23 Feb
2004
23 Feb
'04
4:05 p.m.
Man I missed a discussion. Sucks not having a net connection at home.
First and Foremost.
Pete, please keep on doing whatever the hell it is you want to
do. It was great getting in this morning and having a freshmeat
announcement with an update of specimen. This mail is not a feature wish
list for specimen (or for anyones sampler) this is just what I like
sampler wise.
Second Samplers.
Like many people on this list I had been using hardware boxes
for years. In the end, the last 2 pieces of gear I gave up were my SY99
and my Yamaha A3000. I gave both of these up solely because of Native
Instruments Kontakt (sampler) and FM7 (fm synth). Up to that point I had
been using the outboard gear and PD. Native Instruments showed me the
light. (subsequently I have built an FM7 clone in PD, and I am slowly
working on a Kontakt clone, but one of my favorite sound manglers (the
multi breakpoint envelopes, are pretty impossible to do in pd from a GUI
standpoint and tough to understand from a shear command driven list of
numbers standpoint)
Things Kontakt did that made me want to switch.
1. Easy of importing a bunch of samples at a time (or if you have a
GUI use it right).
You could drag a sample onto the keyboard window. It would map
the root to the key you dragged it to. You could then pull out the
borders of the key (left and right set range, up and down set velocity).
Samples could be dragged over each other, and you could set cross fade
between the overlapping samples.
I was sold the day I needed t0 import a couple of hundred
chopped up bits of sound. It took me 5 minutes to set up 2 sound banks
in Kontakt, I gave up after about 3 hours on the a3k.
2. Modulation sources and Destinations coming out my ears.
Modulator can be tempo (midi time clock) synched. Pretty much
every parameter can be modulated (even ones most people wouldn't want to
modulate). You can even modulate the parameters of the modulators with
more modulations, its very GNU.
LFOs with sine, tri, square, saw, random and multi waveforms (optional
tempo-sync with definable quantize times)
Envelopes: AHDSR as well as 32-stage flexible envelopes
Envelope follower
32-stage step modulator
Glide/portamento
Velocity
Release velocity
Key position
MIDI controller # (numbers freely assignable)
Pitchbend
Poly aftertouch
Mono aftertouch
To me these are the 2 most import aspects of a sampler (the
fundamentals have to be there, like multi-sample playback, loop start
and end points, Pitch and Amplitude control, not just envelopes but
coarse and fine adjustments, allow me to assign my envelopes to all of
these. Having an internal Filter is debatable, but if you are going to
put it in there make sure I can modulate that to! I don't want a sample
editor, not even normalize or other common DSP stuff). It made sense to
have it built in back when that sampler in the rack was the only thing
that understood samples. But now I have resound, and audacity, and snd,
and etc etc etc.
I guess now that I am thinking about it, one thing Linux people
could (and do) do in many cases is to give me complete access to all of
this stuff from the command line. It would be a wicked ass command but
if I could set up a complex instrument with a script, and then play it
without a GUI, ohhh I am drooling thinking about the weird stuff I could
force a sampler do.
m.
_________________________________________________
Scanned on 23 Feb 2004 20:00:59
Scanning by http://erado.com
23 Feb
23 Feb
5:17 p.m.
At Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:01:33 -0800,
Matthew Allen wrote:
Pete, please keep on doing whatever the hell it is you want to
do. It was great getting in this morning and having a freshmeat
announcement with an update of specimen. This mail is not a feature wish
list for specimen (or for anyones sampler) this is just what I like
sampler wise.
Well, I'm certainly not going to stop coding, and I'm quite interested
in what features other people find useful because I'll probably find
them useful as well (and then implement them).
Things Kontakt did that made me want to switch.
1. Easy of importing a bunch of samples at a time (or if you have a
GUI use it right).
Definitely. The first thing I wrote when I started working on Specimen
was the GUI, and I still think from the GUI in when I add features. The
current interface works well enough, but unless you write a script to
generate .beef files (not hard to do sense they're simple xml files),
it isn't sufficient for quick creation of huge banks. I'm planning
on adding a pane on the left with a scrollable keyboard layout for
quick note and range assignment, and a pane on the right for sample
browsing which can be customized to hold entries for your favorite
directories. Probably gonna make both panes collapsable as well,
for those who like the minimalist setup, but that's all taking
a back seat at the moment...
