Yesterday’s mention of obsolete storage media stirred-up memories of my first gig making radio ads in L.A. starting in early ’86. The studio had a then state-of-the-art Emu Emulator II sampler, which I was expected to become expert with. (That was fine with me; I was thrilled to have access to a very well-equipped recording studio for the first time in my life. Kinda wish I had some pics of that place.)
Since that studio was a brand new facility added on to the owner’s home, my first assignment from the engineer was being handed a stack of about 30 manuals for all of the high-falutin’ outboard (signal processing) gear; my mandate was, “Learn enough about how all this stuff works that you can tell me what buttons I have to push”.
(That was part practical exercise and part “test” to assess my rookie ass. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all of my “book larnin'” about recording / gear bore me in good stead.)
Anyhoo, the specs on the E II were laughable by today’s standards:
It also never gets old that my very modest Mac-based recording rig has specs / gear which leave that studio in the dust for well-under 5% of the cost of gear there.
I’m currently working on live streaming piano. I finally moved my Roland A-88 controller into the office. I think I can have a reasonable setup wherein it doesn’t interfere with other work/recreation i.e. game streaming. Requiring only a slight reorientation of my webcam.
But I’m now discovering that Because I’m using “ASIO4ALL” as the sound driver, my streaming software (OBS) can’t capture the sound directly, so I’ll probably have to run a cable from a PC output to a mic input (I guess) or else I’ll have to get a more PRO sound card that has ASIO (or some other low latency driver)
I’m looking into using “JACK” to do this internally. This would be better than using a cable. (Cable method doesn’t work with ASIO4ALL anyway. Jack has a learning curve to set up. I have to study the command line interface to setup patches… I think….
I could just run ASIO/Pianoteq on my laptop and just plug it into my streaming PC. I guess. It looks like I can just use regular old windows audio.with a 4.0 ms latency. It’s detectable but it’s workable. and I can stream it.
It’s great. And vastly improved. ALSO: SOME Awesome News:
You may or may not remember that I wrote a piece of software to capture and archive midi performances. I contacted the head guy at Modart (the pianoteq guys) I simply described the function of my software to them and asked if there was a plugin interface.
But I told them how the way MIDI Archiver works would be a great improvement to the standard MIDI Buffer that most Pro software has. I told told them to fee free to implement it with my permission (if needed)
Anyway, THEY DID!!!! They even call it MIDI Archiver. I’m so flattered!!!
Lazy EDIT: Also this means I don’t have to update my programm for 64 bit and/or rewrite it in any way, because now the same functionality is available in PianoTeq. So….. Awesome!!!
I know Modart’s been constantly improving Pianoteq; glad it’s still useful to you. (And hope they throw some sort of upgrade freebies or other valuable consideration your way.)
Olive the way that some companies like Nord and Crumar (whose Mojo clonewheel I totally lust after but can’t justify purchasing) keep improving their gear and releasing the software/firmware updates at no charge.
I figured out a way to do it!! I didn’t even need to use any extra software such as “Jack”, or the like!!1 I remembered that often default audio hardware …
(which is usually pretty good these days, sometimes making it unnecessary to purchase pro hardware--at least for a while)
…that often the default audio hardware has an extra “device” on the list called “stereo mix” or “What u Hear” or some such thing--the idea being you could have a single device that mixes all the devices on the card and records them as you are hearing them. It is usually disabled by default on newer hardware. But if you turn it on, as I discovered, it’s fully accessible in other programs, including OBS Studio (used for live streaming).
I have several discrete devices on my machine including my wireless headphones and my ASUS monitor which has an HDMI audio stream as well--with tiny speakers in it. Anyway, Even though ASIO4ALL makes the regular windows sound unavailable on my main sound device, I can use, say, my headphones as the default device in OBS and still get regular windows audio. So We’ll see if there are any other glitches with this--like with Discord, for example--but it all seems to be working and without any extra software.
The last time I added a bunch of audio software and hardware (two Garritan libraries, ARIA Player, a new USB MIDI interface, a new Focusrite audio interface, an 88-key controller and an upgrade of Digital Performer), I was utterly stunned that everything immediately connected / communicated first try.
It was truly jaw-dropping.
All hail well-written Quick Start Guides and manufacturers who give a shit about compatibility and proper implementation of standards!!1!
(Yeah, I did my “due diligence” re downloading one driver and making sure I had updated everything after the installs, but still…)
Happy Caturday, Gerbil Nation!
Good morning, Fatwa, DV8, and Sven!
My dad was a computer engineer back in the days when the rooms were refrigerated (early 60’s). He had a tie clip made up of core storage. Growing up, we didn’t have note pads, we had stacks of IBM cards.
For the first several years after we moved to Cleveland, Dad worked in the corrugated container industry. His employer had a waste paper division, and every so often, he’d come home with a pile of cool hardback books with flaws like minor trimming errors, covers bound upside-down, etc.
I blame Mommy and Daddy for my love of dead-tree books…and reading 😉
Caturday salutations, GN!
Yesterday’s mention of obsolete storage media stirred-up memories of my first gig making radio ads in L.A. starting in early ’86. The studio had a then state-of-the-art Emu Emulator II sampler, which I was expected to become expert with. (That was fine with me; I was thrilled to have access to a very well-equipped recording studio for the first time in my life. Kinda wish I had some pics of that place.)
Since that studio was a brand new facility added on to the owner’s home, my first assignment from the engineer was being handed a stack of about 30 manuals for all of the high-falutin’ outboard (signal processing) gear; my mandate was, “Learn enough about how all this stuff works that you can tell me what buttons I have to push”.
