13 Sep
2008
13 Sep
'08
12:43 p.m.
This is the new release of the Yamaha Disklavier Pro acoustic grand
piano soundfont. It is much improved, including a total of 5 velocity
layers.
132MiB (yes, it's getting big)
116 samples, 44100Hz, 16bit
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license
It has a new stereo panning effect. It's not real stereo, but it helps
to make it more realistic when playing live, as somewhat imitates the
pianist's perception of the piano.
Loops are not required anymore. I've selected and included only full
length samples (around 20 seconds of sound for each sample, for low
notes).
Listen to this example music rendered trough it, a piano arrangement of
the famous Pachelbel's Canon in D:
http://zenvoid.org/audio/pachelbel-canon_20080910.ogg
I've added this time a very slight reverb to the demo, through
jack-rack and ladspa plugins. A convolution reverb added with jconv
was more realistic, but the license of the impulse responses was
bugging me.
Download the soundfont here:
http://zenvoid.org/i/audio.html
A note about the dynamics: I've placed the velocity layers at
almost random points. They work OK with my MIDI keyboard, but please
tell me how well does it perform in your MIDI keyboard (and what
keyboard model you are using). You should be able to reach the last
layer at forte (strong) levels, the first layer at piano or
mezzo-piano (soft) levels, and around the layer 2 or 3 under normal
pressure.
13 Sep
13 Sep
7:02 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano (132MiB, new improved version)
Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
This is the new release of the Yamaha Disklavier Pro
acoustic grand
piano soundfont. It is much improved, including a total of 5 velocity
layers.
[...]
Download the soundfont here:
http://zenvoid.org/i/audio.html
Thank you very much, Roberto, for creating and making available this
soundfont. I would very much like to try it. However, I don't know the
most about soundfonts and how to use them.
I downloaded the soundfont and imported it into qsynth, to play with my
external MIDI keyboard. Is this the way you yourself would use the
soundfont (with qsynth)? Or would you load the soundfont into some other
software or hardware?
In qsynth, the base layer (piano) is triggered on MIDI channel 1, and
the other velocity layers (piano layer 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5) are assigned (by
default, anyway) to MIDI channels 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
So, I'm wondering how to trigger the velocity layers. Perhaps this is
not something qsynth can do. I don't know, because I have mostly used
external hardware, MIDI tone generators, and for piano, the piano
samples by William Coakley for the Yamaha Motif Rack and the Roland
Fantom XR tone generators.
However, I would very much like to try to use your soundfont, if it is
possible.
Thanks again for your efforts and for this gift to the Linux and
open-source world.
Steve
14 Sep
14 Sep
8:12 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano (132MiB, new improved version)
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 03:02:19PM -0600, Stephen Doonan wrote:
I downloaded the soundfont and imported it into
qsynth, to play with my
external MIDI keyboard. Is this the way you yourself would use the
soundfont (with qsynth)? Or would you load the soundfont into some other
software or hardware?
Yes, it can be used in qsynth. I also use qsynth myself.
In qsynth, the base layer (piano) is triggered on MIDI
channel 1, and
the other velocity layers (piano layer 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5) are assigned (by
default, anyway) to MIDI channels 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Actually, only the channel 1 is needed, it does contain all the layers
included into it. They will be triggered automatically by programming
different velocity levels in a sequencer or playing your external MIDI
keyboard at different pressure levels. It is very easy, just attach
your MIDI keyboard to the channel 1 and start playing.
The other channels in the soundfont are there for debugging or special
purposes. For example, if you want a particular track of your sequencer
to always sound bright, you could attach it to the channel 2. Under
normal conditions you probably want to use the channel 1 only.
Note that the pressure levels may vary between keyboard models. In my
cheap keyboard I can only reach around velocity 110 no matter how strong
I press the keys. Other people could find the opposite: that the strong
layer is reached extremely soon, at soft levels. So that is what I was
asking for feedback on the different keyboards (my keyboard is not a
good reference).
However, I would very much like to try to use your
soundfont, if it is
possible.
Of course it's possible ;-)
Thanks again for your efforts and for this gift to the
Linux and
open-source world.
Let me know if you make music with it, I'll be happy to hear!
In this soundfont the samples came from a donation made by the OLPC
project, but it is rare to get such good samples with free licenses, so
I'm working to sample other instruments myself, at high quality
(24bit, 96Khz). If everything goes well, I hope to eventually announce
a lot of high quality, free soundfonts. Though it is a slow process, it
may take some time, and I need to convince some musician friends to let
me sample their instruments (an invitation to lunch at a restaurant
after the recording sessions may help) :-)
12:07 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano (132MiB, new improved version)
Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
Yes, it can be used in qsynth. I also use qsynth
myself.
Great!
Actually, only the channel 1 is needed, it does contain all the layers
included into it. They will be triggered automatically by programming
different velocity levels in a sequencer or playing your external MIDI
keyboard at different pressure levels. It is very easy, just attach
your MIDI keyboard to the channel 1 and start playing.
Thank you very much. I'll do that. My MIDI keyboard is a Yamaha P-90.
I'll plug its MIDI out to my sound card (an M-Audio Delta 1010) MIDI
input, then connect that MIDI input to Qsynth using Qjactctl's
Connections window, load your piano sound font and play. :-)
The other channels in the soundfont are there for
debugging or special
purposes. For example, if you want a particular track of your sequencer
to always sound bright, you could attach it to the channel 2. Under
normal conditions you probably want to use the channel 1 only.
Thank you very much for the explanation.
Note that the pressure levels may vary between
keyboard models. In my
cheap keyboard I can only reach around velocity 110 no matter how strong
I press the keys. Other people could find the opposite: that the strong
layer is reached extremely soon, at soft levels. So that is what I was
asking for feedback on the different keyboards (my keyboard is not a
good reference).
I will give some of that feedback after I play with the soundfont for a
while. Right now, after playing just a few minutes, it seems that the
strong layer (the brightest piano sound) is reached too soon on my
keyboard, but it has several velocity settings (curves). So I'll try
them all, including the flat response mapping physical key velocity to
MIDI velocity data.
Let me know if you make music with it, I'll be
happy to hear!
Yes, I'll make some music with it and post a link to an .ogg file so
everyone can hear. But first I want to play with the font and give some
feedback.
In this soundfont the samples came from a donation
made by the OLPC
project,
I was curious what OLPC was, so I Clusty'ed it (I like Clusty.com better
than Google) and found the website: One Laptop Per Child. Interesting
idea and mission.
but it is rare to get such good samples with free
licenses, so
I'm working to sample other instruments myself, at high quality
(24bit, 96Khz). If everything goes well, I hope to eventually announce
a lot of high quality, free soundfonts. Though it is a slow process, it
may take some time, and I need to convince some musician friends to let
me sample their instruments (an invitation to lunch at a restaurant
after the recording sessions may help) :-)
If you (or others on the LAU list) are interested in creating some
high-quality samples, you may enjoy reading some of William Coakley's
notes about how and why he creates his piano samples:
http://williamcoakley.com/articles.php?article=index.php
He has a "less is more" approach to sampling, which he explains at his
website.
His "Perfect Piano V" samples are what I have use and preferred for
several years now. They sound very beautiful to me. But they are
available only as commercial add-ons to several popular manufacturer's
MIDI-triggered tone generators.
Best wishes,
Steve
7:22 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
Let me know if you make music with it, I'll be happy to hear!
OK-- I uside Qtractor and Qsynth to do a test of the Disklavier
soundfont as well as a comparison with the William Coakley piano samples
I primarily use.
I recorded a MIDI track into Qtractor, so that I could channel exactly
the same MIDI trigger data to both Qsynth (with the Disklavier soundfont
loaded) and later to my outboard (external) MIDI tone generator with the
Coakley piano samples in its memory.
I then played back the recorded MIDI track in Qtractor while
simultaneously recording an audio track (also in Qtractor) of the
Disklavier soundfont through the audio output of Qsynth.
Then I disconnected both the audio and MIDI between Qtractor and Qsynth,
and connected them instead to the MIDI output of my sound card (a Delta
1010) and the audio input of that sound card, to capture the Coakley
piano samples as the tone-generator responded to the recorded MIDI track.
I had previously monitored the audio output of each source to adjust the
volume to just under clipping. That was difficult with the Disklavier
soundfont, because the stereo panning of treble notes mostly to the
right speaker/channel and bass notes mostly to the left speaker/channel
was so great that one channel would easily clip while the other's
amplitude was soft and not producing much sound at all.
So in this "side by side" comparison, the Disklavier file may sound a
little lower in general volume than the Coakley file, especially when
most of the sound is coming from the midrange keys of the piano.
Roberto, you may want to consider adjusting the stereo panning to be a
little more conservative. ;-)
No processing was done to either of the files. They were both exported
directly from Qtractor as .ogg files. Here they are:
Disklavier soundfont
--------------------
http://flytrapranch.com/lau/disklavier-piano-soundfont.ogg
William Coakley piano samples
-----------------------------
http://flytrapranch.com/lau/coakley-piano-samples.ogg
To my ear, the higher frequencies (harmonics) of the mid and upper piano
range of the Disklavier sound a little too crisp and exagerated (I'm
using Mackie HR824 studio reference monitors which have a very flat
frequency response), but other (younger, better) ears than mine will
probably have other opinions. ;-)
Best wishes,
Steve
9:25 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Hi, Roberto!
you have made a nice soundfont.
like Steven i'm using qsynth but my keyboard is a m-audio keyrig 49,
which is a very basic model. it only has 3 buttons! :0(
i also find that not enough velocity range is given to the quiet layers,
even with a sensitive touch i reach the fortissimo layer quite easily.
it also is not quite as loud at fortissimo as other soundfonts in my
collection.
i hope this information is useful to you.
keep up the good work :-)
best wishes, G.
15 Sep
15 Sep
7:57 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 12:22:31AM +0100, garryo wrote:
i also find that not enough velocity range is given to
the quiet layers,
even with a sensitive touch i reach the fortissimo layer quite easily.
it also is not quite as loud at fortissimo as other soundfonts in my
collection.
i hope this information is useful to you.
keep up the good work :-)
Yes, it is! Thanks for the feedback.
It will be fixed in the next version. I will adjust the layers, and
I'm working in several "velocity mappings", selectable in different
MIDI channels.
7:50 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 03:22:21PM -0600, Stephen Doonan wrote:
No processing was done to either of the files. They
were both exported
directly from Qtractor as .ogg files. Here they are:
Disklavier soundfont
--------------------
http://flytrapranch.com/lau/disklavier-piano-soundfont.ogg
William Coakley piano samples
-----------------------------
http://flytrapranch.com/lau/coakley-piano-samples.ogg
Thank you very much for your comparison.
Of course William Coakley piano samples are much more well balanced
than the ones in the disklavier... this is obvious. A lot of work is
still needed to improve the soundfont in this area.
I've noticed that the disklavier is recorded very dry (probably on
purpose), so adding a reverb is almost essential; otherwise it sounds
like if the head is put inside the piano :-) William Coakley piano
samples contain some ambiance, and I guess they are recorded in real
stereo (unfortunatelly this can't be done in the disklavier soundfont,
since source samples are in mono).
12:29 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
I've noticed that the disklavier is recorded very
dry (probably on
purpose), so adding a reverb is almost essential; otherwise it sounds
like if the head is put inside the piano :-) William Coakley piano
samples contain some ambiance, and I guess they are recorded in real
stereo (unfortunatelly this can't be done in the disklavier soundfont,
since source samples are in mono).
Yes, I believe that the Coakley samples were recorded in stereo. One of
the things that impresses me is that although William Coakley is an
engineer, he is also a musician (he plays piano himself). This made him
approach the project in a different way, focusing in it as much through
a musician's eyes (and ears) as through those of a sound engineer.
This brief article of his about his observations and approach is very
interesting:
Why Bigger Isn't Better -- by William Coakley
http://williamcoakley.com/articles.php?article=bigger.php
An analogy I might make myself is that it is not necessary to photograph
a scene simultaneously from 5 different angles or perspectives in order
to get a good photo of that scene.
I personally believe that one could create a smoother, more expressively
responsive piano soundfont with fewer layers, with perhaps only 2, or 3
layers at most. Coakley's piano samples, to the best of my memory, have
only 2 layers, one strongest at minimum velocities and the other
strongest at maximum velocities, with several variations in the
gradation between them (several sound "patches" or settings of the same
samples).
One reason I believe that fewer velocity-layer samples would be needed
is that in a piano, perhaps in contrast with a few other musical
instruments, the basic character of the sound--to the ears of a person
or musician, not necessarily to an engineer with a waveform
analyzer--doesn't change character that much. Yes, there is a difference
in sound when a piano is played softly and when the keys are depressed
with great force, but the intermediate volume levels and characteristic
sound are just a relatively smoothly graded variation from one to the other.
