Tips & Troubleshooting

Latency Issues
MIDI Setup

Help expand this section! I extend my invitation to all SBLive! musicians out there to contribute some sequencing, MIDI and SoundFont tips and tricks. Beats having to repeat the same thing everytime someone asks a question in the forums and newsgroups

More Information

APS 2.0 Drivers - Full SBLive! Support

A Creative/EMU rep posted an official statement to the creative.emu.products.aps newsgroup on the features in the APS 2.0 drivers that will be "100% compatible with the hardware and software features used in other EMU10K1 products, such as Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!, and will be available to those customers as a purchased upgrade".

Unfortunately the drivers were somehow cancelled to the dismay of many users.

APS 2.0 Driver Information

Cubase VST/32 5.0 Review
CNET has a review of the popular multitrack software used by many musicians running the APS drivers on SBLive! hardware.

Simulating Band-Pass and High-Pass Filters on the APS Drivers
newsgroup posting by Oliver Heusinger

First, make copies of all used samples in the instrument and invert them in a sample editor. Then, in Vienna: For each sample layer, add an additional layer with the inverted version of the sample. Now, if you play a note, the inverted and the non-inverted samples should cancel each other. If you lower the cutoff frequency of one of the sample layers, only low frequencies will be canceled. (Which gives you a high-pass filter.) If you lower the cutoff frequencies for both sample layers, one more than the other, you will get a band-pass filter. This method will use 2 voices/note and twice as much sample memory.

Getting Cubase to Work at 48kHz
submitted by Scott Smith

After four months of messing with the sbLive, I stumbled on to www.exakt.just.nu and realized that I had to reset Cubase to operate at 48khz to be compatible with the Live. After that, everything worked great. Pretty simple, but no-one at creative or steinberg suggested this. I've posted this info on every sbLive oriented site I know of, but it would of saved me a lot of hassle if this info was in the manual, on the site, or if someone in tech support was aware of it.

APS Drivers Problem

Nenad Kulas sends us this:

Analog outputs on my 'APS Live!' are, of course, dead. This is not a problem, since I linked it to my full SB Live!

1. Cakewalk only recognizes only one SoundFont device - it loads SoundFont banks only for one card. I must load banks for APS manually, and acces them via bank change messages.
2. It seems that 'APS Live' do not respond to standard GM controller messages for Reverb and Chorus. Can anybody tell me solution for this problem? Is it possible to find midi implementation for the APS card (controllers, sysex, etc...). Thanks in advance.

If you got a solution, drop us a mail!

SBLive! Mixermap for Cubase

This mixermap gives you full realtime control of SBLive! GM and NRPN controls on MIDI channels 1-8

Filter : Cutoff, Resonance
LFO 1 : Frequency, LFO1 to Pitch, LFO1 to Filter, LFO1 to Volume
AUX : Reverb, Chorus
Pan and Volume.

[Available Here]

Guitar Recording and other tips are available in the tech info section.

Jono Fosh has started a SoundFont Exchange Ring to facilitate the exchange of SoundFonts.

To take part, you need:

1. good soundfonts you are willing to share with the rest of us [preferably not the ones most of us already have].
2. some sort of webspace from which we can download your soundfonts. If you don't have any webspace, then go to www.freedrive.com and get yourself 20 Megs for free [yes, really] - its dead quick and easy to do.

When you have the details of your webspace [ncluding log-ins/passwords if necessary], send them to Jono at fosh@zeelandnet.nl. Your details will not be posted in the web site, or the Discussion List.

Instead, it will be collected over a period of, say, 3 or 4 days, and Jono will then mail all participants privately with all the details of all the contributed SoundFonts. You can also mail Jono about what sort of sounds you are looking for, and he will collate this info and pass it on to everyone.

I hope this might be the start of something good - we'll call this the first round - if it is successfull we'll do it again in a few weeks. - Jono

Making Music with Computers 101: Drivers and Soundcards
This article from Sharky Extreme covers issues like latency, MME, DirectSound, ASIO, EASI, and AudioX drivers.

The SBLive! Unleashed
This article from Futurelooks tells you how to use the SBLive! as a sampler.

SB Live! and Vienna Sound Font Studio: What Bliss!
This follow-up article to the SBLive! Unleashed takes you step-by-step through Vienna.

The Soundfonts Academy
A comprehensive site on SoundFont creation and editing.

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