Error after Installing EXB-FW

[foxymoron]

Okay, here's the thing. If I don't have the M3 editor set to receive all from the M3, when I go to get a patch on the editor, there are no patch names there. So, instead, I have to receive damned near all the freaking program, combi banks and drum kits just to be able to use the editor. And that's just to load it. Isn't there a quicker way to load the patch list in the editor. The patches are already on the M3. Can't the program just turn on connect and wait for some kind of input, such as a set of pcg files for the editor that would be identical to the M3's so that I could just load those quickly and get to work instead of waiting for eons just to get started. Still not understanding how to save, what to save, where to save and when I've saved, what I've saved so that if I open up the sequence in Logic it will open with my patches ready "just like a real plug-in"?

fm

[jerrythek]

OK FM, it seems you've made progress - great.

Now, there is NO reason to have to receive or transmit all your sounds to and from the M3 if nothing is custom, or different from the factory preload.

The manual goes over about the preload files that are installed when you installed the Editor (see pg 40 the Preload.m3all file) - you can set up the plug-in to auto-load that file when booting - it's under the Utility Menu. See page 40 where it says:

"To shorten the startup time, you can make settings so that this data file is loaded automatically when the M3 Editor starts up, so that you won’t need to read the data from the M3.
Refer to p.27 “Software Setup (Initial settings for M3 Editor).”

But it is explained better on Page 53... sorry about that!


And you can set the Editor so it doesn't insist on auto-syncing as well. Then only the single Program or Combi sounds you edit need to be synced. This is set in Global Mode.

And if you're using a Song Header only that needs to be synced.

OK?

I do agree that the speed of syncing the whole system is slow, and so to avoid it do the above steps. It will help - the data size of ALL the data is very large so I would certainly avoid syncing the whole system for no good reason.

Regards,

Jerry

[foxymoron]

Hallelujah! I think I get it now. That Total Recall and Data Sync page on the software setup is a bit misleading, I think, especially since it automatically tries to transmit whatever is in it, so one just assumes that it's necessary for the unit to do that. So, I completely cleared that thing, saved a data file as you suggested. It still tries to transmit but stops after a short while, thank goodness, and my patches are in tact even after closing and restarting. This is good news. I'm still amazed at how much slower the data transmission is on the firewire connection compared to the USB. If it weren't for the audio capabilities of the firewire setup I'd think it was a joke. Thanks for your help and responses, Jerry. I hope I won't have to trouble you further about this. Take care.

fm

[MartinHines]

I'm still amazed at how much slower the data transmission is on the firewire connection compared to the USB. If it weren't for the audio capabilities of the firewire setup I'd think it was a joke.

That sounds strange to me given USB 2.0 and FW have similar data transmission rates.

[phin63]

Hello,
I have an iMac intel 24 "2.4 Ghz and when I use the M3 editor with the Firewire on the audio card's internal mac whether Stand alone or in a host application, I have a high latency. It's useless. Did you also latency when playing on the M3?
I have not plugged in the USB cable so it is not a USB.

Thank you for your answers

[jerrythek]

I'm still amazed at how much slower the data transmission is on the firewire connection compared to the USB. If it weren't for the audio capabilities of the firewire setup I'd think it was a joke.

That sounds strange to me given USB 2.0 and FW have similar data transmission rates.

Yes, for regular computer files/data, but not MIDI. There is no high-speed protocol for MIDI over Firewire - USB-MIDI is a specific protocol that is faster than the "legacy" MIDI data speed of 31.25 kHz.

So the EXB-FW MIDI transmission runs at regular/legacy MIDI speeds. As an example, so does MLan.

As I have been explaining in this thread, there are a few ways to work with the Editor to help avoid overly-long data transmission issues.

1) Don't bother to "get/send" your data every time, of you M3 is basically stock. Use the supplied Preload.M3all file and let it autoload from your hard drive and don't set the Editor to transmit it. Then only changes you make using the M3 and Editor need to be sent, and can also be saved as part of your new Preload file that will autoload upon the next startup.

