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It does sound like a MIDI issue (e.g., note-on being sent but note-off getting dropped?)

Have you tried a new cable, or if your keyboard supports both USB and 5-pin, trying to use the other port and seeing if it still happens?

Had a couple of pm's with Jeff on thoughts to remove the noise from the low velocity samples and smooth out the attack on a few notes. Also suggested to store the samples as flacs instead of uncompressed. This could take the CFX lite library size down to about 3.2 gb making it load a bit faster as well. I have the capability to make these changes for myself but thought it would be good for Garritan to entertain these suggestions as a future improvement for all users.

That's interesting. The CFX Lite is about 22GB, so converting to FLAC takes it to about 15% of the original size. With the same ratio for the full version, that's about 18GB. Now the Garritan CFX is suddenly an option again. You are talking about lossless compression, or isn't FLAC always lossless when it comes to piano samples?

Where does the 3.2Gb figure come from? I've never seen lossless FLAC compression at anything like that ratio on any other audio, even using high compression (and slow) algorithms.

FLAC is a lossless format. CFX Lite is 19.2GB for the samples themselves. Because of the long sustain on most of the samples, they compress down quite nicely. I did some side by side tests using the max level 8 compression with uncompressed samples and they were indistinguishable in both sound as well as spectrum. Note the zip file you download from Garritan is 2.35GB, samples and all. So if something is being lost with compression, you would see it here. As these libraries get larger and larger, I think most VI manufacturer's are going in this direction. This would be a nice update for people with limited storage, especially if using a laptop. The full version could be brought down considerably in size and open the door to more potential users.

It's a trade-off between disk space and CPU time. If you use FLAC then the CPU has to decompress the file every time it plays. Seems like there would be pros and cons either way, depending on your hardware, but it needs to be tested and it may be that the CPU time is relatively small. Depending on the results of testing, the option to use FLAC would be nice. But I suspect in most cases it makes sense to store the samples uncompressed.

I see, it makes sense that if the sample files are compressed, they need to to decompressed before the software can play them. 1/8 compression seems quite a lot, in my small Production Voices virtual instruments, the ratio is only 1/3. They are 1 and 3.6GB respectively, so they load very fast and play without problems.

If the Garritan CFX sample files are uncompressed, why are some users of it experiencing glitches, pops, and clicks? Is it because of the large number of sound files? If they were stored in compressed form, and therefore had to be decompressed, there should be an even bigger risk for pops and clicks.

Remember the entire library cannot be loaded into memory. It won't fit. So as you play, samples need to be pulled of the drive in real time. Note CFX loads a separate set of samples for the soft pedal, whether you use it or not. This could be removed as an optional patch to speed up the loading time.

Uncompressed files are larger and take more time to load/stream. Lossless can stream faster and flac, etc are optimized for streaming/decompressing. Yes, there is some time to decompress, but not an issue for modern processors. Most piano vi's use compressed nowadays. Ivory is the only one I can think of that may be using uncompressed. I am running off flacs right now with no issues. Pops, clicks, dropped notes happen for a variety of reasons. Having high enough polyphony settings, increase the pre-cache buffer size, turn off core parking, high buffer settings in asio, use of an ssd will help with this.

Are you saying you compressed the sample files of the CFX to the FLAC format, and are now playing it from the compressed sample files, instead of the original uncompressed ones?

Talking about Ivory, the Studio Grands appeal to me. If there is one kind of holy grail piano VST that exists, this duo may very well be it. Though I'm sure I will always keep on getting new virtual instruments, piano or non-piano.

The size of Ivory II Studio Grands also poses a problem, 111GB. It's two pianos, so I could easily just install one, try it out, remove it, and install the other one. Can't be long until SSDs will be on good offers, though.

One consideration--on many modern systems, if you can't uncompress entirely into RAM, you're uncompressing (and thus writing) to SSD for keys being played in a given session. So you'll be degrading the storage medium, and also increasing the cache requirements (so you many not need 150GB free for storage, but you'll need to keep some indeterminate fraction of that amount unused in any case.