In the Disklavier soundfont, it seems (I'm not sure) like the forte
samples predominate. In order to accommodate all 5 layers, it seems that
samples for ffff, fff, ff and f are spread out too much over the
velocity spectrum, infringing on the space that should normally be
reserved for softer layers. This would seem like a natural thing to do,
because the alternative would be to allot a very small area of velocity
values to each of ffff, fff and ff (or fff, ff and f--each of the
strongest-sounding samples), which almost makes one or more of those
samples seem superfluous (which perhaps they are). :-) If a person
considered the dynamic range of a piano as going from soft to loud as
follows--ppp, pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, fff, ffff--then I would think that
samples of "p" and "ff" or "fff" would be sufficient to
represent the
entire dynamic range, in just 2 layers. This is of course just my opinion.
Also in the Disklavier samples, were the pp and p (soft) samples
normalized to raise their volume? I ask this because the volume or
dynamic range of the soundfont seems compressed. It almost sounds as
though--despite triggering the sounds with various velocities--as though
the soft samples have been amplified or normalized and the loud samples
have been compressed. In other words, it seems difficult to achieve the
full dynamic range of a piano when playing the soundfont with a full
velocity range on a MIDI keyboard (even when setting the MIDI keyboard
to different velocity-response curves).
These are just questions and notes intended as "input and feedback"
only. (Hmm-- "notes," "input," "feedback," all
musicians' terms :-)
Best wishes,
Steve
8:39 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 08:29:44AM -0600, Stephen Doonan wrote:
Yes, I believe that the Coakley samples were recorded
in stereo. One of
the things that impresses me is that although William Coakley is an
engineer, he is also a musician (he plays piano himself).
Well, I must say that I'm not a sound engineer, and I have very limited
knowledge of soundfonts. The sad truth is that it is very unlikely that
they will ever reach the quality of Coakley's ones. So why I'm
strugling to make those soundfonts? Because nobody else does!
This is a known problem that has been discussed several times in the
freepats lists. There are very few people willing to give their time
to create free soundfonts (Marcos Guglielmetti, main developer of the
Musix GNU/Linux distribution, is one of the very few exceptions).
Few people realise that most "free" soundfonts out there contain
unlicensed samples. It is easy to recognize copyrighted samples in
those soundfonts from manufacturers like Emu, Korg, Roland, Yamaha...
There are lots of sites in the Internet with "royalty free", or "public
domain" samples, but actually those samples are ripped from some
unknown (most likely copyrighted) source.
Just exactly like free software, free samples need to be unambiguously
placed under a free license by *its author*. And of course the author
*must* be identified. Thinking that they are free because the author
is unkown is just too much optimistic. They must be recorded from
original, analog instruments, or synthesized from scratch by the
author. The samples contained in hardware synths/keyboards are subject
to copyright in the same way that proprietary soundfonts, so they can't
be used on a free soundfont.
There are very, very few free samples out there. Note that the license
used in sites such as freesound.org is not free in the freedom
definition used by the FSF, since it does forbid some kinds of
commercial usage.
So my first and most important goal is to create a collection of free
samples for several instruments. Next, it is required to create
soundfonts from those samples. With my "demo" soundfonts I just hope
to get the attention of some people. We manage to get high quality,
free software operating systems, thanks to the collaboration of many
people, so I still hope that people start to join to the freepats
project, stop using their pirated, "semi-free" or proprietary
soundfonts and begin to think about actually working on creating
really free, high quality soundfonts.
I must say that I'm not interested in dedicating such amount of time
required to reach the quality of Coakley's soundfonts. I will fix most
things, and try to improve the balance, but I'm currently not
interested in building a small soundfont that sounds as good as the
big one, is not my priority. Instead, is very likely that the next
version will have two additional layers (and thus will be bigger,
sorry).
This brief article of his about his observations and
approach is very
interesting:
Why Bigger Isn't Better -- by William Coakley
http://williamcoakley.com/articles.php?article=bigger.php
This is a quote from the article:
"[...] it takes LESS time and LESS work to develop a 3 gigabyte piano
than it does a beautiful thirty two megabyte piano[...]"
It's true. If only two layers are used, a lot of work is needed to
create fake layers in the middle. It is needed to carefully filter
higher harmonics and blend the result. It could easily take months of
work.
But I don't agree with some of the statments given in the article.
It is certainly possible to create fake intermediate layers that sound
as good as the real ones, but claiming that they can sound *better*
than the real notes recorded from the piano is no more than a beatiful
way to advertise his soundfonts.
As Coakley says, it is just easier and faster to do the same with
more samples, and that's the real reason. If the samples are well
balanced in both big and small soundfonts, the bigger soundfont will
sound at least as good as the smallest one, and probably better
(it will use much more RAM, though).
Producing a good soundfont with less layers and half the size would
be desirable, but unfortunatelly I'm unable to do that myself alone.
If someone is willing to donate his time to work in this area,
please let me know, it would be great.
9:34 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
I think it is important to have plenty of samples for the frequency
range--the full range of a piano from bass notes to treble notes--but
not so important to have many samples of the dynamic range of each
sampled frequency/note. I'm speaking of the piano; other instruments are
probably different, of course.
I think that one of the problems is that soundfonts do not allow
crossfading of layers (do they?). Instead, layers in soundfonts play at
their full volume for every MIDI note that is within their assigned
range of MIDI notes. Therefore you can't specify two layers, both
extending the full range of MIDI notes, but each attenuating by a fixed
amount from either the top or bottom of their assigned range of notes.
Am I correct about this? This is the first day I have done any research
about soundfonts. However, after downloading and trying your very fine
Disklavier soundfont, I installed the soundfont editor swami and have
begun to "play" with the soundfont and to alter it in some ways to more
suit my own particular taste as a musician and piano player. It's fun.
When I am happy with the sound, I will be happy to upload a copy for
anyone to use. :-)
[...] So why I'm
strugling to make those soundfonts? Because nobody else does!
[...] There are very few people willing to give their time
to create free soundfonts [...]
Just exactly like free software, free samples need to be unambiguously
placed under a free license by *its author*. And of course the author
*must* be identified. Thinking that they are free because the author
is unkown is just too much optimistic. [...]
So my first and most important goal is to create a collection of free
samples for several instruments. Next, it is required to create
soundfonts from those samples. With my "demo" soundfonts I just hope
to get the attention of some people. We manage to get high quality,
free software operating systems, thanks to the collaboration of many
people, so I still hope that people start to join to the freepats
project, stop using their pirated, "semi-free" or proprietary
soundfonts and begin to think about actually working on creating
really free, high quality soundfonts.
Personally, I for one wholeheartedly agree with everything you stated
(abbreviated with ellipses in the quote above)
Why Bigger
Isn't Better -- by William Coakley
http://williamcoakley.com/articles.php?article=bigger.php
This is a quote from the article:
"[...] it takes LESS time and LESS work to develop a 3 gigabyte piano
than it does a beautiful thirty two megabyte piano[...]"
It's true. If only two layers are used, a lot of work is needed to
create fake layers in the middle. It is needed to carefully filter
higher harmonics and blend the result. It could easily take months of
work.
But I don't agree with some of the statments given in the article.
It is certainly possible to create fake intermediate layers that sound
as good as the real ones, but claiming that they can sound *better*
than the real notes recorded from the piano is no more than a beatiful
way to advertise his soundfonts. Producing a good soundfont with less layers and half
the size would
be desirable, but unfortunatelly I'm unable to do that myself alone.
If someone is willing to donate his time to work in this area,
please let me know, it would be great.
I understand your sentiment. I have volunteered for many things in the
past, and have always arrived at the angry and frustrated conclusion
that just 10% of the people who benefit from any particular work do 90%
of the work. :-)
Best wishes,
Steve
10:05 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Monday 15 September 2008 19:33:59 Stephen Doonan wrote:
Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
I think it is important to have plenty of samples for the frequency
range--the full range of a piano from bass notes to treble notes--but
not so important to have many samples of the dynamic range of each
sampled frequency/note. I'm speaking of the piano; other instruments are
probably different, of course.
I think that one of the problems is that soundfonts do not allow
crossfading of layers (do they?). Instead, layers in soundfonts play at
their full volume for every MIDI note that is within their assigned
range of MIDI notes. Therefore you can't specify two layers, both
extending the full range of MIDI notes, but each attenuating by a fixed
amount from either the top or bottom of their assigned range of notes.
Am I correct about this? This is the first day I have done any research
about soundfonts. However, after downloading and trying your very fine
Disklavier soundfont, I installed the soundfont editor swami and have
begun to "play" with the soundfont and to alter it in some ways to more
suit my own particular taste as a musician and piano player. It's fun.
When I am happy with the sound, I will be happy to upload a copy for
anyone to use. :-)
That may be but take heart. We still have all of this wonderful Free software
to use as a result of this imperfect process and it is starting to go well
(gentle please) for other areas as well.
[...] So why I'm
strugling to make those soundfonts? Because nobody else does!
[...] There are very few people willing to give their time
to create free soundfonts [...]
Just exactly like free software, free samples need to be unambiguously
placed under a free license by *its author*. And of course the author
*must* be identified. Thinking that they are free because the author
is unkown is just too much optimistic. [...]
So my first and most important goal is to create a collection of free
samples for several instruments. Next, it is required to create
soundfonts from those samples. With my "demo" soundfonts I just hope
to get the attention of some people. We manage to get high quality,
free software operating systems, thanks to the collaboration of many
people, so I still hope that people start to join to the freepats
project, stop using their pirated, "semi-free" or proprietary
soundfonts and begin to think about actually working on creating
really free, high quality soundfonts.
Personally, I for one wholeheartedly agree with everything you stated
(abbreviated with ellipses in the quote above)
Why
Bigger Isn't Better -- by William Coakley
http://williamcoakley.com/articles.php?article=bigger.php
This is a quote from the article:
"[...] it takes LESS time and LESS work to develop a 3 gigabyte piano
than it does a beautiful thirty two megabyte piano[...]"
It's true. If only two layers are used, a lot of work is needed to
create fake layers in the middle. It is needed to carefully filter
higher harmonics and blend the result. It could easily take months of
work.
But I don't agree with some of the statments given in the article.
It is certainly possible to create fake intermediate layers that sound
as good as the real ones, but claiming that they can sound *better*
than the real notes recorded from the piano is no more than a beatiful
way to advertise his soundfonts. Producing a good soundfont with less layers and
half the size would
be desirable, but unfortunatelly I'm unable to do that myself alone.
If someone is willing to donate his time to work in this area,
please let me know, it would be great.
I understand your sentiment. I have volunteered for many things in the
past, and have always arrived at the angry and frustrated conclusion
that just 10% of the people who benefit from any particular work do 90%
of the work. :-)
Best wishes,
Steve
all the best,
drew
http://zotz.kompoz.com
16 Sep
16 Sep
7:36 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 05:33:59PM -0600, Stephen Doonan wrote:
I think that one of the problems is that soundfonts do
not allow
crossfading of layers (do they?). Instead, layers in soundfonts play at
their full volume for every MIDI note that is within their assigned
range of MIDI notes.
[...]
As far as I know, soundfonts do not allow crossfading :-(
Another feature that I miss is the capability to place multiple
redundant samples per note and velocity layer, so they are randomly
choosen. This way the soundfont will be even bigger (sorry), but it
solves a particular problem: when playing the same note in a quick
sequence, our human ears notice very soon that exactly the same sample
is playing each time. When playing a real piano, violin, or other
instrument, it is impossible to produce exactly the same sound, and
those small variations make a difference in realism. (BTW: Does
anyone in this list know a way to simulate random variations with
filters or other effects within sf2 files?)
It seems that gig and sfz formats are more flexible than sf2, but they
seem not to be very well supported by free utilities.
8:43 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
As far as I know, soundfonts do not allow crossfading
:-(
That is a pity. It would be great to have velocity layers that overlap,
and automatic attenuation of each in opposite directions such that the
overall volume remains constant for each velocity value in the region of
the overlap.
If that were the case in soundfonts, I think one could make a very good
piano soundfont with just 2-3 samples at various dynamic levels
(loudness/softness) of each sampled note/frequency.
Without crossfading, velocity layering becomes more complicated. I made
a copy of your disklavier soundfont and deleted all "instruments" from
the piano patch except the piano samples at ~100, ~117 and ~122 velocity
value. Using just those three instruments as layers, I made the 100
layer extend the full velocity range, the 117 extend to cover about the
top (higher value) 2/3 of the velocity range, and the 122 cover the top
1/3. Then I attenuated the 117 layer by about 8-10 dB, and the 122 by
about 15-18 dB.
I made some other adjustments (some samples, in the bass register for
example, were noticeably louder than the samples for adjacent note
ranges), and the result sounded OK to me, but the jump in volume when
two or three velocity layers became active and sounded at the same time
was still very noticeable, of course. That's when I began to search for
the crossfading controls in the soundfont editor-- :-(
Another feature that I miss is the capability to place
multiple
redundant samples per note and velocity layer, so they are randomly
choosen. This way the soundfont will be even bigger (sorry), but it
solves a particular problem: when playing the same note in a quick
sequence, our human ears notice very soon that exactly the same sample
is playing each time.
