Hi Brad!
My name is John Lytton, and I am trying to record what I'm playing on my keyboard using the "MIDI Recorder" function in your Cantabile software. I have not been able to accomplish this, though, and I thought you might be able to help me out if I give you the details of the hardware and software I'm using. I'm also planning on posting this message in the TopTen forum at the KVR Forum to see if anybody there can help me.
The keyboard I'm using is a Roland U-20 RS-PCM keyboard. To connect it to my computer, I'm using a MIDI cable that, on the keyboard end, has two plugs that plug into the "MIDI In" and "MIDI Out" ports of the keyboard, and, on the computer end, uses a 15-Pin plug to plug into the sound card's serial port. The sound card is a Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value WDM sound card, model CT 4830. The driver for the sound card is a Creative SoundBlaster Live! Value WDM driver. The driver date is 7/4/2002 and the driver version is 5.12.2.252. I am using a ASIO4ALL v2 Universal ASIO driver for WDM Audio driver that, I believe, interacts with Cantabile. The version of Cantabile I'm using is Cantabile Performer (Demo) Version 2.0.0.2012 (Beta). And finally, my operating system is Windows XP Home Edition. I'm hoping that's all the info you and the folks at the TopTen forum need to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong. However, if there is any other information that you need, please let me know and I will try to provide it. I appreciate any help you and the forum members can give me, and I will wait eagerly to hear from you and the forum members.
John Lytton
Having trouble recording my MIDI keyboard with Cantabile
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- KVRer
- 2 posts since 18 Feb, 2009 from Bryan, Texas
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- KVRian
- 791 posts since 8 Mar, 2006 from Australia
Hi John,
I've replied to your email on this same subject. Let me know if you'd like me to repost here.
Brad
I've replied to your email on this same subject. Let me know if you'd like me to repost here.
Brad
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 2 posts since 18 Feb, 2009 from Bryan, Texas
Hi Brad!
Thanks for replying to my email. I'm sure your comments will help me out! Please don't worry about reposting a reply in the TopTen forum - I got your message just fine in the email you sent me. And let me say thanks again for your help.
John Lytton
Thanks for replying to my email. I'm sure your comments will help me out! Please don't worry about reposting a reply in the TopTen forum - I got your message just fine in the email you sent me. And let me say thanks again for your help.
John Lytton
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- KVRian
- 791 posts since 8 Mar, 2006 from Australia
No worries John, let met know if you need further help.
(btw: I deleted your email from the above message to save spam bots getting a hold of it...)
(btw: I deleted your email from the above message to save spam bots getting a hold of it...)
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- KVRer
- 5 posts since 21 Apr, 2009 from Puerto Rico
I don't know if this will help but I think that I should say this for people that are new to connecting Midi keyboards anyway and I remember the first time I was trying to connect a Midi keyboard with a SoundBlaster Card and I got confused with the Midi IN & OUT labels of those Joystick/Midi port to Midi cables because your first instinct is to connect the cable labeled IN to the IN of the keyboard and the cable labeled OUT to the OUT of it so I did this and of course it didn't work, then I remembered the way you connect the in and outs in stereos and VCRs and I realized that you plug the cable labeled IN to the OUT of the keyboard and vice-versa because you see the OUT of the keyboard goes to the IN of the Midi cable because this is not a Midi box that is labeled with INs and OUTs you see? Those SoundBlaster connectors cables ARE the equivalent of those IN and OUT connectors on a midi box adapter so you see you have to follow that concept because the Midi OUT of the keyboard goes into the IN of the cables, do you see? and the IN of the Midi keyboard goes into the OUT of the cables. If it was a Midi box with connectors labeled OUT and IN then you would just route plain Midi cables (without any of those labels in them) from the keyboard to the Midi box and how would you route them? You would connect the OUT of the keyboard to one end of the connector cable and the other end of the connector cable to the IN of the Midi box and the opposite with the other cable, the same way you would connect the INs and OUTs of stereos and VCRs with RCA connector cables. I don't know if that's your problem but I have to tell you that this is not the only problem that you might find with SoundBlaster Live cards. I used one to connect two different Midi keyboards to my PC to Cantabile 1.2 Lite (A cheap Casio one and a very expensive Roland keyboard) and I got a very serious lag problem and I don't think we