Subject:ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir instrument

Posted by: Randini

Date:8/25/2007 8:42:16 PM

I bought a virtual instrument that woks fine in Acid Studio. However this is a choir one that has another program that can make the choir sing words. I had to install a midi port program to run it called maple midi. This causes the program to slow down and crash. I have more then enough computer power with 4 gigs of RAM. I was told by a tech maybe I should get Acid Pro.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
Also does Acid Pro support unlimited amounts of virtual instruments and will it transfer my Acid studio files?

Thank you,
Randy

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir instrument

Reply by: pwppch

Date:8/26/2007 7:08:05 PM

First, please fill out your system specs in your user profile.

What is the name of this Choir tool? Who makes it?

ACID will let you have up to 32 Softsynths Buses. This could be 32 different Softsynths or 8 softsynths, each exposing 4 buses. And any combination in between.

Peter

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: Randini

Date:8/28/2007 8:01:45 PM

Hello Peter,

I posted my specs. The Choir Virtual Instrument program is called Eastwest Quantum Leap located here:

http://www.soundsonline.com/EastWest-Quantum-Leap-Symphonic-Choirs-pr-EW-165.html

When I set up their word builder program (Choir sings typed words) I have to have 6 midi tracks running. When I go to put the 3rd one in the program ACID freezes up.

NOTE: I have Acid Studio not Acid Pro however I downloaded the trial and the same thing happens.

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: DKeenum

Date:8/29/2007 7:17:08 AM

Randy, I can't help you directly, but...

Have you also posted over on the eastwest forums (I think they still have forums)? Also, nothernsounds and v.i. control (Mainly soundtrack composers). We can help you with acid specific questions, but this choir program may have it's own peculiar aspects.

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: alltheseworlds

Date:8/29/2007 4:48:34 PM

I'd be interested in knowing the answer to this one. I have EWQL Symphonic Choirs too, but have never run it in AcidPro, just assuming it was beyond Acid's rather weak VSTi powers.

SC requires the 'speech' engine be run as an effect to the main sound generator. I always just run it in Sonar instead....

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: pwppch

Date:8/30/2007 8:54:21 AM

>>beyond Acid's rather weak VSTi powers.

What is weak about ACID's VSTi support?

Please, be specific. Use specific plug-ins as examples.

Thanks
Peter

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: Randini

Date:8/30/2007 7:45:59 PM

Hello Allthesewords,

I'm thinking on updating from Acidstudio to Pro but I'm going to have many VSTIs. Why is Sonar better?

Thank you,
Randy

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:8/31/2007 10:32:43 AM

Choirs can work just fine with ACID. Randini, you are probably causing a MIDI feedback loop as a result of your setup with WordBuilder. This has happened to me before. It's a simple oversight, but it cripples a system every single time.

I can only describe how to do this with ACID Pro since that's what I have, but hopefully this will help.

1. Start your new ACID project.
2. Open the Choirs VSTi standalone.
3. Open WordBuilder standalone.
4. Add a MIDI track for the choirs VSTi to sing with. Set the output to be Maple Midi 1 (MM1). On that same track, make sure "Send MIDI Input Through to MIDI Output" is disabled.
5. In WordBuilder, set your input as MM1. Set the output as MM2.
6. In the Choir VSTi, set your input as MM2.

Everything should now work okay. Please note that you cannot render the Choir VSTi because it is not hosted in ACID. You'll have to bounce the tracks in real-time. This would also be the case if you hosted the VSTi in ACID (I've found making it standalone adds to the stability) since the external WordBuilder program cannot be used for rendering (ACID can't know when to slow down for the VSTi basically). I'm guessing this is what you tried, and running MIDI out from ACID, to an external program, and back in is a real easy way to cause a feedback loop, especially if you're using Auto Input Routing. This is a shortcoming of how the Choirs program was designed.

EastWest has stated though that the Play version of Choirs will have WordBuilder built-in to the VSTi interface. This should allow us to host the VSTi in ACID, type the words, playback, and render without issue.

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: alltheseworlds

Date:8/31/2007 4:33:03 PM

Urgh ! What a terrible way to have to operate. With respect, I think this answers all the previous questions about "weak VSTi" implementation and why I use Sonar for Symphonic Choirs.

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: nlamartina

Date:8/31/2007 5:00:57 PM

Sorry, I disagree. Only programs that can load MFX can operate with Choirs smoothly, and even then, EastWest only selected that approach because they weren't developing their VSTis themselves (WordBuilder is at best a clever way to get Native Instruments Kompakt to behave like a sample database). Any program that can't load the MFX plugin has to struggle with it this way. ACID is only one of many. There's no weakness in the VSTi capabilities that cause this issue. The fact that EastWest is choosing to change the way the program operates only highlights this fact.

Subject:RE: ACid Music Studio 6 support for Choir in

Reply by: alltheseworlds

Date:8/31/2007 11:10:53 PM

I stand corrected, thanks for the clarification. But the end result is AcidPro can't easily do it, whereas Sonar can. That said, this is just about the ONLY thing I use Sonar for anymore, I find AcidPro faster, easier and more enjoyable to use for everything else.

And good news that EW will change the way SC works. It's a clumsy system at present.