I finally made the move to Ivory. You might recall that I tried it last year ... but that was running on my work computer. I could not keep Ivory there for long, so that effort was just a try-and-see.

Now I have a laptop dedicated to the purpose. I'm really pleased with it. (It's version 1.5 ... I don't feel like spending a fortune on the new v2.)

I have a Clavinova CLP240, but the sound of Ivory just blows away the native sounds. The difference is breathtaking.

I was able to tweak/calibrate the velocity curve and I got even more benefit. I'm seeing a HUGE improvement in the responsiveness and expressiveness. Why does Yamaha not do this inside the piano?

Ivory's 40 GB installation offers a bunch of piano sounds, each with pre-defined variations ... plus the many tweaks on the control panels. I've not yet tried them all, so I haven't decided which I'll use most. But for now I'm using the "Warm Bosendorfer Imperial". It's very good. The Clavinova sound simply cannot compare. Not even close.

The laptop has an Intel Core2 T5300 processor, 1.73 GHz with 2 GB RAM, and an 80 GB 7200 RPM drive. It runs Windows XP.

It has a cheapo built-in sound card. I can't complain about the sound though. Between the superior samples and the corrected velocity curve, the improvement is tremendous. It's hard to imagine that it would get much better with a high-end sound card.

I use the ASIO4All interface. I have the ASIO buffer size set to 320. I left the Latency Compenstion "In" and "Out" at the default values of 32 each. The Latency Compenstion doesn't seem to have any effect, but the ASIO buffer setting does. If I go a little below 320, the sound cuts out here and there. Much below that it just makes gurgling sounds.

To minimize latency I've shutdown and disabled many Windows services (print spooler, media center stuff, indexing, Java quick start, Net Meeting). I've also defragmented the drive.

The latency is just slightly noticeable. I'd like to reduce it further, but I'm not sure how. Does anyone know?

maybe you need now a sound card that support asio drivers natively

but try to reduce more the buffer, i have a worst cpu than you, and i can low the buffer to 200 without experiencing big glitches for playing with a library like alicia keys piano or the galaxy pianos suite

You could do what I did and buy an iMac i7. Ivory II absolutely rocks on that machine. I'm still not able to get the Bosendorfer to be as expressive an instrument as the Steinway and the Fazioli. I plan to spend some time with the Bosie this weekend trying to get the sound close to the Bosendorfer on the Leif Ove Andsnes recording of selected Haydn sonatas from the late 1990s. My recollection is that that recording is gorgeous.

It's of course true that the costs start to climb when you decide to plug your keyboard into your computer, but it's truly remarkable to me what can be achieved with these machines now. Yet, when I talk to most pianists about my "gear," I generally just get a big yawn. They know, of course, that only an acoustic piano is a musical instrument.

Tried that. Crackles.

This is a laptop, so there are no board slots.
What should I buy and how do I use it?
How would such a card connect to the laptop?

Try a Prosonus audio interface: http://www.guitarcenter.com/PreSonus-AudioBox-USB-2X2-USB-Recording-System-104841978-i1388074.gc#.

That worked for my laptop. Since it has headphones and main outs it fits the bill. It helped get my latency from 11.2ms to 5.2ms.

If it doesn't work - return it! It should help. The Synthogy tech said that the buffer is bigger in the Prosonus and that helps to get the latency down to realistic.

To maximize your laptop performance, you also need to stop any Power Management feature in your system. This will help you a lot. Regarding External Sound Cards, they are standalone devices that usually can connect to your laptop using a USB or FireWire port. If your laptop already have a FireWire port, chose a sound card that uses FireWire as I/O port, FireWire is faster than USB 2.0.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

The PreSonus AudioBox costs $150, but it's available cheaper/used on ebay.

I was also looking at the M-Audio Fast Track Pro. This one is $200, but also available used, for less.

Does anyone have anything to say about the M-Audio Fast Track Pro?

The Audiobox is nice. I have one and it has exactly everything i want. However the only down side is sometimes I experience issues with the input levels, and I have read the same from other users. So depending on what the typical levels are that you plan to put into it you may never notice a problem or you may be annoyed all the time.

I own NI Audio Kontrol One and I am using it in similar setup. I am using Reason Pianos Instead of Ivory. The product now discontinued and replaced by Complete Audio 6 model. You may want to check them also.

Presonus audiobox usb. You'll surely get under 10 ms latency.

I've found firewire stuff to be weird on Windows sometimes.

Yes Ivory hooked to a $300 Casio and good monitors blows the sound of Yamaha's $15,000 digital offering out of the water... why Yamaha can't be bothered to buy Ilio/Synthogy and put an SSD with Ivory samples into their high-end digitals I don't know.

I had very difficult time getting the ASIO4All driver work with my built-in Realtek audio chip on a windows 7 64 bit desktop. No matter what setting I chose, there was just no sound output. What I want was to play back a MID file with Ivory sound. Eventually I installed Cubase and it works with Ivory I. I am just curious if anybody get the ASIO4ALL work with Realtek chip. And what VST host program do you guys use?

romeogg, make sure that no other audio programs are running before starting the application that uses ASIO4ALL. It may also be necessary to configure the VST host to use ASIO4ALL first, quit, then restart.

