BASSMIDI Driver

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YamahaMan
Posts: 1

Post by YamahaMan »

Hello, sorry but it´s my first time I wrote in this forum. I would like to know if somebody is working on the page or Synthesia is death, becouse I enter in the web every week and ever there is the same. Somebody can answer me? Thank you
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

Synthesia is very much alive. I had some real-life personal issues that required my attention for a few months, but I'm back to work now! In fact, I just released a nearly-final preview of the 0.8.1 release of Synthesia here just yesterday. The new release should be in a couple days.
kiwi
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

Apparently mudlord say that the bass midi driver is win xp compatible anyone have tried on an xp os?
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RichNagel
Posts: 70

Post by RichNagel »

kiwi wrote:Apparently mudlord say that the bass midi driver is win xp compatible anyone have tried on an xp os?
I'm running Windows XP w/SP3... works like a champ :) You'll notice that all of the screenshots here -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFon ... creenshots , as well as most of the screenshots here -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFon ... ration.htm are all running under WinDoZe XP :)

Note that for Synthesia (or other realtime use) I recommend the older version 1.06 of the driver ( http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFon ... DI_Driver/ ), as the newer version 2.0 of the driver has a wee bit of latency (re: the "BASSMIDI Driver v1.06 Low Latency" and "BASSMIDI Driver v2.0 Latency" pics on the http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/SoundFon ... creenshots page).
kiwi
Synthesia Donor
Posts: 1180

Post by kiwi »

thx rich nagel for confirm this :).
Beetween i haven't noticed any latence even with the old or the new bassmidi driver.
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RichNagel
Posts: 70

Post by RichNagel »

BTW, (by the same author as the BASSMIDI Driver) something that y'all (Yamaha XG softsynth fans that are running Vista/7) might find interesting/of use -> http://www.vgmusic.com/phpBB3/viewtopic ... 16&t=14162 :)
Lemo
Posts: 313

Post by Lemo »

No way :shock:
This thing is awesum, works with XP, and any VST (truepianos!)
MIDI and VST exist for such a long time, can't believe such a cool system-wide driver appears only now
Stuff & experiments for Synthesia: Gramp v0.2SkinboxFireSynthVideoWebradio
Lemo
Posts: 313

Post by Lemo »

Hum as a second thought,
I may only use it with Winamp and playback...
Just tried it with Synthesia, and when I manage to load it without crashing the game, the latency seems quite bad :\
Stuff & experiments for Synthesia: Gramp v0.2SkinboxFireSynthVideoWebradio
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DC64
Posts: 830

Post by DC64 »

That could depend what you loaded with the VST driver. (Or are you talking about BASSMIDI?)
With VST in Synthesia for me it will lag in the beginning for a sec and then get back to speed.
Are you using the preview button?
"And now for something completely different."
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Try using Rich's Weed (piano section) on top of SGM, may sound interesting.
Last edited by aria1121 on 11-03-11 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

I found a few more good SoundFonts. I've listed them all below arranged by quality. If using BASSMIDI, I recommend using Merlin or FluidR3 for better results.

1. Merlin GM v2.2 (29 MB download) Perfect for about everything, small size
2. FluidR3 GM (141 MB download) Sounds perfect, only huge size
3. RealFont 2.1 (91 MB download) Sounds good, small size
4. Shan's GM v2.01 (235 MB download) Very good except for the classical instruments, very huge size
5. Crisis GM 3.0 (1,6 GB compressed download) Better quality, but is extremely large

Notice Some of them come as an sfArk so you will need a sfArk decompresser. If it is a sfPack then you'll need sfPack (Windows/WINE only) Some of the downloadlinks respond slow, so give 'em a moment to load. If they don't work, post it and I'll search a working link.
robiwi
Posts: 1

Post by robiwi »

Hello everybody

I'm new in the synthesia community and very excited about it! But I cannot download the Bassmidi driver because all the links in the forum didn't work for me. Maybe someone can help me?

robiwi
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

They do seem to move the download around a lot...

If anyone knows a new location, I'll update the FAQ page with it too.
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Is still have the old download, but we have to inform the guys of BASSMIDI if it's ok to post an older version on the forum. ;)
Shmug
Posts: 1

Post by Shmug »

Any updates on where to get the bassmidi driver? I've been looking everywhere but I can't find a valid download link for driver 1.06 (the one with lowest latency)... :(
Is there any alternative to bassmidi?
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thecoffeecan
Posts: 11

Post by thecoffeecan »

Hey guys, I found this software:
http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

This software claims that it is based on the BASS library.

I haven't used this BASSMIDI driver everyone is talking about but I tried VirtualMIDISynth and it's working fine for me (Windows 7).

Sidenote: down in the comment section of that website, someone addressed a problem regarding synthesia in combination with VirtualMIDISynth. I haven't tested or recreated the problem yet.

EDIT: yeah, Titanic Soundfont is a awesome but suffers dropping notes (?) (try playing the first four minutes of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 1st mvmt to see what I mean)
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

A few of us were having trouble using VirtualMidiSynth, over here about a week ago.
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RichNagel
Posts: 70

Post by RichNagel »

Hiya Folks,

Long time, no type.

MudLord finally created a PERMANENT home for the BASSMIDI Driver at http://www.mudlord.info/bassmididrv .

