Little Noah Test

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Sat Mar 06, 2004 4:05 am

Hi there,
I told you a friend has a noahEx, that he just lent me for the week end (by the way, you will hear an LP made in digital performer and 70% with Noah : Polaris LP on Neurobiotic, not out yet (only the LP tracks have noah).

So I have it for the week end and made a few tests.

First, I installed it on the same machine as SFP. It does work fine in all aspects :
1. Drivers can run in cunjunctions with SFP drivers, the orders of midi/audio drivers did not change in my projects (it happened to me with pci cards, where you have to reset all your midi tracks output, because the order of driver changed). So all is fine.
2. I installed Noah on its own usb interface : the midi is sent/received on the usb interface (whereas SFP still uses pure midi/seq source/dest). It means that I can send a note to noah thru usb, get it back thru usb or midi (midi in Echo function of noah) to record controller movements, or to send midi somewhere else. It also gives me 16 midi channels and an additional midi chain, as you can also echo usb to "true" midi out.
3. I can use the step sequencer to control external synths (here i have minimax playing with dx 100 and another step sequencer playing Juno alpha. I'm impatient to try with the EPS16+)....
4. I had a look at presets tro see if I could convert sfp presets to noah thru midi CC : well, noah midi CC are fixed values, which means I would have to build a midi CC preset for SFP, which matches Noah CC numbers... I didn't do it (I have more interesting stuff to do sorry

5. It is cool to run 4 synths externally, it keeps SFP lighter, and may be i can do most tracks in a "live" configuration before mixing/overdubbing/whatevering.....
6. I can archive presets and "multipresets" (like projects in SFP) in noah rom, compact flash, or hard disk (and do all manipulations for backups/restore etc).
7. not enough effects in the inserts, i could well manage a 6 inserts slots on each synth slot and master out

...
Very good machine for synths.

6. I give it back tomorrow evening...

I'll have a look later if you have quick tests ideas, but i prefer to warn you that i'll be doing music with it so i'm not going into demoing noah

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2004-03-06 04:07 ]

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2004-03-06 04:09 ]

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 8:21 am

On 2004-03-06 04:05, spacef wrote:

... with SFP drivers, the orders of midi/audio drivers did not change in my projects (it happened to me with pci cards, where you have to reset all your midi tracks output, because the order of driver changed). So all is fine.

Maybe this could have been fixed, by modding the (can't remember name) file, where you can set the order of the cards. The manual has details on setting the order of the cards.

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 5:29 pm

noah is not a pci card and is not "recognized" by SFP itself (it's adat or analog out only)(above, nothing to do with board numbers, it happens with non-CW cards). not sure sx can remember driver order, but again, it is not necessary here (noah's always last, as it switch after sfp)..

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2004-03-08 13:35 ]

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Sun Mar 07, 2004 10:58 pm

Thanks for the report, I'm considering getting a Noah, either that or a Nord Modular G2 Engine. It's good to know that Noah worked well with your existing SFP setup.

spoimala · Post by **spoimala** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:00 pm

Joxer, get 'em both

That's my aim in the long run.

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:25 pm

I would LOVE to get both, but it has to be one or the other...for the time being anyway. I must say that right now I'm leaning more towards the G2 Engine. Who knows when they'll make it here to the U.S. though. Have you downloaded the editor and played around with it yet?

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 3:59 am

yes it works fine, i had a usb bug but I found that when Yellow Tool's Culture is not loaded as vsti, all works fine again (it must be because Culture usb-dongle is on the same usb hub as noah

, now that culture is not active all is fine. It was workable before, but strange, now that i know, it's better, i'd probably better plug Noah or YT usb dongle somewhere else next time).

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2004-03-09 04:01 ]

stefanh · Post by **stefanh** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 8:17 am

Intresting! Good that you mentioned that, because i wanted to install Culture also today. So i should plug the USB-Dongle on another USB-Bus then Noah...
So maybe i have to install first the second Bus of my MoBo!
I will report any problems.

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 2:09 pm

stefanh wrote:
.. So i should plug the USB-Dongle on another USB-Bus then Noah...

yes I think. apparently YT usb dongle does something. I use cubase SX 1.6 here (which show a few bugs when Culture is loaded : like you have to close the piano roll using the "window/close" menu, and not the "X" icon of the window (this trick can save you a few "serious bug" with sx...).

so maybe i have to install first the second Bus of my MoBo!

Good idea, I think i have one too...

Good luck.

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2004-03-09 14:16 ]