Soundcards & Hello!

Greetings!

I am excited to be back on this new list for making microtonal music.

I saw that recent discussions revolved around sound cards. I really recommend
the MAudio OmniStudio (http://www.midiman.net/) for approximately $390 in the
spring. This will give your 4 1/4 inputs 2 S/PDIF on a break out box and
another breakout box with 2 mic pres, inserts, and headphone control. All of
this running via ASIO with minimal latency (~10ms).

The Delta 44 (4 in 4 out 1/4) can be had for $220 to $260. I had one for a
month before travelling and it was wonderful.

Stay away from SBLives. There are issues with sound quality and latency (1
second!!! This means absolutely no software synths!)) though I understand you
can hack the drivers for low latency, but the sound quality issues are still
present. I know... I have one and was stuck using it for almost two years. The
frequency response that is goes to your monitors is weak compared to any 24/96
card. I noticed a major improvement with the Delta 44.

I am getting in the Aardvark Q10 today ($689; 8 universal in; 1/4 or XLR; 2
preamps for connecting high impedance instruments, guitars; 10 outputs; S/PDIF
and midi; word clock)... Every time I hear a set of brakes from a big truck
squeal outside my heart thumps.... ;)

I am selling my half of a sound system, so I will be getting the Presonus
ACP-88 8 channel compressor and some good mic pres (Sytek or ATI used), and if
I am lucky Tannoy System 800a monitors. Once you get a decent pro card it is
time to think about what you can do before you get that signal into the
computer (mic pres make a big difference along with compression)! I also have
the FMR Audio RNC 1773 compressor and it works well and is the cheapest/good
quality stereo compressor $175 from Mercenary Audio
(http://www.mercenary.com/fmraudio.html)

For the latest in low cost/ but high performance check out the Metric Halo I/O
(to be released soon at around $1200 I think);
http://www.mhlabs.com/index2.html

Mytek (http://www.mytekdigital.com/), is also coming out with a 2 channel
stereo A/D (might need a digital card into the computer with S/PDIF or ADAT
though) for $995 just before AES. This would be a choice for a high quality
stereo interface.

I personally am still dreaming of the Cranesong Hedd-192. Um, yeah... Whoever
buys me that one can also throw in their STC-8 compressor as well.... ;)

The lower cost 24/96 cards of course wont really get you 24 bits, but they are
a world above consumer sound cards and the starting price is not much higher.

To go with your new pro card I really recommend Steinberg's Nuendo and Waves
Native Gold plugin pack. The latest Waves update (3.21) allows me to run 6
Renaissance reverbs (nice sounding!) on my 950 Athlon.

I have a spare 650 Athlon Slot A CPU sitting here. If anyone can use it it is
available for mailing cost..

I might mention that I am more than willing to help master anyones projects on
this list. I am willing to take on a couple for free too, so just get in
contact!

Let the music roll out...

Oh, yeah... Here is the last track I created. I used Curtis Road's Pulsar
Synthesis (Generator) and Audio Mulch and a couple of the Waves plugins in
Nuendo to spatialize the samples.
http://catharsis.egregious.net/tracks/cafe_orbital.mp3

Cheers,
--Mike

Egregious
"Spiritual renewal through music for those outside the heard."
http://www.egregious.net/

the Delta 44.
>
> I am getting in the Aardvark Q10 today ($689; 8 universal in; 1/4
or XLR; 2
> preamps for connecting high impedance instruments, guitars; 10
outputs; S/PDIF
> and midi; word clock)... Every time I hear a set of brakes from a
big truck
> squeal outside my heart thumps.... ;)

I have the DirectPro 24/96 and am outgrowing it quickly since I can
barely get two audio programs to share the audio outs, let alone
three or more. Please let me know how many audio programs you can
run simultaneously. I'd like to be able to run Acid, Reaktor,
SoundForge and GigaSampler at the same time
.

/www.mercenary.com/fmraudio.html)

Great company - I got my Neumann mike and great River amp from him
and found him very fair to deal with. I especially liked the fact he
made it very easy to try things in your own studio and send them
back if they weren't the sound you were looking for.
>
> For the latest in low cost/ but high performance check out the
Metric Halo I/O
> (to be released soon at around $1200 I think);
> http://www.mhlabs.com/index2.html

I have my eye on it. Hardware is here but software (mac) is delayed.
I prefer to wait these days and let others find out the problems
withg new hardware (this is great wisdom gained slowly and
painfully :-))
>
I look forward to hearing about your Kyma project, and I'm glad there
is another fanatic type gearhead back on the list :-)

Peace,
Mary

Hi everyone

Man, I've got allot to do to get caught up to your level of
expertise! I've been a guitarist since 1973 and very

much enjoy studying music theory. I'm about 1 1 /2 years into
studying Tuning theory and among the many books I

have, I'm currently using David Doty's book called, "The JI Primer"
as my primary study guide.

