Problems using external computer as MIDI synth

[MetalGod]

Hi all,

I have a bit of a problem. Let me give you the background. About 1 year ago I upgraded to a new DAW - Dell desktop and EMU 1616M + Cubase SE3 - which left my old DAW - AMD Athlon XP PC with Yamaha SW1000XG sound card - sitting in a corner collecting dust.

Now, for those of you who don't know the SW1000XG it's a great, although a bit dated, sound card with an amazing set of samples (some 1200 different voices + 46 drum kits!).
I always felt it was a bit of a shame not using it, so I thought I could use the old PC + SW1000XG as a sort of synth station. The plan was: use my new DAW for all audio work, send MIDI data from either my MIDI keyboard or MIDI files played back on the new DAW to the SW1000XG and record the audio output via the 1616M. Sounded fairly easy, but I've run into some problems I hope someone can help me with.

First I should point out that I'm by no means a MIDI expert, but I grasp the basics. So far the basic principle works. I can play my keyboard and record the output from the SW1000XG. I've been trying to play some MIDI files I downloaded, and here's where the problems start. In my new DAW I added a MIDI device in Cubase (SW1000XG comes as a preset in Cubase) and I was hoping that by selecting this as output for the MIDI tracks (the MIDI out from the 1616M is set as output for the device) it should, well just work. The problem I have at the moment is that when I setup a MIDI project in Cubase on the SW1000XG machine (see 2nd problem below) all the MIDI notes seem to be sent to all channels, even though I explicitly specify on my main DAW which channel should be used for which track. The result is that all tracks are being played with the same instrument, which is not quite what I expected. I've tried everything I could think of, like setting the channel for the "receiving" tracks on the SW1000XG machine to the same ones as on the 1616M machine (i.e. channel 10 for drums, channel x for piano, channel y for bass etc). I'm probably making some simple mistake but I don't know what it is.

Second problem. As mentioned above I now have to start Cubase on the SW1000XG machine to get the MIDI signals mapped and the ASIO driver loaded to produce the sounds. While this does work it means having to log in, start up Cubase, set up a project etc when I want to do MIDI stuff. It would be very nice to just have some software running in the background which does something similar automatically, ie sets up MIDI mapping and ASIO driver and then just receive notes, PCs, CCs etc from my main DAW. That way I could have it sitting there without a screen, boot it up when I want to use it and just play. I'm not sure if there is any such software though. I'm also an experienced programmer so I've played with the idea of writing something like that myself, but I have no idea how feasible this is.

Anyway, that's the long and short of it. I hope I made some sense, but if not don't hesitate to point it out or tell me if you need more info etc. Any help/suggestions would be very welcome.

Cheers,
MetalGod

[Wun Moshen]

Im going to attempt to help you out but you going to have simplify this a tad bit more ..


I need you to tell me which pc do you want to be master and which pc you want to be the slave ....


and then Im going to need you to explain to me in simple detail exactly what you are trying to do.

I have a idea but im trying to make sure I do understand.


what Im thinking is ... you want one pc as the main sequencing workstation and you want you other pc contribute some of its own elements to the project via midi...


Let me know if this is the case. And I will see If I can map out a solution for you.

[MetalGod]

Sure. I realize my description was a bit messy, mainly because I don't fully know what I'm doing

So, simplified:

Master PC: desktop with EMU 1616M. This is my recording and sequencing station if you will. All instruments (guitar, mics etc) go into this one, and it records all audio and would also be responsible for sending MIDI data.

Slave PC: desktop with SW1000XG. It's only job is to receive the MIDI input from the Master PC and my MIDI keyboard, and generate the audio output using the sound banks in the SW1000XG.

So, currently it's connected like this:

MIDI keyboard MIDI out -> Master PC MIDI in
Master PC MIDI out -> Slave PC MIDI in
Slave PC audio out -> Master PC audio in

So, basic idea is, when I play the MIDI keyboard, or play back a MIDI file on the Master PC, the slave PC should generate the audio using SW1000XG, and the Master PC records it. Ideally I should be able to select which SW1000XG instruments the slave PC uses to generate the audio in Cubase in the Master PC, preferably without having to manually do anything on the slave PC (apart from starting it up obviously). I'm not sure if the last part is possible though.

I hope this clarifies it, but let me know if you need me to go into more details.

Cheers,
MetalGod

[Wun Moshen]

This is a exactly what I thought you was trying to do. It can be done.


you are going to have to enable the Midi out feature in cubase on the master pc being as tho this is sending Midi time code (MTC) out to the slave and you are going to have to enable Cubase to recieve midi signals or in other words "CONTROLLED"


If you need detailed help... let me know Im going to have install Nuendo on here to guide you..

[magno]

This could work for you.
Take the SW1000XG out of the old PC.
Put it in the new PC.
It will save you a lot of headaches or might not work at all.
It worked for me using a Delta 66 and and a Sound Blaster live together.