I'm learning to play drums on a MIDI electronic drum set (a Yamaha
DTXpress IV "Special"), and have learned that this is one of the common
complaints of drummers who use electronic drums. When playing a snare
drum, for instance, very rapidly, it can sound "like a machine gun"
because exactly the same sample is repeatedly triggered by the rapid
strokes of the drumsticks. In the drumset I'm using, the sound does vary
to some extent if the sticks strike the drum head in slightly different
locations, as they normally do. I'm guessing that the same sample is
modified by digital filters and effects processing to cause the
variation in sound.
Best wishes,
Steve
9:59 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 12:52:09PM +0200, Emanuel Rumpf wrote:
I've been trying to avoid linuxsampler because of its license.
Well, it's not that bad, most of the code is GPL other than the
commercial exception in the backend, and since I'm not going to
use it in a "commercial hardware or software product" it should
not be a problem for me, but it could be a problem for other
people... if I make and release a sound bank in gig format I will
be almost "forcing" Linux users to accept linuxsampler's license
in order to use my sound bank (there is no other free alternative,
AFAIK). I really don't want to do that.
In short: for political reasons, my pedantic/philosophical point
of view forbids me to use linuxsampler. For technical reasons,
I would prefer to use the gig format, though.
Roberto Gordo
Saez wrote:
Why not use the gig format?
At least there is linuxsampler to play it and gigedit to create it. As far as I know, soundfonts do not allow
crossfading :-(
10:44 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Am Mittwoch, 17. September 2008 schrieb Roberto Gordo Saez:
In short: for political reasons, my
pedantic/philosophical point
of view forbids me to use linuxsampler. For technical reasons,
I would prefer to use the gig format, though.
If you want to be ideologically clear, you _have to_ use a free format. Both
gig and sf2 where invented as proprietary formats. I think the only real free
alternative is something like specimen...
Otherwise I believe gig is considered the more professional format. And might
make your soundfonts popular in the Mac/Win world too.
(I don't think many professional studios like the soundformat of the amateur
soundblaster for professional productions.)
Arnold
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11:22 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 02:44:39PM +0200, Arnold Krille wrote:
If you want to be ideologically clear, you _have to_
use a free format. Both
gig and sf2 where invented as proprietary formats. I think the only real free
alternative is something like specimen...
Using the sf2 format is not a problem for me, it is documented and has
at least one free implementation. I don't claim that my point of view is
the best and the only one truth, of course you can use gig of other
format if you prefer, but I simply can't (neither want) to change my
mind, and I absolutely will never support the format until at least one
(completely) free implementation exists.
Otherwise I believe gig is considered the more
professional format. And might
make your soundfonts popular in the Mac/Win world too.
This is not my goal. I don't want to make those soundfonts for
popularity, I want to make them for freedom. There are many popular
proffesional sound kits out there, and they are better quality for
sure.
I would have no problem to purchase a proffesional sound set and use
it, I can afford it. But that's not what I want.
I don't care how many people use those soundfonts, I do care for people
who wants to use free digital instruments under free software. This is
a project I'm doing just for fun, there will be no customers and nobody
will pay (in fact, I'm spending directly and indirectly lots of money
in this project), so it's not a problem if only myself and one or two
of my friends use them. I would be much more happier this way than
thousands of persons using a nice gig sound bank under linuxsampler.
You may or may not agree with me, but it's just my opinion. To
understand my reasons please see:
http://opensrc.org/pipermail/freepats/2007/000124.html
(I don't think many professional studios like the
soundformat of the amateur
soundblaster for professional productions.)
And neither I do. I agree with you, gig is more professional. But I'm
sorry, I won't change my mind in this regard, my priorities are
different than yours. You are free to convert this and the other
soundfonts I'm working on to the gig format and improve them if you
want to do so. I don't want to do that myself, sorry.
3:02 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Note that I am not for gig and against sf2 (or vice versa), I just see flaws
in your logic...
Am Mittwoch, 17. September 2008 schrieben Sie:
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 02:44:39PM +0200, Arnold
Krille wrote:
<snip>
You want to use sf2 for reasons of freedom? sf2 is not free as in
defined-by-the-fsf. Probably the same as gig (and gig _has_ a free
implementation, just use an old linuxsampler with plain gpl)...
If you want a _really_ free format you _have_ to use specimen or something
else which not only has free implementations (heck, even ms word has free
implementations) but also an open format.
Again, I am not saying that you should ditch sf2 and use gig for whatever
reasons. I am just saying that your reasons of not doing so are no reasons in
my view.
And if your ideologic reasons are invalid, you might as well use the format
that works best and has the features you need. :-)
If it sounds right, its right.
Has served me better in music making than "if it has the right[tm] license"...
Have fun,
Arnold
PS: No need to CC me, I am subscribed ;-)
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If you want to be ideologically clear, you _have
to_ use a free format.
Both gig and sf2 where invented as proprietary formats. I think the only
real free alternative is something like specimen...
Using the sf2 format is not a
problem for me, it is documented and has
at least one free implementation. I don't claim that my point of view is
the best and the only one truth, of course you can use gig of other
format if you prefer, but I simply can't (neither want) to change my
mind, and I absolutely will never support the format until at least one
(completely) free implementation exists.
4:07 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 07:02:34PM +0200, Arnold Krille wrote:
Note that I am not for gig and against sf2 (or vice
versa), I just see flaws
in your logic...
OK, I'll show you the flaws in your logic, then ;-)
Most problably there is no flaws in either logic. Your priorities and
mine are just different. That's all... though there is at least one
objective mistake in your email I want to politely show you.
You want to use sf2 for reasons of freedom? sf2 is not
free as in
defined-by-the-fsf. Probably the same as gig (and gig _has_ a free
implementation, just use an old linuxsampler with plain gpl)...
And why do you think fluidsynth not free? It is included in Debian
and other license-picky distibutions. It is a free implementation of
the sf2 format. Linuxsampler is a different issue. Some time ago
I talk with Brett Smith (he is in the FSF, for license questions)
about the LinuxSampler license, and decided to avoid linuxsampler,
unfortunately.
There is no old linuxsampler with plain GPL, I'm afraid that you are
misinformed in this point. Please, read this text, taken from the FAQ
in the official linuxsampler page:
I've heard the commercial exception of LinuxSampler was added at a
certain version?
No, the commercial exception in LinuxSampler's license terms were there
since day one. Even further it's not only there since the very first
publicly available CVS (developer) version of LinuxSampler, that
commercial exception was even already in Benno Senoner's proof of
concept code called "EVO", which LinuxSampler was based on. There was
even a rumour that we would have manipulated CVS history to "pretend"
this exception wasn't added at a later point. Needless to say that this
rumour is completely false as well. [...]
If you want a _really_ free format you _have_ to use
specimen or something
else which not only has free implementations (heck, even ms word has free
implementations) but also an open format.
I have many arguments against this paragraph, but I think they are off
topic... so instead I prefer to summarize as: just use ms word format
if you want to do so :-)
SF2 format is openly documented (OK, the official docummentation is far
from perfect, I know), but my main point is the implementation. I will
support the gig format with a free implementation (a free
implementation can also be seen as documentation).
Again, I am not saying that you should ditch sf2 and
use gig for whatever
reasons. I am just saying that your reasons of not doing so are no reasons in
my view.
But they are the reasons in *my* view, so if *you* want to create gig
files, just do it, I will not stop you!
I will be happy to switch to gig format as soon as one free
implementation appears.
And if your ideologic reasons are invalid, you might
as well use the format
that works best and has the features you need. :-)
Sorry, you failed to convince me, better luck next time ;-)
4:44 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Hi,
Am Mittwoch, 17. September 2008 schrieb Roberto Gordo Saez:
I never said that fluidsynth isn't free. I only said that both gig and sf2 are
not free formats. (free as in defined by the fsf (could have picked any other
real-free-organization))
If your point is the implementation, then you might be right. If your point is
to be "free", your point is invalid. sf2, gig, doc (even pdf afaik) are not
free formats even though they might have free implementations.
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 07:02:34PM +0200, Arnold
Krille wrote:
Be my guest! :-)
Note that I am not for gig and against sf2 (or
vice versa), I just see
flaws in your logic...
OK, I'll show you the flaws in your logic, then ;-)
Most problably there is no flaws in either logic. Your
priorities and
mine are just different. That's all... though there is at least one
objective mistake in your email I want to politely show you.
Apart from my last paragraph (about using what suites best) I never talked
about my priorities.
But I would be really curious which other objective mistakes (apart from the
ls-stuff) you found in my mail.
You want to
use sf2 for reasons of freedom? sf2 is not free as in
defined-by-the-fsf. Probably the same as gig (and gig _has_ a free
implementation, just use an old linuxsampler with plain gpl)...
And why do you
think fluidsynth not free? It is included in Debian
and other license-picky distibutions. It is a free implementation of
the sf2 format. Linuxsampler is a different issue. Some time ago
I talk with Brett Smith (he is in the FSF, for license questions)
about the LinuxSampler license, and decided to avoid linuxsampler,
unfortunately.
There is no old linuxsampler with plain GPL, I'm afraid that you are
misinformed in this point.
So probably this was only triggered by the public announcement of the
statement...
But: I just checked my local tarball of 0.5.1 and while the README states the
non-commercial exception, neither the COPYING-file with the license text nor
the source-files itself have that exception. But I don't want to restart
these old discussions...
If you want a
_really_ free format you _have_ to use specimen or
something else which not only has free implementations (heck, even ms
word has free implementations) but also an open format.
I have many arguments
against this paragraph, but I think they are off
topic... so instead I prefer to summarize as: just use ms word format
if you want to do so :-)
SF2 format is openly documented (OK, the official docummentation is far
from perfect, I know), but my main point is the implementation. I will
support the gig format with a free implementation (a free
implementation can also be seen as documentation). I will be happy to switch to gig format as soon as one
free
implementation appears.
Fair enough.
Maybe someone should start freesampler... ;-)
Arnold
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5:12 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 08:44:17PM +0200, Arnold Krille wrote:
Apart from my last paragraph (about using what suites
best) I never talked
about my priorities.
Hmmm... maybe I guessed wrong. Since you seem to support linuxsampler
in spite of its license, I was thinking that your priority was features
over freedom. Sorry if it was not the case (maybe you was not aware of
the commercial exception, then ???).
But I would be really curious which other objective
mistakes (apart from the
ls-stuff) you found in my mail.
The others are more or less subjective, except for the definition of
what is a free file format; I'm also sure you are missing something
regarding this other issue, just give me some time to find the link
(I've read it a long time ago and don't have it right now...) I will
send it to you by private email, since I think that most people in the
list won't care very much about this ;-)
I never said that fluidsynth isn't free. I only
said that both gig and sf2 are
not free formats. (free as in defined by the fsf (could have picked any other
real-free-organization))
Now I wonder, in your opinion, what's required to make a file format
"free" besides its internal documentation? An ISO stardard or
something "official"?
But: I just checked my local tarball of 0.5.1 and
while the README states the
non-commercial exception, neither the COPYING-file with the license text nor
the source-files itself have that exception. But I don't want to restart
these old discussions...
It is not a legal requirement to have the complete license notice in
all files. There are many sources that don't even include the GPL
header at all (like the esound sources, if I remember correctly), but
I agree that it would be much better to always put it, just to be clear.
Maybe someone should start freesampler... ;-)
It is on my task list since about one year! :-)
I'm been very busy involved in other free software projects (and still
I am), so it will remain in my task list for a long time, I'm afraid :-(
5:54 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Am Mittwoch, 17. September 2008 schrieb Roberto Gordo Saez:
Maybe "not developed as a closed format and only published later on without
input from the world/community and without room/hooks for extensions".
I don't think I have a definitive answer (apart from that LV2 would be a truly
free format because it allows so many extension you have to ask what actually
is defined by the "standard"), but I think "not a free format because there
is no truly free[tm] implementation" is not a sane way of thinking.
However I do think (and respect) that "I won't support it because there is no
free implementation" is a valid reason for (not) doing something. It is your
time and effort after all. (And I can't wait to get my music machine up and
running again to test your soundfont.)
Well, I am not a lawyer. A while back I tried to get a lawyers opinion to
making some source open source but that lead to three different answer (from
that one guy) so I waited until I was not employed there anymore but still
working on that project...
But what I learned is: You need to state the copyright-holders of each file in
the file. Otherwise it definitely gets lost (it can still "get lost" but that
leads to legal action). And you should state the license.
And the LS-files (that is the source files themself) state "GPLv2 or later".
So from my point of view it would be legal to take the source files, tar them
up with a new readme (without the exception) and publish that.
That wouldn't be very nice to the LS-devs, but as far as I know, it should be
legal...
BTW: that "GPLvX or any later" is somehow dangerous, because you don't know
what the later versions of the license contain. Could be they get bought/sued
by evil opponents and the v4 is not free at all. Would make your code
licensed under a non-free license...
I hate these discussions about legal things. Which is the reason my (private)
codes are (L)GPL.
