Question Installing Ivory

[tmleith]

Hi Everybody-

I'm doing my first installation on Receptor (Ivory), and I have a question. I've upgraded Receptor to 1.6, installed the free plug-ins to "receptorize" Ivory, and now I want to take everything from the Ivory disks and put it onto Receptor. Plugorama tells me:

"On your computer, insert the Ivory DVD. Copy the following files from the DVD to the Receptor hard drive at:

\Samples\Synthogy\Ivory\Ivory Items\

Copy:

* All Bösendorfer files
* All German_D files
* All Studio_7FT files
* Synth 1
* Synth 2..."

Does this mean I DON'T install any of the VST and RTAS files that Ivory prompts me for? I notice it takes forever to load all this stuff, and I don't want to make a mistake.

Thanks in advance!
Tom

[looneytunes]

Hi Tom,

Yes, that is correct. The 'Receptorized installer' has already installed the Ivory dll for you. At this point, you should *only* install the sample data files as the instructions tell you.

Pay close attention to the next few steps after this. For those steps you need to verify the libraries (and possibly convert the format). Once this is done and installed, you will be amazed at how well Ivory performs on Receptor.

Feel free to ask more questions as they come up.

Regards,
Kevin L

[tmleith]

Thanks, Kevin. When I get home from work I'll try to complete the install. And yes, I've heard Ivory sounds and works great on Receptor ("heard," as in, "heard people say." I haven't actually heard.)

I'm a drummer who got a Receptor AM w/ DFH and some other things pre-installed, so I haven't had to deal with any of this yet. Now I'm rediscovering my piano-roots, and--speaking as a drummer with over 20 years experience--it's very exciting to fulfill my life-long dream of becoming a musician.

Tom

[looneytunes]

Tom,

Being a drummer doesn't make you any less of a musician!

Receptor is one of the coolest things that has happened to musical instruments in quite a while.

There is a link somewhere (can't remember, maybe the FXPansion web site) of a percussionist playing a weird-looking (about football sized) MIDI controller, connected to Receptor, playing some assortment of percussion samples - Very impressive.

Anyway, I've been playing Piano well over 30 years, and always looking to '1-up' the piano experience I've had on any electronic keyboard instrument I've played for nearly 20 years. The Ivory/Receptor combo has been a milestone leap in sound and response (when coupled with a nice Keyboard manual - my choice has been a Yamaha s90 as a controller).

Keep us posted if you have any troubles,
Regards,
Kevin L

[tmleith]

Aw, I was just kidding about the drummer-as-musician thing. I've heard so many drummer jokes over the years that I've internalized them. My personal fave:

Q: How do you know when a drummer's at your door?
A: The knocking speeds up!

An oldie but a goodie.

I'm curious about the site you reference. I'll poke around. I personally have a TrapKat, which I'm quite happy with. It would be even cooler if it had dual or multiple zones on some of the pads, though the rim pads sort of serve this purpose. There's something called a Mandala out there that has 6 or 7 cocentric zones on it that seems great, though I don't know anyone who has one. Here's a Youtube video of it if you're curious:

I wonder if that's what you saw?

Still at work, but hopefully the install goes smooth.

Thanks again,
Tom

[tmleith]

Oops! I just realized that the video link I sent couldn't have been what you saw. The Mandala doesn't hook up to anything but it's own sound system, I don't think. A definite limitation.

[looneytunes]

Check out the vide featured on this page (Top right corner, titled - 'BFD Percussion at AES2006':

BFD Percussion

[oGG]

There is a link somewhere (can't remember, maybe the FXPansion web site) of a percussionist playing a weird-looking (about football sized) MIDI controller, connected to Receptor, playing some assortment of percussion samples - Very impressive.

This could be the Zendrum you saw...


--
Olle Gustafsson

[looneytunes]

Thanks for the link Olle, I hadn't seen that one.

Actually, the one I originally saw was here.

Kevin L

[buddydon]

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

Oops! I just realized that the video link I sent couldn't have been what you saw. The Mandala doesn't hook up to anything but it's own sound system, I don't think. A definite limitation.

