17 Apr
2003
17 Apr
'03
3:14 p.m.
Hi,
I want to get Linux and a hardware sampler talking to each other more
effectively. Specifically the following:
1. Transfer individual samples between the PC and sampler
2. Access and back up project files saved by the sampler
3. Possibly create a hard-disk partition in the PC which the sampler
sees as a SCSI drive
The sampler is an Emu ESI-2000 and the interfacing would probably have to
be via SCSI because that's all it offers.
For the 1st aim, I did find out that the sampler supports SMDI, a protocol
for transferring samples over SCSI supported by various sampler
manufacturers including Emu and Yamaha. Is there any Linux end-user
software that implements this protocol? Or another way of doing it?
The only Linux software I have found so far that supports SMDI is
OpenSMDI, which implements the SMDI protocol as a free shared library for
Linux and Windows. From what I can see there is no front-end on the Linux
version:
http://home.t-online.de/home/chrisnowak/opensmdi/
If there is no alternative, I wonder how hard it would be to create a
simple command-line interface using this?
For the 2nd aim I want to read ESI's file system to access individual
projects or 'banks'. Currently, all I've managed to do is save banks to
Zip disks, and then use the Unix 'dd' command to make images of entire Zip
disks. But I can't mount the Zip disks (or disk image files) from Linux,
or access individual files or 'banks' within them, because the sampler
uses a propietary file system.
I believe aims 1 and 2 are both necessary because the SMDI protocol is
fairly limited in the sample parameters it supports, so in order to
capture all parameters (such as filter settings) and cleanly save whole
projects in one go, you have to use the sampler's 'Save Bank' facility
rather than transferring individual samples.
So is there any Linux software that can read this proprietary file system?
The only free (as in beer) software I have found is a Windows program
called ESi-Win. Apparently it lets you transfer individual samples over
SCSI to and from ESI samplers as well.
http://www.simplydata.co.uk/ESi-Win/
This software actually solves both aims 1 and 2, but it's Windows-only. I
briefly tried to run it under Wine, but it didn't work straight away. Has
anyone got it working under Wine? Has anyone seen it running at all?
Both OpenSMDI and ESi-Win seem to be projects that progressed to a
reasonably functional alpha or beta level but are no longer maintained -
presumably because their authors sold their samplers. I'm beginning to
reluctantly wonder if I should do the same... although it seems a shame to
do so purely because of issues with file formats etc.
Anyway the final problem arises because, even if I solved all the above, I
am still reliant on the Zip drive to save and restore banks directly from
and to the sampler. This is not good from the point of view of
reliablility and cost, especially as I undertand Iomega don't make the
SCSI version of the Zip drive any more.
To solve this without buying an expensive SCSI hard drive, I wondered if
it is possible to create a partition on an IDE drive in the PC that the
sampler sees as an external SCSI drive? (Preferably with no possibility
of the sampler overwriting other partitions on the drive ;-)
The sampler has an option "Ignore SCSI device with ID x", which according
to its manual is intended to allow both a PC and the sampler to be masters
on the same SCSI chain and share a SCSI drive. But in the setup they
describe, the shared drive is a separate box in the middle - can it be
done without this?
From what I understand about SCSI, doing this would at
least require a
SCSI card that has the capability to be 'SCSI target' to
another master
device, as well as being a master device itself. So, for what it's worth,
my SCSI card is an Adaptec 2906 and I'm not sure if it has that capability
or not.
What about other options? I could get rid of the sampler altogether -
then to get the same number of outputs I'd need to upgrade my soundcard -
but anyway, what Linux software is there that could replace a hardware
sampler while probably retaining a sampler-like way of working?
Finally, I suppose I could upgrade the hardware sampler. I guess that
more modern hardware samplers integrate better with PCs in general. But
are their protocols and file formats any more open and therefore
potentially more inter-operable with Linux, or are you just as locked in
by proprietary formats and protocols as before?
Any thoughts, suggestions, ideas welcome. I can't be the only person
who's wants to do this!
Thanks
James
--
James Greenwood | jamesg(a)ukshells.co.uk
If you put in the work, the results will look after themselves
-- Nick Leeson's mother
19 Apr
19 Apr
10:26 p.m.