But I don't despise apps or devs who don't use GPL or apply exceptions. In
fact I am very convinced of Qt.
Have a nice day/evening/night (depending on your timezone),
Arnold
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On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 08:44:17PM +0200, Arnold
Krille wrote:
While I am an open-source freak I am also more in the spirit of use whatever
suits your needs and does the job best.
And if you think linuxsampler is bad because of the non-commercial license,
all art CC-BY-NC is bad. It feels kind of irritating that the ls-guys had to
include such a statement, but on the other hand I do understand their reasons
to do so. They could have refined it to say "without our notice/approval"
which would have helped distributions, but I think all but the core debian
includes linuxsampler without troubles (and debian would be the only
true-non-commercial distribution who wouldn't even get into problems
there...).
So you guessed right, only it was not a direct part of the discussion. (It is
not about me, it is about you:)
Apart from my last paragraph (about using what
suites best) I never
talked about my priorities.
Hmmm... maybe I guessed wrong. Since you seem to
support linuxsampler
in spite of its license, I was thinking that your priority was features
over freedom. I never said
that fluidsynth isn't free. I only said that both gig and
sf2 are not free formats. (free as in defined by the fsf (could have
picked any other real-free-organization))
Now I wonder, in your opinion,
what's required to make a file format
"free" besides its internal documentation? An ISO stardard or
something "official"? But: I just
checked my local tarball of 0.5.1 and while the README states
the non-commercial exception, neither the COPYING-file with the license
text nor the source-files itself have that exception. But I don't want to
restart these old discussions...
It is not a legal requirement to have the
complete license notice in
all files. There are many sources that don't even include the GPL
header at all (like the esound sources, if I remember correctly), but
I agree that it would be much better to always put it, just to be clear.
7:57 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 09:54:45PM +0200, Arnold Krille wrote:
And if you think linuxsampler is bad because of the
non-commercial license,
all art CC-BY-NC is bad. [...]
While I personally support reutilization and sharing of art, I don't
think all art under CC-BY-NC is bad! Even the FSF consider officially
acceptable to use CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-NC for some kind of works (not
software):
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#OtherLicenses
It feels kind of irritating that the ls-guys had to
include such a statement, but on the other hand I do understand their reasons
to do so. They could have refined it to say "without our notice/approval"
which would have helped distributions, but I think all but the core debian
includes linuxsampler without troubles (and debian would be the only
true-non-commercial distribution who wouldn't even get into problems
there...).
I know that my friend Marcos Guglielmetti had some trouble to include
linuxsampler in his distribution (Musix GNU/Linux). Im not sure if he
is packaging it currently (I think is not), but I remember to have read
his concerns here in the LAU list.
I do also understand their reasons, just I prefer not to accept them.
Maybe "not developed as a closed format and only
published later on without
input from the world/community and without room/hooks for extensions".
I don't think I have a definitive answer (apart from that LV2 would be a truly
free format because it allows so many extension you have to ask what actually
is defined by the "standard"), but I think "not a free format because
there
is no truly free[tm] implementation" is not a sane way of thinking.
However I do think (and respect) that "I won't support it because there is no
free implementation" is a valid reason for (not) doing something. It is your
time and effort after all. (And I can't wait to get my music machine up and
running again to test your soundfont.)
:-O
But that was not was I was trying to say!
Please let me explain. Read this first:
http://www.linfo.org/free_file_format.html
I can't find the text in the FSF site, but as far I remember it was more
or less the same.
One thing I've forgotten: patents. If patents are actively enforced in
either of those formats (like the mp3 case), I will reject those
formats, of course. Fortunately, it seems that it is not the case (as
far as I know).
For myself, I usually find a free implementation much more "open" than
the documentation itself. Personally, I usually prefer to study a free
program than to read docs when I need to learn a new file format.
As I've said in my first email, even if the formats were closed, I will
have no moral problem to use sf2 or gig if there were a free
implementation exists. Think like a GPL program that changes its
license in a particular version, previous versions will always remain
to be free. If fluidsynth or other free software support a particular
version of the gig format in the future, and then the gig format
changes, I will make gig banks that comforms exclusively the version
with free implementation, even if it is old or contain less features.
Of course I would not be happy with a proprietary format. For example,
if the flash format is completely reverse engineered and implemented
in the future, I would still not be happy with that one company
controlling it. That's a very serious practical inconvenience for me,
but I will accept to use the free implementation with not so much of
a moral problem. I even own a lot of legally purchased sound banks and
proprietary software, though I try to avoid them whenever I can.
It looks to me that our differences are mainly in what is a free
format and what is not... but the real big problem that is bugging me
is not that one format is free and the other is not (I never looket at
gig internal specifications, if available, so I don't know how open is
it compared to sf2) instead, as I've said in the first email, my
problem is that, in order to use my soundfonts, other people would be
required to install linuxsampler under linux. For example, my friend
Marcos is also a supporter of free software and free soundfonts, and
he usually tries my soundfonts and gives feedback in the freepats
list... so he (and probably others) would need to install linuxsampler
to try my soundfonts. I really don't want to do that, I would feel
like the evil, and nobody could pay me enough money to make me feel
better :-)
Well, I am not a lawyer. A while back I tried to get a
lawyers opinion to
making some source open source but that lead to three different answer (from
that one guy) so I waited until I was not employed there anymore but still
working on that project...
But what I learned is: You need to state the copyright-holders of each file in
the file. Otherwise it definitely gets lost (it can still "get lost" but that
leads to legal action). And you should state the license.
Hmmm... I suggest you to find another lawyers, seriously!!! please do!
If you were working under a contract, you need to get a written notice
from your employer first. You absolutely need it, even if you do that
work in your free time! Then, it is *very* important and encouraged to
place copyright notices and clearly state the license, though it is
not required by copyright law. Some licenses like the GPL requires the
software to carry an appropriate copyright notice, and suggest to place
a notice in every file. I'm not sure it is a legal requirement of the
GPL to place a notice in every file, but I can say you for sure that a
lot of GPL programs included in GNU/Linux distributions do not include
the copyright notice in every file (the should, for clarity, I think)
and some of them only in the readme.
I've been studying laws since years, contact with me privately if you
need help. Although I'm not a lawyer, I really think I'm able to
provide better advice that your lawyer (but I'm not surprised, I know
of lawyers giving wrong advice and I also suffered from it),
I succesfully won some other copyright issues in the past and I'll be
gald to help you within my possibilities (with no warranty, though)
provided that it is for a free software project ;-)
And the LS-files (that is the source files themself)
state "GPLv2 or later".
So from my point of view it would be legal to take the source files, tar them
up with a new readme (without the exception) and publish that.
That wouldn't be very nice to the LS-devs, but as far as I know, it should be
legal...
It would be nice :-) but I think is not legal. At least that was the
case with a semi-proprietary driver for a modem I hacked once upon a
time...
BTW: that "GPLvX or any later" is somehow
dangerous, because you don't know
what the later versions of the license contain. Could be they get bought/sued
by evil opponents and the v4 is not free at all. Would make your code
licensed under a non-free license...
:-D
In practice it is much more dangerous to stay at a fixed version on the
GPL (under Spanish copyright laws for sure, in other countries I can't
say). It is very large subject to explain, please, man, believe in me
this time...
I hate these discussions about legal things. Which is
the reason my
(private) codes are (L)GPL.
And me too... but I'm my case, no matter how much I hate legal things,
I suffer from them all the time... you can find my discussions in
debian-legal, in gpl-violations, and even in the real world I'm always
involved with laws... I really, really hate them, but somehow they
follow me everywhere :-S
Freedom, in every sense, in free software and in my personal life, has
an essential importance to me, and I think that's the reason I can't
avoid to be involved with laws all the time, the reason because I fight
a lot when I'm not happy with something, the reson for which
I frequently got involved in legal conversations, the reason for which
I had no mobile phone in my whole life (until now, I'm about to order a
Neo FreeRunner, and it will be my first mobile phone). Maybe an
extremist life (and that's nothing, you will be surprised how far I can
go sometimes) but that's the way I am. My excuses if this kind of
conversation was a pain to you... just to be clear, it is still very
unlikely that I would made those gig files, but keep trying if you
want :-)
18 Sep
18 Sep
5:11 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
I'm replying to myself for clarifying this:
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:57:52PM +0200, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
Some licenses like the GPL requires the
software to carry an appropriate copyright notice, and suggest to place
a notice in every file. I'm not sure it is a legal requirement of the
GPL to place a notice in every file [...]
That paragraph is over-simplified, there are many other things to take
into account. First one and most important is that the author is not
bounded by the GPL terms, so the requirement to place notices in the
files when they are changed can only be really enforced for
contributors.
I think it is always a good idea to place the license in every file,
though.
You found that the commercial exception is not included in the notices
in source files (I never look into linuxsampler sources myself), and
I completely agree that it is confusing. They should have placed the
notice there as well. As you said, authors would not be happy if you
try to use this fact to fork it under pure GPL, their intentions are
clearly different, and I prefer to respect their opinion and either
accept or reject their conditions. Also, I personally think that it
would not be legal, but if you are willing to try the fork, go
for it :-)
9:39 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 03:11:14 Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
I'm replying to myself for clarifying this:
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 11:57:52PM +0200, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
Well..... but does the author remain THE author once there are other
contributions in that file?
Some licenses like the GPL requires the
software to carry an appropriate copyright notice, and suggest to place
a notice in every file. I'm not sure it is a legal requirement of the
GPL to place a notice in every file [...]
That paragraph is over-simplified, there are many other things to take
into account. First one and most important is that the author is not
bounded by the GPL terms, so the requirement to place notices in the
files when they are changed can only be really enforced for
contributors.
I think it is always a good idea to place the license in every file,
though.
You found that the commercial exception is not included in the notices
in source files (I never look into linuxsampler sources myself), and
I completely agree that it is confusing. They should have placed the
notice there as well. As you said, authors would not be happy if you
try to use this fact to fork it under pure GPL, their intentions are
clearly different, and I prefer to respect their opinion and either
accept or reject their conditions. Also, I personally think that it
would not be legal, but if you are willing to try the fork, go
for it :-)
all the best,
drew
11:20 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 07:39:18AM -0400, drew Roberts wrote:
Ouch... it was not my intention to turn this into a legal thread :-/
I hate copyright (and laws in general), and the details are complex and
horrid (at least under my point of view), but sadly they are part of
our world. If you are curious, you can find many details here:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
groklaw.net is a very recoomended source for all interested in legal
matters, specially oriented at free software. And Lawrence Lessig books
are all great.
I'll try to give an answer to your question (though it may not be
completely accurate, and there are differences between countries):
since Berne Convention in 1989, everything is copyrighted by default, and
an explicit copyright notice is not required anymore. It is also not
required to register a work in an official registration office. If the
author does not attach his own copyright notice, nor publish the work
with his name, nor officially register his work in a copyright office,
he will be still the copyright holder, though it could be difficult (or
maybe impossible) for him to prove that fact. Note the difference
between being the copyright holder and proving it. In complex cases,
a judge decission would be needed.
The author has "magical powers" for each work it creates, and nobody
else has permission for those works, unless those permissions are
granted by him. The GPL and other free licenses are a way to use
copyright law to grant those permissions to the public, by using the
copyright in inverse form (hence the copyleft term). For this reason
it is very important to attach clear notices to free software (or free
artwork), because by default, nothing is permitted.
I've had a long and heated discussion time ago in debian-legal because
many free programs do not include copyright notices for artwork, or
they use artwork copied from unknown places. Sadly, with today laws,
most likely anything you find in the Internet is copyrighted, even if
a copyright notice is not attached. People working on free software
usually don't copy source code from unkown authors; when copying
code from other free program, the author is properly credited and it
is OK. It should be the same for artwork, it is a risk (specially for
distributions) and never a good idea to use something when the source
and license is not clear.
I've also noticed that many people place his samples (or photos, or
other kind of works) in the Internet for free, with the intent to share
them for everybody use. Many times those persons do not attach a
copyright notice because they don't want to restrict the usage, but it
is a shame, because the usage is restricted by default; if the intention
is to make them free, it would be far better to place those works under
a CC-BY or other permissive license (in the US it is also possible to
donate a work into the public domain, but this is not always true in
other countries).
That paragraph
is over-simplified, there are many other things to take
into account. First one and most important is that the author is not
bounded by the GPL terms, so the requirement to place notices in the
files when they are changed can only be really enforced for
contributors.
Well..... but does the author remain THE author once there are other
contributions in that file?
11:43 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 09:20:22 Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 07:39:18AM -0400, drew Roberts
wrote:
Ouch... it was not my intention to turn this into a legal thread :-/
I hate copyright (and laws in general), and the details are complex and
horrid (at least under my point of view), but sadly they are part of
our world. If you are curious, you can find many details here:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
groklaw.net is a very recoomended source for all interested in legal
matters, specially oriented at free software. And Lawrence Lessig books
are all great.
