Symbiosis Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 Hi all We have the following music tech setup and wondered how this stacks up with what everybody else has out there? XP Pc based Cubase 4 VST instrumentation only - from NI Bandstand Alesis IO2 USB Mixer M-Audio Keystation USB Keyboards On the whole our setup works fairly well but I do seem to get constant problems with students not getting any sound and/or midi - I think this is largely due to the students unplugging either the keyboard or mixer whilst Cubase is open or (recently) with dodgy USB leads. What sort of issues do others encounter and has anyone got a failry stable/reliable setup?
dhicks Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 XP Pc based Cubase 4 VST instrumentation only - from NI Bandstand Alesis IO2 USB Mixer M-Audio Keystation USB Keyboards We have Windows XP based machines running Cubase 4 and Sibelious and USB keyboards to plug in to them. I don't quite get what "VST" is, although the music teacher reports that it isn't working in some way. Seemingly she's expecting to see a whole bunch more instruments/voices/whatever it is that VST provides when she opens some part of Cubase. I've tried searching the install disc for ".VST" files, but no luck. Does anyone know what it is I'm supposed to be doing - what is it that VST files provide, and where do I find and install more of them? -- David Hicks
Symbiosis Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Hi dhicks - VST = Virtual Instrumentation, usually based on samples of real instruments that are played when a key is pressed on the music midi keyboard. Depending on what version of Cubase you have, it may or may not come with any VST instruments included with it. If it has, it will probably be Halion. You can get some reasonable freebie VST instruments if you do a google for them but the best ones cost I'm afraid!! We use bandstand which gives you a reasonable quality standard midi set Hope that helps 1
DAckroyd Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 t'other day I went past our music Dept and they were recording singing onto Digital Camera's... I don't think anyone can beat that for a setup 1
Jamo Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 (edited) Hi dhicks - VST = Virtual Instrumentation, usually based on samples of real instruments that are played when a key is pressed on the music midi keyboard. Depending on what version of Cubase you have, it may or may not come with any VST instruments included with it. If it has, it will probably be Halion. You can get some reasonable freebie VST instruments if you do a google for them but the best ones cost I'm afraid!! We use bandstand which gives you a reasonable quality standard midi set Hope that helps VSTi is a virtual instrument. VST is a plugin architecture for the Cubase family of software although I tihnk its open to other softwares as there is a plugin for Audacity now for VST. It can be the reverb effects or the EQs or basically anything you add into Cubase. I would think that the teacher would mean VSTi as the VST plugins dont have to look much at the harddrive as they are raw processing plugins usually. A VSTi usually accesses a large collection of data files to reproduce a more realistic sound than can be achieved through standard FM Midi. If its a VSTi issue it couldbe permissions related :s Our setup here is 4 *hand me down* iMacs with OS9 and one XP computer with 128MB ram which is so slow the hard drive thrashes when you click the start menu. Just incase anyone has a home PC setup with cubase or any VST plugin app... I found an awesome plugin, it emulates a JCM900 and is a great sub for a real guitar amp in a home setup. Defo not perfect but its acutally better than all the paid for ones ive tried and the best part about this one is it was free. Its a uni project from the US. I cant remember the exact site so I would Google JCM900 VST as it will be there somewhere! Edited June 30, 2009 by Jamo
IrritableTech Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology if memory serves - otherwise known as plugins. We use 10 XP based machines with Cubase Essentials 4 Education, and Sybalius 4 (soon to be upgraded to 6) with USB midi keyboards. Our students don't seem to go too in depth into Cubase. Just fairly basic midi composition.
