha make a couple of soft synths - the S-YXG50 and the S-YXG100. You can get a free download from Yamaha for a 90 day trial. Version 4 of the S-YXG50 offers a 4 Mb set of samples. I have version 3 which has only 2Mb. It only does XG level 1 - 480 voices, but has a TG300B mode (676 voices) which I've never used. It also comes with a midi player. There's not much you can do with it except run it from a sequencer which I do, using XGworks. I have it installed on my laptop and it saves me lugging around a keyboard if I want to check out a sequence. It has a very high latency so isn't really useable with a keyboard, regardless of the speed of the CPU.

Bryan

Gentlemen,
Thank you very much for your responses.

Frank, have you tried (please forgive for suggesting,if you already have) either Xlutop "Chainer" or Dsound "RT Player Pro"
to host "Voicemachine"?
Also, could you please tell me the names of the other forum sites that you mentioned.
I would someday also like to trigger live
percussion sounds from a soundfont player,
so latency is a very big issue for me(<5ms).

It is probably the case, that you have tested every VSTi,DXi,and standalone soundfont player in existence; and the
winner(so far) is "LiveSynthPro" DXi.
Have you tried LiveSynthPro in the
Brainspawn "Forte" host?

Vquestor, I have tried VoiceMachine with FXpansion (Sonar XL), Chainer and Console with no success. I have not tried it with Dsound "RT Player Pro. I will give this a go soon.

I have not tried LiveSynthPro with Brainspawn "Forte" host. I will look into it as well. Furthermore, I am certain I have not tried all the various wrappers out there.

Some of the forums where you will find professional entertainers, screen writers, composers and sound developers are as follows:
http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=forum_us
http://www.northernsounds.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi
http://www.tascam.com/forums/index.php

In addition, you can find similar forums under Yahoo, Steinberg, Cakewalk and so on.

I hope this is of help.

Frank, thanks for the info.
What you say about Cakewalk and Microsoft
may be true. But to make matters worse, Steinberg
has been purchased by a company called
Pinnacle that specializes in video software.
Unfortunately, I have purchased some of
Pinnacle's consumer level video editing
and authoring software (Studio7,Studio8,Express), and have consistently been disappointed with problems. I hope their poor track record doesn't
affect Steinberg's (presently)excellent products.

Vquestor, you are exactly right. Steinberg could easily deteriorate!!!

At this point, I favor Cubase SX for live performances. It has better effects, latency and overall quality. In addition, you can run more than one application (VSTi, VoiceMachine, etc.) at the same time. In Cakewalk I have not found a way to run Live - Styler and Kontakt at the same time - Playing live. You can record both which is good enough for audio recording.

The bottomline for me still remains to run all applications as standalone versions. This minimizes dependencies on more than one operating system, e.g., Windows & Cubase SX, etc. Oh well, I am very close to my goal.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Frank L. Rosenthal:
[B]I should have indicated in my previous response that I also spent some time with Roland's HQ Hyper Canvas. It works very well as a VST instrument in Cubase SX. If I could easily convert my Yamaha Styles XG Drums to GM/GM2 compatible drums, I would be away to the races. I could ditch my Audigy Soundcard and use one very high quality soundcard (e.g., RME) for everything instead of the 2 I now use.

Frank, do you know of any program that
can will automatically remap your XG drums
to roland's GS drums after you make a master template?, and then be able to save the
new drum note assignments as part of the style?

Vquestor, there are a few (GNMidi, OMB) that could remap the the XG Drums to GM Drums. It requires knowledge of the the instrument assignments and then creating a re-map of them. Once you have this you can store it in GNMidi for use as many times as you need. You would need to use something like CASMEdit to separate the midi part of the style then using GNMidi to re-map the drums. Once you have this done you would use CASMEdit to combine the midi and CASM parts of the style. We just need someone to come up with this re-map. In addition, the drums in Channel 9 should be combined with the drums in Channel 10 of all the Yamaha styles.

This I think would be the best solution. You now could use any GM Wavetable (VSTi) of your chosing.

Of the other solutions, it seems to me that LiveSynthPro and VSampler sound the best when using the sYnergiGS GM/GS/XG Wavetable. VSampler has some trouble with calling up the correct drumkits, e.g., Standard, Brush and so on. LiveSynthPro has to be used in something like a DXi host or Cakewalk. The best would be to do the above conversions and use something like the HQ Hyper Canvas as a VSTi. This way I could do everything in Cubase (excellent latency) - Vocal Harmonizer, Accompaniment Sounds and Melody/Lead Instruments

The Bismark BS-16 (VSTi) also works but the sound quality is just not as good. Plus the volumes seem to be different, e.g., drums relative to the rest.

I should have indicated in my previous response that when I use the Vocal Harmonizer/Cubase SX, LiveSynth/Cakewalk and Kontakt at the same time my computer reaches over 90% performance. As a result, I get the occasional 'crack & pop'. Not good. I will likely have to upgrade my computer or more likely go to the small XPC computers with the following spec:

Processor: 2.5 GHz or larger (liquid cooled)
Memory: 2.0 GB
Hard Drives: 2 - 80 GB with 8MB Cache
Soundcard: RME or Steinberg

What was good enough a year ago is now to small. Oh well, it happens to everyone!!!

[This message has been edited by Frank L. Rosenthal (edited 06-30-2003).]

Thanks Frank. When I have some time,
I'll attempt some style drum remap editing as you suggested.
As far as a powerful portable PC, also
check out www.powerrackpc.com
You could even install your current
Audiophile card on the PowerCube model(size
of a 6 pack), and I'm sure they would build
to your specifications(such as 2 GB RAM).


[This message has been edited by Vquestor (edited 06-30-2003).]

[This message has been edited by Vquestor (edited 06-30-2003).]

Vquestor, thanks for your information. The Power Cube is identical in appearance to the Shuttle XPC Computer reference in my previous post. I would build this computer from the ground up myself using the Shuttle case and motherboard. I have seen (and heard) the Music XPC built by Music Marketing and it works well. The only concern I have is the heat build-up from 2 HDs in such a small space. In my case the HD is working constantly streaming instrument notes while playing the lead or melody.

I agree with you - it is the way to go. Windows XP is very stable. The XPC is small and low in weight. The unit is very quiet - liquid cooled.

Frank,will the computer you build
have a Pentium 4 or Athlon?
I have heard in the past, that Pentium 4
is better for music applications. Is this
the case?

Actually at the moment, Athlon based computers are better performance wise and dollar wise compared to Pentiums. Several years ago there were problems not with AMD cpu's but with the via chipset. But that is all in the past. Today, an Athlon will do just as good or better job than a Pentium for less money.

Vquestor, my preference is to use Pentium processors and ASUS Motherboards. These ensure the best compatibility with music software written for PCs. In the case of the Shuttle XPC you have to take the motherboard that comes with it for use with the Pentium Processor.