(That was part practical exercise and part “test” to assess my rookie ass. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that all of my “book larnin'” about recording / gear bore me in good stead.)
Anyhoo, the specs on the E II were laughable by today’s standards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mu_Emulator#The_Emulator_II
Nonetheless, back then, it was the schizznit.
It also never gets old that my very modest Mac-based recording rig has specs / gear which leave that studio in the dust for well-under 5% of the cost of gear there.
I’m currently working on live streaming piano. I finally moved my Roland A-88 controller into the office. I think I can have a reasonable setup wherein it doesn’t interfere with other work/recreation i.e. game streaming. Requiring only a slight reorientation of my webcam.
But I’m now discovering that Because I’m using “ASIO4ALL” as the sound driver, my streaming software (OBS) can’t capture the sound directly, so I’ll probably have to run a cable from a PC output to a mic input (I guess) or else I’ll have to get a more PRO sound card that has ASIO (or some other low latency driver)
Anyway, that’s the hitch right now.
I’m looking into using “JACK” to do this internally. This would be better than using a cable. (Cable method doesn’t work with ASIO4ALL anyway. Jack has a learning curve to set up. I have to study the command line interface to setup patches… I think….
I could just run ASIO/Pianoteq on my laptop and just plug it into my streaming PC. I guess. It looks like I can just use regular old windows audio.with a 4.0 ms latency. It’s detectable but it’s workable. and I can stream it.
I’m pretty sure I could live with 4.0 ms, but YMMV. (Also pretty certain you’re a much better pianist than I…)
And simpler’s almost always better. 🙂
Tickled to know that you’re still using Pianoteq.
It’s great. And vastly improved. ALSO: SOME Awesome News:
You may or may not remember that I wrote a piece of software to capture and archive midi performances. I contacted the head guy at Modart (the pianoteq guys) I simply described the function of my software to them and asked if there was a plugin interface.
But I told them how the way MIDI Archiver works would be a great improvement to the standard MIDI Buffer that most Pro software has. I told told them to fee free to implement it with my permission (if needed)
Anyway, THEY DID!!!! They even call it MIDI Archiver. I’m so flattered!!!
Lazy EDIT: Also this means I don’t have to update my programm for 64 bit and/or rewrite it in any way, because now the same functionality is available in PianoTeq. So….. Awesome!!!
That’s awesome! Congratulations!
Dude! That’s seriously cool.
*Tips head to DV8, as I’m not a “hat person”*
I know Modart’s been constantly improving Pianoteq; glad it’s still useful to you. (And hope they throw some sort of upgrade freebies or other valuable consideration your way.)
Olive the way that some companies like Nord and Crumar (whose Mojo clonewheel I totally lust after but can’t justify purchasing) keep improving their gear and releasing the software/firmware updates at no charge.
Hey, DV8!
Having no experience whatsoever with audio on Windows machines, I am the proverbial teats on a bull re your dilemma.
Hope you can it sorted with an absolute minimum of teeth-gnashing and hair-tearing.
I figured out a way to do it!! I didn’t even need to use any extra software such as “Jack”, or the like!!1 I remembered that often default audio hardware …
(which is usually pretty good these days, sometimes making it unnecessary to purchase pro hardware--at least for a while)
…that often the default audio hardware has an extra “device” on the list called “stereo mix” or “What u Hear” or some such thing--the idea being you could have a single device that mixes all the devices on the card and records them as you are hearing them. It is usually disabled by default on newer hardware. But if you turn it on, as I discovered, it’s fully accessible in other programs, including OBS Studio (used for live streaming).
I have several discrete devices on my machine including my wireless headphones and my ASUS monitor which has an HDMI audio stream as well--with tiny speakers in it. Anyway, Even though ASIO4ALL makes the regular windows sound unavailable on my main sound device, I can use, say, my headphones as the default device in OBS and still get regular windows audio. So We’ll see if there are any other glitches with this--like with Discord, for example--but it all seems to be working and without any extra software.
Teh yayâ„¢!
The last time I added a bunch of audio software and hardware (two Garritan libraries, ARIA Player, a new USB MIDI interface, a new Focusrite audio interface, an 88-key controller and an upgrade of Digital Performer), I was utterly stunned that everything immediately connected / communicated first try.
It was truly jaw-dropping.
All hail well-written Quick Start Guides and manufacturers who give a shit about compatibility and proper implementation of standards!!1!
(Yeah, I did my “due diligence” re downloading one driver and making sure I had updated everything after the installs, but still…)
My current setup…
I know it’s messy : )
It’s all based around a big black bunk bed desk.
Happy Saturday, boys. Nothing much to say -- going to start cleaning up around here. Quite the mess. Later
Happy Caturday, Gerbil Nation!
Good morning, Fatwa, DV8, and Sven!
My dad was a computer engineer back in the days when the rooms were refrigerated (early 60’s). He had a tie clip made up of core storage. Growing up, we didn’t have note pads, we had stacks of IBM cards.
For the first several years after we moved to Cleveland, Dad worked in the corrugated container industry. His employer had a waste paper division, and every so often, he’d come home with a pile of cool hardback books with flaws like minor trimming errors, covers bound upside-down, etc.
I blame Mommy and Daddy for my love of dead-tree books…and reading 😉
Hiya, Sven and Paddy!
Sven --
Hope teh cleaning is less onerous than you anticipate.