Can I do this?

[pixel]

Dear forum

I'm currently working on a project where I want to do the following:

record without latency, or at least constant very low latency (not like on a computer where the latency is not constant):

signal path:

trigger pads - audio card in stand alone mode (fireface 400) - sound into the DSP card - audio->midi conversion - trigger/play samples in SES5000 (for example).

audio 1 - triggers sample 1
audio 2 - triggers sample 2
and so forth

furthermore, I'd like to record the audio to a midi file so that i can both delete notes afterwards and so that i can exchange a sample for another one.

Is this possible?

Thanks in advance,
Pixel

[H-Rave]

You didn't say if you have a scope card ?.What do you call low latency 1-2 ms 6 ms ? What's the fireface latancy about 6 ms at 256 samples.And yes it is constant .

[pixel]

Hi H-Rave

Thanks a lot for your reply

You didn't say if you have a scope card ?

Right now I don't have a scope card, but if I can do what I want I'll definately buy it!

What do you call low latency 1-2 ms 6 ms ?

I think 2-3-4-5 ms is ok, as long as it's constant.


The fireface has no latency in stand alone mode, not connected to my computer (or very very little) as far as i know.

Could you enlighten me:

If the latency on the scope card is constant, what's the technical explanation, how is that possible?

Can I really do all that I asked? Could be fantastic

[dawman]

6 msec.'s is the time it takes my drummers ride cymbal to reach my ears.

I have a drum DAW using Gigastudio 3 / Larry Seyer Acoustic Drums, w/ several Orchestral Percussion libraries, and a Scope DSP card for some synths and Modular drum kits.

But you shouldn't take my word, go buy a card from RME for more money plug it in and ask where are the sounds?..................................Loooooooser !! Nadda !! Zippo !!..................But hey you get a card for more money that sounds as good as every body else's cards. But no jitter ? WTF, 700 USD for no jitter and no sounds,......hey it's a sore dick deal,....you can't beat it.

Scope's software is the most bang for a buck you can buy anywhere.

I beg for someone to show me an app. that has such depth, and a sound card where you can play in real time w/o this nonsensical delay compensation plug in??

If you are just wanting to play in your bedroom for your girl as a seduction tool where you play along w/ a virtual band most apps and cards should suffice. But if you wanna play live,......it is the way.

Well it's what we use on the big jobs.


Jump in for the big win w/ Scope.



Alesis MIDI w/ pads on real drums, GS3 / LSAD / and Scope. = FAT
BASTARDS Live.




ProMusic SoCal will hook you up just fine. Get the card made in this century though, a Type II.

[Lima]

Hi Pixel and wellcome!
I never done it, so I can't assure anything.... but knowing the amazing routing flexibilities and the large amount of inputs I belive it's possible.

I think you should make a custom modular patch using for example this module:


and for the samples:




I belive it's possible...

[MCCY]

Wolf did some great looking trigger-devs as far as I can remember!
I'm sure they're fast enough and more comfortable than modular-solutions.

Martin

[pixel]

thanks so much for your replies - and thank you Lima for the warm welcome

1:
is the following correct?

from what I understand of your replies it is definately possible to play samples loaded into the DSP card real time with almost no latency using audio triggers (the fireface has a constant latency of about 30 samples in standalone mode)

2:
what do you say, is the following possible as well?

furthermore, I'd like to record what i play to a midi file (with no inaccuracy) so that i can both delete notes afterwards and so that i can exchange a sample for another one and master the tracks as well

3: with what cards could i do this? the reason for me asking this is that I can buy e.g. a used pulsar II pretty cheap. right now i don't have any card whatsoever, i'd like to check with you guys if it's possible to do all the above before i do any purchase.

thanks in advance,
pixel

[Mr Arkadin]

Just to answer your point 1, be aware that the Scope software is on the DSP, but any RAM required (ie. samples) will be from your computer. The STS sampler itself resides on the DSP card and has a trigger comparable to (and probably better than) hardware samplers.

[pixel]

Just to answer your point 1, be aware that the Scope software is on the DSP, but any RAM required (ie. samples) will be from your computer. The STS sampler itself resides on the DSP card and has a trigger comparable to (and probably better than) hardware samplers.

thank you for the reply.

I don't understand exactly what you mean.
So - I will repeat my question:

Can I use the scope card in order to play samples with almost no latency or not?

I will try to get a hold of any computer that is required to do this if it's really possble.

Thanks
pixel

[Mr Arkadin]

I don't understand exactly what you mean.
So - I will repeat my question:

Can I use the scope card in order to play samples with almost no latency or not?

Yes you can. All i was trying to make clear was that all the software (samplers, synths, mixers, whatever) for Scope launches onto the DSP of the card. However the Scope cards have no (or very little) RAM, so your samples have to live in your computer's RAM - so the size of samples you can load is restricted only by the size of your computer's RAM. The actual Scope sampler reacts very much like a hardware one, so latency is not an issue.

You'll find if you get a Pulsar2 you'll be able to load a sampler plus a mixer, some nice effects and a synth or two as well (even if that's not your original intent).