I'll try to give an answer to your question (though it may not be
completely accurate, and there are differences between countries):
since Berne Convention in 1989, everything is copyrighted by default, and
an explicit copyright notice is not required anymore. It is also not
required to register a work in an official registration office. If the
author does not attach his own copyright notice, nor publish the work
with his name, nor officially register his work in a copyright office,
he will be still the copyright holder, though it could be difficult (or
maybe impossible) for him to prove that fact. Note the difference
between being the copyright holder and proving it. In complex cases,
a judge decission would be needed.
The author has "magical powers" for each work it creates, and nobody
else has permission for those works, unless those permissions are
granted by him. The GPL and other free licenses are a way to use
copyright law to grant those permissions to the public, by using the
copyright in inverse form (hence the copyleft term). For this reason
it is very important to attach clear notices to free software (or free
artwork), because by default, nothing is permitted.
I've had a long and heated discussion time ago in debian-legal because
many free programs do not include copyright notices for artwork, or
they use artwork copied from unknown places. Sadly, with today laws,
most likely anything you find in the Internet is copyrighted, even if
a copyright notice is not attached. People working on free software
usually don't copy source code from unkown authors; when copying
code from other free program, the author is properly credited and it
is OK. It should be the same for artwork, it is a risk (specially for
distributions) and never a good idea to use something when the source
and license is not clear.
I've also noticed that many people place his samples (or photos, or
other kind of works) in the Internet for free, with the intent to share
them for everybody use. Many times those persons do not attach a
copyright notice because they don't want to restrict the usage, but it
is a shame, because the usage is restricted by default;
Hence my call:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.ht…
that the laws be changed so that:
1. All 'non'marked' works get an automatic copyleft, not an automatic
copyright.
That
paragraph is over-simplified, there are many other things to take
into account. First one and most important is that the author is not
bounded by the GPL terms, so the requirement to place notices in the
files when they are changed can only be really enforced for
contributors.
Well..... but does the author remain THE author once there are other
contributions in that file? if the intention
is to make them free, it would be far better to place those works under
a CC-BY or other permissive license (in the US it is also possible to
donate a work into the public domain, but this is not always true in
other countries).
all the best,
drew
11:50 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 09:43:31AM -0400, drew Roberts wrote:
Hence my call:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.ht…
that the laws be changed so that:
[...]
That's simply excellent!!!!
I completely share your thoughts :-)
12:47 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 09:50:54 Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 09:43:31AM -0400, drew Roberts
wrote:
Sweet, spread the word, perhaps the ideas can be further refined and improved,
expanded, etc.
all the best,
drew
Hence my call:
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.
html
that the laws be changed so that:
[...]
That's simply excellent!!!!
I completely share your thoughts :-) 
12:07 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 09:20 am, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
> Well..... but does the author remain THE author
once there are other
> contributions in that file?
My understanding (IANAL) is:
In at least some senses, no, or more accurately, he is no longer the
sole author *unless* those contributors have given (signed over) to him
all their rights as co-authors. (There are a lot of things I don't
understand, but one in particular is (are?) the moral rights of the
author that are considered in some other countries. My vague
understanding is that, whatever rights he may give away, he is still
entitled to have his name associated with the software as a co-author.)
Assuming that has not occurred, he is not the sole author, and things
that might be at his discretion if he were the sole author are no
longer at his sole discretion, but require agreement of all the
authors.
Among these:
* he does not have the freedom to change the license unilaterally
* he does not have the freedom to dual license the software
unilaterally
Randy Kramer
--
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.
1:08 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 10:09:22 Randy Kramer wrote:
On Thursday 18 September 2008 09:20 am, Roberto Gordo
Saez wrote:
That's about how I understand things. Anyone have a different take?
> Well..... but does the author remain THE
author once there are other
> contributions in that file?
My understanding (IANAL) is:
In at least some senses, no, or more accurately, he is no longer the
sole author *unless* those contributors have given (signed over) to him
all their rights as co-authors. (There are a lot of things I don't
understand, but one in particular is (are?) the moral rights of the
author that are considered in some other countries. My vague
understanding is that, whatever rights he may give away, he is still
entitled to have his name associated with the software as a co-author.)
Assuming that has not occurred, he is not the sole author, and things
that might be at his discretion if he were the sole author are no
longer at his sole discretion, but require agreement of all the
authors.
Among these:
* he does not have the freedom to change the license unilaterally
* he does not have the freedom to dual license the software
unilaterally
Randy Kramer
all the best,
drew
5:44 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Am Mittwoch, 17. September 2008 schrieb Roberto Gordo Saez:
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 09:54:45PM +0200, Arnold
Krille wrote:
Well, I kind of got a new lawyer. As I said I am still working on the same
(university) project writing the same code, but before I was paid by an
external research institute (who collaborate with the university on this
project) and he had so many things he wanted to check, that I waited until I
wasn't paid by them anymore but by the university itself. And then my Prof.
(the project-leader) and I decided to make the software open source las we
had intended from the very beginning...
And the source-files state the project with its collaborationists as
copyright-holder, the names of the people working on it and a clear statement
that its licensed under (L)GPLv3 and the license-text is in the tarball.
Should be okay...
Have fun,
Arnold
--
visit http://www.arnoldarts.de/
---
Hi, I am a .signature virus. Please copy me into your ~/.signature and send me
to all your contacts.
After a month or so log in as root and do a "rm -rf /". Or ask your
administrator to do so...
Well, I am not a lawyer. A while back I tried to
get a lawyers opinion to
making some source open source but that lead to three different answer
(from that one guy) so I waited until I was not employed there anymore
but still working on that project...
But what I learned is: You need to state the copyright-holders of each
file in the file. Otherwise it definitely gets lost (it can still "get
lost" but that leads to legal action). And you should state the license.
Hmmm... I suggest you to find another lawyers, seriously!!! please do! 
9:32 a.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Greetings,
Since the discussion re: GIG vs. SF2 has veered into the political
nether realms I add this little tinder for the fire.
The licenses for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
Perhaps this statement is tongue-in-cheek, but it isn't presented as a
joke. While such restrictions may or not be contrary to the spirit of
the GPL they are certainly contrary to the letter of the first of the
FSF's Four Freedoms :
"The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)."
There are no exceptions to that statement. Richard Stallman has been
very clear on that particular point. To make any exception is to broach
that freedom, and at that point the software cannot be called completely
free. So now we can add those apps to the flame pile when the LS
licensing issue arises. As it inevitably does...
I never received an answer from the FSF re: the LS license exception. I
didn't write to RMS. The FSF is supposed to respond to such enquiries,
but I never got so much as an automated reply.
For the record: I like and use all those programs, and my conscience is
relatively untroubled. I do wish they would remove the exceptions, but
so far they haven't interfered with the program functions.
Best,
dp
11:38 a.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 07:31:58 Dave Phillips wrote:
Greetings,
Since the discussion re: GIG vs. SF2 has veered into the political
nether realms I add this little tinder for the fire.
The licenses for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
Perhaps this statement is tongue-in-cheek, but it isn't presented as a
joke. While such restrictions may or not be contrary to the spirit of
the GPL they are certainly contrary to the letter of the first of the
FSF's Four Freedoms :
"The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)."
There are no exceptions to that statement. Richard Stallman has been
very clear on that particular point. To make any exception is to broach
that freedom, and at that point the software cannot be called completely
free. So now we can add those apps to the flame pile when the LS
licensing issue arises. As it inevitably does...
I never received an answer from the FSF re: the LS license exception. I
didn't write to RMS. The FSF is supposed to respond to such enquiries,
but I never got so much as an automated reply.
For the record: I like and use all those programs, and my conscience is
relatively untroubled. I do wish they would remove the exceptions, but
so far they haven't interfered with the program functions.
Whatever the case may be, these are not GPL licensed programs and thus code
from them may not be mingled legally with other GPL programs. Right?
And from: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.txt
" GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed."
You are not allowed to change the GPL license. hence the text outside of the
license pointing to the license and then granting the license with exceptions
rather than using a properly modified license.
Honestly people, do what you want as far as licensing your own programs, but
cut out the confusion. If you are not going to license your program with the
GPL, don't make mention of it and try to gain the good will and acceptance
that comes along with licensing your code under the GPL.
Write up your own license and promote it yourself. (My little addition to the
mix.)
Best,
dp
all the best,
drew
12:13 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 09:38 am, drew Roberts wrote:
Whatever the case may be, these are not GPL licensed
programs and thus
code
from them may not be mingled legally with other GPL
programs. Right?
I may have missed something in the context of your statement, but
various levels of mingling are allowed, depending on the other
licenses. The simple one is that GPL software can be agregated with
non-free software, for example, for things like a distro (i.e., a
compilation of software).
In addition, if the licenses are compatible, GPL software can call
routines written with other (compatible licenses), and, iiuc, vice
versa. It really gets complicated and detailed--if you have specific
questions, I'd probably suggest that you do some reading, or ask
questions on a list devoted to the topic.
IANAL.
Randy Kramer
--
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.
12:58 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 10:15:14 Randy Kramer wrote:
On Thursday 18 September 2008 09:38 am, drew Roberts
wrote:
Not mingled in that way.
Whatever the case may be, these are not GPL
licensed programs and thus
code
from them may not be mingled legally with other
GPL programs. Right?
I may have missed something in the context of your statement, but
various levels of mingling are allowed, depending on the other
licenses. The simple one is that GPL software can be agregated with
non-free software, for example, for things like a distro (i.e., a
compilation of software).
In addition, if the licenses are compatible, GPL software can call
routines written with other (compatible licenses), and, iiuc, vice
versa. It really gets complicated and detailed--if you have specific
questions, I'd probably suggest that you do some reading, or ask
questions on a list devoted to the topic.
To be clear, code could not be taken from a GPL program and from these GPL
fakes with exceptions and mixed to form a separate GPL program. Nor could
code be taken from a GPL program and incorporated into one of the fake GPL
programs and likewise it could not be taken from one of the fake GPL programs
and incorporated into a GPL program.
Whereas, if you had two GPL programs, you could do this.
I am also not talking about use of ports and sockets and the like. Just mixing
the code into one whole.
IANAL.
Randy Kramer
all the best,
drew
12:29 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
The licenses for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the
GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
I think this statement is not part of the license (the page says the
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx used to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal).. (I'm not sure Christian
heavy metal bands would agree with this but... whatever!). I think it
was discussed briefly on this forum and people concluded that this was
merely the authors wish, and was not part of the legally binding
license.. now whether that is legally OK I don't know. LS takes a
different approach and tries to integrate their wish more closely into
the license documentation, saying GPL applies apart from for
commercial implementations - in commercial software and hardware.. So
although it is shades of grey, this is seen as non-free whereas the
others are seen as free (although the others are vastly more
unreasonable in my opinion)..
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has a free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
James
12:48 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 10:29, James Stone wrote:
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx used
to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal)..
Actually, he specifically forbade not only heavy metal, but also new-age
music. Never been able to figure that one out, but I suppose any music
without lyrics is incapable of being droolingly religious, or
maybe "new-age" means something different in Jesustan.
Rob
1:07 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 10:47:51AM -0400, Rob wrote:
On Thursday 18 September 2008 10:29, James Stone
wrote:
AFAIK, Paul Nasca, the author of ZynAddSubFX, kindly agreed to remove
that condition from the program and web page some time ago. If you
download the latest version it should have no such exceptions.
I don't know about the IIRC case...
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx
used to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal)..
Actually, he specifically forbade not only heavy metal, but also new-age
music. Never been able to figure that one out, but I suppose any music
without lyrics is incapable of being droolingly religious, or
maybe "new-age" means something different in Jesustan. 
19 Sep
19 Sep
9:09 a.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Rob schrieb:
On Thursday 18 September 2008 10:29, James Stone
wrote:
We had a discussion on that some years ago here. Paul Nasca has removed
this exception from his zynadd-site. It also was nothing but a statement
on the website, not a part of the licensing. In a license-text you do
not say "please do/not" but "you do/not HAVE to".
So such requests are perfectly OK for me - if I cannot/do not want to
apply, I do not apply(whithout breaking the real license-terms).
best regs
HZN
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx
used to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal)..
Actually, he specifically forbade not only heavy metal, but also new-age
music. Never been able to figure that one out, but I suppose any music
without lyrics is incapable of being droolingly religious, or
maybe "new-age" means something different in Jesustan. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFI04hN1Aecwva1SWMRAmNgAJ0XE8SlLhyy124o1KzUhGvKGm02GwCdFlxz
1uNyLu6+4yX+dHygrXgjMRw=
=WYHu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
18 Sep
18 Sep
12:50 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 03:29:38PM +0100, James Stone wrote:
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has a
free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
Well, the Qt toolkit is dual licensed. If you choose to use the GPL
version, it is completely GPL and no exceptions are attached.
Notice that it is not LGPL, it is GPL only, So if you want to develop
a proprietary application with Qt, you'll need to get the proprietary
license from Qt. I have absolutely no problem with this scheme, the GPL
version is as free (or as restrictive, depending on your point of view)
as the other GPL libraries that are normally installed in a GNU/Linux
distribution.