[MetalGod]

Yes, I've considered this but there are several problems. First of all I'm not sure if the driver will work at all, since my master DAW is running Vista and there are no Vista drivers for this card. Second, with Cubase at least you can only have one ASIO driver active at the time. I could use the Multimedia or DirectX driver, but latency is bad enough with ASIO (20 ms in/30ms out).

Wun, I switched on the MTC send on the master PC and set the slave PC to sync from that. I still seem to be getting the same problem though. Even though each MIDI track is sending on separate channels on the master PC, on the slave PC all signals seem to be coming in on every channel.
This is how I have set it up. On the master PC I imported a MIDI file, which sets up a project with several MIDI tracks. I set the SW1000XG as output for all of them and set different channel for each track.
On the slave PC I start up Cubase and create a new project from the 16 tacks MIDI sequencer template (i.e. 16 MIDI tracks, one for each channel).
Now no matter what I do, even if I mute all but one channel on the master PC, all channels on the slave PC are receiving the signals. I guess I must still be doing something wrong, but does this seem like the right approach or should I be doing it some completly different way?

I'm going to take a more methodical approach and set up a MIDI project from scratch and try to work track by track until I figure it out. I must be making some basic mistake.

Anyway, thanks for the help guys.

MetalGod

[magno]

Hmmm Vista eh.

[MetalGod]

Yep, unfortunately. I had a lot of apprehensions going to Vista, and they have all turned out to be well justified. Just in case someone else is thinking about "upgrading" from XP to Vista, take my advice: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GOOD DON'T!!!
Vista is truly appalling in terms of resource usage, just the OS uses 600-800 MB of RAM even when you switch off most of the UI "features". Many audio cards also have problems with the drivers.
There are some nice new features, like being able to schedule defragmentation and other stuff, but it doesn't make up for the bad stuff. Oh well...

[peterjw]

Hi my name is Pete, I have recently rekindled my interest in acquiring a functional home recording studio and am stuck from the off with setting up my kit. The trouble is that I cannot get my Midi Keyboard Controller (Roland PC-200) to sound through my sound card (SW1000XG). I have an option of using either Cubase VST5 or SX as my main sequencer, but neither allows my keyboard to sound through the card.
Both sequencers will open or import Midi Files and play them back through the card, is the problem just a matter of midi setup ?
I have some concerns with the card, ie can a card of this age function correctly with my PC setup which is a Pentium4 - 2.8G running XP? I did manage to find drivers for both the card and XG works (XG works refused to open prior to the driver update).
Is there a solution ? am I wasting my time with this card ? and if there is a solution which of the two cubase would you recommend I use.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Pete

[PeeBee]

Originally Posted by MetalGod

Yep, unfortunately. I had a lot of apprehensions going to Vista, and they have all turned out to be well justified. Just in case someone else is thinking about "upgrading" from XP to Vista, take my advice: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY AND GOOD DON'T!!!
Vista is truly appalling in terms of resource usage, just the OS uses 600-800 MB of RAM even when you switch off most of the UI "features". Many audio cards also have problems with the drivers.
There are some nice new features, like being able to schedule defragmentation and other stuff, but it doesn't make up for the bad stuff. Oh well...

Yee-ikes!
Good one for my first post here, hi guys
Yeah, sack Vista, all the stuff you "can" do with it you were always able to do with XP anyway, it's just more obvious now (Scheduling tasks has been a part of Windows since the win95 days) but since there are so many things that - on the suface at least - you "can't" do now with Vista it's a real no-no for DAW work, but I digress...

It was your question about using your SW1000XG as an external synth and the problems you were having using it in multi-timbral mode (all 16 MIDI channels playing different instruments) that I came across on my searches for a solution to that same problem, and it turned out to be soooo simple yay!

1. Download MIDI-OX for free from MIDIOX

2. Install it on to the computer with the XG card installed (if you have separate monitors/keyboards/mice for both PCs it might be an idea to look at installing a remote admin program like UltraVNC so you can control both PCs from the one computer)

3. Run the program and first switch off MIDI input and output monitoring to save creating huge log files (Click the blue "REC" button on the status bar to switch it off)

4. Go to the "Options>MIDI Devices" menu and it'll bring up a box with your MIDI interface and SW1000XG synth outputs listed, click on your MIDI input in the inputs box to select it, then click on (as an example) SW1000XG #1 Synthesizer in the outputs box, and you'll see it appear in the port mapping box to confirm that you've mapped your MIDI input to XG synth #1 (screenshot below showing remotely-controlled setup)



5. Have a cup of tea cos your work is done.

Explanation now - I'm guessing you were maybe using XGEdit95 to configure your synth previously? This only lets external MIDI control one voice at a time and re-routes any and all incoming MIDI channel messages to that single voice, hence the problem, you'll still be able to use XGEdit to mess around with your sounds (switch off the MIDI input in XGEdit "Setup MIDI" menu though to avoid conflicts) and everything else will be cool.

Incidentally, the little box in the top-left corner of the remote window is a program called FX Teleport, (FX Teleport) which allows you to install VST instruments and effects on your remote PC and have them appear as normal VSTs on your host PC, it uses ethernet to link the two and is all sorts of fun.