It's been a while since I dabbled with VSTs, however VSThost was a very nice lightweight host on my old XP laptop.

Cheers,
James
x

AlphaTerminus: Thanks for the suggestion. I'm looking at a Presonus on ebay.

And, yes ... Ivory is awfully good. I don't know how to compare it to the sound of "Yamaha's $15,000 digital offering" because I haven't tried one of those. But if Ivory's basic set of a bunch (how many I'm not sure) of pianos can fit into 40 GB of files, then surely Yamaha could squeeze just one of those pianos into a piano. But they don't. Sux.

I have tried it. The N3 is is beautiful and has perfect action but the sound is "meh."

i use cantabile lite, it's free and fast

Romeogg,

Well your question is timely -- last night, at the suggestion of the tech at Ivory, I downloaded the ASIO4All driver to run on my Windows 7 64 bit (laptop in my case) -- using a Realtek audio chip. This morning I had my first breakthrough getting my Ivory II up and running using the Cantabile software that came with Ivory. For the first time I got an audio signal of the Ivory samples to my headphones (connected to the notebook), by mousing over the keyboard in Cantabile. So it can be done. I'm hardly a technical expert, but am happy to provide any details you need that I might have. This weekend I hope to get my new AudiBoX USB running to play Ivory from my Yamaha CP 33. I been told I need to disable the RealTek chip (in the Device Manager) and that AudioBox will handle both in coming MIDI and outgoing audio data to my powered monitors or headphones. This is the bit I'm still struggling with (about an hour a night for a week now).

Good luck (to both of us),

Walt Brooks

I don't think you need to disable the realtek chip. In the cantable setup just select "presonus usb asio" for the audio driver.

(But I plug the CP33 usb directly into my computer, not using the Audiobox midi in connections)

AlphaTerminus,

That's a revelation to me! So, you go MIDI - USB directly into the computer, not through the AudioBox, and I assume you use the AudioBox only for the higher quality audio outputs (to monitors or headphones), is that right? That might solve my problems.

BTW, I was planning to write a thank you note to you once I got all set-up (and would be able to report success). You may recall our correspondence on a different thread about a month ago on this subject. So thanks again.

Walt

Yes, for the audio and low latency. You could do the midi through audiobox, I have just never tried it.

Any progress this weekend?

Yes, I just bought the Presonus box, used on ebay. I'll have it later this week.

As long as you ask ... here's a question: Unlike the M-Audio box, the Presonus has only TRS line-level outputs (no RCA jacks). Those are balanced connections, with a 3-ring tip/ring/sleeve jack. Tip and ring are the balanced connections, while sleeve is the ground.

I have some TRS-to-RCA adaptors, but they're unbalanced ... just tip and sleeve. Will they work?

Wikipedia says it should work:

Yes, if they are good quality. I had a pair that exhibited some buzzing, but a better pair work.

Yes, success! Downloading the ASIO4All drivers was the fix that got me over the goal line. I got Ivory II running without any issues, driving it with my Yamaha CP 33, to a pair of Yamaha powered monitors (5") and a 10" sub woofer. As you predicted, the sound quality is vastly improved over the CP 33's internal sounds. I was expecting the improvement to be limited to the elimination of looping, but it goes well beyond that. The Ivory Steinway enables much more expressiveness over what I can achieve with the internal CP 33 sounds. I'm still experimenting with the options to customize the tone to my precise liking, but I am very happy.

A buffer of 320 is larger then I'd prefer to use. Latency would be just maybe noticeable if you have good ears. Your problem is then you are using Windows XP. The OS was not designed for this. (Technically the kernel scheduler is non-deterministic. It was designed to get the most total work done per unit of time, not for predictable real-time tasks, like playing music.) Even a very low-end mac can do 128 buffer size and still run web browsers and emails. Your lare buffer size is required to accommodate non-determinism in the OS.

But I know not everyone can afford a new $600 Mac and needs to use what they have. I think maybe there is more you can remove. Yes "remove" not simply turn off. Can you remove the network device drivers? I suspect XP might still be listening to the network (Ethernet and WiFi and if you have it Bluetooth) but not responding. Remove the drivers

You will get better sound from and external interface but if it is USB, maybe not. USB requires a large amount of CPU processing. Firewire has a very low overhead. If you system is on the edge I'd not recommend adding any USB devices.

In theory they can work but it depends on how well they are made. I dislike adapters of any kind except for a temporary setup. It is best to buy the correct cable that is RCA on one end and 1/4" on the other. Cables like this are not expensive. prices range for $6 to $25 depending on brand.

I fully expected Yamaha - probably the biggest marketer of high-end DPs - to have something like by now, at least in the AG. What gives? They don't even need an SSD for a single 8GB piano sample.

I agree with many things said here. I've bought a Yamaha CLP 170 in 2004 and this year I've plugged my computer with Synthogy Ivory (1.5). The piano sound is amazing (I realy like the italian).

I wanted to buy another Yamaha, but the new CLP 400 line seems to bring too few improvements.

