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frequently asked questions |
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Just a few words to improve our service:
1. The answers to several commonly-asked questions can be found on this
page. We advise you to consult this page before requesting tech
support.
2. Other useful information can be found on the forum page.
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| installation
Q: I successfully downloaded your DirectX plug-ins. Your icon is on my desktop but every time I click on it to use it I get your web site instead of the plug-in, what's the problem?
A: A DirectX plug-in isn't a stand-alone application. To use any DirectX plug-in, a DirectX audio host application must be installed on your PC. To install the plug-in, run the application you downloaded from our site. The DirectX plug-in will be accessible from within your favourite audio host application.
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| Q: What do you exactly mean with "DirectX audio host application"?
A: Any audio program that supports the DirectX plug-in interface as Sound Forge, Wavelab, VST, SAWPro, Cakewalk, Logic Audio...
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| Q: I run the installer of your DirectX plug-ins but it failed. What can I do?
A: Before you start the installation, please be sure that all DirectX compatible audio host applications are closed.
If the installer still fails, try to reboot your PC and run it again. You can also try to do a manual registration dragging the plug-in .DLL on the audio host application interface (this works with Wavelab or Soundforge). Otherwise you can use the following command from the "execute" window: regsvr32 "c:\[put here the path of the file]\[put here the name of the file].DLL". In this way you will be able to see what message does windows gives you back when trying to register the plug-in. To unregister the DLL use the same command but with -U option [ex. regsvr32 -U "c:\[put here the path of the file]\[put here the name of the file].DLL" ].
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| misc
Q: Is it possible to remove the splash screen that appears every time I load the plug-in?
A: Yes. Just deselect the proper check box in the plug-in "preferences - misc" window.
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| DX Reverb
Q: Which are the differences between the "DX Reverb" and the "DX Reverb Light"?
A: Several and deep differences exist between the DX Reverb Light and the DX Reverb.
The DX Reverb Light uses just one simplified algorithm from the 11 present in the DX Reverb. Pay attention to the word ALGORITHM. When we are talking about algorithm we mean 11 completely different ways to generate reverb. These are not simply different settings, but different "reverb engines" that offer you different sounding reverbs (different resonances, different diffusivity, different time behaviour, different timber...)
The DX Reverb includes 2 small room, 2 medium rooms, 2 large rooms/halls, 2 plate reverbs, 2 gate reverbs and 1 inverse reverb, while the DX Reverb Light uses a simplified version of the Medium 2 algorithm.
With simplified, it means that you cannot access all the parameters that are present in the original Medium 2 algorithm (no access to diffusion, high frequency decay...)
Furthermore, the DX Reverb includes full MIDI support. This allows you to control the effect parameters in real time using a sequencer or an internal/external controller.
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| DX Modulation Pack
Q: What's the difference between the DX Modulation Pack and Effects Processor Pro?
A: The main difference is that the DX Modulation Pack is a collection of DirectX plug-ins, while Effects Processor Pro is a stand alone multi-effect processor. The first can be used inside DirectX compatible multi-track recorders, wave editors, sequencers, while the second can be used to process the signal applied to a sound card inputs, or to process .WAV files.
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| installation
Q: I installed the VST plug-ins for Mac but my host application does not recognize them. What's the problem?
A: The Mac plug-ins require MacOS X to work. If you are using MacOS X, check that your audio host application supports Mach-O plug-in format. This is required to use the plug-ins.
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| Q: I successfully downloaded your VST plug-ins. How can I use them?
A: A VST plug-in isn't a stand-alone application. To use any VST plug-in, a VST 2.0/VST 2.0 Mach-O compatible audio host application must be installed on your PC/Mac.
To install the plug-in:
1) MacOS X, simply run the installer contained in the file you have downloaded.
2) PC, unzip the file you downloaded from our site and manually add the plug-in to the directories of all VST host applications where you want to use them. Please see the manual of your VST host
program for details.
Remember to close all VST audio host applications before doing this.
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| misc
Q: The VST plug-ins only show in stereo tracks, aren't there mono versions?
A: CX1V compressor/expander, L1V limiter/maximizer and GEQ15V/GEQ31V equalizers can be used with mono tracks. You just have to use the effects in a channel insert. As you noticed, the effects do not appear in the send effect list, this because, for its nature, a send effect is supposed to be mixed with the original signal (for example a good candidate for a send effect type would be a chorus, a flanger or a reverb).
While with a compressor or an eq, it makes no sense to mix the original signal with the processed one. These kind of effects are "all wet" effects.
