[LAD] Kontakt sampler format (and others like EXS24)

[Patrick Shirkey]

On Sat, September 1, 2012 3:12 am, Harry van Haaren wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 4:27 PM, Paul Davis
> <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com>wrote:
>
>> A lot of people (even on this list) don't understand the extent to which
>> *supporting* a piece of software is often a far bigger cost than the
>> initial development, and providing support for a platform with very few
>> users is an issue for companies who want their customer service
>> reputation
>> to be very good (as NI does). It doesn't work for companies like this to
>> just release something "into the wild" and forget about it.
>>
>
> That's a fair point. And also one I'm not in a place to make : I'm not
> currently doing any software support.
>
> Still I do feel that if there could be "an interaction" whereby the linux
> audio community gets enough info to use Kontact samples natively in JACK
> that would be awesome.
>
> With risk of talking about what I'm not an expert in: I could see some
> kind
> of binary .so distributed by NI that houses the Kontact internals, with a
> header file describing how to use it. If this could be adapted into the
> shape of a LinuxSampler engine, then win-win right?
>
> -NI don't have to do support: the only "customer" for thier .so is a
> developer, so support isn't even the right word.
> -LinuxSampler is an established project: why repeat all that has already
> been done?
> -Kontact usage goes up (strengthens brand name.. etc etc) and I'll buy
> samples from NI.
>
> Again intrested on views... also from the Linux sampler guys if such an
> endeavor would even be possible given that the politics work out.
> -Harry

I think Paul has already framed this. They are not comfortable putting it
out in the wild unless they are sure that their quality standards will be
met. In that case they will need to have a support agreement with the LS
guys and that means Christian et al will have to work, which means unless
they can get NI to pay them for their time they either have to work for
free or make enough money from the associated projects that gain by having
NI support.

Given that almost no one in this mailing list actually spends significant
amounts of money on Linux Audio Software that means they have to get
income from a much larger userbase and until we have definitive proof that
userbase is going to contribute income to the project the only thing
driving it forward is self motivation.

So, if we want projects like this to succeed we as a community have to be
prepared to make the effort to educate the wider market.

Which means everyone contributing to the global marketing effort...

So, get our your blogs, your tweet decks, your facebooks, your pinterests,
your myspace and your diggs, start writing keyword rich content and
linking it back to our community landing pages, flood the forums with
links, and even gasp *pay* real money for advertising in real physical
media like magazines and trade journals and then let's see how big our
global userbase really is.

As it stands there is a push towards NAMM in January 2013 but compared to
the rest of the noise out there it will be easily lost in the crowd if we
don't put in the time to capitalise on it. Those people who are in the
States and have some spare time and resources might want to consider
getting involved in a grassroots education campaign for the NAMM
conference.

There are several companies that are going to be there this year so having
a side event or even pooling resources to make a theme might raise some
eyebrows in a good way.

One thing we have going for us is that the products we make are definitely
high end so that is a good place to start if we want to create a marketing
theme and educational campaign based around it.




--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd