Midi files wont play

"Lenny" wrote in message ...
You can't use more than 32 megs. Once you've reached the magic
number, exactly what you've observed happens. Notes quit playing.

Dude, have you actually tried this or not?

Yes. I make my own SF's all the time.

Like I said, I have, and my Live
played larger soundfonts FINE. All instruments worked. I left a MIDI looping
overnight, and then I had no MIDI sound at all when I woke up the following
morning, but that was like the only way to make it stop; leave it playing a
really long time. So it's not a matter of "more than 32 megs = no sound",
this simple demonstration shows it's something else going on.


You have a misunderstanding of how it works. You're going to say
"bull****, this guy doesn't know he's talking about" until you
research it further and find out I'm right.

It's not directly dependent on the overall size of the bank or
instrument, it's how much of it you use.

Let's say you load an 80 meg general midi bank - has everything from
piano to helicopter sounds. How much of that bank that you use, i.e.
how much you actually *access* depends on what you play or what midi
file you use.

Each note of a particular instrument's notes takes up a certain amount
of memory. The size of the memory allocation depends primarily on the
size of the .wav file. Bigger instruments with longer loops or no
loops obviously have bigger .wav files.

So, if you play a simple melody only on the glockenspiel, you're not
going to use a lot of memory. However, if you have a symphonic
orchestration, with a lot of rich harmonies and a lot of notes which
use string ensembles, pianos, brasses, etc. etc. - the larger
instruments, you might hit that 32 meg ceiling.

A better way to demonstrate this is to load a large singe instrument.
Let's say you have a grand piano that's 100 megs - (and an individual
instrument can easily be *much* larger than this) and the memory to
support it of course.

Start playing chromatically up from the lowest "C". I doubt you'll
make it halfway up the keyboard before notes stop playing. Why?
Because once you've accessed more than 32 megs, the architecture of
the Live card won't support any more.

The only way to get around this are programs that purge the memory as
you go, though I hear they don't work that great. Anyway, why fool
with a band aid like that now when the Audigy makes the whole thing a
moot point?

The Live (as well as the PCI-512) is a super card, I've done lots of
recording and midi stuff with it, but it does have the limitations
I've described.

You have a misunderstanding of how it works. You're going to say
"bull****, this guy doesn't know he's talking about" until you
research it further and find out I'm right.

Um, do note I did not say "bull****, this guy doesn't know what he's talking
about", I said something else entirely. If your habit is putting words in
the mouths of people you disagree with is your standard modus operandi,
people will tire very quickly of talking to you, so here's a free tip: don't
do that unless you want to pursue a debate entirely with yourself!

Like I said last time, playing MIDIs with a large soundfont worked JUST
FINE, for some hours of constant playing even. Overnight though, it conked
out, but then again most people don't play MIDIs for that long. It's
possible using an extreme amount of polyphony would result in dropped notes,
but I did not experience that in the testing I performed; all the MIDIs I
tried played just fine while I was actually listening and not sleeping. I
have to conclude therefore that it works...for a time. Which is *exactly*
what I've been saying all along.

Anyway, why fool
with a band aid like that now when the Audigy makes the whole thing a
moot point?

I didn't own an audigy then, and I'm actually not sure it was even released
when I first tried a larger than 32MB soundfont... I do now though, and I
much enjoy the no-limit soundfont support when I listen to MIDIs (not that
often, I have to say, but it does happen).

If you know of any websites that has a high-quality MIDI archive (that sound
well with a general MIDI bank loaded, heh), I'd be interested in hearing
about it.

"Lenny" wrote in message ...
You have a misunderstanding of how it works. You're going to say
"bull****, this guy doesn't know he's talking about" until you
research it further and find out I'm right.

Um, do note I did not say "bull****, this guy doesn't know what he's talking
about", I said something else entirely.

I was anticipating what you would likely say given your previous
response. I said you can only access 32 megs with a SB Live, you
begged to differ. You said:

Well, actually the Live CAN access more than 32 megs,

No "words in your mouth" This is what you stated. It's incorrect. You
followed it up with an emphatic "dude, have you tried it? I have..."
ergo, you think I don't know what I'm talking about. Just another way
to say "you're full of ****".

but things can start
to go a bit screwy after a (long) while with notes disappearing etc.

If you try to put 1.5 gallons in a 1 gallon bucket, It's not "acting
screwy" when it overflows. It's not capable of what you're trying to
make it do, you wouldn't expect it to hold 1.5 gallons.


If your habit is putting words in
the mouths of people you disagree with is your standard modus operandi,
people will tire very quickly of talking to you, so here's a free tip: don't
do that unless you want to pursue a debate entirely with yourself!

