using the version of Kontakt that came with Garritan - sorry - on re-reading my last message I realised I hadn't made that clear. My fault, I do apologise.

I've tried two things. I'm putting in all the details so you can see where I'm being stupid!

My program of choice for writing music is Voyetra Music Write, I just find it more intuitive, easier to use and you can think about the music, not about which darned menu everything's in! Maybe that's just me...

So I open up Garritan Studio. Click on the first picture of a keyboard, which opens up a virtual keyboard on the screen with 8 gaps in it, one for each instrument.

Now I've got a gig of RAM, so I load up a piano in the first gap and full strings in the second gap. Then I open Voyetra and route the output through Garritan Studio, which routes it in turn through the modified Kontakt keyboard.

And that's where we head back to the last post!

I can change the velocity, volume to 21 and the sounds remain completely unfazed, they sound like the instruments have got the microphones shoved right up inside them with hammers. On 20, silence. Note off.

If I go to the virtual keyboard, play a sound by clicking on a key, move one of the Kontakt controls and play the sound again, the sound remains totally unchanged. Doesn't matter what you move, twist or slide on the Kontakt keyboard, the sound remains happily untouched by the whole experience.

THAT'S the bit that sent a sound engineer and a spacerock composer weeping from my flat! They both turned up to show me in 2 seconds what idiotic mistake I was making, and they couldn't make Garritan, Garritan's Kontakt or Music Write play ball either. The sound engineer got so furious I felt like giving him something he could pulverise, just to calm him down a bit! And the spacerock composer - Etherfysh, he's gaining quite a name for himself on the Web, VERY Tangerine Dream influenced, though - grimly persevered for 4 hours before declaring himself beaten! He sent me one of his CD's to say sorry. It's not bad, but it would help if someone criticised him a bit - he does get carried away with his own genius.

But that's not relevant to this!

I've done exactly the same with Cubase - though of course I haven't used Garritan Studio, just loaded it in as a VST virtual instrument. The Sound Engineer set that up for me because he thought that might make the sounds controllable. It didn't make the slightest difference - we couldn't modify them. Note On/Note Off, yes. Note Quiet, Note Silky - not a hope in Hades. Which is why, in desperation, I got Edirol. I've got a head permanently full of tunes, I just can't make them sound anything other than muddy messes on s**te sounds.

Why isn't the darned program playing ball? It's a legit copy, I paid 140 British pounds for the thing. I've tried the Northern Sounds forum, but I can't seem to explain what the problem is in enough techie detail for them. If I knew all the techie stuff they wanted, I could probably work out the solution for myself!

And you're right about Edirol. It isn't a sample-based system, it's a carrier wave based system. It's got 4 waves, I think - might have more but I'm pretty sure my theory's right here - and it modifies them into the instrument sounds. The same way everything you hear on a TV is a modified carrier wave - that's what the long tone is you hear when the programs are finished, the carrier wave that's modified into the sounds. That could be why it sounds electronic to you, yet real when you hear it used on TV programs. Which it is, especially on Channel 5 from time to time!

Don't be cross if you know that bit, I'm not trying to patronise you. I'm just trying to show I know a little bit of theory, I just don't understand why it's not working in practice.

Last question, because I've been given loads of answers to this on other sites and I don't trust any of them. So far I've spent 500 British pounds on stuff and haven't managed to make a decent squeak out of any of it!

If you wanted a decent collection of reasonably priced - up to 200 British pounds at present - New Age pads, drones and choirs - think Liquid Mind, Med Goodall, most of the people on New World Records, piano-and-synth sounds composers - what collection would you go for? And what would you use them in - I know that you have to load sounds into a sampler, and the Kontakt that comes with Garritan is for Garritan only. Ideal heaven would be something I could interface Voyetra Music Write with directly, as that's the prog. I love using. The Voyetra site says Music Write is only interfaceable with external sound modules, but if Garritan Studio can fool it into interfacing with Garritan Kontakt, then surely there must be a way of interfacing it with other virtual samplers? If not, I'll write the MIDI files in Voyetra to begin with, then import them into CUBASE to use the plug-in sounds (have I got the terminology right?)

Lovely, soft, not-quite-strings, not-quite-voices, mysterious sounds to drop in the background, harps that don't sound plastic and a piano, flute, French Horn and oboe or sax (or both?) would make me a happy man right now.

I hope I'm not asking too much here, but I really do want to write the tunes I keep thinking of, and I'm so lost in the technology I just don't know how to make them sound right.

Yours with respect

Chris.

First off, you do not need to create a new post for every new question. You can simply reply in the topic at hand. That is simple forum etiquette! Your way is really quite annoying!

Secondly,

Quote:

Then I open Voyetra and route the output through Garritan Studio, which routes it in turn through the modified Kontakt keyboard.

Why do you output through the modified Kontakt player? This causes a loop. Not only are you playing really loud, you are playing really loud several times!

Set the output to an audio out channel, NOT back through the player.

Route the output of your midi channel to the desired input of the Kontakt player itself. Once the Garritan sounds are loaded into the player, there is no reason to route anything into Garritan at all. Think of it this way....

When you drink a beer, that beer is now inside your belly. Why would you piss back into your beer, and drink it again?