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Forums - Computer music & technology
Subject: APS effects
Original Message 1/16 13-Dec-98 @ 02:45 AM - APS effects
Just a question I'd like clarfied re. the effects of the EMU APS. With most wavetable synths you have lots of effects but you can only have 2 active at on time. Because these are going to be used globaly over all the midi tracks, of coarse you can not be too radical and you end up using a more sensible if unamaginative hall reverb and a chorus effect. This limitation on my card i find a little frustrating although it does eveything else I want ( Terratec ews64xl ).BTW the Ed!son sampler instrument editor has just had another update (version 1.0) ,although they haven't fixed the 512k max sample length thing. Over the last couple of weeks I have been hounding the fuck outa ppl trying to nail down the compression thing with soundfont as all my loops are played within soundsets and you ,of coarse would want the best bandwidth. The word is that soundfont in itself doesn't use compressin but that the creative cards are apparantly doing alot of the processing in12 bit. So the compression is hardware, not software. I guess that this combined with creatives crappy D to A 's is the reason why the synth sounds to MY EARS sound like shit. I would also be interested in any info re. the APS and it's internal processing of of soundfont. It seems to be the first Creative card with descent D/A. I believe they have an updated version called sf 2.1 which allows better access to more parameters. Even though it's filtering is meant to be shite over the terratec, if it doesn't us compression and if you can have much better routing of more effects , then I might be jumping ship. Any thoughts. Rafael seems to be the dude at the mo re. APS as he actually owns one. Dale
Message 2/16 13-Dec-98 @ 05:25 AM - RE: APS effects
Well I have one too.. but you're right... Rafael may be the best source of info on the APS. What I can tell you though is that the APS has next to NOTHING to do with Creative. So don't judge it as being just another Creative card.
As far as sample compression and what not... I really dont think there is any going on in the APS. Im not sure what you're getting at, but as far as I know your samples are just uncompressed wave files uploaded into system ram that are played back according to their soundfont specs. So if you got a 22k drum sample sitting on your disk and load it into the APS its gonna take up 22k of system RAM. I dont know if that answers that question or not... but I dont think any compression is taking place. Remember... soundfonts will sound just as good or bad as the raw samples you build them with. The soundfont I built of a 909 kick sounds just as good as the original .wav file I built it from. All soundfonts are is a sample format similar to Akai or other E-mu sample formats.
And the effects... you can pile em up in almost any combination on any midi channel. You could for example have only chorus and reverb on channels 1-4, have chorus, reverb and distortion on channel 5, have delay and compression on channel 6, and have all 14 effects on channel 7. Just an example. Very flexible routing and all 14 effects can be used simultaneously. And they sound excellent.
As far as sample compression and what not... I really dont think there is any going on in the APS. Im not sure what you're getting at, but as far as I know your samples are just uncompressed wave files uploaded into system ram that are played back according to their soundfont specs. So if you got a 22k drum sample sitting on your disk and load it into the APS its gonna take up 22k of system RAM. I dont know if that answers that question or not... but I dont think any compression is taking place. Remember... soundfonts will sound just as good or bad as the raw samples you build them with. The soundfont I built of a 909 kick sounds just as good as the original .wav file I built it from. All soundfonts are is a sample format similar to Akai or other E-mu sample formats.
And the effects... you can pile em up in almost any combination on any midi channel. You could for example have only chorus and reverb on channels 1-4, have chorus, reverb and distortion on channel 5, have delay and compression on channel 6, and have all 14 effects on channel 7. Just an example. Very flexible routing and all 14 effects can be used simultaneously. And they sound excellent.
Message 3/16 13-Dec-98 @ 06:54 AM - RE: APS effects
sounds good so far. thanx astro. one thing also. there was some discussion re. sblive having 48kz as it's only option. I seem to remember a similar discussion about the APS. I want to go digital out of the card and use the D/A of a VS-1680 at normak CD specs. Any clues. Those effects sound very tasty. Dale
Message 4/16 13-Dec-98 @ 06:54 AM - RE: APS effects
sounds good so far. thanx astro. one thing also. there was some discussion re. sblive having 48kz as it's only option. I seem to remember a similar discussion about the APS. I want to go digital out of the card and use the D/A of a VS-1680 at normak CD specs. Any clues. Those effects sound very tasty. Dale
Message 5/16 13-Dec-98 @ 12:38 PM - RE: APS effects
Astro, what do you mean saying above that "all 14 effects can be used simultaneously" with regard to EMU APS?
It's specs contains figure 4 (busses) that should be a max. number of effects available to use at the same time. I never even heard about a soundmodule capable of utilizing 14 effects simultaneously, for example acclaimed Yamaha SW1000XG known for its unique effect-processing capabilities has 5 effect busses, 3 of which are applicable to all channels simultaneously and 2 to only one specific channel.
It's specs contains figure 4 (busses) that should be a max. number of effects available to use at the same time. I never even heard about a soundmodule capable of utilizing 14 effects simultaneously, for example acclaimed Yamaha SW1000XG known for its unique effect-processing capabilities has 5 effect busses, 3 of which are applicable to all channels simultaneously and 2 to only one specific channel.