Had to correct this after reading up a bit more. The engine preloads 64 kb of the all the samples into memory before streaming from the drive, whether compressed or not. There is a setting for this amount of sample to preload and will affect load times. I might try lower times just see if I can get the library to load quicker as long as I don't have issues. Also need to have the max ram allocation set above this to accommodate all the samples in memory. CFX is set at 1.25 GB for this. Samples are thus streamed in real time off of the drive. If you have more memory and are seeing dropouts, you could try to play around with these numbers.

Just to add my appreciation for the CFX and Cybergene modification as discussed here:

Cybergene pedal fix.

I always put buying the CFX on the back burner with the full version because of the gigantic size, lack of half pedal. Then lite came out and a half pedal update arrived. I became interested, still, I didn't jump on it. I must admit, I never quite loved the timbre of this particular grand, but I didn't dislike it either when I heard it played by others, the demos always left me with a sort of neutral feeling towards it, basically a bit too bright and cold for my liking.

After buying it few months ago I tried the default for a bit to see if it more a question of getting used to the pedal behaviour (out of box), just to see how it is, but I kept struggling, as if I had sluggish/lazy pedal. You know what a lazy/saggy throttle pedal or sluggish brake in a car feels like ? very frustrating !

Trying playing pieces such as this requires a lot of subtle pedal movements and half pedal, with the CFX default is was a nightmare and next to impossible for me. ( I admit IMHO my unqualified opinion is that pteq still feels/responds best for that sort of subtle pedal movement even with the fix, but I digress)




Whatever the case, be it through a lack of skill or not getting the feel Garritan intended, I didn't feel impressed by the half/repedal pedal response out of the box compared to pteq or ivory, I'll just say, I was all over the shop with it, then, I tried the Cyberfix fix, now the pedal issues are a thing of the past. Initially, when I bought it, for me, it was so bad I put it aside altogether as something to look into later, since I was enjoying ravenscroft anyway, no problem.

Last night and over the weekend I sat down for the first time to give it a revisit trying the CFX with the Cybergene pedal fix.

As of now, I use pretty much use stock settings, sounds great already, however the timbre control Garritan added helped to get it more to my personal taste, I only turned it a smidgen to the left of 12 o' clock. The timbre knob is very sensitive and extreme in range, the tiniest adjustment by a few minutes on the dial affects tone by a lot. To get something a little bit more mellow putting it somewhere between 11 - 12 O' clock range is quite enough, for me. IMO Anything more than that and it becomes totally unrealistic, it then becomes more of an effects knob. A minor tweak to the left reminds more of the voicing the CFX would/should have the way I like it and one finds in a classical setting.

What can I say, IMHO, it's almighty good, call me impressed, great nice long sustain, no verbs needed to flatter it either, great clarity in the overtones and harmonics ( at pteq level ), but with a nice tone/timbre to boot. I think I am in love now. I do dig why people rave about it, I get it.

Many Thanks to Cybergene, you saved my bacon

A couple of minor negatives, I agree IIRC already mentioned.

Somewhat noisy samples, if you use bright headphones or very sensitive detailed cans good at picking noise floors it may become a little irritating, but I can live with it, especially if you start adding compressors or use the the saturation dial, it will lift that noise floor even more.

OTOH many VIs, I get the impression that they clean them up too much, perhaps remove all the hiss with various filters or whatever tricks they use, but in turn it comes at the expense of losing some character/authenticity in maintaining that realistic timbre. The CFX, I get the impression they left it pretty much unfiltered and as raw as possible, In any case, tone is captured beautifully. Given the two options I rather have that authenticity. Just a thought, I could be wrong

Couple of slightly harsh notes here and there in attack phase, nothing too drastic, but noticeable. Nothing a real piano wouldn't have, they never are perfect.

