The EM Poll

Cool Tip Of The Month

Sep 1, 2002 12:00 PM

           

Using MIDI Patchnames within Cubase is great, but scrolling through 100 or more patches to select your favorite tuba preset can quickly get tedious. Here's a tip for organizing your patches into additional subcategories by editing a Cubase Patchname Script document.

1. Within the Scripts > patchnames folder for Cubase, open the TXT document for your synth. Duplicate the document so you have a backup copy, and then open the file using a text editor or word processor.

2. You'll notice that at the beginning of each of the synth's patch banks there's a [g1] header/description followed by a lot of program numbers and descriptions, all containing “p2.” To further organize the patches, you can create a second group level [g2] in your patch list. (For an example of this type of grouping, check out the “xg names.txt” document in the patchnames folder.)

3. To create the new levels, just insert the desired number of the [g2] subheaders into any bank, at whatever category breaks are appropriate in your sound listing. Next, type in the appropriate name for each of the submenu titles (such as “Keyboards,” “Percussion,” “Organs,” or “Synth Leads”).

4. Once you've done that in all the appropriate banks, globally replace all instances of “p2” with “p3”; otherwise the programs will show up on the same level as previously, where the submenu headers [g2] now appear.

5. Save the document and reopen Cubase. Voilà!

If you're a little more adventuresome, you can cut and paste noncontiguous patches into various groups to meet your additional production needs. PC users can further edit patch lists with the ScriptMaker utility included with the Windows version of Cubase.

To view a streaming movie of this tip from the CoolSchoolOnline library, visit www.emusician.com/cooltip. Also, if you dare, take the quiz to review what you've learned!
— Steve Albanese

Maximizing GigaStudio Performance

Tascam's GigaStudio 160 is a powerful software sampler that streams Instrument files directly from the hard drive. That allows it to use mammoth loop-free samples but it also puts a strain on your hard drive when the polyphony count gets high.

To maximize performance and polyphony, Dave Casey at Tascam recommends that you install GigaStudio, along with the system software and other applications, on your main hard drive, and reserve a second, defragmented Instrument drive for your sample libraries. GigaStudio can work more efficiently if it only has to access samples from a single optimized (defragmented) drive. Unlike program files, most GigaStudio Instruments remain unchanged during normal use, so the drive will likely stay defragmented.

However, remember not to store GigaStudio Performance data on the Instrument drive. Performance files are frequently edited and updated, and after repeated use, the Instrument drive will become fragmented, which may degrade performance during heavy use.
— David Rubin

Sharing Audio Resources

Some Windows audio programs do not play well with others. In fact, it's not uncommon to find that a piece of software has “locked out” your sound card, and even if you minimize the program, when you load a second application, you'll get a message saying “sound card in use” or something similar. If you experience this problem while running Cakewalk's Sonar or Sonar 2.0, go to the Options/Audio/Advanced menu and enable Share Drivers with Other Programs. Lo and behold, when you load a second application, it will happily play audio, even if Sonar is still running.

Of course, if your audio card has multiple output channels that appear as individual drivers in your software's audio menu, you can always assign different outputs to different programs, and you should be all set. But for the thousands of PC owners who don't have that option — Sound Blaster users, for example — being able to share is what it's all about!
— Dennis Miller

Cleaning Your Clock

Rule No. 1 for syncing devices: have only one master clock. The bad news is that it's easy to have simultaneous, conflicting MIDI Clock messages. The good news? A device can't output MIDI Clock messages when it's set to slave to MIDI Clock. The trick, then, is to make all Clock-generating devices slaves except one, which will be the master clock. To make sure you have one master and your MIDI interface supports it, you can filter MIDI Clock from all outputs but the desired source.
— Marty Cutler