are talking about the regular latency problem that sometimes people talk about, I mean that there is a very large delay between the moment I press a key on the Midi keyboard and the moment Cantabile responds and no matter what I did I couldn't fix the problem and from the information I got from the Internet and from what I gathered it seems that those Midi connectors in the SoundBlaster cards are pretty bad and problematic anyway and many other people were experiencing the same problems with that Midi/Game connector so if you do get your Midi keyboard working with the SoundBlaster card you might be very dissapointed anyway because it may not work properly. Your options? Get a better Midi connector for your computer, if possible one of those Edirol (Roland) ones or the like but if you look on the web and on Ebay you will see some USB to Midi connectors for about 8 to 25 bucks (without shipping) and I heard that even those work much better than the Midi connectors of many of the SoundBlaster cards (Not counting those Emu Systems professional ones from CreativeLabs themselves) and I know that all the way to the SoundBlaster Live cards many people had problems with those connectors in Windows but I don't know about the more recent cards like the Audigy or the X-Fi line but if I were you I would try to get a better Midi connector like those I told you. From the comments of some people on the web they do not seem to consider those SoundBlaster Midi connectors anything good at all or at least those from the older cards like the SoundBlaster Live and older. I hope that helps. 
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- KVRist
- 120 posts since 13 Feb, 2006 from USA
The Internet never lies, of course, but please don't spread this silly story. Soundblaster MIDI ports are as good as any, unless you have a malfunctioning one. I have used them for many years without incident or drawback.PixelOz wrote: ...from the information I got from the Internet and from what I gathered it seems that those Midi connectors in the SoundBlaster cards are pretty bad and problematic anyway
Soundblaster ASIO is another story; that's where your latency problem lies.
Larry
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- KVRer
- 5 posts since 21 Apr, 2009 from Puerto Rico
Sorry I couldn't respond before about this, I was busy doing so many things that I almost forgot about this post completely.
Well about the part of the MIDI in and out that I said that much is correct but I think you are right about the old Soundblaster latency problem because I have continued looking for info about this and a lot of people seem to have that kind of problem but the MIDI seems to be working for some people OK. In addition I bought a separate USB to MIDI converter so I didn't have to use my old Soundblasters cards cause I was having some problems with them in Windows XP Pro.
Now, even after using that new USB to MIDI converter I continue to have the problems with Cantabile. I know I don't have a good soundcard because I'm using the Realaudio system that came with my mobo and I know that that's not so good. I did try those ASIO 4 All drivers with both the Soundblaster and it's own MIDI connector and with the mobo sound with the USB to MIDI and I continue to have the same issue.
Let me explain what's happening to me better. What happens when I connect my MIDI keyboards to it and Cantabile is that when I press a key on the MIDI keyboard the Cantabile onscreen keyboard shows the pressed keys in light orange colors and the sounds sound lower in intensity and also it seems to me that the sound is sounding late as if the keys have been pressed softly or something and when I press the keys in the virtual screen keyboard either with the cursor or with the computer keyboard the Cantabile onscreen keyboard show the orange color of the keys in full intensity and the sounds sound way higher than from my MIDI keyboards so I have a bit of a confusion with Cantabile because I don't know if this is normal cause I don't have a point of reference to compare it with and what I mean with that is that I've never seen it work for somebody else to see if it works differently or properly for other people.
What I want to know is what is the normal or expected behavior of these onscreen keyboard "clues", are they suppose to lit fully as they do with my cursor and computer keyboard, are they supposed to lit fully just like that if I use a keyboard that has no velocity sensitive keys? (I have both one with it and one without it) and how are they suppose to lit if a velocity sensitive keyboard such as my Roland is used? are they suppose to vary in intensity depending on how fast one pressed a key? or are they suppose to just lit fully as with the cursor or PC keyboard? The thing is that with either the non-velocity Casio keyboard and the velocity sensitive Roland they never lit fully as with the cursor or PC keyboard and they don't sound as strong. Do you have any idea what's going on here? Do you know what is the expected behavior of Cantabile in regard to this?