Mixing with the original signal will usually spoil the effect purpose.
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| Q: Do you plan to develop Audio Unit plug-ins?
A: yes, we do.
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| Q: How can the CX1V compressor/expander be used to improve the quality of old tapes?
A: A tape has a limited dynamic range let say 60-70 dB.
The dynamic range of recording media is constrained by two values:
1) the lowest signal you can represent
2) the highest signal you can represent
In an analog system 1 is generally limited by the noise floor of the medium (tape noise and hiss) while 2 is generally constrained by distortion (the highest signal you can represent is the highest value you can record without noticeable distortion).
A musical signal (especially in acoustic music) can have a dynamic range of 110-120 dB. You cannot fit this into a tape that has only a range of 70dB (at least without using clever compression/expansion devices). Thus the tape acts as a limiter at higher levels, squashing the signal. If this squashing effect is too heavy, distortion will be
noticeable.
If distortion is severe, an expander cannot do anything to improve the quality. But if it is not, an expander can restore a more natural dynamic response.
Furthermore an expander can be used to silence the noise that is contained in "silent" area of the recording.
Thank to its expansion capability CX1V compressor/expander can be effectively used in this sense.
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| installation
Q: Your message, the one carrying the "User name" and "Registration number", states "insert the following registered data exactly as they are written", and the message includes my user name and a number you have assigned me. Where exactly is this data to be inserted? And how does one insert it?
A: Do the following steps to register
the stand alone application (the example isn't specific to Effects Processor
Pro, and applies to all the stand alone products):
1. unzip the zipped file that you have downloaded from our site into a folder
2. run the application (double-clicking the .EXE file found in the folder
you have created), the following window will appear
3. click the "Register" button and the window reported in the following
picture will appear
4. insert "User Name" and "Registration Number". You can do this manually
or using the copy command [CTRL-C] from the e-mail you received and the
paste command [CTRL-V] in the respective fields of the "Unregistered Copy"
window
5. click the OK button
6. the product is now registered. You can have a confirmation of this
checking the "about" window of the program
If this process fails, and you are sure that you inserted the data exactly
as reported in the e-mail you received, it's very likely that you are
not using the latest release of the application. In this case please get
it from the download page.
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| Q: I tried to run the .EXE file present in the .ZIP file downloaded from your site, but an error message came up saying that a required DLL file was missing. What's the problem?
A: Surely you are trying to run the .EXE file from the WinZip window. The application must be unzipped into a folder before using it.
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| Q: Graphic Equalizer Pro / Effects Processor Pro crashes immediately after I press the play button. What's wrong?
A: You are probably using an old release with Win NT/2000/XP. To download the latest release, please, click here.
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| Q: I tried to run Graphic Equalizer Pro / Effects Processor Pro but nothing appears except the icon on the taskbar. What can I do?
A: This problem has been fixed. To download the latest release, please, click here.
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| WAV processing - live input
Q: Can I Improve the latency of my Sound Blaster Live card?
A: We did not test them, but you can find enhanced drivers and information on http://www.kxproject.com
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| Q: Can I use your "stand alone processors" to modify wave file recordings and save them in the modified state for later recording to CD, or are they just for playback?
A: The "stand alone processors" supports two working modalities: the "live input" mode, that allows you to process on the fly the audio stream coming from the sound card inputs, and the "off-line" mode that allows you to process and save a .WAV file.
To use the "off-line" mode just:
1. open the .WAV file you intend to process
2. regulate the setting of the equalizer as you prefer (listening in real time a preview)
3. choose the "mixdown" command from the menu
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| Q: I just installed a "stand alone processor" and would like to use the live input option, but I just get a message saying the specified device is already in use (error MMSYSTEM004)... Any ideas?
A: The MMSYSTEM004 error usually appears when the audio board is not well configured or doesn't fit the hardware requirements.
Possible problems in detail:
1. your sound card isn't full-duplex (capable of playback and recording simultaneously)
2. the full-duplex doesn't work as it should (check DMA or IRQ conflicts or try to update the drivers)
To test if the full duplex feature is working correctly, you could try the following simple experiment:
1. open 2 sessions of a wave player/editor application
2. start recording in the first session
3. try to play a file in the second session; no MMSYSTEM004 error must appear; one program must be able to play and the other to record. As specified on the documentation, every stand alone application needs a full duplex audio board (or 2 sound cards) to be used with the "Live Input" feature.
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| Q: Why when I use the live input do I hear an echo in the output ?