[pixel]

Hi Mr Arkadin

Thanks for your reply.

I don't understand exactly what you mean.
So - I will repeat my question:

Can I use the scope card in order to play samples with almost no latency or not?

Yes you can. All i was trying to make clear was that all the software (samplers, synths, mixers, whatever) for Scope launches onto the DSP of the card. However the Scope cards have no (or very little) RAM, so your samples have to live in your computer's RAM - so the size of samples you can load is restricted only by the size of your computer's RAM. The actual Scope sampler reacts very much like a hardware one, so latency is not an issue.

You'll find if you get a Pulsar2 you'll be able to load a sampler plus a mixer, some nice effects and a synth or two as well (even if that's not your original intent).

Great.


1:
What computer can I use?


2:
I plan on buying a used Pulsar II card. Does it include the latest software?? I mean, can I use the modules you all mention if I buy such an old card?

I currently own a Macbook but I'll try to get hold on a kind that is possible to use. I need to use about use about 50MB for the whole project.

Thanks
pixel

[Liquid Len]

Depending on when the card was purchased, it might have different plugins. One of those plugins is the Modular II, and as far as I know it was part of the 'stock' software sold with the card, at least when I bought my card in 2003. If you can get the card's hardware ID, the current company supporting them should be able to tell you exactly what software is registered for the card. (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

The modules posted are those of modular ii (or iii). But ONE of the modules posted, the audio2gate, is a Flexor module. That is a 3rd party library with some great functionality, very cheap. If your card doesn't have Flexor registered to it, you won't have that module. BUT - there is a freeware module called 'audio2note' that will let you convert audio to midi, monophonically. I've used it to convert audio kick and snare drum tracks into midi tracks, it works great.

This module is monophonic, but if you wanted to build something to literally split the audio into different frequency ranges, so you could have multiple triggers from the same audio file, you could actually build that using modular ii. That is the strength of this platform - you can build or chain things together in ways that vst software doesn't come close, and these things run in REAL TIME. I had a hi-hat track that was ruined by a loud snare that was literally louder than the hi-hat, and was able to build a kind of compressor, where whenever the track exceeded a certain volume I would DRASTICALLY duck the volume (more than a standard compressor would let you). It wasn't a perfect solution but at least I was able to 'repair' the track better than an eq could do.

"From what I understand of your replies it is definitely possible to play samples loaded into the DSP card real time with almost no latency using audio triggers (the fireface has a constant latency of about 30 samples in standalone mode) "

Yes you can design things with this card free-form, if you understand the architecture of a typical ROMpler you can absolutely build your own sample playback (using the modular) using whatever techniques, components, and routing scheme you want. It's crazy the flexibility you have with this - it's like a lego set of synthesis parts.


There are also a few pre-built sampler programs, the STS series, that work with standard sample formats like akai, they get bad reviews because unlike the rest of this card's features, they're nothing special - but they do work and because of the real-time nature of this card, you can use them for tracking or live or whatever.



This part is just an opinion.

There are two 3rd party tools for this card, that are about $100 bucks each, and are absolutely bang-for-the-buck, and I consider indispensable. The first is the Flexor package of new modules for the creamware modular. (It's often called the modular 'synth' but I typically use it to build custom effects and triggers, there's already PLENTY of quality synths that come included with the stock software).

The second is the reverb P100. This reverb absolutely is shockingly cheap for the quality. It makes just about any reverb I've heard for PCs sound terrible in comparison, and quite a few hardware ones! You would have to spend a few thousand dollars, in my opinion, to get a hardware reverb that sounds as good as this. And you can actually use it like a hardware reverb, because it has latency equivalent to hardware (which sure isn't ZERO, but is probably around 3 or 4 ms).

And finally, if you don't find your card has a Minimax, Pro-one, Profit 5, or in particular the Prodyssey, you absolutely should check these out. They are to VA synths what the P100 is to reverbs.

[pixel]

Hi Liquid Len

Thank you very much for your reply!

I also contacted Sonic Core about this and the told me that depending on the computer, and indeed the motherboard, I'll have some latency when using a sampler inside scope. However, they promise that it is constant.

Regarding which software is included, I got a reply from sonic core:

Software: Scope Fusion Platform
Software: Main Studiotools Package
Software: Synthesizer Package 1
Software: Synthesizer Package 2
Software: Effects Package 1
Software: SCOPE 4.0 Software
Software: Pulsar Application
Software: Volkszampler
Software: STS-2000P


Secondly, they told me that I'll be able to record the midi without any problems.

So, it seems I shoudl go for this.

A little worried about their statement that the faster computer the lower latency message from them, when I heard something like this in the past it always meant:

"Our software is so cpu hungry that it almost don't work or at least very slow no matter what you do"

thanks
pixel

[astroman]

that statement refers to a different context.

In Scope only the user interface graphics may become a little CPU critical, depending on which graph card (driver) is installed.
This has nothing to do with how 'powerful' 3D processing a graphcard has - in fact the latter is completely irrelevant to Scope, as it's a pure 2D system.