1 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Roberto Gordo Saez
<roberto.gordo(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 03:29:38PM +0100, James Stone
wrote:
Yes I realised this as soon as I posted it.
However, it really achieves the same ends.. Trolltech gets paid for
commercial implementations of Qt.
The trouble with using a similar license for LS is a major potential
commercial implementation (including it in hardware) would not have to
pay anything for using LS code.. so the developers end out with
nothing. I can see why they did it, but it is annoying that there
couldn't be a more open-source way of licensing it and protecting
their IP... I guess it is still more Free than most closed source
"freeware" though..
James
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has
a free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
Well, the Qt toolkit is dual licensed. If you choose to use the GPL
version, it is completely GPL and no exceptions are attached.
Notice that it is not LGPL, it is GPL only, So if you want to develop
a proprietary application with Qt, you'll need to get the proprietary
license from Qt. I have absolutely no problem with this scheme, the GPL
version is as free (or as restrictive, depending on your point of view)
as the other GPL libraries that are normally installed in a GNU/Linux
distribution.
1:12 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
On Thursday 18 September 2008 11:00:41 James Stone wrote:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Roberto Gordo Saez
<roberto.gordo(a)gmail.com> wrote:
And how much code are they depending on that they are not paying for?
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 03:29:38PM +0100, James
Stone wrote:
Yes I realised this as soon as I posted it.
However, it really achieves the same ends.. Trolltech gets paid for
commercial implementations of Qt.
The trouble with using a similar license for LS is a major potential
commercial implementation (including it in hardware) would not have to
pay anything for using LS code.. What I don't quite understand is that Qt has
a free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
Well, the Qt toolkit is dual licensed. If you choose to use the GPL
version, it is completely GPL and no exceptions are attached.
Notice that it is not LGPL, it is GPL only, So if you want to develop
a proprietary application with Qt, you'll need to get the proprietary
license from Qt. I have absolutely no problem with this scheme, the GPL
version is as free (or as restrictive, depending on your point of view)
as the other GPL libraries that are normally installed in a GNU/Linux
distribution. so the developers end out with
nothing. I can see why they did it, but it is annoying that there
couldn't be a more open-source way of licensing it and protecting
their IP... I guess it is still more Free than most closed source
"freeware" though..
The biggest problem is in "pretending" to use the GPL and the confusion that
can / will result. Make up a new license and go to town. See what kind of
traction you get without using the GPL for your code.
James
all the best,
drew
1:41 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:12:55AM -0400, drew Roberts wrote:
> However, it really achieves the same ends..
Trolltech gets paid for
> commercial implementations of Qt.
Or more exactly, for proprietary implementations. There can be
commercial development under the GPL version of Qt provided that
they comply with the terms of the GPL (and it is very common).
Anyways, your comment made me think... now I wonder if linuxsampler
developpers would be willing to place everything under the GPL
(not LGPL). This way, any software product would need to be released
under a free, GPL-compatible license (without the need of exceptions)
or they should contact to arrange a proprietary license with them.
Hardware products are another issue... but if the:
"COMMERCIAL HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE PRODUCTS"
could be turned into...
"COMMERCIAL HARDWARE PRODUCTS"
at least I think it would be an improvement for distributions trying to
package it (unless they are distributed preinstalled in a laptop or
other "hardware product").
1:45 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
The trouble
with using a similar license for LS is a major potential
commercial implementation (including it in hardware) would not have to
pay anything for using LS code..
And how much code are they depending on that they are not paying for?
1:06 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 10:29:38 James Stone wrote:
Sure. Not that I don't have problems with the QT approach, but those problems
relate to risk of license changes in the future.
With QT, you can be as commercial as you like so long as your commercial
efforts fall within the scope of the GPL. (For the Qt Open Source Edition. If
this is the same code base, then this is not a big problem, if it is
a "lesser" code base in any way, I have bigger problems with what they are
doing.)
With the LS license, even if you can be commercial within the bounds of the
GPL, they say no. That is the difference in a nutshell.
One says you can have this code and obey the GPL or pay us and not obey the
GPL.
The other says You can't have this code under the GPL fully, you can pretend
it is under the GPL except for certain commercial uses.
One set of code is actually under the GPL, the other is not.
This is my best effort at understanding things quickly right now.
The licenses
for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
I think this statement is not part of the license (the page says the
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx used to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal).. (I'm not sure Christian
heavy metal bands would agree with this but... whatever!). I think it
was discussed briefly on this forum and people concluded that this was
merely the authors wish, and was not part of the legally binding
license.. now whether that is legally OK I don't know. LS takes a
different approach and tries to integrate their wish more closely into
the license documentation, saying GPL applies apart from for
commercial implementations - in commercial software and hardware.. So
although it is shades of grey, this is seen as non-free whereas the
others are seen as free (although the others are vastly more
unreasonable in my opinion)..
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has a free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
James
all the best,
drew
1:27 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Replying to myself...
On Thursday 18 September 2008 11:06:16 drew Roberts wrote:
all the best,
drew
On Thursday 18 September 2008 10:29:38 James Stone
wrote:
Sure. Not that I don't have problems with the QT approach, but those
problems relate to risk of license changes in the future.
With QT, you can be as commercial as you like so long as your commercial
efforts fall within the scope of the GPL. (For the Qt Open Source Edition.
If this is the same code base, then this is not a big problem, if it is a
"lesser" code base in any way, I have bigger problems with what they are
doing.)
With the LS license, even if you can be commercial within the bounds of the
GPL, they say no. That is the difference in a nutshell.
One says you can have this code and obey the GPL or pay us and not obey the
GPL.
The other says You can't have this code under the GPL fully, you can
pretend it is under the GPL except for certain commercial uses.
One set of code is actually under the GPL, the other is not.
This is my best effort at understanding things quickly right now.
So, are there any Free programs built around QT that are not GPL? To do this
legally, one would have to purchase a commercial license right? And then all
contributors would also need commercial licenses right? The mind boggles.
The
licenses for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries),
you should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
I think this statement is not part of the license (the page says the
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx used to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal).. (I'm not sure Christian
heavy metal bands would agree with this but... whatever!). I think it
was discussed briefly on this forum and people concluded that this was
merely the authors wish, and was not part of the legally binding
license.. now whether that is legally OK I don't know. LS takes a
different approach and tries to integrate their wish more closely into
the license documentation, saying GPL applies apart from for
commercial implementations - in commercial software and hardware.. So
although it is shades of grey, this is seen as non-free whereas the
others are seen as free (although the others are vastly more
unreasonable in my opinion)..
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has a free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain? James
all the best,
drew
2:24 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 11:27 am, drew Roberts wrote:
So, are there any Free programs built around QT that
are not GPL?
I can't answer that definatively. I know KDE is (being?) ported to
Windows, but I guess they manage to do that as free software (i.e.,
under the GPL license of Qt). It seems to me I've heard of some
commercial programs using (or planning to use) Qt, but I can't recite
any names.
To do this
legally, one would have to purchase a commercial license right? And
then all
contributors would also need commercial licenses
right? The mind
boggles.
Yup, and, iirc, the original terms of Qt's dual license required that
you make a decision up front--if you were going to develop a commercial
application under the commercial (not GPL) license, you had to decide
when you started developing your application, and from that point, pay
for Qt. (If that was not for Qt, it was for some other dual licensed
library.)
Randy Kramer
--
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.
2:47 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 12:26:01 Randy Kramer wrote:
On Thursday 18 September 2008 11:27 am, drew Roberts
wrote:
Yup, up front. I have always felt that was a bit onerous and perhaps extremely
hard to enforce, but that is what they require.
So, are there any Free programs built around QT
that are not GPL?
I can't answer that definatively. I know KDE is (being?) ported to
Windows, but I guess they manage to do that as free software (i.e.,
under the GPL license of Qt). It seems to me I've heard of some
commercial programs using (or planning to use) Qt, but I can't recite
any names.
To do this
legally, one would have to purchase a commercial license right? And
then all
contributors would also need commercial licenses
right? The mind
boggles.
Yup, and, iirc, the original terms of Qt's dual license required that
you make a decision up front--if you were going to develop a commercial
application under the commercial (not GPL) license, you had to decide
when you started developing your application, and from that point, pay
for Qt. (If that was not for Qt, it was for some other dual licensed
library.)
Randy Kramer
all the best,
drew
3:09 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 12:47 pm, drew Roberts wrote:
Yup, up front. I have always felt that was a bit
onerous and perhaps
extremely
hard to enforce,
For sure! I never looked at it that way--I don't know what they'd be
able to do if I started out (in good faith) planning to write something
to be GPL'd, but later had the opportunity to dual license and sell it.
I guess it would be appropriate to then pay for Qt, but whether they
could require anything more than that would be "interesting".
but that is what they require.
Randy Kramer
--
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.
8:01 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 12:26 -0400, Randy Kramer wrote:
Yes. That is how it works. You can, however, download a timed demo
license if you want to try it out before you buy. One interesting thing
about the licenses is that they aren't "seat" licenses. They are
assigned to a person and can only be changed to another person after six
or more months. Pretty clever actually ;-)
--
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
http://www.thecfband.com
"Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to
everybody is the 'most reliable Windows ever.' To me, this is like
saying that asparagus is 'the most articulate vegetable ever.'"
Dave Barry
On Thursday 18 September 2008 11:27 am, drew Roberts
wrote:
Let me add a bit of confusion to this ;-) I work for the US Government.
As such, I am not allowed to copyright anything that I write for my job.
It is, by definition, public domain (if it is ever released to the
public and does not contain classified or restricted information). I
corresponded with Trolltech's law people to find out if I could write
completely public domain software using the GPL version of Qt. The
answer is, "No, you must place all software written with the GPL'ed Qt
under the GPL license unless you puchase a QPL license from Trolltech".
Since I am not allowed to copyright my work I cannot possibly place
anything under the GPL because that requires copyright. In order for me
to use Qt I had to purchase a license from Trolltech. This isn't so bad
since the US Government can probably afford it ;-) On the bright side,
most of my software will be released as public domain in the very near
future. At that time anyone who wants to use it can do whatever they
want with it. If they want to write GPL software they can take what
I've done and GPL whatever they add to it and release it as GPL since
public domain is compatible with the GPL. If they want to take it and
add proprietary extensions to it they can purchase a license from
Trolltech and go to town. If they want to keep all of it in the public
domain they'll have to purchase a license from Trolltech. So the short
answer is, yes, there are Free programs built around Qt that aren't GPL
but if you want to do something else with them you have to pick a
direction.
So, are there any Free programs built around QT
that are not GPL?
I can't answer that definatively. I know KDE is
(being?) ported to
Windows, but I guess they manage to do that as free software (i.e.,
under the GPL license of Qt). It seems to me I've heard of some
commercial programs using (or planning to use) Qt, but I can't recite
any names.
I know of one commercial program that uses Qt and I'm sure there are
many more. The one I am familiar with is Interactive Visualization
Systems Fledermaus. I have reason to believe that SAIC may port some or
all of their SABER program to Qt in the near future. I am sure there
are many more examples around.
To do this
legally, one would have to purchase a commercial license right? And
then all
contributors would also need commercial licenses
right? The mind
boggles.
Yup, and, iirc, the original terms of Qt's dual license required that
you make a decision up front--if you were going to develop a commercial
application under the commercial (not GPL) license, you had to decide
when you started developing your application, and from that point, pay
for Qt. (If that was not for Qt, it was for some other dual licensed
library.)
1:07 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Am Donnerstag, 18. September 2008 schrieb James Stone:
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has a
free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
No one??? You surely are funny! What do you think why gnome was founded???
Not because Qt wasn't free, but because Qt wasn't free enough. Kind of like
the same as with LS/Eisenkraut/etc. not being free enough.
BTW: If libgig is truly free, why don't we use it to integrate gig-support
into fluidsynth?
Have fun,
Arnold
--
visit http://www.arnoldarts.de/
---
Hi, I am a .signature virus. Please copy me into your ~/.signature and send me
to all your contacts.
After a month or so log in as root and do a "rm -rf /". Or ask your
administrator to do so...
2:15 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 11:05 am, Arnold Krille wrote:
Am Donnerstag, 18. September 2008 schrieb James
Stone:
founded???
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has
a free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
No one??? You surely are funny! What do you think why gnome was
Not because Qt wasn't free, but because Qt wasn't free enough. Kind of
like
the same as with LS/Eisenkraut/etc. not being free
enough.
You are right in that Qt wasn't free enough (in the opinion of, for
example, Richard Stallman, and I agreed (FWIW ;-)), but dual licensing
was not the issue at that time.
I can't recall the issue exactly, but, in fact, dual licensing was a
solution to the issue--Qt was not free at the time, by adopting the GPL
(and dual licensing to protect their commercial interests), Qt became
acceptable to people like Richard Stallman. (I'm not 100% sure Richard
Stallman has ever said that, or maybe more to the point, iirc, I think
he may have some bias towards Gnome that was not overcome when Qt
adopted the GPL.)
