Steve, Actually, this is really what I should've asked. I'm a guitar player, so I use microphones. I am using a delta 1010LT card, which has 2 balanced inputs which I run from a Pendulum Audio SPS acoustic preamp. I can get quiet recordings in my room finally because I have sound treated my PC. I built it into an Antec Sonata case and bought sound foam pre-cut for this case. I replaced my CPU and Case fans with more expensive and quieter fans, and now my PC is nearly inaudible. It is certainly not loud enough to be picked up by my microphones (both large and small condensers). The preamp is extremely quiet, by the way, as is the delta 1010LT. I do not have an external synthesizer and have been using soundfonts for the few times that I needed a synth. Fluidsynth runs well, especially with the qsynth front end. Thanks again for the gear info and the great blues piece! -Joe D On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 00:57, Steve D wrote: > On Tue, Nov 23, 2004 at 09:52:17PM -0500, Joseph Dell'Orfano wrote: > > Steve, > > > > [...] May I ask what you used for synthesis? > > > > -Joe D > --- > > Hello Joe-- My gear consists mainly of: > > * a Yamaha P-90 digital piano for MIDI motherboard (great action--I prefer > it to my much more expensive Kawai MP9500 which I have decided to sell); > > * several rack-mounted tone generators--an older Yamaha MU90R and a > GeneralMusic RealPiano Expander, and a new Roland FantomXR, which has > some really nice sounds mixed in with all the less pleasant, gimmicky > ones (from my perspective); > > * a Rane SM26B 1-rack-space splitter/mixer that is one of my > all-time favorite pieces of gear, extremely versatile with > clean-sounding circuitry, exceptionally good design and very sturdy; > > * an M-Audio Delta 1010 PCI MIDI/digital-audio soundcard with > rack-mounted "breakout box"; it's a great soundcard that works well with > Linux, but my only complaint is that the powered breakout box doesn't > have an on/off switch. If it's plugged in, it will come on with the > computer whether or not one intends to use it at the time, and it gets > considerably hot. (I give it an empty rack space above and below it, > after reading of some other people's difficulties with the Delta 1010 > failing because of overheating. The versions after the first generation > 1010 supposedly don't have as much of a problem with this.) > > * a dual-CPU Athlon 1900+ computer (Tyan motherboard) that runs the > Agnula/Demudi Debian-based Linux distribution. > > The sounds on the short piece I mentioned were the "mellow piano" from > the "Concert Piano" expansion board for the Roland FantomXR, with a > piano/choir combination voice from the GeneralMusic RealPiano Expander > at a lower volume. The flute sound was the "Pan Pipes SRX" on the "World > Collection" expansion board for the Roland FantomXR. Those are the only > sounds on that short piece. > > I have never tried using a sofware synth yet, nor using Timidity or > a soundfont to provide the sounds for MIDI data. I'm interested in > exploring that territory, but just have felt daunted to do so yet. > > The quiet, clean sound of the file I uploaded is the result primarily of > two factors: a) I use no microphones (I'm not a singer, just a piano > player), so no ambient noise is picked up (including my very noisy > computer with 8 fans!), b) the analog audio signal from the tone > generators is converted from unbalanced "line level" -10dB (as it comes > out of the tone generators) to balanced cables at "pro" levels (+4dB) as > soon as possible using short cables to connect them to the Rane SM26B > mixer and/or the M-Audio Delta 1010, which are both capable of using > balanced cables (Tip-Ring-Sleeve 1/4") and cleanly boosting line-level > signals to +4dB). > > This is a lot more information than you asked for. Sorry-- > > -Steve D
