[linux-audio-user] Re: giga files and large soundfonts

[Mark Knecht]

James Stone wrote:
>>There are many, many good, and completely free gig files. Look at 
>>Worra's Place for the best overall set I know of:
>>
>>http://www.worrasplace.com
>>
>>Note the links to subsections are just below the ad at the top. (Not 
>>everyone finds them)
>>
>>Take care,
>>Mark
> 
> 
> Thanks.. yes I had seen that page before and there _do_ seem to be a few
> more files now. It worries me that they are generally all so small in
> size though: smaller than soundfonts some of them. Also there does not
> seem to be much in the way of proper orchestral sounds.. the woodwind
> section is not up to much and there is no strings section.

Most certainly they do not represent a complete library. Many are 
samples of older synths, etc., and are good for limited, but 
interesting, applications.

Almost none of these are velocity sensitive (multiple samples/key) and 
many don't even cover the complete keyboard.
> 
> The sound files at the University of Iowa are massive: 40-60MB per
> instrument. Could build up some really nice files from them! I think
> perhaps the easiest way would be to write them as soundfonts and then get
> some program to convert them..

No, massive is 2GB for a piano, or some of the newer orchestra libraries 
that are running upwards of 9GB (Garritan) and 14GB. (Sonic Implants) 
None of those are very practical for download over the web, at least 
today. How would this be different if the library was Open Source? (Or 
whatever I should call it...)

I agree that it should be possible to take a library of individual wave 
files and turning it into a 'working' gig file, given at least some sort 
of reasonable naming convention on the sample files. Take those 
generated gig files, run them through some sort of analysis program that 
looks at volume out vs. MIDI velocity in, using LS or GSt, or both, and 
you d likely get part of the way there.

As for making a good gig file, there's a lot more to it than just raw 
samples. Tuning issues, deciding where to do velocity splits on each 
note, artifacts in certain wave files, etc. It's a huge undertaking, and 
  in the end it seems you can buy these things for a few hundred 
dollars. Is it worth the effort to try and replace that? Garritan's 
Orchestral Strings advertizes over 8500 string sounds and over 500 
patches. This boils down to maybe 10 cents per wave file which seems 
pretty cost effective. How long would it take to put this stuff 
together? I know a number of the recent releases have taken years of effort.

Anyway, I wish you and whoever else wants to undertake such a task the 
best of luck. It would be greatly valuable to have some good, free 
libraries.

With best regards,
Mark