A: In many sound cards a “monitor” channel is available. This output allows to listen the signal that you are feeding into the sound card. If your sound card has this channel, turn it off, otherwise, once the processor will be activated, you will listen to the dry (un-processed) signal also and you will perceive a delay like effect.
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| Q: Does the "live input" work with Sound Blaster cards?
A: We tested recent Sound Blaster cards and everything worked fine. The only problem we experienced was due to the fact that the Sound Blaster mixer was, to our opinion, a bit tricky. The Windows standard mixer might simplify operations while using the stand alone processors. If you didn't consult it yet, you will find useful information on the "using ..." section of the help files.
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| Q: I can't find the monitor channel on the mixer of my sound card. What can I do?
A: Sometimes (if you are using the standard Windows mixer) you have to enable a channel to make it accessible. In the default setting the monitor channel is often not shown.
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| supported file formats
Q: Your programs only work with .WAV files. Why?
A: We chose to limit the file formats only to 16 bit signed .WAV files (and 24 bit in the near future), a standard for high quality audio processing under Windows systems. Our applications are not sample editors, or audio file converters.
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| Q: Why don't your programs support 8 bit and low sample rate (ex. 8kHz) .WAV files?
A: These formats are unsuitable for serious audio applications. Our programs were intentionally projected to work only with high quality audio formats.
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| Graphic Equalizer Pro
Q: I downloaded Graphics Equalizer Pro with the intention of using the "live input" feature to connect the microphone input of my sound card to the program that I use to record and edit sound files. When I try to run Graphics Equalizer Pro and the recording program simultaneously I get the MMSYSTEM004 error which says that the specified device is already in use. I conducted the full duplex test that you suggested. This worked fine and I got no error messages. Any suggestion?
A: As tested, the sound card is perfectly full duplex. However if two programs access the same input device at the same time, you will get the MMSYSTEM004 error. if you want to apply the equalization on the fly while recording, a virtual driver (as virtual audio cable) that redirects the output of Graphic Equalizer Pro to the input of the recording program, must used. However, generally, it's advisable to record the file with any recording software you like, and then to process the .WAV file generated by this application using Graphic Equalizer Pro. This method offers more control and flexibility and allows you to choose the best equalization in a second time.
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| Q: Can I equalize the audio stream coming from other applications?
A: Graphic Equalizer Pro can equalize every input of full duplex sound cards but not the output of other applications. However using an external virtual driver (as virtual audio cable) this problem can be overcome. By this small program you can redirect the stream of an audio application to another.
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| Q: I was hoping to be able to use Graphic Equalizer Pro like an equalizer while playing back CD's in my CD-ROM.
A: This feature has been included. To download the latest release of Graphic Equalizer Pro, please, click here.
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| Q: When I go to mixdown a WAV file I get the following error message:
"Error 210511: 251001: 251000: Error in Mixdown operation. There isn't enough space on your
temporary drive. Select another folder for temporary files in the Preferences dialog box."
But I have a lot of free space available on my drive. I tried changing the temporary folder
name and location several times, each time getting the same error message.
A: This is a problem that affects Graphic Equalizer Pro v. 2.1 with some Windows 2000/Xp
configurations. The problem has been fixed in version 2.2. Click here
to download the latest version.
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| Q: Can you explain how to make a .WAV file run through the EQ and come out with the EQ settings and/or sound. In other words how do I get a CD that has been changed from Mp3 to WAV to record with the EQ doing the equalizing?
A: To extract audio files from an audio CD you can download a free application called CD Ex from http://www.cdex.n3.net/
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If you are starting from an audio CD do not use MP3 format. MP3 is lossy and introduces artifacts in your audio files. Extract the file and store it as a .WAV file.
Once you have a .WAV file on your computer, open this file using Graphic Equalizer Pro.
Choose the desired equalization previewing the final result in real-time. Once you are satisfied with the result, choose the mixdown command from the menu that appears clicking the right mouse button on the equalizer interface. In this way you will have a processed wav file on your HD. At this point you just have to use any CD burner software to save it again on a CD
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| Effects Processor Pro
Q: When I go to mixdown a WAV file I get the following error message:
"Error 110511: 151001: 151000: Error in Mixdown operation. There isn't enough space on your
temporary drive. Select another folder for temporary files in the Preferences dialog box."
But I have a lot of free space available on my drive. I tried changing the temporary folder
name and location several times, each time getting the same error message.
A: This is a problem that affects Effects Processor Pro v. 2.1 with some Windows 2000/Xp
configurations. The problem has been fixed in version 2.2. Click here
to download the latest version.
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