2. Modulation sources and Destinations coming out my
ears.
...because my focus is on the ability to create music *first*, and
the ability to accomplish specific tasks (like creating a huge bank)
second.
Modulator can be tempo (midi time clock) synched.
I didn't think about that, good call.
Pretty much every parameter can be modulated (even
ones most people
wouldn't want to modulate). You can even modulate the parameters of
the modulators with more modulations, its very GNU.
Ok, which approach is best:
1) A finite number of modulators which can control various parameters
and/or each other.
2) A modulator per parameter (yikes).
3) A dynamic modulator management system, so you can have an arbitary
number of modulators which can modulate any parameter that supports
modulation (which should be all).
I think number 3 would be the way to go, so long as it's done in an intuitive
fashion. In the meantime, I plan to implement number 1.
Envelope follower
32-stage step modulator
Poly aftertouch
Mono aftertouch
What do these things do? Sorry for my ignorance, I am a mere
ex-fruityloops user :\
Having an internal Filter is debatable, but if you are
going to
put it in there make sure I can modulate that to!
I've already got a low pass in there, and I'm gonna add hi/band/notch-pass
as well (and they will be modulatable). That, LFOs, and portamento
are my biggest priorities because you can create an impressive amount
of *good* music with just those tools (well, in addition to what is
already in Specimen).
I don't want a sample editor, not even normalize
or other common DSP
stuff).
I'd like to think that mine is exempt, since it is only for setting
play and loop points, although I think adding the ability to draw your
ADSR (soon to become AHDSR) settings, and possibly arbitrary point
envelopes as well, would be rather slick.
I guess now that I am thinking about it, one thing
Linux people
could (and do) do in many cases is to give me complete access to all of
this stuff from the command line. It would be a wicked ass command but
if I could set up a complex instrument with a script, and then play it
without a GUI, ohhh I am drooling thinking about the weird stuff I could
force a sampler do.
David Clark has already figured out a way to script the generation of
.beef files. It probably wouldn't be that difficult to write a
clspecimen that just takes a beef file as a command line argument,
which would be a start. But this is low priority for me. However,
LinuxSampler is designed as a console project with its own
communications protocol for parameter manipulation. It also has a lot
more design than specimen, so it might be capable of something like
what you're describing already.
[pb]
7:28 p.m.
On Mon, 2004-02-23 at 21:13, Pete Bessman wrote:
At Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:01:33 -0800,
Matthew Allen wrote:
On a more general point, people pestering for features, submitting bug
reports and generally making a nuisance of themselves can cause what
starts out as a simple pet project into something much bigger and
grander thing (as is happening here).
As users of free (music) software, you don't have to pay for the use of
this stuff, but you do have more of a responsibility (i reckon) than
users of costlyware to contribute useful criticsm and feature requests
etc to authors - it doesn't mean they'll take your advice, or that it
will happen overnight, but it might some day :)
Use the advantages free software gives you basically...
I'll get off the old soapbox now :)
dave
--
................................. www.pawfal.org/nebogeo
Pete, please keep on doing whatever the hell it is you want to
do. It was great getting in this morning and having a freshmeat
announcement with an update of specimen. This mail is not a feature wish
list for specimen (or for anyones sampler) this is just what I like
sampler wise.
Well, I'm certainly not going to stop coding, and I'm quite interested
in what features other people find useful because I'll probably find
them useful as well (and then implement them). 
24 Feb
24 Feb
7:10 p.m.
"Matthew Allen" <matthew(a)lith.com> writes:
(subsequently I have built an FM7 clone in PD, and I
am slowly
working on a Kontakt clone, but one of my favorite sound manglers (the
multi breakpoint envelopes, are pretty impossible to do in pd from a GUI
standpoint and tough to understand from a shear command driven list of
numbers standpoint)
You obviously haven't tried the ggee lib which includes [envgen] object. It's
very GUI.
cheers
--
_
__ __ (_)___ Michal Seta
/ \/ \ _/^ _|
/ V |_ \ @creazone.32k.org
(___/V\___|_|___/
http://www.[creazone]|[noonereceiving].32k.org
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3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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Dave Griffiths -
Matthew Allen -
Michal Seta -
Pete Bessman