hey coz

[frEk]

i don't suppose you got this do you? is it good? lotsa shit besides preset loops?

http://www.rolandus.com/products/details.a...=SR%2DJV80%2D19

how bout this

http://www.rolandus.com/products/details.a...=SR%2DJV80%2D15

i need to get that vocal card outta my board, it sucks....not sure what to fill the slot with though

oh and if you find some demos of this this online clue me in

[Cozmo D]

Oh Shit!!!

I didn't even know they had a house board...damm, I gotta check it.

I wouldn't trust them for an efx board, easier to find my own. Same thing with the vocal shit, that's why I didn't check it.

Atma...what do you think? :rofl:

[frEk]

awwww your sleepin mr. house man............well i just picked up the house board......$100(clearance, so i figured i could afford to nab it without hearing it) only i aint fuck wit it yet though, and i had the same thoughts about the efx board "prob just sirens, plains, trains, and well automobiles".......until i read some reviews on it........most people thought it wasn't suited for music but i read quite a few reviews from home recording peeps who are heavy into the industrial scene and they ranted and raved about it, how you wouldn't believe the wierd ass shit in it and it's an integral part of there work...........so i'm thinkin it just might have to replace my hip-hop board, i'll be sure to sample some a the kicks n snares n shit first :mrgreen: and no way i'm lettin go a the techno or the vintage synth pieces, so i guess i'll be ok for now, it's just too bad i can only use 4 expansion cards i got 7 of the fucking things now(so at least i'm educated when i gripe about roland)...........maybe if somebody hooks me up wit some phat sequencing software i can get one a them monster roland rack units and stuff all the cards in there, oh well

[atma]

what sequencer do you want? Logic is pretty much the sickest, but seeing as though apple bought it, they're discontinuing it for PC. i'd recommend you try the new cubase sx, it's probably your best bet for PC:

http://www.hot.ee/stsx/

just msg me if you need help installing it. you basically just need to download all the zip files, extract them all, and if necessary use winrar to un-rar them. stick all the relavent files into the same directory and install.

[frEk]

cool, thanks i got it all in it looks confusing but i'll get it..........i need a sound card though i aint got no midi, should i get one a them interfaces or just a regular card with just a pair of midi i/o? i wanna control a few rack synth units but i just need one out and just go from out to in, thru to in, thru to in, etc. right?

http://www.midiman.net/products/m-audio/audiophile.php

[atma]

ya, it really depends on exactly what you want to be doing. one way or another you're going to need good quality audio i/o as well as midi i/o, so if the audio card you end up choosing doesn't have midi, then you'll obviously need to get a seperate midi interface, like the little m-audio 1x1 usb interfaces.

the audiophile is a decent card, especially for the money. but the lowest latency you're going to get with it is something like 7 ms. so there's a tiny amount of 'lag' happening from the time your sequencer sends out midi data, until the time your instrument is going to recieve and play it. then if you plan on running the audio output of your instruments back into your PC to record in your sequencer, there's going to be even more lag.

so that's something to keep in mind when you're looking for a card, is latency. another issue is, how many audio i/o do you need? do you need digital i/o (the audiophile has digital) ? you'd only be using digital i/o if you had something that accepted SPDIF, like a dat, or a minidisc.

so anyway, the audiophile would probably suit your needs at a basic level--
you could daisy chain your synths like you said, using midi thru, though you may have to compensate a bit for the latency if you're recording audio from your synths back into your sequencer. and if you have several synths and things set up, you might want to get a mixer, as the audiophile only has one audio input.

also keep in mind, programs like cubase take up a lot of system resources, you need to have a fast processor and a lot of ram to run an audio setup without problems.

hit me up if you need help--and let me know when you get your system up and running, there's some sick VST instruments (software synths, etc.) that you can run inside cubase and can control via midi from your hardware synths.

[Cozmo D]

Yo Atma, good lookin' on the Cubase SX yo.

I've been trying to grab that and Sonar for a minnit, Thanx heapz!