I've played the new Yamaha N1, but the piano sound deceived me. I prefer keep my old CLP - buying N1 only for key action seems stupid - and continue with Ivory ; I only play at home with headphones.

So for the moment I'm no longer a customer for Yamaha, and in fact neither for any other DP brands. Wait and see...

Hervé: I'm with you on that. I posted elsewhere that it doesn't seem worthwhile to buy a high-end piano.

I've not tried the AG so I wouldn't rule it out. But anything else from Y, R, or C just doesn't make sense. All I need is a console with a suitable appearance and key action ... plus Ivory. Shuck the lame piano sounds and crappy speakers in the consoles.

(For those who prefer a slab to a console it would be even cheaper.)

I got the Presonus box today.

Installed the drivers and hooked up the box. It has L/R 1/4" balanced jacks. The 1/4"-to-RCA adapters worked fine.

Fiddled with Windows to tell it to use Presonus audio instead of the internal sound card.

Fiddled with the VST host to tell it to stay with the Clavinova MIDI input rather than the Presonus MIDI input (because I use MIDI-over-USB from the piano, plugged straight into the laptop). And I set it to use the Presonus ASIO driver rather than ASIO4All.

Voila. It works.

So ... what about latency? I feed both the native Clavinova line outs and the Presonus line outs to a mixer. Normally I'd turn up one and turn down the other. But with both turned on I can hear both sound sources, and I can hear the delay between the Clav sound and the laptop/Presonus-processed sound.

Well, there's still a bit of delay. It's a bit less than when I was using the laptop's internal sound card ... but it's still there. I'm not sure it was worth the spend, but it works.

You can go into ivory's setup area and mess with the setting, buffers, etc. Rarely is it possible to get the natiive dp and Ivory to mix well or react simultaneously without sounding weird.

I don't want to mix them for performance use. (Indeed, it's bye-bye to the Clav sounds. Ivory is so much better.)

I was just mixing them as a tool to assess the latency.

Mess with the buffers, Sample rate, etc on ivory's setup. You should be able to achieve 5.2 ms latency. Use presonus usb drivers instead of asio4all

Alpha: Ivory 1.5 has a buffer setting, but it's a memory buffer (small/med/large), intended for slower computers:
- Buffer size controls the Ivory performance by adjusting the amount of RAM used to generate notes.
- Slower computers will need to use a larger RAM buffer, while faster computers can use a smaller buffer.
- This setting does not affect latency.

Yes, I've been using the PreSonus ASIO driver. It offers these choices:
SYSTEM PERFORMANCE .. INPUT LATENCY ............. OUTPUT LATENCY
Highspeed ........... 93 samples .. 2 ms ...... 280 samples .. 6 ms
Rapid .............. 172 samples .. 3 ms ...... 365 samples .. 8 ms
Fast ............... 172 samples .. 3 ms ...... 815 samples . 18 ms
Normal ............. 300 samples .. 6 ms ..... 1337 samples . 30 ms
Relaxed Normal ..... 556 samples . 12 ms ..... 2181 samples . 49 ms
Relaxed ........... 1068 samples . 24 ms ..... 3069 samples . 69 ms

The default was "Normal" ... 6 ms latency, 300 samples.

Previously (with ASIO4All) I used 320 samples, and it worked well. When I tried 256 samples it would sometimes crackle.

But with the PreSonus I tried "Fast" ... 3 ms latency, 172 samples.

It works. I can hear NO latency at all.

Result!

James
x

Enjoy it! Play around with the resonance and room size and wet/dry settings. I love to play ragtime and upbeat pop on the C7 setting, I love to play classical and pop ballads on the Steinway (and Fazioli) setting. I don't much love their sampled Bosendorfer for much, unless I needed another drumkit

The Bosie tone is mellower, suitable for some things. I like the German D (Steinway?) better for most purposes. (I don't have the Fazioli ... this is v1.5.)

The room size is quite useful. I like "room" for Baroque, and "concert hall" or "recital hall" for most everything else.

I've always thought the dynamics on the Clav were too limited. Ivory does away with that limitation.

It also allowed me to correct the velocity curve. The Clav won't send the full 1..127 range for velocity. It only goes from the teens up to about 105. The correction in Ivory makes it much more playable.

It's already been said, but it bears repeating: Why can't Yamaha put a sound this good into the piano ... even if it were only one of the piano sounds?

Mac: If you decide to try Ivory 2, get Italian Grand, which is just the Fazioli. It is a cheaper investment and is very versitile. Ivory 1.5 is great, though, enjoy that for now!

They totally can, they just won't - even though it's long past due, particularly for their no-compromise high-end products like the AG.

Agreed - I bought a fairly high end Roland some six or seven years ago - poor investment as the sound became tiring and thin with time.

Fortunately it sends the full range of damper and volume control messages, and has a reasonable imitation of let-off at key stroke bottom.

I'm surprised that your CLP 240 doesn't send the full range of values as it's a full featured DP.

Glenn

The Clav has half-damper. But Ivory 1.5 doesn't support half-damper. (The new Ivory v2 does.)