Message 7/16 13-Dec-98 @ 05:30 PM - RE: APS effects
me: Okay... I guess according to Rodsta I'm not supposed to talk about the APS anymore... but anyways... I'll at least answer your question in regards to effects. The chip on the APS is the most powerful sound chip in world... for any peice of musical equipment. Its a 1000 mips chip. For comparison, I beleive the chip on the Maxisound is 60 mips. So there arent effects busses, per say, like on other cards. Rather, its just one big ass chip doing all the effects processing for everything. I think... I might just be speaking out my ass here. Basically, you have 4 aux sends to which you can assign any effect. Then you can insert as many insert effects as you want on any midi or audio channel.
Okay... I just did a little experiment on my own computer to confirm E-mu's claim, and yes, I actually have 16(?) effects on one midi channel. Granted, some of these "effects" are shelf and parametric EQs. And yes, once you use one effect as an insert on one channel you cant use it again on another.
If you dont beleive me just browse on over to the E-mu site and read up on the card on your own for christs sake. It's all spelt out quite plainly there.
Okay... I just did a little experiment on my own computer to confirm E-mu's claim, and yes, I actually have 16(?) effects on one midi channel. Granted, some of these "effects" are shelf and parametric EQs. And yes, once you use one effect as an insert on one channel you cant use it again on another.
If you dont beleive me just browse on over to the E-mu site and read up on the card on your own for christs sake. It's all spelt out quite plainly there.
Message 8/16 13-Dec-98 @ 06:30 PM - RE: APS effects
Hi Dale and the rest of you.
I've read my name mentioned here as a good source of info on APS. Might be, but I think that there already has been said what I'd say.
Regarding compression of wav - never heard of it in assosiation with APS. To the best of my knowledge no compression is applied. That has been explained quite well by Astro. Subjectivly: it seems to me that a wav sounds just as good played from Soundforge wav-editor as from Vienna soundfont-editor as an intrument in a soundfont.
When it comes to effects I'll just have to confirm what has been said above. Yes - you can use all of the effects simultaniously. You have 4 effects which you can use globally on all the tracks. However only 2 of the 4 per track. In addition to that you can insert the rest of the 16 effects locally on each track. An effect used on one track can't be used again on onthers.
Since you are considering going from TerrorTec to APS you probably want to know about APS's weaknesess. Apparently there is a kHZ convertion going on when recording to audio. From 41 to 48 and then to 41 again. Some people claim that the sound quality gets worse from that. And I'm sure that it is but I haven't noticed it.
Another silly thing: There is only one wav strip on the mixer. According to E-MU (or so my salesman says) a fix for that will be comming out. That fix will also give better and additional effects.
Good luck folks. Lets keep in touch.
Rafael
I've read my name mentioned here as a good source of info on APS. Might be, but I think that there already has been said what I'd say.
Regarding compression of wav - never heard of it in assosiation with APS. To the best of my knowledge no compression is applied. That has been explained quite well by Astro. Subjectivly: it seems to me that a wav sounds just as good played from Soundforge wav-editor as from Vienna soundfont-editor as an intrument in a soundfont.
When it comes to effects I'll just have to confirm what has been said above. Yes - you can use all of the effects simultaniously. You have 4 effects which you can use globally on all the tracks. However only 2 of the 4 per track. In addition to that you can insert the rest of the 16 effects locally on each track. An effect used on one track can't be used again on onthers.
Since you are considering going from TerrorTec to APS you probably want to know about APS's weaknesess. Apparently there is a kHZ convertion going on when recording to audio. From 41 to 48 and then to 41 again. Some people claim that the sound quality gets worse from that. And I'm sure that it is but I haven't noticed it.
Another silly thing: There is only one wav strip on the mixer. According to E-MU (or so my salesman says) a fix for that will be comming out. That fix will also give better and additional effects.
Good luck folks. Lets keep in touch.
Rafael
Message 9/16 13-Dec-98 @ 08:08 PM - RE: APS effects
Thanx very much dudes,
Very informative. As far as a sampler goes it looks like the APS has the edge. Mainly coz the Terratec effects are crap. I'm gonna hold on to it a while longer I suppose, to see what Terratec will do about it. Unfortunately their software development is really slow. I owned the card 8 months before the Ed!son instrument editor was usefull. Also soundfont is a much more universal format. It took me years to get a guitar sound that I was happy with. It seems like this is the next holy grail. APS hasn't arrived in Australia yet but I can't wait to check it out. The thing that fucks me off is that I already have a few tts.soundsets CD roms and down the track if I change to a soundfont based card then what a prick to change all the sounds over. And no way am I gonna stick more than one card in my puter. There's enough weirdy conflicts goin' on there already. Bloody micro crap! Whinge bloody whinge. I'm startin' to sound like a whingin' pom. Fuck that! Rock on! I mean; Program on. Dale
Very informative. As far as a sampler goes it looks like the APS has the edge. Mainly coz the Terratec effects are crap. I'm gonna hold on to it a while longer I suppose, to see what Terratec will do about it. Unfortunately their software development is really slow. I owned the card 8 months before the Ed!son instrument editor was usefull. Also soundfont is a much more universal format. It took me years to get a guitar sound that I was happy with. It seems like this is the next holy grail. APS hasn't arrived in Australia yet but I can't wait to check it out. The thing that fucks me off is that I already have a few tts.soundsets CD roms and down the track if I change to a soundfont based card then what a prick to change all the sounds over. And no way am I gonna stick more than one card in my puter. There's enough weirdy conflicts goin' on there already. Bloody micro crap! Whinge bloody whinge. I'm startin' to sound like a whingin' pom. Fuck that! Rock on! I mean; Program on. Dale
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