I know there's already been quite a few topics like this with a lot of great information on here. It has helped immensely.

My wife and I have been bouncing ideas around which piano to get.

The P60 with Gigastudio seems like the best choice. We already have a couple of high performance PCs here.
In some ways there's so much information out there, the most difficult thing is tieing it altogether.

Is this the necessary hardware that we need?:

P60
Regular PC or laptop
Midi interface/sound card

There are a few different midi interfaces/sound cards that I am looking at, which is really a big part of this post - I am not sure which one to get for my setup (probably due to my limited knowledge on this subject really):

In a previous post this was recommended:
http://www.tascam.com/Products/US-122.html
(Assuming this has GSIF2 support - or will have)
I also found a few others:
http://www.tascam.com/Products/US-224.html

There's also this one which sounds really good but it doesn't look like it has gsif support:
http://www.edirol.com/products/info/ua25.html

If I get one of these three, do I need to get a sound card as well?

I also see that there's a few PCMCIA sound cards such as the Indigo I/O which also has GSIF 2.0, and there are a PCI cards around which I could also use. A USB device would probably work best for me as it gives me enough flexibility with switching systems around if I need to.

Anyway, I think I'm getting ahead of myself here, and would really appreciate some advice. TIA.

PC - as fast as possible (esp. for Gigastudio 3); at least 1 gig of memory, 1 very fast hard disk (2 is better, one dedicated to samples), midi interface, sound card

From what I can tell, sound cards can pose the biggest compatibility issue. I'd suggest asking over on Northernsounds:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=15

Read the threads about laptops, sound cards, etc. and then ask questions if you need to. The US-122 device looks interesting, but in the past USB devices have had latency problems. Since this one comes from Tascam itself you'd think it would be safe, but...

Then there are the libraries, the "real" cost of Gigastudio. Check the Samples forum on Northernsounds for lots of comments. There are some wonderful libraries out there. My favorites are from Sampletekk, Post Audio and Vintaudio. The developer sites have many demos.

jim

If you have the need to use a laptop cause you have public performances, then Tascam's USB solution would be a good choice, though some people say that because of the USB connection, they have latency problems... on the other hand, some say it's ok, so it's just a matter of your setup.
If you are gonna use GS at home, definately use a regular PC with a nice soundcard.
This would be what I'd buy if they weren't so overpriced in my country:
http://www.rme-audio.com/english/digi96/digi96pa.htm
This soundcard maker has a solid reputation among GS users.
In the end, I bought a discountinued 30 bucks Audigy soundcard that via the kX drivers has GSIF support and I run Giga with no problems and sounds pretty good.

RME makes good stuff.

I came close to buying one of their cards recently. I chose the Lynx (AES16) instead as it was a better fit for the studio.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

The RME and Lynx looks like a beast, but it's just a little too expensive for me and what we want to do with the setup.

I am planning on running Gigastudio primarily from home but would prefer to use the laptop at this stage unless there are severe performance problems in doing so. I don't really want to setup a dedicated computer for sampling at this time. Getting an external USB or firewire interface gives me a lot more flexibility later on.

I assume my laptop should be able to handle it:
AMD64 3200+
1 gig of good RAM
7200 RPM Hitachi hard drive (I have a larger external but isn't near as fast as the internal)
Video is a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro (don't think this really matters)

I'm sure the RME would be overpriced here as well. I'll be importing whichever interface I end up deciding on, even with international express shipping, it will still be at least half the price than here in New Zealand.

Someone is making a small (or large) fortune getting these products into my country, it's a rip off to say the least.
E.g.: Buying the P60 here locally is approx USD$2500.
How can one consumer import something, shipping with international express and duty and pay half as much as local companies are selling it for here?


Northern Sounds is a fantastic link and has a wealth of information.
I found this thread highly amusing.

It seems like it might be a bit of a risk to get a USB device. Thanks for the helpful advice.

I also found a firewire interface, m-audio audiophile , which looks really good and maybe a bit safer in terms of latency?

$2,500 for a P60??
Wow, they are ripping people off...
Mine was around $880 bucks with a licensed Yamaha dealer... are you sure the people that are selling them are authorized dealers?
As for M-Audio products, they are of good quality. I own a MIDI interface and one of the Keystation 61 controllers (which I don't use a lot lately) and I have nothing to say but great things about their quality. I suppose their firewire interface is just as good. Another suggestion: do consider an external USB 2.0 or firewire HD for sample storage... you know, just in case the internal HD can't keep up.
Report back when you have everything set up!
Good luck!

M-Audio (formerly MIDIMan) has had ups-and-downs over the years. In the last few years they've created some great products. The biggest news is that they were just acquired by Digidesign. The info I'm hearing is that they'll basically be the "consumer/prosumer" wing of Digidesign. Although I'm not sure we'll see an M-Audio branded M-box for awhile....

I suggest you a Audiotrack prodigy 7.1, 1 GB RAM, good 160GB HD, AMD 2600+ or P4.

I bought a Tascam US-122 and tried to use it with a new Gateway M-675 (wide) notebook loaded out and using Windows XP. For months I could not get it to work. Tascam finally posted a new set of drivers and procedure last week that solves that issue. The conflict lies with Windows XP. If you tried installing from the disk, you may have to do a clean uninstall before loading the new drivers from the website(which is detailed in the procedure on the website).

The bundled Cubasis VST and Gigastudio 24 are not much more than demos. They are ancient technology. They do not work with "hyperthreading" (which my Gateway has) so I had to go the the BIOS (usually accessed by pressing F2 repeatedly during boot) to shut it off. Even after solving that issue I have not sucessfully used Cubasis VST to record (my accoustic piano) because too many syncs drop.

I tried a demo of Sonar (by Cakewalk) and it worked great with hyperthreading on, so I just upgraded to Sonar 4 from ProAudio (Cakewalk 9) ($149.00).

I think the Tascam is a good piece of equipment and the brand has a good rep. Just be aware of these quirks in the software.

Have fun!

New versions of the US-122 are now shipping with Cubase LS and GigaStudio3 LE with is the 64 poly version. The Cubasis and GIG2 24 versions were shipping with older version of the US-122.

I have the US-122 and have not been very happy with the latency issues but there are new drivers (GSIF2) for use with GIG3 that includes kernel level midi which should speed things up. Unfortunately I get all kinds of pops when using Cubase, VSampler and Cakewalk. :-(

For desktop use, consider the new m-audio Audiophile 192 which is the replacement for the older (but amazing bang for the buck) Audiophile 2496. This new board is shipping with GSIF2 drivers and it looks awsome!!!

As for processing power, GIG3 actually uses less CPU than the older version (2.54) and that's with GigaPulse running BUT it is extremely hungry for memory even with that funky disk streaming technology. Consider spending less on the processor and upgrade to 2 GB of memory. You will get siginificantly more polyphony this way.

NOTE: GigaStudio3 (actually all versions) do NOT support Hyperthreading!!! Turn it off in BIOS before you even install the application.

On a laptop, forget using external USB hard drives and go with an external Firewire drive. The reason is that all USB devices will tax the CPU which is a no no with Giga. Both Firewire and USB 2.0 can meet the performance needs but you don't want anything taking any CPU away at the wrong time.

As for the computer, perform a fresh, ground up installation of Windows XP following the guidlines recommended by Tascam. All screen savers, background processes, funky cursors, noises, etc. MUST be disabled!!!

Rodney

WARNING:
The P60, P90, and P120 do not send out MIDI velocity very well. They compress the dynamic range too much. The P series makes modules or external sample devices sound muffled.