The Mandala Drum does control external gear, by way of MIDI. It's train of MIDI note and controller data(0-127 position, 0-127 velocity) exits the Mandala Brain and arrives at your MIDI interface 1.5 milliseconds after a drum stick impacts its pad surface. It was actually invented for Danny Carey and built to surpass his spec for latency, position resolution & velocity resolution, in order to take the place of his Simmons SDX system. With the right audio interface on your computer you could have sound out at an undetectable 3.5ms following stick impact on the Mandala. Directly connecting to A MIDI synth/tone module/sampler can produce sound even faster. Everything from buzz rolls to extremely hard hits are detected flawlessly. All this info and more is available at http://mandaladrum.com (http://mandaladrum.com).

[tmleith]

Okay, so my install of Ivory has not gone without complications. Basically, I have two things I'm not sure of:

(1) Since I had to interrupt the install a couple times due to confusion and needing to go to bed before 2am, I have some duplicate files and a messy setup. For example, though I cleaned some of it up, I still have 2 duplicate preset files and I have about 3 different "Ivory Items" folders. I only have one set of all the big sample files. Does this matter? Will Ivory get confused when it tries to run? I'm not sure if the presets folder needs to be anywhere special, or if Ivory Items needs to only have samples, or whatever. It's a bit of a mess.

(2) I tried to use the Run Utility to "check, verify, and convert" the libraries, but so far it seems to be sitting there doing nothing. How long should it take? How do I know if it's working? I've been here about a half and hour and need to go to work. I got impatient and tried to tab down from check libraries to verify libraries, but upon clicking "OK" the tab went back up to check libraries. Same deal when I tried to convert. The Remote Control function on Receptor is on a gray screen and says "Running Utility: Ivory Library Tools" on the top. It doesn't let me do anything else. I'm about to cancel and hit the road.

Somebody want to fill in a perplexed amateur?

Thanks,
Tom

[TheBoringOne]

Tom,

I'm a n00b here as well, but I had a similar experience installing Ivory. The verify, convert, and check processes will take a while for sure, and while they're running, nothing will appear to be happening. The only way I knew that any of these processes completed was to wait for the small window with the convert/check/verify/delete options to re-appear. Apparently, Receptor doesn't display the progress window that the Ivory Library utility will display when you run the plugin on Windows, which is a shame, because it's pretty helpful...

I don't remember exactly how long the library conversion process took, since I clicked the button and walked away from it for a few hours, knowing that it took a while from having used it on Windows in the past. So my advice would be click the OK button to start the conversion, listen to the Receptor for noise from the hard disk just to make sure it's actually doing something, then just leave it. If, when you come back a few hours later, the Ivory Library tools window is back, then it worked...

Hope this helps!
JB

[tmleith]

JB,

Thanks, that does help. I wonder, though, if my Receptor got as far as actually doing anything. You said:

"The only way I knew that any of these processes completed was to wait for the small window with the convert/check/verify/delete options to re-appear."

For me, the small window never even DIS-appears. It just sits there, and when I click OK: no hourglass, no anything.

Stuck at work (as usual), but I'll mess around some more when I get a chance and see what happens. If I get the window to disappear, I'll be patient and wait it out. That's what weekends are for, right?

Tom

[looneytunes]

Hi again, Tom,

I just wanted to confirm what JB said (I'm mostly working from Memory, having done this over a year ago). The verification does take a long time, and there was very little feedback happening in the UI. I'd be prepared to let this go a few hours before giving up on it.

BTW, what were the file duplicates that you saw (Ivory Data files? Receptor XML files? the dll?)? As long as the .dll is not duplicated, I wouldn't expect this to make any diference.

Also, don't feel shy about calling the friendly people at MUSE tech support with any problems. They are usually very good at helping with install issues.

Regards,
Kevin L

[tmleith]

Hey Kevin-
The file duplicates weren't .dll files, I know that much. They were Ivory Data files, I believe (by which I mean, files of velocity mappings and different reverb effects, etc.)

Tomorrow I'll crank it up again and let it sit for a long while. If it's still a problem, I'll give the guys at Muse a holler.

Thanks again,
Tom