Third Take

Today I got an E-MU Xboard 49 MIDI controller keyboard from zzounds. I picked this controller because it has driver support for Windows x64, according to Cakewalk. So far, I’m really impressed with the hardware, but I’m having trouble with the included soft synth.

The keyboard installed and worked out of the box. I was soon playing the TTS-1 and Groove Synth soft synths included with Sonar. When I tried playing along with several tracks I’d already recorded, I started having latency issues - the audio was coming a split-second after I played the notes. I lowered the latency in the Options > Audio dialog and the problem was corrected.

I was excited about the Proteus XLE synth that’s included with the Xboard. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get it working in Sonar. Every time I insert it into a project, I get BitBridge errors. There may be an issue using that synth with Sonar and x64.

One annoying thing about the Xboard was the installation of something called “Creative Professional Product Registration.” It is a piece of software that was installed without my approval and is not removed even if you uninstall the entire package. I did figure out a way to remove it.

To remove Creative Professional Product Registration:

1. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Creative Professional
2. Delete the folder Product Registration
3. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Creative\Shared Files
4. Delete the files CTRegSvr and PdtIdMgr
5. Delete the desktop shortcut