Gigastudio 160

[AcousticPro]

I want to get some discussion happening here from Gigastudio owners. System problems, suggestions. (Something hopefully more helpful than some other, to remain nameless forums on this topic)

[Sporter]

I'm using GS160, and it is an excellent, great sounding sampler. I've dedicated a P4 box (1.6 mz, a 20 and a 100 gig HD), and have a modest assortment of sounds. I had looked at various samplers on the market, but I was intrigued by GS, and it's ability to play extremely large samples. Also, a computer based sampler really caught my fancy because I've never really liked fiddling around with knobs, and I find software editing much more intuitive.

I originally thought I might save money over a dedicated sampler, but this is not the case, especially since I decided to dedicate a computer to GS. Don't be fooled by the low price of GS...there are lots of otehr goodies you'll have to have. But I would say the price is still a bit lower than an average sampler on the market, and it does so much more.

Personally, I have not heard better samples anywhere, and the power is truely astounding. I'm still learning, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss....

[AcousticPro]

I think you hit the main strength of the product on the head. It only loads 64K of each sample as a buffer into RAM. So as even some of the larger traditional hardware samples sounded great, but you had to have several in order to load enough samples because the full sample was loaded into RAM and you only had 128 to 256 MB of RAM in each machine. It could take half a dozen machines to get a realistic orchestral session happening. Voices were never really a major issue as not many small orchestras exceed 128 voices and few exceed 160. But you could load many more instruments that were immediately accessible in Gigastudio than any other system available. Of course a major source of your audio quality is the audio card you choose, but if you invest correctly then you should end up with an "as good or better" sampler. I look forward to hearing more feedback on the product and how you are using it.

[bobnjul]

I've had Giga 160 for a few weeks now and have been pleased with its performance. I've never owned a sampler before, so it is all a new experience for me. My goal is to do orchestrations, but I'm on a budget... bigtime. Now that I finally have Gigastudio, I gotta wait since Good Orchesrtal Samples are so darned expensive. I think Nemesys should have bundled a few more good samples with the product.

Since I've gotta wait however, I'd love to have some advice on what experts think are the best Orchestral Libraries. All company demos sound good, but I'd love to hear feedback from real users. I'm a serious composer looking to to full scale, realistic orchestral demos. I prefer to compose first... then sequence from the score. Not make my music fit to strength of the sounds, by composing for them.

So, what is/are the best library/libraries that will allow me this freedom. I realize no library will have every articulation I need, or bowing effect, etc. but whats the best so far??

[TeeCee]

These forums list over 1000 members and almost no activity. Anyway...

I just built a PC with an Athlon XP 1600+ for the purpose of trying out soft synths and samplers. I use my ESI-4000 rarely mainly due to the process required for editing and assigning samples and patches on a small screen with an encoder knob and a 10 digit keypad. I can't see other hardware based samplers as being much better.

Lucky for me, the M-Audio Audiophile (which I decided on for my oft synth PC) comes with GigaStudio 24 so I can get a taste of GigaStudio without having to sink a lot of money into it. According to Nemesys' site, other than the lack of NFX plug-ins, I am only missing out on polyphony and MIDI ports. I have used it only briefly as of yet but I do plan on digging into it and using the various synthesis features extensively (LFO's, envelopes, filters, etc.). I had some glitchy playback when I first installed it (minutes afte the install completed) but have had no problems with it after rebooting and playing with it more. Be sure I will post all of my findings here hopefully with the announcement that my ESI is for sale (128MB RAM and two 2GB SCSI drives by the way ;).

Question for other users, is anyone running it on the same PC as their sequencer? If so, does it act like a hardware solution when it comes to MIDI and audio routing? Can you trigger GigaStudio from a hardware controller while recording the MIDI into the sequencer as well? Can you then play GigaStudio back from your sequencer without having to reconfigure MIDI ports? Can you record GigaStudio's audio out while listening to it as well? If it works well enough on the sequencer PC, I may sell the PC I use for GigaStudio.

Whew, just checked my message is only 1822 characters long! Limited to a mere 10,000 characters.

[bobnjul]

The way Giga 160 works is when you first launch it, you configure the MIDI ins you want it to listen to, then it will create four separate MIDI ports - less for the lower versions. You then launch your sequencer from within Giga itself (Set up on it settings tab). This essentially sets up Giga in "local control off" mode. You can then assign patches to channels in Gigastudio, and then select the proper Giga ports in your sequencer for each channel. (if set up correctly, you sequencer should show new Nemesus ports.) Once you have the patches set in Giga, you don't need to enter its window again, you can do just about everything from within your sequencer and controller hardware. But if you want, your sequencer will record fader movements made in Giga too. I hope this answers your question.