It's not a "debate". You've stated something that's inaccurate. It's
not a matter of opinion or conjecture on my part. I'm not trying to
**** you off but if correcting you means you don't want to
participate, I'm not the one losing out. You walk away still not
knowing what you're talking about.


Like I said last time, playing MIDIs with a large soundfont worked JUST
FINE,

Like *I* said, it'll play fine...until you've used 32 megs worth.
Additional notes won't play. Some notes will come out, but no new ones
will. If you do further investigation, you'll find that this is the
way it is. This is also one of the biggest gripes about the Live
cards, that Creative is misleading when they say "use up to half your
system ram for Soundfonts". Yeah, you can *LOAD* a 1 gig soundfont if
you have the memory. Of course, you can't actually USE anywhere near
that much, but hey.... It has to do with the fundamental architecture
of the card itself and how it addresses system memory.

for some hours of constant playing even. Overnight though, it conked
out, but then again most people don't play MIDIs for that long.

It has nothing to do with how long you play it, it has to do with how
much memory you use. If you play one note over and over, you can play
it till the cows come home as long as that one note isn't more than 32
megs. However, when the cumulative size of all the files accessed
reaches 32 megs, no new notes can be played. I don't know what other
issues your system had so can't comment on why it "conked out".

It's
possible using an extreme amount of polyphony would result in dropped notes,

It's not just possible, it's an absolute certaintly if you go over 32
megs.

but I did not experience that in the testing I performed;

If it continued to play all the notes you attempted to play, then you
didn't go over 32 megs. It's also possible if there were complex
harmonies, notes were dropping out and you just didn't notice them.

If you know of any websites that has a high-quality MIDI archive (that sound
well with a general MIDI bank loaded, heh), I'd be interested in hearing
about it.

There used to be an absolutely mammoth site called "The Sound Site"
but as near as I can tell it disappeared. Not sure what happened to
it.

Put "Free Soundfonts" in a search engine and explore the links and see
which ones are still active. There are some decent free ones, but to
get truly top-notch soundfonts you have to make them yourself out of
high quality samples or pay for them. You'll never get truly high end
sound with micro-looped Soundfonts like those in these 4, 8 meg banks.

If you want to hear what can be done with Midi via the Gigasampler
format, check out some of the demos from

http://www.tascamgiga.com/sounds/

here's one place to get high quality professional soundfonts

http://sonicimplants.com/

I was anticipating what you would likely say given your previous
response. I said you can only access 32 megs with a SB Live, you
begged to differ. You said:

Well, actually the Live CAN access more than 32 megs,

No "words in your mouth" This is what you stated. It's incorrect.

Yet it can obviously play MIDIs flawlessly, though not for an indefinite
time. So again, it's not a case of "can't access more than 32MB - period".
Nothing of what I've said previously contradicts any of this. You're
obviously just looking for things to be unneccessarily confrontational
about. Calm down, dude.

Just another way to say "you're full of ****".

No, if I meant you're full of ****, believe me I would have said so.
However, I did not, and I'd prefer if you stop making up your own stuff and
then reply to THAT rather than what I ACTUALLY said. It's terribly rude what
you're doing.

Like *I* said, it'll play fine...until you've used 32 megs worth.

It's not "using" 32 megs worth, it's not like a car engine that consumes
memory like fuel. If it was to stop working once one uses 32 megs worth, it
would do that within minutes (each voice would use say around 40-80kB per
second depending on pitch when playing back samples, with a peak of 94). So
it burns through memory pretty quick, that's for sure. Still it quits from
playing THE SAME memory for a number of hours.

I didn't fully explore wether complex harmonies results in dropped notes -
I'm not a musician so I don't have a keyboard - but I could hear from the
MIDIs I tried it didn't drop notes on the ones I tested with. So I have to
conclude it "works", well enough for casual use anyway. This is what I've
stated all along, and as I've tested it I know it works the way I say it
does. :-P

Thanks for the links.

"Lenny" wrote in message ...

It's not "using" 32 megs worth, it's not like a car engine that consumes
memory like fuel.

Never said it did. I said "access". Re-read my previous explanation.
Every note that it accesses for the first time is a .wav file of a
finite size - x-number of K-bytes or megs.

If it was to stop working once one uses 32 megs worth, it
would do that within minutes (each voice would use say around 40-80kB per
second

No, again, it stops accessing new notes once the total file size of
all new notes accessed adds up to 32 megs. Which is what I said
previously. If you still disagree with this statement, you need to do
further research. As a hint, you won't find this anywhere on the
Creative website, at least the last time I looked. You also probably
won't find a Creative tech support rep who knows this. Of course,
that's not surprising.