[LAD] Ardour "sampler" feature?

James Morris james at jwm-art.net
Thu Aug 28 21:01:17 UTC 2014


On Wed, 27 Aug 2014 10:15:47 +0200
Thorsten Wilms <self at thorstenwilms.com> wrote:

> On 26.08.2014 19:39, Devin Venable wrote:
> > My dream feature?  Click on segment, select "convert to sample" and
> > a new midi track appears linked to a plugin sampler, ready to play.
> 
> I could have used something like that a few times.
> 
> Being an architecture astronaut by hobby, I've been wondering about
> the differences and commonalities between (audio-)sequencers and
> samplers. In both cases you have an abstraction on top of actual
> audio-files and playback start/stop. But playback is parameterized
> differently. The sequencer has a timeline position and transport
> state, while the sampler takes notes (and potentially a bunch of
> control events).
> 
> Lets think of a track in a sequencer to actually be a mapping of a 
> playlist to a playback graph. The playlist can be reduced to a
> sequence of events. The playback graph consists of at least a
> playback engine and may contain an effect chain.
> 
> In typical sequencer use, for pure audio tracks, a playlist will
> contain regions that map to audio-files. That part of it can be
> reduced to a sequence of audio-sample-values, as main input to the
> playback engine. There may be other events/automation, all being
> inputs to the playback graph. The general idea is that you always
> deal with sequences of events as inputs to a playback graph.
> 
> Now all of that is coupled to a single, global playback control, 
> consisting of transport state and timeline position. What if you
> could choose to decouple tracks from global control and make them
> take note-events for playback control instead? If the playback engine
> can variate playback speed in relation to note-value, you have a
> basic sampler. If the playback engine also offers realtime 
> pitch-shifting/time-stretching and formant control, you have
> wonderland.
> 
> Note that you would not be limited to control a decoupled track's 
> position and state by notes. There could also be direct control with 
> start/stop/speed (including negative) and locate/go-to events. Tracks 
> that play tracks ... Mmwuhahahaha!
> 

That's a more detailed description of what I thought about. I think it
could still be possible to have layers - like in a sampler - but
another editor view would be required. I think also loop points would
work fine. The problem of course would be representation, and, well,
development.


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