Randy Kramer
--
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.
4:18 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Am Donnerstag, 18. September 2008 schrieb Randy Kramer:
You are right in that Qt wasn't free enough (in
the opinion of, for
example, Richard Stallman, and I agreed (FWIW ;-)), but dual licensing
was not the issue at that time.
No, it was always dual-licensed: commercial and QPL. And the QPL was later
changed to GPL. Which itself afaik was only possible because all payed devs
intellectual property was in trolltechs hands...
Have fun,
Arnold
--
visit http://www.arnoldarts.de/
---
Hi, I am a .signature virus. Please copy me into your ~/.signature and send me
to all your contacts.
After a month or so log in as root and do a "rm -rf /". Or ask your
administrator to do so...
I can't recall the issue exactly, but, in
fact, dual licensing was a
solution to the issue--Qt was not free at the time, by
adopting the GPL
(and dual licensing to protect their commercial interests)
4:52 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday 18 September 2008 02:18 pm, Arnold Krille wrote:
No, it was always dual-licensed: commercial and QPL.
And the QPL was
later
changed to GPL. Which itself afaik was only possible
because all payed
devs
intellectual property was in trolltechs hands...
Oops, yeah--I forgot about the QPL.
Randy Kramer
--
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I created a video
instead.--with apologies to Cicero, et.al.
1:19 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 7:29 AM, James Stone <jamesmstone(a)gmail.com> wrote:
James,
1) qt understands that it's used for commercial as well as
non-commercial software and specifically 'allows' for this in the
license. This allows for free and fair competition in the marketplace
by any user that chooses to obey to terms of the license. Some people
use it, others don't for this reason. However since it's qt's license
which is legally defendable we live by those terms whether we like the
terms or not.
2) Newer versions of Linux Sampler understand that it could be used
to develop commercial programs and specifically attempts to 'disallow'
this by modifying a license that *specifically* disallows modification
of the license in the first place. This is likely not defendable
legally so possibly the current LS source is completely free as it's
been released without a legal license. Anyway, they approached the
problem from the wrong direction. They should have written their own
license but they didn't.
Just my 2 cents,
Mark
The licenses
for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
I think this statement is not part of the license (the page says the
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx used to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal).. (I'm not sure Christian
heavy metal bands would agree with this but... whatever!). I think it
was discussed briefly on this forum and people concluded that this was
merely the authors wish, and was not part of the legally binding
license.. now whether that is legally OK I don't know. LS takes a
different approach and tries to integrate their wish more closely into
the license documentation, saying GPL applies apart from for
commercial implementations - in commercial software and hardware.. So
although it is shades of grey, this is seen as non-free whereas the
others are seen as free (although the others are vastly more
unreasonable in my opinion)..
What I don't quite understand is that Qt has a free/commercial
separate licensing, but no-one has the same kind of problem with qt
that they have with LS? Would someone care to explain?
James 
19 Sep
19 Sep
12:53 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun, was Re: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thursday, September 18, 2008, James Stone wrote:
I think this statement is not part of the license (the
page says the
program is licensed under GPL). IIRC, zynaddsubfx used to have a
similarly non-free statement about not using the program to write
music "against God" (such as heavy metal).. (I'm not sure Christian
heavy metal bands would agree with this but... whatever!).
You could ask Father Joan Enric Reverté, AKA Padre Jony, the rocker priest (in
Spanish). http://www.padrejony.com/multimedia.htm
Regards,
Pedro
18 Sep
18 Sep
12:31 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 07:31:58AM -0400, Dave Phillips wrote:
Greetings,
Since the discussion re: GIG vs. SF2 has veered into the political
nether realms I add this little tinder for the fire.
:-D
Ohhh, I tend to involuntary place everything into political nether
realms, it seems to be my faith.
The licenses for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the
GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
I'm very sorry to hear that :-(
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use
this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
Perhaps this statement is tongue-in-cheek, but it isn't presented as a
joke. While such restrictions may or not be contrary to the spirit of
the GPL they are certainly contrary to the letter of the first of the
FSF's Four Freedoms :
I think it would be something to worry about if those exceptions are
becoming popular among GPL programs.
"The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
(freedom 0)."
There are no exceptions to that statement. Richard Stallman has been
very clear on that particular point. To make any exception is to broach
that freedom, and at that point the software cannot be called completely
free. So now we can add those apps to the flame pile when the LS
licensing issue arises. As it inevitably does...
Agree. I don't have sympathies for bad goverments (I usually don't
have sympathies for any goverment), but adding arbitrary restrictions
like this to the GPL is not a good thing...
I never received an answer from the FSF re: the LS
license exception. I
didn't write to RMS. The FSF is supposed to respond to such enquiries,
but I never got so much as an automated reply.
I do. Brett Smith replyed to my email on the LS exception (it was on
january 2007). He apologized for the delay in the response, and said
that "messages to this address often get backlogged, and we are always
working hard to keep up".
He said:
"We're already in touch with the LinuxSampler developers to discuss ways for
them to accomplish their goals without confusing the license like this."
[...]
For the record: I like and use all those programs, and
my conscience is
relatively untroubled. I do wish they would remove the exceptions, but
so far they haven't interfered with the program functions.
Maybe they will be willing to change their exception so it is only a
friendly, non mandatory request. For example, the vim editor contains
this notice:
"Vim is Charityware. You can use and copy it as much as you like, but
you are encouraged to make a donation for needy children in Uganda."
[...]
It's a nice request, of course, but it would be non-free if the donation
were mandatory. It is instead a friendly encouragement that is not part
of the license (the real license is below that notice in the same file).
We could try to suggest something like that for the developers of
FScape...
2:27 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
Replying to myself:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 04:31:02PM +0200, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
Ohhh, I tend to involuntary place everything into
political nether
realms, it seems to be my faith.
^^^^^
Wrong word, I mean "my fate". I'm sure there are much more wrong
words in my emails, sorry for my english :-/
1:56 p.m.
New subject: licensing fun
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 07:31:58AM -0400, Dave Phillips wrote:
The licenses for Eisenkraut and FScape (both under the
GPL) are
restricted in similar fashion to LinuxSampler :
"please note that you are /not allowed/ to use this software if you are
a member of a military or pharmaceutical or governmental institution
(excluding public service in general and civil science/education). if
you have sympathies for bad governments (applies to most countries), you
should also opt to /not use/ this software. thank you."
WOW, this is very interesting!!! From the official FAQ about GNU
licenses:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NoMilitary
I'd like to license my code under the GPL, but I'd also like to make
it clear that it can't be used for military and/or commercial uses. Can
I do this?
No, because those two goals contradict each other. The GNU GPL is
designed specifically to prevent the addition of further restrictions.
GPLv3 allows a very limited set of them, in section 7, but any other
added restriction can be removed by the user.
10:34 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
2008/9/17 Roberto Gordo Saez <roberto.gordo(a)gmail.com>om>:
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 07:02:34PM +0200, Arnold
Krille wrote:
In my opinion sf2 and gig are both equal closed,
but sf2 is limited and out of date too.
The dls (indented to replace sf2) format is not free either.
I would have to pay about $30,00 for the specification.
(http://www.midi.org/techspecs/dls/dls.php)
There is no download (except for old version 1)
The sad truth is: There currently is no real open patch specification.
(And if there was one, it would take some time to become spread and accepted.)
Having a look at the linuxsampler page, they say libgig is "pure GLP v1".
http://linuxsampler.org/downloads.html
I just checked the libgig sources and could not find any commercial exception.
Now, if it is pure GPL, then there is a free implementation for the
gig format as well !!
All we needed was a free soundgenerator.
Note, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm just sharing my
thoughts and information.
Regards,
Emanuel
You want to use sf2 for reasons of freedom? sf2
is not free as in
defined-by-the-fsf. Probably the same as gig (and gig _has_ a free
implementation, just use an old linuxsampler with plain gpl)...
SF2 format is openly documented (OK, the official docummentation is far
from perfect, I know), but my main point is the implementation. I will
support the gig format with a free implementation (a free
implementation can also be seen as documentation).
10:48 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 14:28, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
The sad truth is: There currently is no real open patch specification.
(And if there was one, it would take some time to become spread and
accepted.)
That's not true. SFZ is an open and free specification. I know, I'm working
on an implementation of the SFZ 2.0 spec.
Having a look at the linuxsampler page, they say libgig is "pure GLP v1".
That is incorrect. The library libgig is licensed under GPL version 2.
http://linuxsampler.org/downloads.html
I just checked the libgig sources and could not find any commercial
exception.
Now, if it is pure GPL, then there is a free implementation for the
gig format as well !!
Yes, libgig is indeed licensed without an exception.
--
Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>
11:12 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson <anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 14:28, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
If it is free, where do I get that specification 2.0 ?
The last time I've had a look at it, the publication was out of date
and incomplete.
Regards,
Emanuel
The sad truth is: There currently is no real open patch specification.
(And if there was one, it would take some time to become spread and
accepted.)
That's not true. SFZ is an open and free specification. I know, I'm working
on an implementation of the SFZ 2.0 spec.
11:28 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 03:12:02PM +0200, Emanuel Rumpf wrote:
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
Hi. You can find it here:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/developer/SoundFont/sfspec21.pdf
That's not true. SFZ is an open and free
specification. I know, I'm working
on an implementation of the SFZ 2.0 spec.
If it is free, where do I get that specification 2.0 ?
The last time I've had a look at it, the publication was out of date
and incomplete.
11:32 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 03:28:22PM +0200, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 03:12:02PM +0200, Emanuel
Rumpf wrote:
Oops, sorry, I've just noticed that you were talking about the
SFZ (not SF2) format. I know nothing about the SFZ format.
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
Hi. You can find it here:
http://connect.creativelabs.com/developer/SoundFont/sfspec21.pdf That's not true. SFZ is an open and free
specification. I know, I'm working
on an implementation of the SFZ 2.0 spec.
If it is free, where do I get that specification 2.0 ?
The last time I've had a look at it, the publication was out of date
and incomplete.
11:58 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 15:12, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
The SFZ 2.0 is currently only available in the book 'Cakewalk Synthesizers'
by Simon Cann. Note that I'm not talking free as in beer here.
I've tried to publish some errata for the 1.0 spec regarding stuff that I've
come across:
https://bb.linuxsampler.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=186
--
Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 14:28, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
working
The sad truth is: There currently is no real open patch specification.
(And if there was one, it would take some time to become spread and
accepted.)
That's not true. SFZ is an open and free specification. I know, I'm on an implementation of the SFZ 2.0 spec.
If it is free, where do I get that specification 2.0 ?
The last time I've had a look at it, the publication was out of date
and incomplete.
3:18 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson <anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 15:12, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
Thank you for the Information, Anders Dahnielson.
So the the specification is available, that's good.
Searching the web, I find this site:
http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/sfz.asp
At the bottom I find:
"Copyright (c) 2008 by Cakewalk, Inc. All rights reserved."
There is no further license information, but a note at the top:
"Soundware, software and hardware developers can create, use and
distribute the sfz format files for free, for either free or
commercial applications."
We are allowed to use *files* created in the format for "free" or
"commercial" applications
(with no further info, what "free" / "commercial" means in this
context)
That is a kind of vague freedom.
But the specification itself is still unfree (as in speach),
scince I'm not allowed to spread it reproduce it, give it to friends.
Regards,
Emanuel
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson <anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
The SFZ 2.0 is currently only available in the book 'Cakewalk Synthesizers'
by Simon Cann. Note that I'm not talking free as in beer here.
I've tried to publish some errata for the 1.0 spec regarding stuff that I've
come across:
https://bb.linuxsampler.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=186
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 14:28, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
If it is free, where do I get that specification 2.0 ?
The last time I've had a look at it, the publication was out of date
and incomplete.
The sad truth is: There currently is no real open patch specification.
(And if there was one, it would take some time to become spread and
accepted.)
That's not true. SFZ is an open and free specification. I know, I'm
working
on an implementation of the SFZ 2.0 spec.
3:37 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Searching the web, I find this site:
http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/sfz.asp
PS: Just to inform you: The bottom link on the site, to the examples,
gives me a "Directory Listing Denied" error.
4 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 19:37, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
Yes. The DevXchange appear somewhat unmaintained.
--
Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>
Searching the web, I find this site:
http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/sfz.asp
PS: Just to inform you: The bottom link on the site, to the examples,
gives me a "Directory Listing Denied" error.
3:52 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 19:18, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
The SFZ 2.0 is currently only available in the book 'Cakewalk
Synthesizers'
Yes, that's the spec my errata in the forum topic try to correct. That's the
so called "SFZ 1.0 spec".
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 15:12, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
>
> 2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson <anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 14:28, Emanuel Rumpf <xbran(a)web.de> wrote:
> >>
> >> The sad truth is: There currently is no real open patch
specification.
> (And if there was one, it would take some time to
become spread and
> accepted.)
That's not true. SFZ is an open and free specification. I know, I'm
working
on an implementation of the SFZ 2.0 spec.
If it is free, where do I get that specification 2.0 ?