Symbiosis Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Interesting to see that a few of you have sibelius installed - what are the main attractions of it? Does nobody else encounter the constant problems I have with students unplugging the midi keyboards - just curious if it's only an issue here for some reason
majeeko Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 (edited) Our school runs Cubase SE, we use the general Midi sounds (microsoft GS wave table ) that comes with the computer, triggerd via a USB keyboard, the only problem using external Midi devices (in this case the GM sounds from the motherboard) is you cant export the whole song as a file. This is where VSTi's (virtual studio technology instruments) are handy as they route the audio through the cubase mixer you can manipulate it with FX's and EQ and also export it. General Cubase problems include notes getting stuck on. this is caused by the sequencer receiving the note on message (the signal sent when you press a key) but failing to get the note off message (the signal sent when you release the key) this is cured by going to the MIDI drop down menu and selecting reset. keyboards not working: if a USB midi keyboard is plugged in after cubase has been opened the sequencer will usually no accept input from it, its the same if you pull the USB lead out half way through you work. just save your work and reopen cubase. For a truly awsome set up get Reason as well. you can sync Reason with Cubase via the ReWire protocol and use all the Reason instruments and sequence it in Cubase. this is the setup i use at home and it works really well. there are also loads of free VSTi's out there. Edited June 30, 2009 by majeeko
Symbiosis Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 the only problem using external Midi devices (in this case the GM sounds from the motherboard) is you cant export the whole song as a file. This is where VSTi's (virtual studio technology instruments) are handy as they route the audio through the cubase mixer you can manipulate it with FX's and EQ and also export it.QUOTE] Exactly right Majeeko - it's one of the reasons we use the VSTi's as we can export the mixdown within Cubase and apply VST filters and effects on the way, Also, the sound quality of the VSTi's is very high compared to GM sounds The main problems I seem to encounter are: Unplugged midi cables leading to non-connected midi keyboards - plus I then have to log in as admin to re-install the drivers once they are re-connected On our M-Audio midi keyboards it's actually possible to plug in the type B USB connector the wrong way up!! This of course means they dont work! Students accidentally re-assigning the midi out channel by random pushing of buttons All good fun - not!!!
Jamo Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 SimulAnalog Guitar Suite Found it!! Check those out they are by far the best guitar sims. (Interesting to put some synth through too, gives a really dirty tone to a simple sine sound) 1
Symbiosis Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Thats interesting re the guitar FX as each of our music workstations has one of these attached that allows real audio to be recorded along with midi: http://www.inta-audio.com/images/io2_top_lg.jpg Two XLR mic inputs (powered if needed) and two line inputs - they work fairly well and cant be beaten for the price I think I use a cubase and reason setup for home too, though my mate (who is a pro producer/record label owner) swears by Logic
Symbiosis Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 This is true re the latency though I find that the free ASIO driver by ASIOALL seems to offer the best timings ASIO4ALL - Universal ASIO Driver
JonR Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 I have the M-Audio USB keyboards connected to the a spare motherboard usb header, therefore the students cant change the usb port its plugged into. Once drivers have been installed by the administrator the students can use the keyboard without problems.
Symbiosis Posted June 30, 2009 Author Posted June 30, 2009 Cheers JohnR - had thought of that but unfortunatly I dont have any internal USB ports apart from one on a PSI card bought specially to attach the Cubase dongle to. Also, I guess they could still yank the cable and disconnect it - where's there's a will I guess
Jamo Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 Thats interesting re the guitar FX as each of our music workstations has one of these attached that allows real audio to be recorded along with midi: http://www.inta-audio.com/images/io2_top_lg.jpg Two XLR mic inputs (powered if needed) and two line inputs - they work fairly well and cant be beaten for the price I think I use a cubase and reason setup for home too, though my mate (who is a pro producer/record label owner) swears by Logic I use Cubase4 full version with a couple of Orchestral VSTi's I bought from EastWest. Such a good setup I recorded a few bands over time as well. http://www.mypspace.com/cursingcaroline for my music efforts /End shameless plug I used the Motu 828 for inputs, with a proper ASIO soundcard device you should be able to get the latencys to less than 100 samples which is unnoticable even when laden with VST effects.