Well about the part of the MIDI in and out that I said that much is correct but I think you are right about the old Soundblaster latency problem because I have continued looking for info about this and a lot of people seem to have that kind of problem but the MIDI seems to be working for some people OK. In addition I bought a separate USB to MIDI converter so I didn't have to use my old Soundblasters cards cause I was having some problems with them in Windows XP Pro.
Now, even after using that new USB to MIDI converter I continue to have the problems with Cantabile. I know I don't have a good soundcard because I'm using the Realaudio system that came with my mobo and I know that that's not so good. I did try those ASIO 4 All drivers with both the Soundblaster and it's own MIDI connector and with the mobo sound with the USB to MIDI and I continue to have the same issue.
Let me explain what's happening to me better. What happens when I connect my MIDI keyboards to it and Cantabile is that when I press a key on the MIDI keyboard the Cantabile onscreen keyboard shows the pressed keys in light orange colors and the sounds sound lower in intensity and also it seems to me that the sound is sounding late as if the keys have been pressed softly or something and when I press the keys in the virtual screen keyboard either with the cursor or with the computer keyboard the Cantabile onscreen keyboard show the orange color of the keys in full intensity and the sounds sound way higher than from my MIDI keyboards so I have a bit of a confusion with Cantabile because I don't know if this is normal cause I don't have a point of reference to compare it with and what I mean with that is that I've never seen it work for somebody else to see if it works differently or properly for other people.
What I want to know is what is the normal or expected behavior of these onscreen keyboard "clues", are they suppose to lit fully as they do with my cursor and computer keyboard, are they supposed to lit fully just like that if I use a keyboard that has no velocity sensitive keys? (I have both one with it and one without it) and how are they suppose to lit if a velocity sensitive keyboard such as my Roland is used? are they suppose to vary in intensity depending on how fast one pressed a key? or are they suppose to just lit fully as with the cursor or PC keyboard? The thing is that with either the non-velocity Casio keyboard and the velocity sensitive Roland they never lit fully as with the cursor or PC keyboard and they don't sound as strong. Do you have any idea what's going on here? Do you know what is the expected behavior of Cantabile in regard to this?
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- KVRist
- 120 posts since 13 Feb, 2006 from USA
I see the MIDI activity lights fully bright and red no matter how they are being triggered, and no matter what the velocities are. I don't understand your situation at all in that matter.PixelOz wrote:...Well about the part of the MIDI in and out that I said that much is correct but I think you are right about the old Soundblaster latency problem because I have continued looking for info about this and a lot of people seem to have that kind of problem but the MIDI seems to be working for some people OK....
Now, even after using that new USB to MIDI converter I continue to have the problems with Cantabile. I know I don't have a good soundcard because I'm using the Realaudio system that came with my mobo and I know that that's not so good. I did try those ASIO 4 All drivers with both the Soundblaster and it's own MIDI connector and with the mobo sound with the USB to MIDI and I continue to have the same issue.
Your Soundblaster is a better card than the RealTek motherboard sound. Neither of them is completely hopeless. The Soundblaster has an excellent capacity in that it can play Soundfonts with no latency, as a hardware player.
Using the "KX" Drivers you can find by web search, I used to get 10 ms latenct in Sonar, from an old Audigy card. That is low enough to be usable for live play. Get those KX drivers, which are free, and try them out. Much better (and far smaller) than the Creative ones, and designed for musicians' use.
I expected you to see the same performance from the USB MIDI as from the Creative game port MIDI. As you say, that's what you find in practice. Your latency problem still is caused by crap drivers from Creative and Realtek. Neither of those firms is at all interested in musicians' needs.
Use the Soundblaster with KX drivers, and you can be all right until you can perhaps manage to get a better sound card. (Even if you do upgrade, you should keep the Soundblaster in the machine as a sample player alongside the better sound card; a hardware soundfont player is invaluable, once you learn how to use it.)
