can i only use a CREATIVE soundcard for SOUNDFONTS ?!

  • Thread starter Thread starter earworm
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earworm

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so, i love working with soundfonts,
and i don't mean: RIPPING WAVE FILES OUT OF SOUNDFONTS 8!!

i build them myself, connect my cheap midi keyboard to my
Soundblaster Extigy, and i can play awesome SF2 files without latency


now i know that there are several VST plugins that let you load Soundfonts, but thats what i call FAKE.... this way you do have fucking latency and stuff..

the thing is , i DO NOT like my soundblaster Extigy, it sounds like crap and i'd like to sell it,
but i still wanna mess with my soundfonts,
are there other ways ? can i use other soundcards (i'm affraid not)

or can i just find a MIDI card with NO latency at all ?
(right now i got a Dman 2044 with NO midi, and i'm gonna upgrade to MOTU 828 with no midi either...if i'm correct)

so maybe i can sell my Extigy and get an extra decent Midi card,
or isn't this possible ?

fjieuw....

friendly regards,
earworm
 
Since you mention the Dio card, you must have a desktop machine, so why not install an Audigy?

Then again, you can have a pc with low enough latency to play soundfonts with a software player like Vsampler. Probably not with the Dio 2044 though.

If you want to keep things simple, and are mainly interested in playing your soundfonts just get rid of the Dio and Extigy and install an Audigy.
Although the Audigy audio quality is not perfect - and it can't provide a 44.1Khz s/pdif output, it will be better than the old Dio2044 card.

Currently, only Creative cards and the old E-mu APS can play soundfonts in hardware, such as the Audigy or the older (and cheaper) Live!

...and in case someone has told you you can't (such as Creative support), You can have more than one pci soundcard in a pc - provided they have different drivers.
 
thanx,

yeah, i know you can use multiple pci cardss,
i did that with Two DMAN 2044 cards (but those cards are a pain in the ass to install)

maybe i'll start hunting down a soundcard with a real AWESOME low latency for midi.... i worked with the audigy, and won't use it for recording or so,,,

and i'm starting to think it might be a better idea to just say FUCK creative..
and go for a decent low latency card... so i can use those VST instruments in real time ...

but i know more about audio than midi... so its gonna be a big search :)

any suggestions concerning low (midi) latency cards ?
 
The new E-mu 0404? Good performance with ASIO driver. Soon to be available (I believe) with the EmulatorX software sampler which can play SF2 as well as other formats. They have a more expensive package with a higher spec card (1208?) and the software.
If you use Vienna to make your soundfonts, you may have to keep a Creative card for it to work with. Anyone know if it accepts one of the new E-mu cards other than the APS?
 
EmulatorX software sampler which can play SF2

so this means that that Emulator is gonna destroy the monopoly creative has on soundfonts ?
 
Creative own E-mu, and it was E-mus' engineering team that invented the DSP chips in the Live! and Audigy cards. The first card in this lineage was the E-mu APS - quite a nice product but expensive and still had that nasty internal 48Khz rate lock of the Creative cards. The newest E-mu cards are gathering quite a good reputation and they are not expensive when set against the top Audigys.

You can play Soundfonts with a great many software samplers - V-sampler for example, plus there is also a free one out there. You do need a soundcard with low-latency drivers and a while ago I would have recommended the M-audio Audiophile2496, but the new Emu 0404 slighly exceeds it on spec, beats the price and has a more useful software bundle. The Emulator X software doesn't work with it yet though - but E-mu have said that it will.
 
ok, sorry to keep on bothering you, but
i want to MAKE my own soundfonts, i've been doing it for a while now, and i love doin it,
so applications like VIENNA and orbit, to make and playback SF2's will only work with creative cards, right ?

and imagine that i buy an EMU, might be great if i can play the soundfonts,
but the MOST important thing is: i wanna be able to build them myself,
and i only worked with vienna untill now, i don't even know there's another app that lets you make yer own soundfonts
 
Vienna makes soundfonts that play with any soundfont player.

You will get much better sound with a good 24-bit card and a soundfont sample-player VSTi.

I use Bismark's BS-16 but other sample players like rgcaudio "sfz", Kontact, VSampler, Halion or Gigastudio will all play soundfonts with any audio card.

(I tossed my secondary SBLive and now run only my 24-bit card in my PC).
 
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