Q: more than 2 MIDI FX at a time?

Buzzerman · Jul 2, 2003, 06:49 PM

Hi,
I am mostly a MIDI user and an amateur musician and I am not very interested in all the non-MIDI stuff like ASIO, VST, softsynth etc. All that FX routing and DSP stuff is kind of too much for me, I was browsing through the kX documentation pages but couldn't find a straight answer to this question:
):
Can the kX drivers provide more than 2 CC controllable MIDI FX at once? i.e., can I have 3 different CCs/NRPNs for controlling the level of 3 different FX at the same time? E.g. I would like to have Echo, Reverb and Chorus all three simultaneously applied in a MIDI controlled fashion in my MIDI pieces (with different levels on different MIDI channels) - is this possible? It seems that the Creative drivers are not able to do this for MIDI, only 2 FX at a time are controllable...

Also, it wasn't clear for me how using more FX affects the polyphony in my MIDI tracks...

I think this information should be easily available for any MIDI musician. And if indeed more than 2 FX at once are controllable through MIDI, maybe this feature should be made clear on the front page of kX drivers as a BIG plus over Creative's drivers...

Thanks,
\\Buzzerman

Max M. · Jul 3, 2003, 12:54 AM

You have six extra mono send buses with Audigy and only two with SBLive... but do not miss that you are able to assign different effects to the different MIDI channels, for example you can have sends to Flanger and Wah-Wah for the sounds played through midi channel 1, and Chorus and Reverb for midi channel 2 etc... (as well you can assign different "instert" effect for each channel) The actual number of "destination sends" and "send effects" depends on used effects themselves (e.g. how many DSP resources each effect uses) and number of "FxBus" available on particular model (e..g Audigy or Live)...

>All that FX routing and DSP stuff is kind of too much for me

Well, you will have to learn how "kX DSP" and "kX Router" work if you want to use as many features of kx as possible. Especially if your main scheme is MIDI->SFSynth->Native kX Effects...

>Also, it wasn't clear for me how using more FX affects the polyphony in my MIDI tracks...

Poliphony is not depend on Effects at all (for this hardware)

>maybe this feature should be made clear on the front page of kX drivers as a BIG plus over Creative's drivers...

Well, it's a "view-point-question"... It's just impossible to mention all of the "pluses" on the front page... You are care on this feature and don't care of ASIO at all, someone else works with ASIO/VSTi only and even doesn't know what all that SoundFonts/CC's are all about....
"Big-pluses" are very individual...
So the typical scheme is: "if the feature is implemented then kx provides more customization and less limitation to it comparing to Creative implementation."

Buzzerman · Jul 3, 2003, 01:52 PM

These sound great, Max, I've got to try it. Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply.
Now I have another SF/MIDI related problem: I own an Audigy2 Platinum and in the kX FAQ and other places around here I keep seeing mentioned the 32MB sample memory limit. This is no longer the case for Audigy, right? If so, the FAQ entry is rather misleading about this:

Quote:

Q. Is there a 32MB limit on sample playback? Does this apply to the Audigy as well?

A. SoundFont sample playback is limited to 32MB of wave data at one time, although SoundFonts larger than 32MB can be loaded.

Please tell me that the answer is not addressing the second part of the question and it only refers to SBLive :-)
--

**Eugene Gavrilov** · Jul 5, 2003, 02:54 AM

no, there's a limit for sample size -- you cannot playback more than 32Mb of audio data simultaneously

that is, if you have three samples 20Mb each, you'll be able to playback only one of them at a time

the soundfont size is limited, too -- the limit depends on your OS and on the registry settings (review the FAQ) -- under certain circumstances the OS introduces additional limits (for instance, 128Mb)

/Eugene

Jul 2, 2003, 06:49 PM	#1
Buzzerman HardwareHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 12 Rep Power: 0	Q: more than 2 MIDI FX at a time? Hi, I am mostly a MIDI user and an amateur musician and I am not very interested in all the non-MIDI stuff like ASIO, VST, softsynth etc. All that FX routing and DSP stuff is kind of too much for me, I was browsing through the kX documentation pages but couldn't find a straight answer to this question: ): Can the kX drivers provide more than 2 CC controllable MIDI FX at once? i.e., can I have 3 different CCs/NRPNs for controlling the level of 3 different FX at the same time? E.g. I would like to have Echo, Reverb and Chorus all three simultaneously applied in a MIDI controlled fashion in my MIDI pieces (with different levels on different MIDI channels) - is this possible? It seems that the Creative drivers are not able to do this for MIDI, only 2 FX at a time are controllable... Also, it wasn't clear for me how using more FX affects the polyphony in my MIDI tracks... I think this information should be easily available for any MIDI musician. And if indeed more than 2 FX at once are controllable through MIDI, maybe this feature should be made clear on the front page of kX drivers as a BIG plus over Creative's drivers... Thanks, \\Buzzerman

Jul 3, 2003, 12:54 AM	#2
Max M. h/h member-shmember Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Evil Empire Posts: 2,640 Rep Power: 69	You have six extra mono send buses with Audigy and only two with SBLive... but do not miss that you are able to assign different effects to the different MIDI channels, for example you can have sends to Flanger and Wah-Wah for the sounds played through midi channel 1, and Chorus and Reverb for midi channel 2 etc... (as well you can assign different "instert" effect for each channel) The actual number of "destination sends" and "send effects" depends on used effects themselves (e.g. how many DSP resources each effect uses) and number of "FxBus" available on particular model (e..g Audigy or Live)... >All that FX routing and DSP stuff is kind of too much for me Well, you will have to learn how "kX DSP" and "kX Router" work if you want to use as many features of kx as possible. Especially if your main scheme is MIDI->SFSynth->Native kX Effects... >Also, it wasn't clear for me how using more FX affects the polyphony in my MIDI tracks... Poliphony is not depend on Effects at all (for this hardware) >maybe this feature should be made clear on the front page of kX drivers as a BIG plus over Creative's drivers... Well, it's a "view-point-question"... It's just impossible to mention all of the "pluses" on the front page... You are care on this feature and don't care of ASIO at all, someone else works with ASIO/VSTi only and even doesn't know what all that SoundFonts/CC's are all about.... "Big-pluses" are very individual... So the typical scheme is: "if the feature is implemented then kx provides more customization and less limitation to it comparing to Creative implementation." __________________

Jul 5, 2003, 02:54 AM	#4
Eugene Gavrilov kX Project Lead Programmer and Coordinator Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 3,119 Rep Power: 75	no, there's a limit for sample size -- you cannot playback more than 32Mb of audio data simultaneously that is, if you have three samples 20Mb each, you'll be able to playback only one of them at a time the soundfont size is limited, too -- the limit depends on your OS and on the registry settings (review the FAQ) -- under certain circumstances the OS introduces additional limits (for instance, 128Mb) /Eugene