2) Configure the Editor to only update the specific Bank or Banks you need, not the whole data preload. That data file is over 21 MB in size - huge compared to other products (the TRITON Studio was only 2 MB) due to the complexity of the M3's powerful voice architecture and advanced features (Tone Adjust, KARMA etc.).

3) Use Firewire for audio and USB-MIDI for MIDI if you need to constantly transmit/update many Banks.

We will write up a better tutorial/getting started document for this issue after NAMM - I can see that it is needed.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Jerry

[MartinHines]

Yes, for regular computer files/data, but not MIDI. There is no high-speed protocol for MIDI over Firewire - USB-MIDI is a specific protocol that is faster than the "legacy" MIDI data speed of 31.25 kHz.

So the EXB-FW MIDI transmission runs at regular/legacy MIDI speeds. As an example, so does MLan.

Thanks for the info Jerry. Always good to add a few tidbits to my "knowledge base".

[phin63]

Nobody has a problem of latency between its Mac and exb FW ?
I am the only one ?

[jerrythek]

Nobody has a problem of latency between its Mac and exb FW ?
I am the only one ?

Have you changed/adjusted your settings in the host application? The buffer size may need to be optimized?

But a plug-in will respond differently than stand-alone hardware - you should be able to get it workable, but not exactly the same.

Regards,

Jerry

[phin63]

I did experiment with different buffer size (With Ableton Live and the audio interface's internal macintosh). I can not fall below 128 if I get the crash.

I also conducted tests with a DIGI 002 with Protools and Live, I get the same result, latency unbelievable.

Sorry, but I use a translator to write. I am French.

Thank you for your answers

[Twiddler]

Yes, for regular computer files/data, but not MIDI. There is no high-speed protocol for MIDI over Firewire - USB-MIDI is a specific protocol that is faster than the "legacy" MIDI data speed of 31.25 kHz. So the EXB-FW MIDI transmission runs at regular/legacy MIDI speeds.

I finally got my EXB-FW a couple of days ago and spent some time testing it yesterday and today.

While it is true that there is no official MIDI protocol over firewire, there is absolutely no reason why the engineers had to make this choice. It is just as feasible to implement high-speed MIDI throughput over firewire as it is over USB. While using a transmission speed of 31.25 kHz is probably "ok" for note and controller data (although that means that you cannot get sample-accurate MIDI information, which many of the firewire audio/MIDI interfaces support today), it basically makes the MIDI implementation on the EXB-FW useless for transferring program/combi data.

I found it hard to believe that a device that already supported high-speed MIDI (over USB) would be limited in this way over firewire, so I ran some tests. Doing a "sync all" (full dump of the board to the editor) over USB takes me less than 1.5 minutes. When doing this same operation over firewire I can only get to about 50% of program bank I-A (the first thing to sync after the global settings) in 1.5 minutes. After 10 minutes I was only about halfway through program bank I-D and I cancelled the operation.

IMHO this was a very short-sighted decision on the part of the engineers and I expect that something like this would be extremely difficult to fix now that the product has shipped. (I suppose that it might be possible to update the OS, firmware, and firewire driver all at once to solve the problem, but I don't see that happening.) Also, as I was testing this stuff the firewire driver caused a kernel panic and crashed my Mac (equivalent of a blue-screen for those of your burdened with Windows). I have had this MacBook Pro for almost two years now and this is the first crash that I have ever seen. NOT cool.

Regarding audio latency... I did some testing and have found that the latency of the EXB-FW is between 46-48ms slower than my audio interface (MOTU 828mkII) when playing/recording live. That much of a delay is very easy to hear. Even worse, if you record the MIDI (as I expect most people will be doing with a virtual instrument plug-in like the editor) then this latency jumps up to 63-68ms! Basically, if you are sending MIDI from a track through the plug-in it costs you an additional 15-20ms of audio latency. Keep in mind, that all of these numbers are over-and-above any latency that I get from straight audio recording (about 9.5ms).

One additional test, I ran the same test sending the MIDI over USB and recording the FW audio *without using the editor plug-in at all*. This dropped the latency down to about 35ms... still not acceptable, but getting better. Even more interesting is that this means that there is pretty significant delay being introduced by both the AU plug-in *and* the firewire interface. Unfortunately, this is not a setup I could ever use either. Ableton Live only supports one active audio interface and I have a lot more gear than just the M3.