I picked up that house card myself today FrEk, funny as shit to come on here and see you copped it too...paid the same price $100. I aint check it yet neither.

Yo, I got that Reason shit for ya too when you want it, forgot all about it that night. It's 3 discs, but if you want I'll mail it to ya.

[frEk]

wow, frEk's brain hurts....so does latency build up from unit to unit in a chain? i don't understand why you would need one a those interfaces with like mad midi outs if not, the only thing with spdif i have is an i/o on my sampler....and a behringer condensor mic is only like $100 (i'll use it mostly for vocoding anyway so top notch quality aint the most important, considering my fundz that is) and i was just gonna get a little behringer mixer for now (mostly for phantom power) there like $80 only and then get a real one as my equipment builds. maybe one a those with hard disk recording so i'm not taxing my computer playing midi and recording the audio at the same time......i want to be ably to control alot of rack synth units from one sequencer, but can them units recieve multiple midi tracks and access multiple waveforms doing different things at once? (is this what multi-timbrell means?)......oh my pc has a pentium 4 1.60 Ghz and 128 MB of RAM.........and coz i checked the house unit, the beats (or should i say the variations of the same 2 or 3 beats) suck in my opinion and it seems you can't manipulate the tempo on most of them........a few of the waveforms are pretty cool though there's a 303 with a sick low end so i guess it stays...........don't you got that big roland rack unit that excepts the new generation of cards though? they got alot more memory in them so they've been making newer cards with full collections of the waveforms from the old cards and there's one with i think the whole hip-hop, house, techno, and some of the fx stuff on it........plus there's a new dance card with something like 1,000 patches in it check em out, it seems there making the old cards obsolete..........i'm almost ready to grab this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...&item=899574595
that's the unit i'm talkin about i think you got it right? that price right there is great but i really can't afford to spend that much still, oh well.....and my keyboard is dying for a trip to the shop i can't even hardly scroll down the buttons are so fucked i gotta go to the end of something and scroll up....maybe i'll fix it and sell it once i get sequencing software figured out, i guess i won't need a workstation after that anyway

[Cozmo D]

Nah, I've got a 2080...it holds 8 of the old cards. I have 5 now with the house 1.

Atma blows me away on the technical shit so I'll leave those answers to him. It is of MY opinion though that if you can you should get a large midi interface with multiple ins and outs instead of going the daisy chain route.

Multi-Timbral means it can play different patches on different midi channels.

Hey, which cards are you looking to get rid of (besides that voice shit of course)?

[atma]

ya, if you can afford it, it'd be a lot nicer to have a midi interface with multiple i/o. if you chain together a bunch of instruments, the midi delay is going to be cumulative, so with a lot of synths connected together you're likely to get some noticable delay. with a couple synths, it probably isn't going to be much of a problem. what i was originally referring to as 'latency' had more to do with the soundcard itself, which takes a certain amount of time to process and 'buffer' incoming and outgoing audio and midi. so with the audiophile card, there's going to be something like 7 ms (mili-seconds) of latency going out, and another 7 ms for anything coming back in (audio or midi signals). so then if you had a bunch of synths chained together, you'd likely be getting even more midi delay on top of that, as each instrument processed the midi and passed it on to the next. Usually the nicer (more expensive) the card, the less latency you're going to get.

but yes, if your synths are multitimbral, they'll be able to play several different patches or midi parts simultaneously. like, you should be able to set your synths to play certain parts on particular channels, etc., all controlled from your sequencer.

if your synths aren't multitimbral, then you'll just have to record things in layers, one part at a time, or whatever. it's just gonna be one of those things where you'll have to set all your shit up and mess with it and see what you can do. the manuals for your keyboards should have (badly translated) instructions about how to fuck with the internal midi settings if need be.

but i mean, if you don't want to spend a lot on a card, the audiophile or something similar to that should suit you well enough for a while. it has some good convertors on it, so the audio quality is clean, and if your sampler has spdif, that'd be sick cuz you'd be able to digitally transfer samples between your PC and sampler perfectly. in this way, you could for instance send a sample from the sampler into your PC's audio editor (something like SoundForge or Wavelab), edit the sample however you want (like, if it was a breakbeat, you could chop it up or whatever you wanted) then send it back into the sampler.

you might think about getting some more ram-128mb probably isn't going to cut it, though your processor is pretty fast, so i dunno. but the more ram, the better. if you get everything set up and cubase is getting glitches like popping or clicks when you try to record, then you likely need more ram.

