M-Audio Oxygen vs. E-MU Xboard (thru AP192)

[HaGa11aZ]

Hello all,

 

I'm about to go to GC to pick up a keyboard for use with Reason and Cubase.

 

My question is... can i get some recommendations/advice on which to choose between an Oxygen and an Xboard (49 or 61 for both)? These are among the price range in which I would prefer to stay, but I am still very open minded to any other board (still within that relative range) that anyone would like to suggest.

 

Which one should I buy, and which one shouldn't I buy, and why is that? Advantages/disadvantages to them? Any outstanding features?

 

 

I also have one more question regarding my Audiophile 192 PCI card. I will be using which ever board with this card. Both boards seem to have USB AND MIDI out. Would it be better to use the MIDI out to the AP192, Or would USB through the motherboard be fine?

 

I was just wondering because... I know that programs like Reason can also send information TO a controller as well (like shortcutting devices to nobs and buttons), but can this be possible when only using a MIDI out?

 

Does my AP192 have anything to do with the sound quality of the resulting MIDI?

 

Thanxx!!

[Yoozer]

 

Originally posted by HaGa11aZ Hello all, I'm about to go to GC to pick up a keyboard for use with Reason and Cubase. My question is... can i get some recommendations/advice on which to choose between an Oxygen and an Xboard (49 or 61 for both)?

 

Play it. The Xboard has semi-weighted keys - I've got the Xboard 49 here, and I like its keyboard better than most other controllers (haven't tested the Axiom series) Just pick the one that feels the best to your fingers.

 

 

I also have one more question regarding my Audiophile 192 PCI card. I will be using which ever board with this card. Both boards seem to have USB AND MIDI out. Would it be better to use the MIDI out to the AP192, Or would USB through the motherboard be fine?

 

 

Use the MIDI out for any rack modules/other synths you have around (those usually don't have USB). Use USB for talking directly to the computer. The Xboard is also USB powered, so using that cable saves you plugging in another wall-wart.

 

 

I was just wondering because... I know that programs like Reason can also send information TO a controller as well (like shortcutting devices to nobs and buttons), but can this be possible when only using a MIDI out?

 

No - but I wouldn't know if the USB connection is also used for sending information to the machine itself, other than using the configuration software (the Xboard can adjust the velocity curves from an editor so I assume something is sent back to the machine).

 

 

Does my AP192 have anything to do with the sound quality of the resulting MIDI?

 

If you compose a song using software synthesizers every calculation is done in the computer itself. You could even do without a soundcard or one really shoddy piece of work with half a minute of latency - doesn't matter. Once you want to hear the complete track, it's rendered to disk anyway, and the quality of the soundcard has no influence on that.

 

If you mean by MIDI the General MIDI set of 128 sounds (the terms are often switched around, that's why I mention it); those are stored as wavetables in the soundcard's memory and depend entirely on the energy the manufacturer put in there to make it sound good. Usually this is for preview purposes only; for production, you take a decent software sampler and then assign the sounds to the tracks. This usually does not result in a 100% identical copy.

 

Your AP192 will only matter once you start feeding audio sources from outside; those have to pass the D/A converters. For the rest, its ASIO drivers lower the latency so listening isn't as frustrating (no sound drop-outs/clicks/stuttering).

[HaGa11aZ]

Awesome! Thanx Yoozer for your reply. You nailed about every single question i had.

 

If you mean by MIDI the General MIDI set of 128 sounds (the terms are often switched around, that's why I mention it); those are stored as wavetables in the soundcard's memory and depend entirely on the energy the manufacturer put in there to make it sound good. Usually this is for preview purposes only; for production, you take a decent software sampler and then assign the sounds to the tracks. This usually does not result in a 100% identical copy.

 

Yes, you see, i was wondering about this because i remember hearing first-hand the difference of MIDI playback with a soundcard vs. the motherboard. There was a HUGE difference! I had alwayz taken my old Creative Sound Blaster for granted until the day i was forced to use the motherboard's driver. It went from such smooth and full sounds to something a kazoo could successfully represent!

 

After becoming interested in analog recording with my guitar, i installed the Audiophile 192 (also wishing to no longer use the onboard MIDI playback driver as a side-effect). But to my dismal, my AP192 would not play ANY MIDI playback at all, even after selecting it as a driver.

 

Even now, i still have to use the "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth" driver for MIDI playback.

 

I contacted an M-Audio support technician over the phone to see why i couln't SIMPLY get any MIDI playback from the main L and R outs, and he mentioned something along the lines of the card not having any MIDI processors or renders, unlike older cards like my Soundblaster.

 

So this is why i was concerning whether to use the MIDI out to my AP192 or to use the USB connection through my motherboard: whether one might sound better than the other.

 

plz helppp