There is almost no audio processing on the CPU, which is used (of course) to access motherboard Ram (for samples) and disk input/output.

cheers, Tom

[borg]

hey pixel,

you can just look at SFP as a hardware sampler (or VA synth, digital mixer/fx processor), but instead of a metal box which has a circuit board with chips, resistors, caps and the like in it, and that has a user interface with LCD, knobs and/or sliders... you get a pulsar.
a pulsar2 is just the same, but it's all cramped on one circuit board in the form of a PCI card, which has the same (albeit limited) physical in/outs (Midi in/out/through and depending on which type of Pulsar2 ADAT, s/pdif, rca stereo i/o, Z-link, XLR, AES/EBU... in any combination). Also, SFP uses your computer as an interface instead. there's a lot more going on, but that's basically it when viewing a pulsar as a hardware device.

even hardware has some latency, and so does SFP. but planetZ's founder john cooper published a chart on this side with his own findings regarding latency test, comparing a pulsar card in 'hardware mode' and various real hardware equivalents. overall the results were very comparable, and in some cases pulsar even responded better than its one-trick-pony-but-more-expensive competitors. sorry, but can't find a link. maybe PM john cooper and he can look it up for you. iirc, there was also a sampler involved in the test.

remember: when recording into a software sequenser, pulsar (just as any computer soundcard) needs to talk to the host over some kind of physical connection, which in our case is PCI, and that's where the software based latency (ASIO) comes in. you can set latency in SFP to 3,6,9,12,27 or something ms. this is one way, so should be doubled when monitoring through the sequenser (which you don't really need unless you think you really need to monitor a special vst or something). this latency depends on your motherboard, hard disk speed, number of tracks you want, what bit depth...

so yes, when you want to use the pulsar as a hardware drum replacer/sampler, expect the same as a hardware sampler. also take note, that with the software packs you quoted, you only get the real basic stuff (which is already great). you should get Synth'n'Sampler pack, which includes Modular3 for your routing and audio2midi, and the top sampler in the range (STS-5000).

you can route all your seperate outs of sampler in a mixer with nice fx, and route the L/R of the mixer to the physical i/o. is your fireface an ADAT convertor (i presume)? if yes, you can have 8 +2 outs (again, depending on your i/o setup of pulsar).


hope this gave you some more insight...

[pixel]

hey pixel,

you can just look at SFP as a hardware sampler (or VA synth, digital mixer/fx processor), but instead of a metal box which has a circuit board with chips, resistors, caps and the like in it, and that has a user interface with LCD, knobs and/or sliders... you get a pulsar.
a pulsar2 is just the same, but it's all cramped on one circuit board in the form of a PCI card, which has the same (albeit limited) physical in/outs (Midi in/out/through and depending on which type of Pulsar2 ADAT, s/pdif, rca stereo i/o, Z-link, XLR, AES/EBU... in any combination). Also, SFP uses your computer as an interface instead. there's a lot more going on, but that's basically it when viewing a pulsar as a hardware device.

even hardware has some latency, and so does SFP. but planetZ's founder john cooper published a chart on this side with his own findings regarding latency test, comparing a pulsar card in 'hardware mode' and various real hardware equivalents. overall the results were very comparable, and in some cases pulsar even responded better than its one-trick-pony-but-more-expensive competitors. sorry, but can't find a link. maybe PM john cooper and he can look it up for you. iirc, there was also a sampler involved in the test.

remember: when recording into a software sequenser, pulsar (just as any computer soundcard) needs to talk to the host over some kind of physical connection, which in our case is PCI, and that's where the software based latency (ASIO) comes in. you can set latency in SFP to 3,6,9,12,27 or something ms. this is one way, so should be doubled when monitoring through the sequenser (which you don't really need unless you think you really need to monitor a special vst or something). this latency depends on your motherboard, hard disk speed, number of tracks you want, what bit depth...

so yes, when you want to use the pulsar as a hardware drum replacer/sampler, expect the same as a hardware sampler. also take note, that with the software packs you quoted, you only get the real basic stuff (which is already great). you should get Synth'n'Sampler pack, which includes Modular3 for your routing and audio2midi, and the top sampler in the range (STS-5000).

you can route all your seperate outs of sampler in a mixer with nice fx, and route the L/R of the mixer to the physical i/o. is your fireface an ADAT convertor (i presume)? if yes, you can have 8 +2 outs (again, depending on your i/o setup of pulsar).


hope this gave you some more insight...

thanks a lot for your replies

i especially appreciate the detailed answer from you borg.

i think that it's about time i try all this out - i need to find a pc, a drum kit with triggers and also buy the pulsar card. i also spoke to wolfgang from wolf audio design and he helped me a great deal finding the ideal settings that i would want .

i'll come back with my results when i get so far!

thanks a bunch
pixel

[bill3107]

good luck ! Beware of becoming an addict ! Once you will try Scope, you won't be able to forget it .... Remember you are not forced to throw to much money on the PC. Just chose the motherboard ! (have a look on planetz ... many PC configuration discussed / tested)...