[frEk]

cool, i'm working on a full album and i still got alot of stuff to do with the keyboard so i don't have to worry about the recording part all that much yet, so i'll keep checkin stuff out, now i understand why you would need multiple midi outs but then why do these 8 X 8 units have 8 ins? why would you need to feed that much shit into the computer?.......and coz, i got:

jv80-01 pop (the stuff is similiar to roland preset patches)
jv80-08 keyboards of the 60's and 70's (i found all the patches pretty much unsuitable for my stuff, you might find it ok for your jazz stuff maybe)
jv80-12 hip-hop (yeah i think i'm gonna pick up the fx card and ditch this one, even though there's some good stuff in it, i bet i could fill a whole zip disk when i sample the stuff i want before it goes)
jv80-13 vocal (there actually is some stuff i've used in here, i even made sure to sample some melodies and stuff before i removed it, but over all i didn't get much use out of it.....there is some scatt stuff, i don't know if you'd need that at all)

lemme know if your interested, maybe you got a piece of equipment you don't use that i could?

[atma]

i dunno, i mean it's mainly just a matter of convenience. if someone has 8 synths, it's nice to just have clean, efficient midi connections both ways. when you're running a sequencer from a computer, it's not always midi data being sent out to the synths. unless you want to program notes into the sequencer by hand, the way you record midi tracks is by playing your synth while the sequencer is recording that incoming data. you might also be able to record program changes and other things from your synth, such as pitch bends or modulation, or whatever. if it's an analog style synth, there's gonna be tons of different knobs and sliders and parameters you'd likely want to be tweaking in real time, while you were recording midi tracks. some people have a dedicated midi controller unit (like a phatman) with a bunch of knobs on it, so they can record themselves tweaking different parameters in real time, which affect whatever they set the different knobs to effect--for example, if i'm running a softsynth in my sequencer, i can set the sliders on my hardware synth so they effect a parameter on that softsynth. so if i set one of my sliders to modulate the "cutoff" of the soft-synth's filter, then when my sequencer is recording, i can tweak the slider on my hardware synth, and in real time the sequencer records that incoming data and it effects the sofware synth's filter cutoff (causing that kind of wah-wah effect). then obviously once that's all been recorded, if i play back that midi track, in this case, the software synth will simply play back whatever i recorded, along with the filter-tweaking i just did.

so that's just a basic example of why you want to have your synths connected to the input of your sequencer, it'd just make things a lot easier if you have a bunch of keyboards that you're going to be working with and recording midi data into the sequencer.

[Cozmo D]

i dunno, i mean it's mainly just a matter of convenience. if someone has 8 synths, it's nice to just have clean, efficient midi connections both ways. when you're running a sequencer from a computer, it's not always midi data being sent out to the synths. unless you want to program notes into the sequencer by hand, the way you record midi tracks is by playing your synth while the sequencer is recording that incoming data. you might also be able to record program changes and other things from your synth, such as pitch bends or modulation, or whatever. if it's an analog style synth, there's gonna be tons of different knobs and sliders and parameters you'd likely want to be tweaking in real time, while you were recording midi tracks. some people have a dedicated midi controller unit (like a phatman) with a bunch of knobs on it, so they can record themselves tweaking different parameters in real time, which affect whatever they set the different knobs to effect--for example, if i'm running a softsynth in my sequencer, i can set the sliders on my hardware synth so they effect a parameter on that softsynth. so if i set one of my sliders to modulate the "cutoff" of the soft-synth's filter, then when my sequencer is recording, i can tweak the slider on my hardware synth, and in real time the sequencer records that incoming data and it effects the sofware synth's filter cutoff (causing that kind of wah-wah effect). then obviously once that's all been recorded, if i play back that midi track, in this case, the software synth will simply play back whatever i recorded, along with the filter-tweaking i just did.

so that's just a basic example of why you want to have your synths connected to the input of your sequencer, it'd just make things a lot easier if you have a bunch of keyboards that you're going to be working with and recording midi data into the sequencer.