Larry
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- KVRer
- 5 posts since 21 Apr, 2009 from Puerto Rico
Well I then may have a weird problem indeed because when I press the keys in either MIDI keyboard Cantabile shows those onscreen keys in ligh orange only and I can tell clearly that the sound is lower in volume than when I press the on screen keyboard directly either with the cursor or with the PC keyboard, if I do that the onscreen keyboard keys get lit full orange and the sounds has full volume.
I don't know what's causing this but thanks to you I at least already know that it's not normal and how it's supposed to be working so I will do a part by part approach to see if I can isolate the problem.
First thing I might try is another computer altogether, I have now a brand new high perfomance high end PC (i7, 12 gigas DDR3 memory, dual graphic cards Sli , etc. I mean the works) a PC that only lacks a high performance sound system but that can be changed easily. But the main point is that as soon as my niece brings back the keyboards (she is the musician, I'm the computer nerd) I will test them in the new computer with Cantabile to see what happens.
I did hear about those third party KX Sound Blaster card drivers but I haven't had time to really try them yet. So I might. Too bad about the drivers from Creative I agree with you, my impression with the card was that indeed it was a nice card but that the drivers couldn't really do it justice so it seems that I was right about that. I also totally agree with you when you say that it produces better audio than the mobo sound system, definitely those mobo sound systems are so so sometimes and I always preferred the idea of a professional sound system but I had to upgrade the PC first and that's done at least even though the older PC is still running and even better cause I upgraded the CPU from a 1.8 Ghz Celeron to a 3 Ghz P4 with Hyper Threading so I still use the other PC too and now it has a better widescreen monitor too like the new PC.
It was that weird problem with Cantabile that caused my confusion and led me to think that those MIDI ports were causing the problem that's when I decided to buy the USB to MIDI adapter to corroborate that, so I already had found out because of that the SoundBlaster MIDIs were not the culprit but I didn't post a follow up to this for a long time so I apologize for that cause I really been very busy doing some tutorials and other things that I put on the web for free.
I had almost forgotten about this post and what I do now is to be more careful, so if I make a post I'm more careful to give it a follow up quickly as not to forget them through my work and I also make a list of them as to track them so again I apologize for that because my intention was to help and not to create confusion and that error could have been handled much earlier. Now I don't have more problems like that from my posts, I'm just more careful.
I'll see what I can do about that Cantabile problem and I'll keep you posted. Thanks for everything.
I don't know what's causing this but thanks to you I at least already know that it's not normal and how it's supposed to be working so I will do a part by part approach to see if I can isolate the problem.
First thing I might try is another computer altogether, I have now a brand new high perfomance high end PC (i7, 12 gigas DDR3 memory, dual graphic cards Sli , etc. I mean the works) a PC that only lacks a high performance sound system but that can be changed easily. But the main point is that as soon as my niece brings back the keyboards (she is the musician, I'm the computer nerd) I will test them in the new computer with Cantabile to see what happens.
I did hear about those third party KX Sound Blaster card drivers but I haven't had time to really try them yet. So I might. Too bad about the drivers from Creative I agree with you, my impression with the card was that indeed it was a nice card but that the drivers couldn't really do it justice so it seems that I was right about that. I also totally agree with you when you say that it produces better audio than the mobo sound system, definitely those mobo sound systems are so so sometimes and I always preferred the idea of a professional sound system but I had to upgrade the PC first and that's done at least even though the older PC is still running and even better cause I upgraded the CPU from a 1.8 Ghz Celeron to a 3 Ghz P4 with Hyper Threading so I still use the other PC too and now it has a better widescreen monitor too like the new PC.
It was that weird problem with Cantabile that caused my confusion and led me to think that those MIDI ports were causing the problem that's when I decided to buy the USB to MIDI adapter to corroborate that, so I already had found out because of that the SoundBlaster MIDIs were not the culprit but I didn't post a follow up to this for a long time so I apologize for that cause I really been very busy doing some tutorials and other things that I put on the web for free.
I had almost forgotten about this post and what I do now is to be more careful, so if I make a post I'm more careful to give it a follow up quickly as not to forget them through my work and I also make a list of them as to track them so again I apologize for that because my intention was to help and not to create confusion and that error could have been handled much earlier. Now I don't have more problems like that from my posts, I'm just more careful.