I want to get Linux and a hardware sampler talking to
each other more
effectively. Specifically the following:
[snip]
well, it looks like no one has any good news for you!
does it do spdif/aesebu backups/restores?
What about other options? I could get rid of the
sampler altogether -
then to get the same number of outputs I'd need to upgrade my soundcard -
but anyway, what Linux software is there that could replace a hardware
sampler while probably retaining a sampler-like way of working?
exactly.
Finally, I suppose I could upgrade the hardware
sampler. I guess that
more modern hardware samplers integrate better with PCs in general. But
are their protocols and file formats any more open and therefore
potentially more inter-operable with Linux, or are you just as locked in
by proprietary formats and protocols as before?
i dont spose they're much better, although i did see one with
an ftp server inside :-)
good luck!
--
Tim
20 Apr
20 Apr
8:04 a.m.
tim wrote:
No, I don't think so. It has spdif, but just for digital audio
outputs/inputs. This is how I would transfer samples if there was no
other way.
So what about ones that require a different way of working? Maybe it's
time to learn a new way of working!
I want to get
Linux and a hardware sampler talking to each other more
effectively. Specifically the following:
[snip]
well, it looks like no one has any good news for you!
does it do spdif/aesebu backups/restores? What about
other options? I could get rid of the sampler altogether -
then to get the same number of outputs I'd need to upgrade my soundcard -
but anyway, what Linux software is there that could replace a hardware
sampler while probably retaining a sampler-like way of working?
exactly. good luck!
Thanks very much !!
James
--
Tim
--
James Greenwood | jamesg(a)ukshells.co.uk
If you put in the work, the results will look after themselves
-- Nick Leeson's mother
1:35 p.m.
> > What about other options? I could get rid
of the sampler altogether -
> > then to get the same number of outputs I'd need to upgrade my soundcard -
you cant mix internally?
So what about ones that require a different way of
working? Maybe it's
time to learn a new way of working!
yeh sampling duties can be performed by all kinds of apps
these days depending on what you want to do exactly. Also, it
seems people have been put off writing a sampler due to US patent
problems.
have you tried the soundfont editor/player Swami/Fluidsynth?
Maybe that will help you become less reliant on your hardware,
but i wouldnt sell it just yet! :-)
cheers
--
Tim Orford
21 Apr
21 Apr
5:58 a.m.
Tim Orford wrote:
Probably I can, but I have outboard effects that I like to apply on a
per-channel basis. I wonder if it's possible to use the outputs and
inputs on my M-Audio 2496 as effects sends and returns to incorporpate a
couple of outboard effects while mixing internally? That might sway me.
That's a shame about the patent issue...
> > What
about other options? I could get rid of the sampler altogether -
> > then to get the same number of outputs I'd need to upgrade my soundcard -
you cant mix internally? So what about
ones that require a different way of working? Maybe it's
time to learn a new way of working!
yeh sampling duties can be performed by all kinds of apps
these days depending on what you want to do exactly. Also, it
seems people have been put off writing a sampler due to US patent
problems. have you tried the soundfont editor/player
Swami/Fluidsynth?
Maybe that will help you become less reliant on your hardware,
but i wouldnt sell it just yet! :-)
Thanks for the tip!
cheers
--
Tim Orford
--
James Greenwood | jamesg(a)ukshells.co.uk
If you put in the work, the results will look after themselves
-- Nick Leeson's mother
7:56 p.m.
Another possiblity is to get a cheap sblive value oem card (which go for
about $30) and then use smurf and the awe tools to play samples directly
from the card, I've been doing that and get very low latency when I'm
triggering soundfonts from the card and smurf lets me edit them directly
from the card, I'm in the process of upgrading my c programming skills so
I can help add emu10k hardware support to swami (since its author no
longer has a machine with an sblive or awe card).
http://www.brianredfern.org
On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, James Greenwood wrote:
Tim Orford wrote:
Probably I can, but I have outboard effects that I like to apply on a
per-channel basis. I wonder if it's possible to use the outputs and
inputs on my M-Audio 2496 as effects sends and returns to incorporpate a
couple of outboard effects while mixing internally? That might sway me.