FYI, the driver has went through quite a bit of changes, and the latest release version is 3.1. One of the MOST EXCELLENT features of this new version is the SUPER LOW LATENCY that could be seen in v1.06 of the driver (in other words, perfect for realtime performance and sequencing)! Also, this new version supports packed/compressed SoundFonts, and includes a SoundFont packer utility :)

Anyhow, surf here: http://www.mudlord.info/bassmididrv

...and the direct download is here:

http://www.mudlord.info/bassmididrv/bassmididrv.exe

P.S. Directly from the BASSMIDI Driver readme:
Installation
------------
First-Time Installation:

1) Download the latest released version of the BASSMIDI Driver from http://www.mudlord.info/bassmididrv/bassmididrv.exe .

2) Run the installer (BASSMIDIDrv.exe). The installer will register the BASSMIDI Driver with the system.

3) Configure the desired SoundFont usage using the included BASSMIDI Driver Configuration Utility (BASSMIDIDrvcfg.exe).

Upgrade Installation:

1) Download the newly released version of the BASSMIDI Driver from http://www.mudlord.info/bassmididrv/bassmididrv.exe .

2) Run the new installer (BASSMIDIDrv.exe). You will be prompted to uninstall the previous version of the BASSMIDI Driver.

3) Run the new installer again (BASSMIDIDrv.exe), and follow the instructions for the "First-Time Installation" section above.

P.P.S. About that "CoolSoft" thing:

The "CoolSoft" BASSMIDI synthesizer is considered an illegal "hack" of MudlLord's and Kode54's BASSMIDI Driver. The "CoolSoft" guy simply snagged the source of the BASSMIDI Driver, and recompiled it with his own crapola embedded in it (web site, credits, etc...).

In other words, the REAL (and latest and greatest) version of BASSMIDI Driver can always be found at http://www.mudlord.info/bassmididrv :)
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

The new BASSMIDI is definitely faster. I just ran my own latency test with a microphone and MIDI-OX to send output to each synth. The time is measured in seconds from the beginning of the sound produced by the physical key being struck on my test Yamaha EZ-200 (with "Local" set to Off), until the beginning of the sound produced by the synth. For SoundFont-based synths, the same SoundFont was used for each.
latencyTest.png
latencyTest.png (11.58 KiB) Viewed 117131 times
Having MIDI-OX send events back out to the keyboard, it was tricky to discern exactly how fast the keyboard's synth itself was. "Instantaneous" is probably fair. The 0.016 listed there is more of a guess. The key strike sound was nearly indistinguishable from the keyboard's resulting audio.

That said, after updating to the latest version of VirtualMIDISynth and cranking the "Additional output buffer" on the "Advanced options" tab of the Configurator all the way down to zero, it was also pretty hard to tell the difference. So, CoolSoft's is something I'd describe as effectively zero-latency too. (Remember, these are measurements from the start of the key-strike sound, where that sound usually lasts about 40-50ms itself!)

All told, both BASS-backed virtual synths are now fast enough to make real-time playing in Synthesia a reality. It's very exciting to see both coming along. Actually, now that I've seen these results, I'm second-guessing my plans to create a software synth in Synthesia. There doesn't seem to be any need when free, high-performance, low-latency synths are already out there. There is something to be said for convenience, I suppose: making things as easy as possible for less-sophisticated users is nice. Though I wouldn't have been able to ship any SoundFonts with Synthesia anyway, so it would have already been additional setup. And the setup programs for either virtual synth are both very nice now.

Regarding VirtualMIDISynth violating BASSMIDI's source license, that's a pretty serious allegation. Is there any proof? The dates listed in the changelog for VirtualMIDISynth start right around when you first mentioned BASSMIDI here on the Synthesia forums and the changes from version to version between the two seem different enough. That they each have different feature sets now and different performance seem to further indicate they're distinct code bases. Since they're both simple wrappers around the BASS library, it seems conceivable enough to me that they could have coincidentally gotten started around the same time and ended up similar because of the limitations/features exposed by the shared underlying library.

I suppose I could ask Claudio. He has been known to post around these parts too. In that particular post he mentions he plans to open-source the 1.4 release. Once he does, it should be a simple enough matter to compare the two code bases to see if any kind of foul play has occurred.

Worst-case scenario, he adds the license text to his source distribution and things have gone from "illegal hack" to "perfectly legitimate use of the BASSMIDI source".
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RichNagel
Posts: 70

Post by RichNagel »

That looks like a really interesting method of Latency testing, Nicholas :)

The way that I tested it for the screenshots on this page (scroll down to the screesnhots titled "BASSMIDI Driver v1.06 Low Latency", and the one below it "BASSMIDI Driver v2.0 Latency"):

http://jasonwilliams400com.startlogic.c ... creenshots

(actually, I should link to the official home of the BASSMIDI Driver now -> http://www.mudlord.info/bassmididrv/#ba ... creenshots )

...was to configure Cakewalk Professional for my "SB Live! Synth A" as MIDI device 1, and the BASSMIDI Driver as MIDI device 2.

I then created a quick sequence of a single woodblock hit... the "SB Live! Synth A" hard-panned to the left, and the BASSMIDI Driver hard-panned to the right. Lastly, I recorded it to a WAV file using GoldWave, and then took screenshots of the waveform in GoldWave.

Since the "SB Live! Synth A" (and "SB Live! Synth B") is essentially a latency of "0", I was able to compare how slow that the BASSMIDI Driver was compared to it :)

Nevertheless, I like your testing method... that bar chart is pretty spiffy looking :)

Nicholas wrote:Regarding VirtualMIDISynth violating BASSMIDI's source license, that's a pretty serious allegation. Is there any proof?
You would need to confer with Kode54 and MudLord about that, as I don't know or remember all of the details about it. I do remember that the start of it was early on, and there was some discussion about it over in Ian Luck's (Un4Seen) forums by all parties concerned.
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