I'll see what I can do about that Cantabile problem and I'll keep you posted. Thanks for everything.
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- KVRist
- 120 posts since 13 Feb, 2006 from USA
As you have found, Soundblaster cards sound quite decent. But Creative drivers are a bizarre and sinful contraption. KX addressed that. The men who made them began it as a serious hobby, as youthful Russian musicians with no money for better cards. The project has spread well out, continued a long time, and still has vitality.
A high class card need not be much more expensive than SB. The "Audiophile" card is an old one by computer standards. It has stood many tests, and they have sold a huge number. So used ones abound - I have got one from eBay for $30. Their drivers can get down to 1.5 milliseconds of latency, and sound is superb.
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... B&ZYXSEM=0
If you can use cards in slots, it's well to do so. They are less troublesome than the USB ones, with no parts to pull loose and otherwise screw up.
Best avoid Firewire cards. That's a dying protocol, now provided less often than even PCI slots. It no longer possesses any practical advantage over current USB. Firewire can introduce miserable troubles through incompatible shipsets.
A high class card need not be much more expensive than SB. The "Audiophile" card is an old one by computer standards. It has stood many tests, and they have sold a huge number. So used ones abound - I have got one from eBay for $30. Their drivers can get down to 1.5 milliseconds of latency, and sound is superb.
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/pr ... B&ZYXSEM=0
If you can use cards in slots, it's well to do so. They are less troublesome than the USB ones, with no parts to pull loose and otherwise screw up.
Best avoid Firewire cards. That's a dying protocol, now provided less often than even PCI slots. It no longer possesses any practical advantage over current USB. Firewire can introduce miserable troubles through incompatible shipsets.
Larry
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- KVRer
- 5 posts since 21 Apr, 2009 from Puerto Rico
I did read somewhere that Bus cards have better latency and less problems than USB or Firewire.
I think that Firewire may become obsolete because USB is winning as a standard by far (it's all over the place!) and USB 2.0 is even faster at 480 Mbps compared to Firewire version 1 400 Mbps even tough some people state that in real life applications Firewire is really faster but I'm not so sure about that or that the difference is really significant and as you said according to your experience you have had less problems with USB 2.0 than with Firewire, that could be just because USB is more widely used and perhaps understood. Back there one of the areas that Firewire dominated over USB 2.0 was video and that's changing cause many video cameras now have USB 2.0 connection.
Nevertheless the new USB 3.0 will start to come out soon and it's very, very fast (4 Gbps!) tough it will be interesting to see if it has less latency than USB 2.0, I hope so cause musicians will certainly welcome that.
I've heard that a future version of Firewire could be as fast as 6.4 Gbps but despite that I think that Apple should just drop that, I think that by then USB (likely USB 3.0) may be so ubiquitous that Firewire may not be worth it and I think that despite me been in favor of more performance USB 3.0 is more than enough for any immediate need that we could have for external devices (or future ones for quite a while!) and that having a single standard is better overall for the industry and the consumers, less confusing.
I think that Firewire may become obsolete because USB is winning as a standard by far (it's all over the place!) and USB 2.0 is even faster at 480 Mbps compared to Firewire version 1 400 Mbps even tough some people state that in real life applications Firewire is really faster but I'm not so sure about that or that the difference is really significant and as you said according to your experience you have had less problems with USB 2.0 than with Firewire, that could be just because USB is more widely used and perhaps understood. Back there one of the areas that Firewire dominated over USB 2.0 was video and that's changing cause many video cameras now have USB 2.0 connection.
Nevertheless the new USB 3.0 will start to come out soon and it's very, very fast (4 Gbps!) tough it will be interesting to see if it has less latency than USB 2.0, I hope so cause musicians will certainly welcome that.
I've heard that a future version of Firewire could be as fast as 6.4 Gbps but despite that I think that Apple should just drop that, I think that by then USB (likely USB 3.0) may be so ubiquitous that Firewire may not be worth it and I think that despite me been in favor of more performance USB 3.0 is more than enough for any immediate need that we could have for external devices (or future ones for quite a while!) and that having a single standard is better overall for the industry and the consumers, less confusing.