That's a shame about the patent issue...
> >
What about other options? I could get rid of the sampler altogether -
> > then to get the same number of outputs I'd need to upgrade my soundcard -
you cant mix internally? So what
about ones that require a different way of working? Maybe it's
time to learn a new way of working!
yeh sampling duties can be performed by all kinds of apps
these days depending on what you want to do exactly. Also, it
seems people have been put off writing a sampler due to US patent
problems. have you tried the soundfont editor/player
Swami/Fluidsynth?
Maybe that will help you become less reliant on your hardware,
but i wouldnt sell it just yet! :-)
Thanks for the tip!
cheers
--
Tim Orford
--
James Greenwood | jamesg(a)ukshells.co.uk
If you put in the work, the results will look after themselves
-- Nick Leeson's mother
6:18 a.m.
On Sun, 20 Apr 2003 19:12:45 +0200
Tim Orford <tim(a)orford.org> wrote:
have you tried the soundfont editor/player
Swami/Fluidsynth?
Maybe that will help you become less reliant on your hardware,
but i wouldnt sell it just yet! :-)
I would also advice to keep an eye on linuxsampler.sf.net. Once
there will be some binary code :-) But libakai is already
implemented as well as some other excellent libraries.
libakai will be also used in the mentioned above Swami
--
Alexandre Prokoudine
ALT Linux Documentation Team
JID: avp(a)altlinux.org
20 Apr
20 Apr
3:55 p.m.
The new roland smaplers all have direct usb connections, but it depends
upon whether its just treated a a standard usb storage device, or whether
they use some proprietary driver system, I believe its the former. But I
do interact with a hardware sampler all the time, I use a usb zip drive to
open files from my asrx pro. I still do a lot of midi work, so I use
rosegarden to sequence my asrx and then make up samples with various
programs under linux and then dump them in aiff format onto a dos
formatted zip disk and then sneaker-net it to the scsi zip on my asrx.
For better integration I'd need to add a scsi card and then I could share
the scsi zip with the asrx, in my sampler's manual its goes over how to
setup the scsi terminators properly to share the scsi between the computer
and the sampler, and in that case you just mount the zip drive as a dos
drive and copy your aiff files over.
In terms of software like emagic sound diver, there isn't much in the way
of front ends for hardware, I'm working on learning enough C to write an
alsa/gtk app that can work like the sound diver front end for my
adrenalinn stomp box.
http://www.brianredfern.org
On Sat, 19 Apr 2003, tim wrote:
I want to get
Linux and a hardware sampler talking to each other more
effectively. Specifically the following:
[snip]
well, it looks like no one has any good news for you!
does it do spdif/aesebu backups/restores?
What about other options? I could get rid of the
sampler altogether -
then to get the same number of outputs I'd need to upgrade my soundcard -
but anyway, what Linux software is there that could replace a hardware
sampler while probably retaining a sampler-like way of working?
exactly.
Finally, I suppose I could upgrade the hardware
sampler. I guess that
more modern hardware samplers integrate better with PCs in general. But
are their protocols and file formats any more open and therefore
potentially more inter-operable with Linux, or are you just as locked in
by proprietary formats and protocols as before?
i dont spose they're much better, although i did see one with
an ftp server inside :-)
good luck!
--
Tim
21 Apr
21 Apr
6:23 a.m.
Interesting - basically it sounds like you are able to transfer data
relatively easily because the sampler can read a standard filesystem like
DOS via its SCSI drive. But it's still a two-stage process because you
have to save files to disk, then import them from disk at the other end.
However all I can currently do is make an image of an entire drive
(i.e. or Zip disk) for backup purposes, because the sampler uses a
non-standard filesystem.
Reading your post gave me an idea though - my sampler has the facility to
import data from Akai an formatted disk on the SCSI drive, so if there is
any Linux software that can save data in this format then maybe I could
import it into the sampler? Having said that I doubt if there is because
it's another proprietary filesystem, albeit a more standard one.
Does anyone know of Linux software that can save sample data in Akai
format?
