cuba

Hi!

There's a thing or two that I'd like to know:

According to Creative's website, the Audigy series supports SoundFont 2.1 . Does kX currently support rendering/playback of version 2.1 SoundFonts on Audigys? If not yet, will it ever be?

Back in 1998 when I was using the "cracked" version of the APS driver (I had a SBLive! then - the APS driver, originally will only install when an EMU card is present) on Win98, I loved it's ability to playback SF 2.1 SoundFonts & MIDI files. I was comparing the playback quality of several module (MOD,S3M,IT etc) files on a software renderer (WinAMP's built-in module decoder) vs my SBLive's Hardware SF Synth via WinAmp's LifeAMP v1.2.2 input plugin (with the "SF v2.1" option turned on). For those who've never heard of such plugins, it's purpose is to convert & compile a SF2 from the samples contained within module file & upload it into the hardware's sample memory & send the playback information/notes/control via MIDI to the synth. The latter combination faithfully succeeded in reproducing the all the module files. The best thing about HW playback of MOD files is the Synth's built-in 8-point sample interpolation! No aliasing noise (everything sounds clean regardless of playback pitch)! Plus, I can add DSP effects to the playback.

When I moved to XP, of course there's no the APS driver for the OS. So, I tried kX. Loved the ability to customize the DSP but I was disappointed with the SF HW Synth playback especially when I tried playing the MOD files using the LifeAMP plugin. MOD files that use the "Sample offset" effect suffered the most. According to LifeAMP's documentation, the "SF v2.1" option will determine whether the "Sample offset" effect will be rendered using the hardware's capability (turned on) or emulated by creating additional instruments in the generated SF2. When the option is turned off, the files sounded better but still not entirely correct.

With every release of kX drivers, I never failed to tryout the above mentioned "experiment". Unfortunately up to the current kX v3550, the same playback defect persists. I've tried the "experiment" with a PCI-based Audigy 2 ZS and my newly acquired Audigy 2 ZS Notebook... Still the same. Running the Audigy 2 ZS Notebook on CL's drivers & trying this thing out, the playback is almost perfect except for quite noticeable delay/latency when the samples in the SF2 are offseted... ie. it's playback it not spot-on/on time. Then again, I've read somewhere in this forum that CL drivers are using a software based SF synth on the A2 ZS NB (Hence the latency - I guess).

I really hope in future versions of the kX drivers, the SF 2.1's "sample offset" command will be fully supported. Boy.. I really missed the APS's ability to play my MOD files flawlessly.

Thanks.

Max M.

No, it won't.

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cuba

May I know Why not?

Max M.

Well, no changes were made there for more than 5 years - and i don't see any reason for involved parties to suddenly express an interest in the obsolete technology improvement.

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cuba

Thanks for replying, Max.

Too bad for me then.. All these years I was really hoping that 1 day the kX drivers would be better than CL's driver in ALL aspects of the 10kX's features.. not just in terms of digital audio processing & recording (ie. the programmable DSP, ASIO etc).

Nevertheless, I would like to thank all of you (esp. the kX team) for the great job on the driver!

BiCho

I would've loved for the soundfonts to play right too, exporting some custom-made SF2s from Kontakt, and having them played back with zero-latency and no DAW software running is just a dream now.

these are sad news for me, too

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