JonR

Excuse me for being a bit vague and longwinded here, but my problems seem to keep changing as I write.

I have Win2K, and an SBLive card. I've been using Sibelius notation/sequencing software (v 1.4) for some time, inputting data with a mouse - no problem at all - but recently tried using a MIDI keyboard (Yamaha YPP-50).
Getting a severe input delay (1/4 -1/2 a second I guess), it seemed from some research that kx drivers were the answer, hence my recent download/installation.
The kx interface (the aqau skin) was initially baffling and hard to read (not user-friendly at all IMO), but I'm getting slowly used to that.
I had an initial problem getting any sound at all out of Sibelius, and no MIDI input signal, but that seem to fix itself (no idea why or how - one moment it wasn't working, next it was)...
I managed to record a few bars in real time into the sequencer with no noticeable delay in the audio - hooray!
However, problems:
(1) (not too serious) there was a big delay before the notation appeared on the stave - several seconds. And some notes don't appear at all until I stop playing.
(2) (more serious) the tempo (of the click guide) slowed right down as I played.
As advised by Sibelius (to speed up the software) I reduced the screen colours to 256 - no effect.

(3) now a far more serious problem has appeared. Chaos, basically: long delays between playing a note and hearing it (a second or more), notes come out 4 or more octaves below where I play them, or they don't register at all, the occasional note sustains (doesn't turn off).
I tried recording into Cakewalk too (an ancient version of Express), but it was the same. (Plus the click came out as a piano note on my keyboard, not very helpful.)



My other problem (ha!) is I'm getting no sound when playing playing CDs.
As far as I can tell from the kx mixer, the CD volume is up, and not muted. (Yes I'm pretty sure about this, I've tried several button-clicking options.)

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty inexperienced with MIDI - and I may just go back to sequencing with the mouse. But I'm more than a little angry that this new driver software is so non-intuitive - and I've wasted over a day struggling (and failing) to understand what's happening.
IOW, not only am I getting problems I didn't have before, but I'm grappling with a cryptic new soundcard interface. (I guess I'm trying to understand too many things at once...)

Any ideas, anyone? TIA (and thanks for reading this far anyway)

And is there somewhere I can download some alternative skins from, preferably something simple and legible? (I quite like the idea of designing my own, but I don't have the time.)

JonR

dj_stick

what are your system specs? this sounds like a really slow machine

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peate

That's what I thought, or too many things running in the background. I used to do quite a bit with just a Celeron 333mhz and 128 megs of ram, provided I turned off everything first, anti-virus, firewalls, etc.

Is your CD player connected to the soundcard or only via your ide cable?

If it's analog connection, you'll find it on the AC97 page drop down menu.
If it's digital, it's on the ins and outs page.

Try this skin instead, you'll love it. If not, there are more at the project site.

http://colba.net/~peate/TS-Skin.kxs

JonR

Thanks for the swift response guys.
I managed to fix the no-CD problem (not sure how, but it had something to do with the AC97 menu...).
And the slowing-down was cured by a simple Sibelius command (duh...)

But the other thing persists (whether trying to record or not). Seems like the midi commands from the keyboard are misfiring: randomly, note-ons or note-offs are not registered, or wrong notes are registered (always extremely low, for pitched sounds).
(I've tried it with no other software running, no difference.)
I had it all working OK for a while (after re-booting), but now almost any note seems to misfire. IOW, it doesn't seem to be the keyboard, but something to do with the midi set-up.

My RAM is 256. The processor is an Intel Family 6 Model 8 736. (I am rather low on HD space - around 600MB on the C: drive at the moment, where Sibelius is installed, but more on an E: partition.)
- what other specs would be relevant, and where would I find them?
How can I check my MIDI set-up, and what should I look for? (sorry to be dumb...)

Thanks for the skin, btw - I did find that one after posting, looks a lot clearer.
I'll check out those other kx pages too.

JonR

dj_stick

try replacing the midi cable, the keyboard, and using another midi/gameport if you can (all at different times to isolate the problem)

also where is the windows swap file located? if its on drive C: move it to E:, you should see a performance increase, also try defragmenting, aswell as clearing up as much space as you can

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JonR

I only have the one midi lead at present, but that is something I will try and check (go and buy another one, I guess :-( ). There is only the one game port (just the one card). I have tried another keyboard - same deal.
I checked the swap file ("Virtual memory" under "Performance Options"). The total paging file size is 764 MB, distributed equally over both drives. IOW, minimum set to 382 on both C: and E: drives, maximum 1000. (I think I changed this some while ago, after advice on some other - quite different - problem, but I can't remember the details of that.)
I've also defragmented (which was long overdue!) and cleared as much space as possible (using Norton) - but it's made no difference.

JonR

JonR

I just tried plugging the keyboard into an old Win95 computer, with an even older Soundblaster card and Cakewalk Express. It works perfectly: accurate midi entry with no delay.
I'm therefore narrowing it down to the kt drivers - I've tried re-installing (in case I made some kind of mistake the first time) but it made no difference. Could there be some kind of conflict with something else? Or a mistake I'm making with the installation? (I'm basically just running the exe file and clicking yes to everything.)
If I uninstall the kt drivers, will my system return to the way it was? (I'd at least like to test it properly that way before perhaps installing the kt drivers afresh.)

JonR