Topic by michaelmathy

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Topic: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

Hello

I am trying to use Pianoteq with my Roland HP-11 and a external Sound Card Edirol UA-25

My PC is Dell Laptop XPS M1210 which has a Intel Dualcore at 2 Ghz and 4 Gb of RAM.

The Edirol has ASIO driver and if I use the standalone version of Pianoteq with the Edirol, I have no latence at all (at least, I can not feel it) but the sound is not very good.

If I use the internal Sound Card of the XPS (which does not have an ASIO driver) the sound is very good but the latence is also very high. I have tried to use ASIO4ALL, it is better but not as good as with the Edirol.

Now, what I wanted to know is how to fine tune Pianoteq to have the great sound I have with the Internal Sound Card with the "no latency" of the Edirol ?

In the option dialog box, I have tried to change the sample rate and the audio buffer size (because for me, it is the only thing that change when I change the device in the option dialog box), but nothing is working.

I have tried:

Sample rate: 96000 Hz
Audio buffer size: 672 samples
Internal sample rate: 48000
Host sample rate: 96000 Hz

Do you have any idea what to do ?

Thanks

Reply by NeilCraig

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

Michael,

What specifically is wrong with the sound of your UA-25?  I have this USB soundcard "box" and have used it successfully with Hauptwerk, MyOrgan and Pianoteq for several years without issue.  My brother has the successor, UA-25X which he uses with PTQ under Vista-64 with no issues either.

Reply by michaelmathy

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

Hello Craig

For both tests, I use the same headphone.

When I play Pianoteq with the internal sound card of my laptop, the sound is very realistic but it is not playable due to the latency.

On the other hand, with the same headphone on the UA-25, the sound is very "cheap", a little bit worst that the one you can find on a low end general midi sound card.

And I am pretty sure it is because I have messed up the settings or use the wrong one, because if I export what I play in a WAV file and I play it through the UA-25, it sounds great also.

It is just when I play it.

When I save a sound to a wav file, I use the option "use high quality settings". For what I have seen on the tool tip, it exports with the maximum velocity on 44100Hz. When I do that, it export a song of 2 minutes in 23 seconds. So for me, unless I am wrong in my supposition, my laptop has enough power to play Pianoteq.

What I would like to have is the sound of the exported song while I am playing. Because now, it is not a very inspiring sound.

Thanks

Reply by NeilCraig

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

Hello Michael

Please as a first step check that you're using the "advanced" driver mode - there is a switch on the back of the unit for this and also one for the sample rate.  I don't find that there is any point going higher than 44.1 for the sample rate.  Also note that when you change settings like this, you have to physically unplug the device from your computer and reattach it before the settings will take effect. Even restarting your PC will not cause the settings to change if you leave the USB cable plugged in.

If this doesn't help, I'll check tonight what my driver and buffer settings are and then post them for you

Best//Neil

Reply by Glenn NK

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

The following is is a long shot (but solved a similar problem on another forum on different software):

Have you tried setting ALL sample rates the same; say to 44.1 - rather than have various rates of 96, 48, etc.?


In addition, when I was having some noise/latency problems, PT help staff (Niclas) suggested the following:

". . . change the buffer size from 120 (which is extremely low) to a
multiple of 64, I suggest to 320."


Glenn

Last edited by Glenn NK (18-05-2009 18:17)
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Reply by michaelmathy

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

Hello Glenn and Craig

I have changed what you suggested and it is now better.
I have checked with the MIDI file that comes with Pianoteq and now the sound is realistic in both situation.

Now, it just sound a little bit weird sometimes when I play, so you could say "Learn to play !" :-)

Maybe I have to adjust my keyboard and the velocity curve.

Reply by romantic

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

michaelmathy wrote:

Maybe I have to adjust my keyboard and the velocity curve.

If you have velocity issues with your Roland, check my file "Steinway for Roland users" or the "updated one". It's set for PTQ 2.2, but I worked a lot on the sensitivity of the keyboard, an old HP 2800. Hope it help.

Last edited by romantic (19-05-2009 13:21)

Reply by michaelmathy

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

Thanks ! I will check that.

Reply by michaelmathy

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Re: Pianoteq and Edirol UA-25

Hello

After some experiments, I have found that the C3 Soft with a little bit of more hammer noise and an adapted reverb works quite well for me.
As well for playing that for listening. Great !

I still have to correct the output level but I am very confident Pianoteq will become my "main piano".

Thanks anyway to Neil, Glenn and Romantic.

Romantic, just for your information, I did not need to adapt the sensitivity of my keyboard. I think that one of my problem was that Pianoteq is by far more realistic that my Roland at least for the playability.

With my Roland which has only 64 voices of polyphony, I can play always with the sustain pedal down. With pianoteq and its 256 voices, I just had a lot of noise and I had to adapt my playing to that.
I think it is more like a real piano (but I have never play on a real piano).

You can check the sound on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/michaelmathy. And maybe tell me if you found something disturbing.

Last edited by michaelmathy (08-06-2009 14:09)