In Ableton Live I can add delay compensation for the audio interface, but I am not aware of any way to add delay compensation for a plug-in instrument. The plug-ins are supposed to automatically compensate for any delay. It doesn't.

Overall, I am extremely disappointed with the EXB-FW.

While it does transmit MIDI data, the throughput is so slow that (combined with the way that the editor was designed) it is impractical at best, and unusable at worst. If you have the EXB-FW you need to keep using a USB cable for MIDI.

The EXB-FW does transmit the audio as well (and the digital signal is, of course, a bit cleaner than my analog recording path), but there is so much extra delay when getting this audio that I can't see using EXB-FW for audio either.

Basically, this is a waste of money. If Korg isn't able to solve some of these problems then you should steer clear of the EXB-FW.

[khol]

Interesting Twiddler.
I will wait for more tests and tweaks before i buy one.

Well, i would have to wait anyway for the vista drivers to be released.

Anyhow, i was thinking.... the latency you're talking about. Can that be a computer hardware issue as well?

As i said, i dont have an exb-fw yet, but i use fw when recording movies from my camcorder to my computer, and there is a very obviuos (spelling?) latency between my camera and output on screen and speakers.

It would be nice to have some meassured comparison between the analog output and the digital output from the exb-fw.

Im actually considering using the USB for MIDI and SPDIF for audio.

[Twiddler]

It would be nice to have some meassured comparison between the analog output and the digital output from the exb-fw.

That's exactly what I have listed above. In all of my tests I simultaneously recorded the output of the M3 from both the EXB-FW and the analog output (going through the 828 mkII into the computer). Every connection has some amount of latency. I have spent quite a bit of time optimizing my system so that the latency from the 828 mkII is as low as I can get it (without introducing audible ticks, etc.)... around 9.5ms. The numbers that I listed above represent the *additional* latency that is introduced by using the EXB-FW.

My test that bypassed the plug-in also optimized the connection as best I could (which is part of the reason that the latency dropped just a bit). There are no settings in the plug-in to allow you do control latency though.

The issue has nothing to do with FW bandwidth either. These are the only two devices on my FW connection. They are not chained through each other (they are connected via a FW hub). Also, I have simultaneously recorded 10 channels of audio via the 828 mkII and not introduced any additional latency (though during these tests only the M3 stereo inputs were active).

One test that I never performed was testing the latency of the optical SPDI/F output through my audio interface. In the past, the latency of the SPDI/F connection on the MOTU 828 mkII has been identical to my analog inputs. If I were to switch to the optical output on the M3 I could probably get the same low-latency performance with a perfectly clean signal. I can't easily use this solution, however, because the Motif Rack ES is currently connected via SPDI/F to the MOTU. Also, the M3 doesn't really produce enough noise on the analog outs for me to worry about recording via analog at all.

[permofryed]

Wow...I got my EXB in today and what a total let down by Korg. I love my M3 for its merits, and I have been a Korg buyer and user for most of my life, but this was rip off.

I use a Tascam FW-1884 for my audio interface/control surface. I also use Logic now. I am still fairly new to Logic though. Do any of you other Logic/EXB-FW users know a way around the singe audio interface issue?

Hell, since my M3 is my main instrument I would even be fine with leaving the Logic input set to the M3 if I could set my output to the FW-1884.

I just want to be able to record my M3 digitally and hear it through my FW-1884. I can deal with latency on the audio as I always edit to the first beat anyways.


Any tips, thoughts, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Daz]

Do any of you other Logic/EXB-FW users know a way around the singe audio interface issue?

I am a Logic user, but not an M3 user ... however the way to go is to create an Aggregate device in Mac OS X. You do that in the Audio MIDI Setup tool (in Applications/Utilities). You can combine your audio interface and M3 into a single aggregate device and then use that in Logic.

You might find this :

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul05/a ... /tiger.htm

... useful reading.

HTH,

Daz.