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- KVRist
- 120 posts since 13 Feb, 2006 from USA
I should have mentioned that many people use Firewire and USB soundcards with complete satisfaction. I don't want to start any arguments. A USB card will probably give the most future compatibility. But a bus card has fewer parts to go wrong and a shorter signal path. New motherboards still have PCI slots, which seems likely to continue for a time. Cards using PCI-express slots are strangely rare.
Anything we get will be useless someday. At least obsolescence no longer murders our stuff at the staggering rate of 15 years ago.
Anything we get will be useless someday. At least obsolescence no longer murders our stuff at the staggering rate of 15 years ago.
Larry
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- KVRAF
- 2310 posts since 13 Apr, 2008 from Germany
...wow, a massive thread. 
I think I can't add much but my personal experiences...
PC music workstations have one major difficulty: you deal with a lot of components - HW and SW - and because of this flexibility there can go much more wrong or interfere with unwanted results.
Basically I agree that PCI soundcards can provide the best latency - if the drivers work well... Firewire and USB devices use different communication protocols, the raw theoretical data throughput referred to here is practically irrelevant. I've gone through this for some time myself and concluded that firewire interfaces give in general less trouble. That said I'm using Virus TI with USB 1.x speed - just 12MBit/s - and that works too if you follow the guidelines about USB port usage...
When I look at PC options - well there are many benefits... but one thing got worse: loading times of sounds is nothing close to instant like we had with most workstations decades ago... even todays workstations often need minutes to boot (i.e. loading sample libs) or noticeable fractions of seconds to switch during performance, resulting in interruptions and/or glitches... problems didn't disappear - they've just shifted and focused on other spots...
I think I can't add much but my personal experiences...
PC music workstations have one major difficulty: you deal with a lot of components - HW and SW - and because of this flexibility there can go much more wrong or interfere with unwanted results.
Basically I agree that PCI soundcards can provide the best latency - if the drivers work well... Firewire and USB devices use different communication protocols, the raw theoretical data throughput referred to here is practically irrelevant. I've gone through this for some time myself and concluded that firewire interfaces give in general less trouble. That said I'm using Virus TI with USB 1.x speed - just 12MBit/s - and that works too if you follow the guidelines about USB port usage...
When I look at PC options - well there are many benefits... but one thing got worse: loading times of sounds is nothing close to instant like we had with most workstations decades ago... even todays workstations often need minutes to boot (i.e. loading sample libs) or noticeable fractions of seconds to switch during performance, resulting in interruptions and/or glitches... problems didn't disappear - they've just shifted and focused on other spots...
Best regards, TiUser
...and keep on jamming...
...and keep on jamming...
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- KVRAF
- 2310 posts since 13 Apr, 2008 from Germany
The Cantabile onscreen keyboard has a kind of "velocity sensitivity" too... when you click at the front of a key a higher velocity is produced than when clicked at the end of a virtual key!...PixelOz wrote:Well I then may have a weird problem indeed because when I press the keys in either MIDI keyboard Cantabile shows those onscreen keys in ligh orange only and I can tell clearly that the sound is lower in volume than when I press the on screen keyboard directly either with the cursor or with the PC keyboard, if I do that the onscreen keyboard keys get lit full orange and the sounds has full volume.
I don't know what's causing this but thanks to you I at least already know that it's not normal and how it's supposed to be working so I will do a part by part approach to see if I can isolate the problem.
...
The color of the Cantabile virtual keyboard seems not to be related to the velocity... it looks like external midi is always displayed in lighter orange than a direct mouse click.
There are many keyboards that have odd velocity response...
The good news is you can adjust velocity response in Cantabile by using a midi filter called "velocity curve". I've hardly seen anything more flexible anywhere - try it!
Best regards, TiUser
...and keep on jamming...
...and keep on jamming...
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- KVRist
- 120 posts since 13 Feb, 2006 from USA
The other day, I found a velocity curve MIDI filter that's already built into Cantabile! It seemed to work all right, but I'm not sure I could find it again.
Larry
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