tim.dalton Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 Our music department are Mac based. Got iMacs running Garageband, Logic and Sibelius. The intention was that lower down the school they use Garageband and then progress up to the other apps for GCSE although we're increasingly seeing Garageband being used all the way through. Everything seems stable, our issues are more to do with people wanting to do new things rather than bug fixing. We're currently looking for good ways for students to play back their work through the main speaker system in the IT suite from whichever computer they are working on for example. Quite like the idea of some kind of mixer (maybe even virtual) that sits on the teachers desk with an input for each of the 28 computers in the room. Also starting to play around with broadcasting audio across the network for a radio station- outdoor speakers seems doable, looking at ways to be able to schedule playback of recordings, stream to the desktop, podcasting the content, etc. Tim
mac_shinobi Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 (edited) Our music department are Mac based. Got iMacs running Garageband, Logic and Sibelius. The intention was that lower down the school they use Garageband and then progress up to the other apps for GCSE although we're increasingly seeing Garageband being used all the way through. Everything seems stable, our issues are more to do with people wanting to do new things rather than bug fixing. We're currently looking for good ways for students to play back their work through the main speaker system in the IT suite from whichever computer they are working on for example. Quite like the idea of some kind of mixer (maybe even virtual) that sits on the teachers desk with an input for each of the 28 computers in the room. Also starting to play around with broadcasting audio across the network for a radio station- outdoor speakers seems doable, looking at ways to be able to schedule playback of recordings, stream to the desktop, podcasting the content, etc. Tim If they save or export it into a format that itunes can play you can share each itunes library and play it over the network from the teachers computer ( the teachers computer can be connected to the main speaker system ) and just get each of the other macs to share the itunes library and the teachers one should pick up the other itunes librarys and be able to play any of them Edited June 30, 2009 by mac_shinobi
tim.dalton Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 Not a bad idea... Only problem would be having 30 shared iTunes libraries would be a bit of a mess. Combine that with the kids leaving sharing switched on after the lesson and we'll end up with a few hundred shared libraries appearing! Like the idea of using iTunes though, I wonder if we could do something clever with getting students to save their exported files to the one teacher shared library. Will have a think. Thanks, Tim
Symbiosis Posted July 1, 2009 Author Posted July 1, 2009 We have a set of powered speakers per workstation but I wonder if we should restrict them to working with headphones as the inevitable volume level competition results in speaker sets being blown all the time. Only problem with that is that the students work in small groups on a project and would need to all be able to hear it at the same time What do the rest of you do about this? Speakers for each workstation or some kind of headphone arrangement?
plexer Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 We have 15 shuttle pc's with a mini mixer on top of them, they have an M-Audio sound card in them as well which is hooked up to the mixer. Each pc runs sibelius and cubase and the output of the mixer goes to a way headphone splitter. I choose a 4 way rather than a 2 way because a teacher can then plug in his own headphones to listen to what they are doing. Ben
majeeko Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 We have a set of powered speakers per workstation but I wonder if we should restrict them to working with headphones as the inevitable volume level competition results in speaker sets being blown all the time. Only problem with that is that the students work in small groups on a project and would need to all be able to hear it at the same time What do the rest of you do about this? Speakers for each workstation or some kind of headphone arrangement? we use headphones with 2 or 4 way splitters, we use to have speakers but as you said the volume battle was a bit much. we keep the headphones locked in a cupboard in the computer room so they can just grab them at the start of the lesson. the teacher walks around with a set of headphones and just plugs in when she wants to listen to a group, or they save it in there music folder and she can listen in her own time.
mac_shinobi Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 (edited) Not a bad idea... Only problem would be having 30 shared iTunes libraries would be a bit of a mess. Combine that with the kids leaving sharing switched on after the lesson and we'll end up with a few hundred shared libraries appearing! Like the idea of using iTunes though, I wonder if we could do something clever with getting students to save their exported files to the one teacher shared library. Will have a think. Thanks, Tim That or create a shared area on the teachers computer and allow users access to that and give them a shortcut to that on each computer or make it mount that share at login for each computer so when users login it mounts that shared area and then once they have completed there audio work they can copy it to that shared area and then the teacher can play it on there computer which will be connected to the speaker system. That or you could share out the teachers itunes library and have a folder for there work for each year group or student or w/e and same as i mentioned before get it to mount that share instead and then when they copy there music files into that share if the teacher re loads itunes ( quits and re launches ) it should load there songs into the teachers itunes and be able to play from there Edited July 1, 2009 by mac_shinobi
Symbiosis Posted July 1, 2009 Author Posted July 1, 2009 So (to clarify) does this mean that nobody else have problems with students unplugging the midi keyboards then? I think it's partly a driver issue when they do this, but I also found a MS article about USB ports ceasing to function if devices are plugged and unplugged in quick sucession and I think thats happening too I want to check this because I feel it's a classroom control issue - they shouldnt be touching the USB cables as far as I'm concerned I've been looking for some kind of USB cable lock that will prevent a user from removing a USB connected device but have drawn a blank - anybody seen anything that will do the job?
plexer Posted July 1, 2009 Posted July 1, 2009 Oh yes I regularly find the room in a state, things unplugged from the mini mixers and then they wonder why there is no sound output. Mini usb leads unplugs, our midi keyboards are also normal keyboards too so often the output lead is disconnected. We had cubase dongles stolen even though they were cable tied to the back of the machine. They are now all internal. Ben
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