On Fri, 2001-12-21 at 02:59, Stefan Schwandter wrote:
> Hello ALSA-developers!
>
>
> I recently bought a SB Live card, partly because it seems to be
> supported best by ALSA, at least regarding the in-built
> synthesizer. It works quite well, but it still seems to have some
> problems:
>
> *) Sounds are often cut off (especially noticeable with cymbals). I
> first thought this could be a general problem of the card, but in
> windows the problem doesn't exist. I tried different players under
> linux (pmidi, drvmidi), but it didn't improve things. So I think
> it's an ALSA problem.
>
> *) Is it possible that the driver has problems with big soundfonts? I
> use the UtopiaLive sf (32 MB), and there are midi-files where some
> instruments aren't played. When I use the standard 8 MB soundfont
> from EMU I can hear them. Under windows it works in both cases.
>
>
> Don't know if these are known problems, so I decided to report them
> :-)
>
>
> regards, Stefan
>
>
I have also noticed problems with the SB Live and sound fonts. Most of
these problems I did not experience when I was using my EMU8000 AWE 32
card. I don't have windows to compare it to though, but I have often
thought it would be a good experiment to try two machines side by side
testing the sound of different fonts.
Currently there is not support for Chorus or Reverb with the SB Live
with ALSA. This was mentioned before on this list, I'm under the
impression that it would take someone writing DSP assembler code for
these effects.
The other problems I have noticed:
- A strange phasing effect (you might be describing the same thing)
where one side will cut out before the other quite randomly
- clicks are heard when playing many sounds with long decay times (this
problem is also on the AWE 32). Not sure if there is a more graceful way
to terminate voices when all of them are in use, but it is rather
audible.
I've often thought of putting my AWE 32 back in my machine, but I like
full duplex audio and I don't have enough slots in my current machine
for both cards. So, my experience with the SB Live and sound fonts
hasn't been a very pleasant one.
It is partly because of these drawbacks that I've decided to move to
iiwusynth for primary use in the Smurf Sound Font Editor. It will bring
many benifits as well, including: use of any Linux supported sound card,
a common synthesis platform, ability to pipe synthesized audio to plugin
chains for other effects (hard to do with SB Live internal synth) and an
easier development cycle since it isn't in the kernel.
--
Josh Green
Smurf Sound Font Editor (http://smurf.sourceforge.net)
_______________________________________________
Alsa-devel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-devel