Much Longer load times than any other VIs I have, even on SSD.

Have fun

Glad that you like my fix Cheers!

(Assuming you're on Windows,) did you turn off real-time protection for that folder, so Windows Defender doesn't keep checking it every time? Speeded up my load times a lot.

Thanks, no, I hadn't, so I tried it seeing you mentioned it. I would say I had a small minor speedup, subjectively, without timing it, still much longer than other VIs, buts it okay, I am fine with it.

I expect if you have an older slower computer that you mentioned the difference may be more pronounced for you ?

Anyway, I am fine with it, I am pretty laid back about such things. It is not like it is taking minutes, but ivory by comparison which also uses uncompressed samples at 48 GB loads much quicker, of the order of 6 - 8 secs I recall, long time ago I timed these things last. Kontakt ravens are all in that sort of ball bark too and under the 10 mark for sure, they all boot up just about as fast as my Casio piano takes to boot up. CFX lite is the odd one out here.

I suspect the loading of lots of small files and whatever method it uses may have something to do with it ... who knows.

I still have a conventional HHD for programs but all samples are on SSD, so at some point when I come to do new build I will switch that over, but my now getting older i7 3770K getting on for 5 years since I bought it, however, it is still serving me so well ( running at 4.7 GHz with a significant overclock in performance mode and 32 GB RAM). I don't feel I need an upgrade yet. I've had no issues with it over the years, everything runs great to my satisfaction, so I think it'll be another year or so at least ( if it doesn't break by then ).

In the end once CFX is loaded it runs smooth, no pops clicks etc. I've had no issues so far.

I run CFX full on a current gen MBP with SSD and a cold start takes just shy of a minute I'd say. If I quit and restart immediately it loads from cache in about 10 seconds.

It also runs fine when allocated just 1.5 GB of RAM so I believe a lot of the time is caching files to a temp drive on the SSD, rather than to RAM.

Yes, I found this also, reloads are very quick on subsequent restarts of CFX, without timing it, it feels like what I have it is similar to what you say, booting first time around.

Both SSDs and hard drives have a small amount of DRAM cache, When there is a data request, the data is moved here and then to your computer. If you immediately reload, it will be faster because it draws from the DRAM cache. If you do stuff for a while and then come back, other data has replaced what was in the cache, so it goes back to a longer load time.

For CFX, it pre-loads 64 kb of each sample called for in the soundfont file to your computer memory. There is a setting for this on the advanced tab. You can try to lower this to speed up load times a bit provided you don't see any issues. Depending on your system it may be another number other than 60 kb by default. Turning off windows defender or other anti-virus software real time monitoring as mentioned above usually gives the most speed increase.

I've always wondered if that is actually the case.

Here's my relevant advanced tab snippet:


The pre-caching is "install disk pre-caching." Which I assume is if you install the library on a separate/external hard drive; it assumes your boot disk is faster, and will load a portion of the attack samples onto the boot disk. Who knows why it needs this the library is installed on your main disk/partition already.

I have 1.5GB RAM allocated. At startup, it shows 182MB used with 16kB cache. That seems like a very small amount of data for a 45-second startup time.

If I up the cache to 128kB and restart, then it takes exactly the same amount of time, but the RAM total is now 1100MB. Restart directly from 16kB to 128kB also takes only 6 seconds (same as a vanilla restart).

So it sounds like no matter how much you pre-cache, the transfer of the pre-cache to RAM is virtually instant (because it's just 0.1 - 1GB total, small potatoes for a modern system) and isn't a major factoof startup time. The bulk of the 45-second load time and 6-second relaunch time is due to something else (I would guess some disk-cache copying).

Yes, that may be. I didn't remember if it made a huge difference. Just checked and I also have mine set to 16 kb. From double clicking the icon to ready to play, mine takes 14 seconds off an SSD from a cold start and about 7 seconds for a quick restart. This is for CFX Lite with the one mic position that's included.