Getting the JI stuff into my head using the computer has been a real
uphill climb. I believe I've finally found

two software products to get me started. They are Fractal Tune Smithy
(FTS) and Scala.

Learning to write and compose music in various tunings are my current
interests at this point in time. I need to

get started. After I master or at least get this medium of writing
music on the computer to a successful stage, I plan on building a
computer system that will be dedicated to music software. At that
point I will definitely consider a high end sound card such as the
Aardvark and Delta 44 as well a sequencer and ALLLLLLLLLL the other
stuff that eventually falls in-line with this art.

But, and I pleeeeease stress BUT, I'm starting from the ground floor
and simply, simply want to hear ACCURATELY various
tunings,frequencies and various chords so I can begin my journey.

I just finished building a computer for another purpose that is used
for business. I'm running win 2000 and it utilizes two P3 cpu's, two
40 gig maxtor hard drives running raid mirror and a capability of up
to 4 gigs of DDR S-DRAM memory. The downside (for music) is that the
mother board has on-board sound (I know on-board is not good) but I
knew this as the computer was built for another purpose. This
motherboard also has the VIA chipset which I understand is not too
music friendly but very user friendly for the business software I'm
currently running. The I understand the Intel 815EP chipset is the
best for music. I have scala and FTS installed on this system and
would appreciate if anyone can give me advice on a good entry level
sound card to install on this sytem so it can accurately produce
frequencies. Is a software syth such as Yamaha a good choice over say
a PCI based sound card?

Anyway, I have my old Win95 machine that currently has the Sound
Blaster AWE64 Gold sound card installed. Im going to install FTS and
Scala on this machine as I was told that this sound card should
perform ok to "at least" get me started.

Mike, I listened to your cafe orbital mp3 and found it really
coooooooool. One of the best sounding mp3's I've heard. I have (what
I thought) was a good speaker set up including a sub woofer yet my
tweeters were barely able to reproduce the demanding sounds of your
mp3. Good job!

Regards
Wally

Wally,

{you wrote...}
>Anyway, I have my old Win95 machine that currently has the Sound Blaster >AWE64 Gold sound card installed. Im going to install FTS and Scala on this >machine as I was told that this sound card should perform ok to "at least" >get me started.

That should be just *fine* for getting your feet (ears?) wet. Even if you need to go to another SB card, you still shouldn't have to spend more than $50. As I keep yammering at some of the other correspondents, to start, to just hear how these tunings work, should not be a big hardware/software barrier to entry. And it isn't. You can just upgrade later on when it all make sense to you.

If ever.

>Mike, I listened to your cafe orbital mp3 and found it really coooooooool.

Agreed. A fun place we're having around here...

Cheers,
Jon

Jon wrote:

>...to start, to just hear how these tunings work, should not be a
> big hardware/software barrier to entry. And it isn't. You can just
> upgrade later on when it all make sense to you.
>
> If ever.

Hi Jon

I got a kick out of the last line -IF EVER-. I like your humor. One
needs to laugh sometimes as he/she plows their way through the math
and mazes while studying JI.

I also agree that to get my "ears" wet in tuning theory,it shouldn't
cost a truck load of money. At least not yet.

If you/we want to attract more members who want to learn tuning but
have no clue where to start, maybe a recommended "game" plan should
be recommended by someone in the group. Such as:

Basic minimum requirements to get started are:

Software: Scala and Fractal Tune Smithy
Soundcard: Soundblaster Live or whatever........
Hardware: Pentium system running win95/98
Other: Determination

Later...
Wally

Wally,

{you wrote...}
>If you/we want to attract more members who want to learn tuning but have >no clue where to start, maybe a recommended "game" plan should be >recommended by someone in the group. Such as:
>
>Basic minimum requirements to get started are:
>
>Software: Scala and Fractal Tune Smithy
>Soundcard: Soundblaster Live or whatever........
>Hardware: Pentium system running win95/98
>Other: Determination

Absolutely mondo bonus idea! Now keep in mind: I'm a guy who doesn't have a system up and running yet! (much delayed plans to make a music workstation with the spare computer, but I *swear* it will all be in place before the end of the year...)