Ditto! :rofl:

I also make alot of my own patches for different songs, and therefore I do alot of editing and archiving on the computer (I use Galaxy + Editors...on a Mac of course), so therefore I need both the ins and the outs connected.

I just copped the 60s 70s card a few weeks ago, don't want the pop card. I don't think I want the vocal card either, but I'll look around and see if I got anything you might need. I had a sound card but Matt took it apart. I think i might have a soundblaster awe 32 somewhere tho (if I didn't give it away), if I find it you can have it.

[frEk]

ok, i'm gettin it so how many tracks can be sent through a standard midi connection? i'm gettin the impression only 16, like i see units with 32 part multitimbre and they got two sets a i/o.......and all this tweek stuff, is that why there's like 128 control changes that don't seem to do nuthin in my workstation's sequencer? and if ya got synths with like only 4 part multitimbre would it make more sense to daisy chain them so you can get more use outta one midi connection, if there is only 16 tracks goin out one connection?

[atma]

Right, 16 midi channels can be transmitted per midi cable, which is why a 32-part multitimbral device would have 2 sets of i/o.

However, in the actual sequencer, you could set up as many midi tracks as you liked, so you could configure things however you wanted. you might have 3 seperate midi tracks set up in the sequencer, all sending on the same channel, playing different drum sounds on the same synth. perhaps the first midi part in the sequencer would be playing the bass drum(s), the second assigned to the snares, and the third to the high hat/cymbals/whatever, but all those seperate midi tracks in the sequencer could be sending on channel 1. so you'd still have 15 more channels you could send on, if you wanted. the practical application for something like that would be maybe wanting to record each of those drum parts seperately as audio, which you could then run different compressors and reverbs on each.

The 128 is your "Program" changes, these will select different sounds or patches. if your synth has more than 128 sounds/patches (most likely) then you have to switch "Banks" to access the next set of 128 sounds, and so on. i dont know how your keyboard is set up to work, but these things can be controlled from the software sequencer.

There's also midi cc's or "continuous controllers", which is what i was talking about before--these send other midi messages like velocity changes, modulation amount, panning, or other things that can be tweaked in real time while you're recording into the sequencer.

As far as your last question, i guess so, if both your synths are 4 part multitimbral, then you might as well link them with one cable. i can't really think of any potential drawbacks, so i'm not sure. but with only one midi input into your computer, you're gonna have to unplug the midi out of the synth you're not recording with, and plug the other into your sequencer's midi in, intermittantly whenever you're using one or the other, so that's sort of annoying.

[fd]

:umm:

[syxxpm]

i concur

[frEk]

yo i picked up that roland special FX board, it's got some wicked ass shit in it, lotsa really cool percussive shit too i'm gonna get ALOT of use outta this one..........i've been checkin out synth units, why do they have inputs? can you process audio coming in the unit? i don't get it

[Cozmo D]

Yeah, some can process audio...pretty fukkin hip actually.

How much was the card?

Oh...I finally finished redoing the studio yesterday...increased the room by like double...WWWOOOOOHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

I even fixed the fukkin doorbell...heheheheh :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[frEk]

set me back like $200, musicians friend/guitar center seems to be the cheapest for it, it's like perfect for me......it's like it was meant for the industrial/ambient blend i'm doin, i'm actually diggin the waveforms at my disposal now with the techno, vintage synths, house, and special fx.......maybe roland aint so bad after all (but don't hold me to that statement) i'm redoin my set up too, it's a fukkin mess in here, but i ordered lotsa stuff to get more organized in here i should have the place cleaned up by the end of the week.......put a pic up, i can't imagine your studio neat :flipoff: hahaha