Bob

[TeeCee]

bobnjul:
Thanks for the info but my questions aren't fully answered. The devils in the details, and you don't really give me the details I need. My questions are (I think) can you play GigaStudio back from a sequencer and hardware and also record the hardware in the sequencer without reconfiguring anything? This would be acting as a true piece of hardware. Swapping out MIDI ports in GigaStudio or my sequencer is unacceptable. Not hearing what I am recording because my hardware can either trigger GigaStudio or be recorded is also unacceptable. Why don't I just try it? Because I do not install software on my PCs unless absolutely necessary because ther is no such thing as a true uninstal and I may not set it up right especially if I don't know its capabilities.

[bobnjul]

I'm sorry, I'm still a bit confused... I run Giga with Cubase on the same machine, I control all of Gigas parameters from within Cubase. I use a Kurzweil PC2X as my controller. (my interface is the Aardvark 24/96). This is how I use Giga (and you'll forgive me if I still don't answer your question, as I'm still a bit confused by what you're asking.) I open up Giga and choose my patch(es) & effects, then I open up Cubase and record the MIDI info. When I'm satisfied with the track(s), I play it back and use Giga's capture to wav feature which creates a 24 bit file of the playback.

Then I import it directly into an audio track in Cubase.

I guess if you want to record to the sequencer directly, you could patch back the Giga output to a different set of in's on you sound card.

If I understand your question correctly, what you want to do is limited by your Audio interface, not Giga.

I can play audio in my sequencer, while playing back Giga, while recording Audio in Cubase and recording MIDI data, all simultaneously. I hear everything, and can control each apps levels independantly from within themselves or from within my soundcard's mixer app (which is pretty cool.)

So, anyway, I hope this states it more clearly. For me, Gigastudio acts like an independant piece of hardware.


Hope that helps.

Bob

[TeeCee]

Originally posted by bobnjul
I open up Giga and choose my patch(es) & effects, then I open up Cubase and record the MIDI info. When I'm satisfied with the track(s), I play it back and use Giga's capture to wav feature which creates a 24 bit file of the playback.


We're almost there. You set up Giga and Cubase. You play your PC2X, hearing Giga respond, recording the MIDI data into Cubase.

Question - what MIDI ports are each app looking at? Do Giga and Cubase share a port?

Then you play Giga back from Cubase.

Question - did you have to reconfigure Giga's or Cubase's MIDI ports (or anything else) before this step?

Then you set Giga to capture to wave and play it back again from Cubase. All done, right?

Thanks,

[bobnjul]

This is where I must be confused, Giga 160 adds 4 software based ports named Nemesys MIDI out ports - giving 64 MIDI channels solely for Gigastudio.

I didn't have to "reconfigure" anything. I don't lose any of my other ports. The Nemesys people did a good Job at not messing up the existing MIDI configuration. Giga just adds 4 new MIDI out ports that can be seen by any MIDI programs (they appear in the MIDI devices list in thw Windows control panel) ... I just tried this to make sure, I launched my Native instruments B4 (stand alone) Set it up to send an out message to Gigastudio, clicked on the screen keyboard in the B4, and lo and behold, I'm controlling Gigastudio with my B4.

I'm looking at your question:

"what MIDI ports are each app looking at? Do Giga and Cubase share a port?"

Giga is a port - (4 ports to be exact)

Maybe this is what you're looking for - transmiting MIDI data from within Gigastudio to Cubase. This it doesn't do - and there is no need to. That should all be done from within your sequencer & your controller synth.


You do have to launch your sequencer from within Gigastudio, it alerts it to relinquish control of your hardware MIDI in directly, and then listens to Cubase - giving Cubase primary control of your hardware MIDI in port (i.e. the one your controller keyboard is pluged into). I relate this to the idea of putting your controller Keyboard in local off mode. It's how I'd work with all my hardware, select my MIDI channel and port and record.

[TeeCee]

bobnjul:
I'm getting it. GigaStudio works through your sequencer, not along side of it. Very similar to DXi's other than the fact that it's not a plug in. I was thinking that the sequencer and GigaStudio were both looking at the hardware MIDI port and was wondering if you had to do anything to tell GigaStudio to listen to the software port instead (all the switching I was concerned with). But the case is actually that GigaStudio is only listening to the software port at this time which is your sequencer either echoing the incoming MIDI data or playing the sequence back. Do you notice any added latency working through your sequencer?

Do you have to assign Cubase and GigaStudio to independant audio outs? I wouldn't expect GigaStudio using the GSIF interface to be able to talk to the same audio port Cubase is speaking ASIO to.

[AcousticPro]

You do have to use seperate audio outputs for your software mixer and Gigastudio. This requires two things, a card with multiclient drivers and a card with GSIF drivers. You do have to tell Gigastudio where to get its' MIDI input the first time you launch it in the hardware setup, but then you're set. There won't be any noticeable latency either, but it does take a pretty serious machine to run both to full potential at the same time.

[TeeCee]

Jeff:
Thanks for the answers. I'll stick to separate PCs for samplers and multitrack use for now.

[AcousticPro]

That is what I personally do and it is much more stable and functional at this point in time.

[elsteve9]

So you CAN use Giga like a VST instrument, or like rewire?


-Stephen