But if we all have some basic ideas, over the next couple of months we can distill it all down to one simple web page, which I will keep in the files area of MMM.

Forward,
Jon

Wally wrote:

> Basic minimum requirements to get started are:
>
> Software: Scala and Fractal Tune Smithy
> Soundcard: Soundblaster Live or whatever........
> Hardware: Pentium system running win95/98
> Other: Determination

MidiRelay was originally developed on a 486 running Windows 3.1. You can
still download a 16-bit version from my website. And it worked fine with
a Sound Blaster 16 plus Wave Blaster daughterboard.

Graham

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., earth7@o... wrote:
>
> Jon wrote:
>
> >...to start, to just hear how these tunings work, should not be a
> > big hardware/software barrier to entry. And it isn't. You can
just
> > upgrade later on when it all make sense to you.
> >
> > If ever.
>
> Hi Jon
>
> I got a kick out of the last line -IF EVER-. I like your humor. One
> needs to laugh sometimes as he/she plows their way through the math
> and mazes while studying JI.
>
> I also agree that to get my "ears" wet in tuning theory,it
shouldn't
> cost a truck load of money. At least not yet.
>
> If you/we want to attract more members who want to learn tuning but
> have no clue where to start, maybe a recommended "game" plan should
> be recommended by someone in the group. Such as:
>
> Basic minimum requirements to get started are:
>
> Software: Scala and Fractal Tune Smithy
> Soundcard: Soundblaster Live or whatever........
> Hardware: Pentium system running win95/98
> Other: Determination
>
> Later...
> Wally

I think a single, highly retunable keyboard, such as an Ensoniq, and
nothing in addition, may be the best bet for some people.

Paul wrote:

>I think a single, highly retunable keyboard, such as an Ensoniq, and >nothing in addition, may be the best bet for some people.

No sequencer or tuning software? Wouldn't manually imputing the values be time consuming and a bother? Other than that, I agree completely, but even the most minimal of computer setups would allow one to use Scala to quickly change tunings, not to mention pick from many, many tunings.

But the basic premise is true: a tuneable keyboard would be one-stop shopping for making microtonal music.

(...and Paul, try trimming the replies like a good correspondent...) :)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "Jonathan M. Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>
> >I think a single, highly retunable keyboard, such as an Ensoniq,
and
> >nothing in addition, may be the best bet for some people.
>
> No sequencer or tuning software? Wouldn't manually imputing the
values be
> time consuming and a bother?

I reckon that the amount of time that one should spend playing with
and acclimating oneself to any given tuning system dwarfs the amount
of time it takes to manually input the values.
>
> (...and Paul, try trimming the replies like a good
correspondent...) :)

Sorry . . . I'll try to be more careful in the future.

Paul,

{you wrote...}
>I reckon that the amount of time that one should spend playing with and >acclimating oneself to any given tuning system dwarfs the amount of time >it takes to manually input the values.

Very true. On the other hand, taking all that time and not liking a tuning (which I have to think at least *some* of the time must be apparent early on) means that quickly switching to a new one might be nice. But your point is certainly well taken, and

<opinion mode ON>
many people dabble in too many tunings rather than plumbing the depths of a few (or one!)
<opinion mode OFF>.

>Sorry . . . I'll try to be more careful in the future.

And I'll be less Mom-ish as a result! :)

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., graham@m... wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_984.html#1009

> Wally wrote:
>
> > Basic minimum requirements to get started are:
> >
> > Software: Scala and Fractal Tune Smithy
> > Soundcard: Soundblaster Live or whatever........
> > Hardware: Pentium system running win95/98
> > Other: Determination
>
> MidiRelay was originally developed on a 486 running Windows 3.1.
You can
> still download a 16-bit version from my website. And it worked
fine with
> a Sound Blaster 16 plus Wave Blaster daughterboard.
>
>
> Graham

Graham Breed's MIDI RELAY is really a fantastic tool for getting a
general idea about what tunings and scales are about. I use it all
the time with Scala for that.

I've never hooked it up to a sequencer... There is a utility
called "Midi Yoke" but it's pretty "low level" and I'm "spooked" that
I'm going to somehow mess up my system with it...

_______ ________ _____
Joseph Pehrson