PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Anyone get the VSC or Edirol TTS soft synth to work on 64 bit?

The Roland VSC VST/DXi that we include with Band-in-a-Box won't install on the newer 64 bit OS's from Microsoft. That' been a long standing issue.

I recall hearing from a customer that they were able to get it working, but they couldn't recall the details of if/how it was really working.
So I am wondering, has anyone has managed to get the Sound Canvas soft synths installed on 64-bit OS's.

Perhaps by upgrading the OS, where the synth is already instaed?

Also, the same question would apply to the TTS version of that (from Cakewalk). Have you got that working in 64 bit?

Windows 7 comes in both 64 and 32 bit versions (included on the same disk). But it looks like they are pre-installing 64 bit as the default, so most people are going to have that.

Just an aside: I'm guessing the people who don't know what kind of problems they are in for, will be getting the 64-bit versions! Makes it harder for you. Among those who do know, such as on the SONAR forum, it appears more are staying with 32-bit for now. And both there and here, people are citing Coyote Forte as an inexpensive good solution for 64-bit.

Mine does not work. I have Vista 64, I think had I known I'd have stuck with 32, but it came with 6 gigs of memory and I figured I should go for it.

I didn't uninstall it yet, (the VSC), but it gives an error message on boot.

I bought a new 17" HP "Entertainment" notebook with 6GB RAM, and it came with Vista-64, (which I wiped off as soon as I received the machine....Total junk.) I'm running the RC (Release Candidate) version of Windows-7/64-bit, and as much as I hated Vista, Win-7 is actually pretty decent. I pre-ordered the Win7/Professional, which officially comes out on Thursday, and will upgrade my machine to that as soon as I get it. It appears that most new machines with 3GB and up will ship with the 64-bit version pre-installed. So, yes, this IS going to be an issue.

I could not get the VSC to work on it. I forked over the $40 to go with Coyote/Forte, and that seems to work pretty well, but it's a shame to have to spend $40 to get to the same place as the product that used to work so well for free. As an FYI, I also bought a new Creative X-Fi/Notebook card to go with the machine, since my older Audigy2/ZS-Notebook is a PCMCIA card, and the new notebook only accepts the "Express" form-factor cards.

The club where we typically work has quite a bit of ambient hum that's introduced into our system between the output of the notebook (the Creative X-Fi card), and the inputs of the P.A. I went to Radio Shack and picked up an inline filter, (Radio Shack "Ground Loop Isolator", catalog number: 270-054), and that gets rid of almost all the hum.

One last thing.... I've been fighting the problem with wildly varying output levels between songs for years. It's really noticeable between songs created with "RealTracks" and those that are native MIDI-only. I discovered that by using the "Freeze" option, even on the MIDI-only tracks, and creating .WAV files for EVERYTHING we do, and then going back with a 3rd-party utility and using the "Normalize" feature on the .WAV files AFTER they are "frozen", I rarely have to touch the computer's output level the whole night.

We've actually got it working pretty well now, and hopefully the upgrade to the consumer/offical release of Windows-7 will be a relatively minor upgrade for me, and won't require reloading all of the apps, and reconfiguring all of the "Virtual-XP" programs I had to create to get around application-incompatibility with Windows'7.

Hope that helps.

Are you referring to play back of audio wave/ MP3s etc? As far as balancing volume between separate finsished tracks you may be missing one step. I always take my completed tracks through Sound Forge and normalize each track so levels are comparable. There are numerous tools that will do the same - many for free. Sometimes compression is needed but gernerally if you at least normalize to a consistent level the volume level from one track to the next should be close.

Hi

I'm running W7 64bit and the TTS is working without any problems. That is not the case with VCS though.

Jan R

>> I'm running W7 64bit and the TTS is working without any problems. That is not the case with VCS though.

Hi Jan,
Thanks for the reply. Since we haven't been able to get the TTS-1 working on W7-64 bit, perhaps you could provide more information, such as version number of TTS you are using ((System button | Options | Version ). We're using a 2004 version, version 1.00

Also, what version of W7 - ?Professional
A HP Laptop ad had this brurb "If you choose the optional Windows 7 Professional Edition, it also supports Windows XP mode if your configuration meets certain hardware requirements . Windows XP Mode is a virtual OS that runs within the Windows 7 Professional environment. Windows XP Mode makes it easy to install and run many1 older Windows XP-compatible business and productivity applications by launching them directly from the Windows 7 desktop. The XP Mode license is included with Windows 7 Professional."

We are using

We are using

is the above phrase a 'pregnant' pause?

Are you inferring that Windows 7 is going to run the VSC Dxi syth in a 'compatibility' mode? Does that entail using the o/s in a 'crippled' or throwback state?

Just curious...

Peter:

Some time back, there was a discussion on using TTS-1 with Vista 64bit, and Gary Curran said he got it working. Maybe he can help. Re: Cakewalk TTS-1 DXi. I'd still like to know too.

Brad

The VSC DXi synth will NOT run in the compatibility mode, as far as I was able to tell. Since I didn't want to run the whole BiaB application in the compatibility mode box, it is not possible to run it across from native W7 to XP-mode. But yes, the Professional version of W7 has the Virtual-XP mode included. If you're really dead set on not using anything but VSC DXi, you might give a shot at installng the whole thing in the virtual partition, but I can forsee quite a few problems with that, including not being able to "see" any external sound-card if you're using a notebook. (When I run something in Virtual-XP it cannot see the Creative X-Fi/Notebook card.)

I'm using the Forte on a 64 bit laptop with VISTA. I've had few problems once I learned to turn off all the wireless stuff. That was causing a noticeable pop through the sound system. Now, no pops. As cited above in one of the posts, my biggest problem has been the issue of consistency in volume levels with tunes created in BIAB. I take a lot of requests, so many times I'm just winging it, not knowing what the next tune may be. So, that consistency has to be there. Before I save a finished tune, I run it through the same sound system used for live performance. Just "earing" it seems to work pretty well in getting the instrument levels about the same. I found out quickly that using headphones or studio monitor speakers won't cut it in mixing consistency. I have to hear the tunes through the performance PA setup.

Hi Peter et al

I recently upgraded my Sonar to version 8.5.1, and it is the TTS soft synth 'inside' Sonar Im referring to. Im not sure where to find the version #
I run the RC version of W7 (Ultimate). I made a clean install, hence there should be no other version running in the 'background'.

Hope that helps.

Jan

Hello Jan,

Are you able to find the version number by clicking on the [System] button in the TTS-1 control panel, then clicking on Option, then clicking on the [version info] button?

Ahh, found it - here we go: DXi version 1.00. Same version as you referred to I believe.
Cheers .
Jan

Thanks Jan, Actually it turns out we can get the TTS-1 working after all. So it works fine in Windows 7 , Vista (32 and 64 bit). And of course XP.

I like the TTS better. Maybe you can get that to go with BIAB as opposed to the VSC DXi.