I suppose I could consider installing a Windows partition on my PC as
there must be plenty of Windows software that can achieve this :-(
James
Brian Redfern wrote:
The new roland smaplers all have direct usb
connections, but it depends
upon whether its just treated a a standard usb storage device, or whether
they use some proprietary driver system, I believe its the former. But I
do interact with a hardware sampler all the time, I use a usb zip drive to
open files from my asrx pro. I still do a lot of midi work, so I use
rosegarden to sequence my asrx and then make up samples with various
programs under linux and then dump them in aiff format onto a dos
formatted zip disk and then sneaker-net it to the scsi zip on my asrx.
For better integration I'd need to add a scsi card and then I could share
the scsi zip with the asrx, in my sampler's manual its goes over how to
setup the scsi terminators properly to share the scsi between the computer
and the sampler, and in that case you just mount the zip drive as a dos
drive and copy your aiff files over.
In terms of software like emagic sound diver, there isn't much in the way
of front ends for hardware, I'm working on learning enough C to write an
alsa/gtk app that can work like the sound diver front end for my
adrenalinn stomp box.
http://www.brianredfern.org
--
James Greenwood | jamesg(a)ukshells.co.uk
Work is life, and without it there's nothing but fear and insecurity
-- John Lennon
8:13 p.m.
Yeah, it all depnds upon the sampler itself, my asrx pro supports import
of .wav and it uses .aiff as its native audio sample format, so when I
sample into it, and then save them onto the zip disk, they're just a bunch
of .aiff files on a dos formatter zip disk, so I can open it up on any
machine with a zip drive and any linux editor that supports .aiff
format. I use audacity both under linux and macosx to do all my work, but
the fact that the asrxpro in particular supports open formats makes my
work a lot more productive than if I were using an asr x keyboard, which
has its own proprietary sample format (and thus patent issues, etc...), my
korg electribe s also supports .aiff import, so I just use my smart media
reader to write .aiff file onto its card, but frankly at this point I
actually do my best work within csound (though of course it takes longer
to get going with), so using csound and for more manual stuff, once I
have muse working right with my sblive card, I won't have a need for the
hardware anymore (except my midi keyboard/knob-bank controller).
http://www.brianredfern.org
On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, James Greenwood wrote:
Interesting - basically it sounds like you are able to
transfer data
relatively easily because the sampler can read a standard filesystem like
DOS via its SCSI drive. But it's still a two-stage process because you
have to save files to disk, then import them from disk at the other end.
However all I can currently do is make an image of an entire drive
(i.e. or Zip disk) for backup purposes, because the sampler uses a
non-standard filesystem.
Reading your post gave me an idea though - my sampler has the facility to
import data from Akai an formatted disk on the SCSI drive, so if there is
any Linux software that can save data in this format then maybe I could
import it into the sampler? Having said that I doubt if there is because
it's another proprietary filesystem, albeit a more standard one.
Does anyone know of Linux software that can save sample data in Akai
format?
I suppose I could consider installing a Windows partition on my PC as
there must be plenty of Windows software that can achieve this :-(
James
Brian Redfern wrote:
The new roland smaplers all have direct usb
connections, but it depends
upon whether its just treated a a standard usb storage device, or whether
they use some proprietary driver system, I believe its the former. But I
do interact with a hardware sampler all the time, I use a usb zip drive to
open files from my asrx pro. I still do a lot of midi work, so I use
rosegarden to sequence my asrx and then make up samples with various
programs under linux and then dump them in aiff format onto a dos
formatted zip disk and then sneaker-net it to the scsi zip on my asrx.
For better integration I'd need to add a scsi card and then I could share
the scsi zip with the asrx, in my sampler's manual its goes over how to
setup the scsi terminators properly to share the scsi between the computer
and the sampler, and in that case you just mount the zip drive as a dos
drive and copy your aiff files over.
In terms of software like emagic sound diver, there isn't much in the way
of front ends for hardware, I'm working on learning enough C to write an
alsa/gtk app that can work like the sound diver front end for my
adrenalinn stomp box.
http://www.brianredfern.org
--
James Greenwood | jamesg(a)ukshells.co.uk
Work is life, and without it there's nothing but fear and insecurity
-- John Lennon
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9 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Alexandre Prokoudine -
Brian Redfern -
James Greenwood -
tim -
Tim Orford