SFz Player vs Soundblaster Live! Card

[DominicWatson]

I am using a Presonus Firebox as my audio interface but I have a spare SB Live! card lying around.

Is it worth using the Live! card as a hardware SoundFont player or should I just use SFz player?

Also, I can't seem to set up to record my MIDI to audio using Music Creator 3 with my firebox - there doesn't seem to be a 'What you hear' or 'MIDI' input that I can record from. Might using the Live! card help with that also?

Thanks in advance,

Dominic

[DominicWatson]

[bump]

[geoslake]

if youre not afraid of compatibility problems (eg, what will you do with old projects if you sb is not suported by next os version, etc), using the SB is a great option, as it will use zero cpu (sfz will use a lot, samplelord would be a better option)

[timobrien]

Sub- 1Ghz computers used to need help from hardward for things like soundfonts and MIDI. No longer.

Just use SFZ and enjoy not having to deal with Creative's drivers or the Im-locked-to-48K-and-incompatible-with-everything-else Blasters...

[laserbeak]

Soundblaster has a great soundfont editor(vienna). if you already have one, i'd use it with the kxAsio drivers http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/intro.php

if not, i'm sure there are soundfont editors out there.

[bduffy]

Yeah, I don't think there's too much point in keeping running sf2s off the other card; you'll be lucky to get them to live together in peace, and like timobrien said: you don't really need the extra computing power like you used to. And I think you'll find modern software samplers, like sfz, HighLife and Shortcircuit, integrated directly into your host, more flexible and fun than bitching around with another card.

[laserbeak]

i miss my soundblaster. it really did help for a cheap native ASIO solution with the kx hack. but this is about soundfonts....

[james0tucson]

I am using a Presonus Firebox as my audio interface but I have a spare SB Live! card lying around.

Is it worth using the Live! card as a hardware SoundFont player or should I just use SFz player?

The SBLive (EMU 10k1) is a pretty good card, especially if you use the kX ASIO drivers.
There are situations where it will outperform some expensive cards. As for it's onboard synth, there's something to be said for simplicity, but software soundfont players far surpassed the SB's internal capabilities a long time ago. Strip your system of any Creative drivers and install aftermarket drivers, and marvel at just how good this card, that can be bought for $1 or $2, really is. Not so great on the analog input, of course, but really handy for low-latency tracking.

Also, I can't seem to set up to record my MIDI to audio using Music Creator 3 with my firebox - there doesn't seem to be a 'What you hear'

There's not a mixer device that you can use as an input source to an audio track or whatever? "What you hear" was the sb's mixer device.

[DominicWatson]

Thank you everyone . Will look at those other SF players pointed at and leave the SBLive in my spare computer (for when things go really tits up).

Dominic