The last time I've had a look at it, the publication was out of date
and incomplete. by Simon Cann. Note that I'm not talking free
as in beer here.
I've tried to publish some errata for the 1.0 spec regarding stuff that
I've
come across:
https://bb.linuxsampler.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=186
Thank you for the Information, Anders Dahnielson.
So the the specification is available, that's good.
Searching the web, I find this site:
http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/sfz.asp
At the bottom I find:
"Copyright (c) 2008 by Cakewalk, Inc. All rights reserved."
That's the copyright notice regarding the content of the page as an
expression.
There is no further license information, but a note at the top:
"Soundware, software and hardware developers can create, use and
distribute the sfz format files for free, for either free or
commercial applications."
From the page, above the paragraph you quoted, stating
the intent of the
format:
"The goal behind the sfz format is to provide a free, simple, minimalistic
and expandable format to arrange, distribute and use audio samples with the
highest possible quality and the highest possible performance flexibility."
I think it's pretty clear that the intention of the SFZ format always have
been to be an open unencumbered format that anyone could use.
We are allowed to use *files* created in the format for "free" or
"commercial" applications
(with no further info, what "free" / "commercial" means in this
context)
That is a kind of vague freedom.
But the specification itself is still unfree (as in speach),
scince I'm not allowed to spread it reproduce it, give it to friends.
AFAIK, e.g. that's the case (or was) with the printed POSIX spec. Note that
it is the spec as an expression that is protected by the copyright notice,
not the idea (Fichte's distinction). You and me are free to write our own
description of the SFZ format (which I plan to do as part of libsfz).
--
Anders Dahnielson
<anders(a)dahnielson.com>
4:42 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
2008/9/18 Anders Dahnielson <anders(a)dahnielson.com>om>:
I think it's pretty clear that the intention of the SFZ format always have
been to be an open unencumbered format that anyone could use.
While I'm happy to hear that, I would prefere this "clear intention"
to be expressed in form of an unambiguous licence term aka BSD or so....
(Even Microsoft told us some of its development efforts were free....)
It would also help, if the page conained a hint,
That it is version 1.0, that version 2.0 is availabe as the book you mentioned.
And what the state of the development is.
Thanks,
Emanuel
16 Sep
16 Sep
7:25 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Roberto Gordo Saez schrieb:
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 08:29:44AM -0600, Stephen
Doonan wrote:
There are very, very few free samples out there.
Really? - I was not aware of hat since I only use samples recorded by
myself.
So my first and most important goal is to create a
collection of free
samples for several instruments.
I hear that as a wake up call. I was not completely asleep until now though:
http://gnupc.de/~zettberlin/law/samples/free/
but I will upload more stuff to these folders now, hope it will help.
All files here are made my me from scratch(analogue source, microphone,
editors) and I release them under a Creative Commons Attribution
licence. So all derivatives, including commercial ones are permitted.
Drop me a line, if you would prefer a different (free) license.
Next, it is required to create
soundfonts from those samples.
I must admit, that I basicly hate the concept of soundfonts. Most of
them try to mimic a real instrument but the real thing is still the real
thing.
Much different I consider the usage of samples in real sampler-apps like
Specimen, that allow to manipulate how each sample should sound like. So
you can build new sounds using samples. Such sounds are something
genuine then and not just a puny copy of a real instrument. Soundfonts
are just too compact and closed.
But of course thats my personal opinion and I know, that many people use
soundfonts to produce cool music(and I fear I would not recognize if
there is a real Rhodes in a song or a carefully made up soundfont of a
Rhodes ;-)).
So go on - use my samples in your soundfonts, if you have a use for
them. But maybe we could collaborate in making banks for Specimen too.
There is just one stupid obstacle: Specimen stores the path to the
wav-files allways as an absolute path and it refuses to read them from a
relative path. So the banks are not easily to be
transported/distributed. I use to adjust the path by hand in the
bankfiles if needed but of course thats not acceptable for the normal
user....
Still Specimen is a great app to work with samples and I wish, it would
have more attention... THis one is made within aprx. 15 minutes from
scratch with Specimen(playing my guitarsamples see above) and Seq24:
http://gnupc.de/~zettberlin/law/demos/specibasse.ogg
best egs
HZN
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8:09 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 11:25:20AM +0200, Hartmut Noack wrote:
Roberto Gordo Saez schrieb:
The freepats project have been struggling to get free samples for
years. I personally contacted myself with many sample and soundfont
authors via email. Since their samples were available for free
(gratis), I've asked if they where also willing to release them under a
free license, and the responses were always:
- No response (first most common "response")
- The samples were taken from unknown or copyrighted sources (second
most common response)
- The samples are free for non-commercial usage only, or contain other
restriction
So I've recently got a M-Audio Delta 66 sound card and a Phonic compact
mixer, cheap from ebay, to start producing free soundbanks myself. I'm
still missing a good mic, though.
There are very, very few free samples out there.
Really? - I was not aware of hat since I only use samples recorded by
myself. I hear that as a wake up call. I was not completely
asleep until now though:
http://gnupc.de/~zettberlin/law/samples/free/
but I will upload more stuff to these folders now, hope it will help.
All files here are made my me from scratch(analogue source, microphone,
editors) and I release them under a Creative Commons Attribution
licence. So all derivatives, including commercial ones are permitted.
Drop me a line, if you would prefer a different (free) license.
I'm sending this email to the freepats list, I'm sure that people there
will jump from their chairs when reading this :-)
Thank you very much.
So go on - use my samples in your soundfonts, if you
have a use for
them. But maybe we could collaborate in making banks for Specimen too.
I think its a good idea, I'm also aware of the limitations of the sf2
format. I will start looking into banks for Specimen ASAP.
9:29 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Roberto Gordo Saez schrieb:
I look forward it ;-)
best regards
HZN
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 11:25:20AM +0200, Hartmut
Noack wrote:
I'm sending this email to the freepats list, I'm sure that people there
will jump from their chairs when reading this :-)
Thank you very much.
You are welcome, please als o notify me, if the samples are OK in
format/type/quality. I used to make them for my own needs so far so they
only neded to be useful for me. Feel free to make requests.
As of now I can make more guitar-stuff(acoustic and elctric, Fender
telecaster, Ibanez RG and lots of odd brands such as a spanish handmade
prototype acoustic or 2 wild e-guits made in chechia in the 70ies/80ies)
,percussion (form bells and the like to about 30or so different drums
and cymbals) and I have about 10 pianos from the last 150 years just
around the corner of my little studio (the most are in bad shape though
so note-by-note sampling does not appear to be feasible).
Repeat: I need feedback *includig* advice on what I should do better.
So go on - use
my samples in your soundfonts, if you have a use for
them. But maybe we could collaborate in making banks for Specimen too.
I think its a good idea, I'm also aware of the limitations of the sf2
format. I will start looking into banks for Specimen ASAP.
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9:30 a.m.
New subject: the course
Hee everybody,
i noticed that the announcement of the course was somewhat of an issue at this
mailinglist. We (WORM) have been working within the Linux scene for a while
now and we're familiar with the cons of some people.
I don't mean to cause any irritations so a short explanation:
our intention is to get people in touch with Linux (audio) and teach them to
work with that. WORM works only with Linux in the office and in developments
and we just want to pass it on.
We can' t do it but Mr. Moors developed a course to learn people to work with
Linux Audio. And well, teaching costs time, energy and knowledge (which means
even more time) and material things. For the people who are bothered by the
high price; i understand that it seems like a lot of money but nobody is
getting rich of it or even making a profit here. (On the contrary even)
Besides that, if you check out other courses (for example everything on
www.linuxcursus.nl) 350 euros is a very fair price. And if you can't pay it
at once, you can also pay it in three months. What you get for it is a
quality course, knowledge and a solid basis to work with Linux Audio software
and applications. As a musician you can use this information for the rest of
your life. If you think it's too expensive you can always take the time and
figure everything out yourself.
And we are always interested in people who can teach about Linux. Not only the
artistic side, also the more technical side. if you have anything to offer,
please mail me at Katelyn(a)wormweb.nl. I would be happy to know!
Ciao,
Katelyn
15 Sep
15 Sep
9:03 p.m.
New subject: [LAU] Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano (132MiB, new improved version )
Hi all,
For fluidsynth-devel list people, here is the complete thread of this message:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.audio.users/50260
First of all: thank you very much, Roberto, for sharing your soundfont! Great
stuff!
On Sunday, September 14, 2008, Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
Some problems have been detected in FluidSynth regarding dynamic range when
triggered by MIDI velocity parameters, and have been fixed recently in the
FluidSynth development repository by S. Christian Collins, who is also a
soundfont designer and author of the excellent GeneralUser GS SF2.
http://www.sccmusic.250x.com
I've been listening with your SF some pieces recorded with real Disklavier
instruments from this page: http://www.piano-e-competition.com/midi_2008.asp
some of them having a big range of dynamics, for instance, this one:
http://www.piano-e-competition.com/MIDIFiles/2008/Khmara02.MID
I think that the current development version of FluidSynth sounds much better
than 1.0.8 with these kind of music, but I would like to hear your opinions.
Regards,
Pedro
On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 03:02:19PM -0600, Stephen
Doonan wrote:
QSynth is only a GUI front-end for the FluidSynth library. Any soundfont that
can be used with QSynth is also valid for the FluidSynth commandline client,
and any other FluidSynth front-end.
I downloaded the soundfont and imported it into
qsynth, to play with my
external MIDI keyboard. Is this the way you yourself would use the
soundfont (with qsynth)? Or would you load the soundfont into some other
software or hardware?
Yes, it can be used in qsynth. I also use qsynth myself. In qsynth, the
base layer (piano) is triggered on MIDI channel 1, and
the other velocity layers (piano layer 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5) are assigned (by
default, anyway) to MIDI channels 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Actually, only the channel 1 is needed, it does contain all the layers
included into it. They will be triggered automatically by programming
different velocity levels in a sequencer or playing your external MIDI
keyboard at different pressure levels. It is very easy, just attach
your MIDI keyboard to the channel 1 and start playing.
The other channels in the soundfont are there for debugging or special
purposes. For example, if you want a particular track of your sequencer
to always sound bright, you could attach it to the channel 2. Under
normal conditions you probably want to use the channel 1 only.
Note that the pressure levels may vary between keyboard models. In my
cheap keyboard I can only reach around velocity 110 no matter how strong
I press the keys. Other people could find the opposite: that the strong
layer is reached extremely soon, at soft levels. So that is what I was
asking for feedback on the different keyboards (my keyboard is not a
good reference).
16 Sep
16 Sep
6:57 a.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano (132MiB, new improved version)
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 01:02:56AM +0200, Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas wrote:
Some problems have been detected in FluidSynth
regarding dynamic range when
triggered by MIDI velocity parameters, and have been fixed recently in the
FluidSynth development repository by S. Christian Collins
[...]
This is very useful information, thank you!
I've been listening with your SF some pieces
recorded with real Disklavier
instruments from this page: http://www.piano-e-competition.com/midi_2008.asp
some of them having a big range of dynamics, for instance, this one:
http://www.piano-e-competition.com/MIDIFiles/2008/Khmara02.MID
I think that the current development version of FluidSynth sounds much better
than 1.0.8 with these kind of music, but I would like to hear your opinions.
I'm using fluidsynth 1.0.7a (current Ubuntu's version). I definitely need to
look into this and compile the development version.
Also, the dynamic range of the soundfont is still in "beta", so it may not be
very well balanced anyways.
12:33 p.m.
Roberto Gordo Saez:
I've added this time a very slight reverb to the
demo, through
jack-rack and ladspa plugins. A convolution reverb added with jconv
was more realistic, but the license of the impulse responses was
bugging me.
May I ask whether you are aware of the regretful fact that the reverb
renders your soundfont unusable for most, if not all people?
Wolfgang
12:59 p.m.
On Tuesday 16 September 2008 10:30, Wolfgang Woehl wrote:
May I ask whether you are aware that about 15 people have responded to this
thread, and not one has even mentioned the reverb prior to your post, much
less commented on the resulting "unusability"?
Rob
I've added
this time a very slight reverb to the demo, through
May I ask whether you are aware
of the regretful fact that the reverb
renders your soundfont unusable for most, if not all people?
1:46 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Wolfgang Woehl wrote:
May I ask whether you are aware of the regretful fact
that the reverb
renders your soundfont unusable for most, if not all people?
Wolfgang
If I am not mistaken, the reverb was added only to the audio produced by
the soundfont via an insert or post-processing, and is not part of the
soundfont itself. The reverb was added just for the sake of the demo
music recorded using the soundfont.
Even if the reverb was built into the soundfont, it would be easy for
anyone to remove by editing a copy of the soundfont (using the soundfont
editor swami, for example) and removing any reverb, chorus or other effects.
I'm sorry, Roberto, for jumping into your thread in this manner. ;-)
Steve
2:18 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano
Stephen Doonan:
If I am not mistaken, the reverb was added only to the
audio
produced by the soundfont via an insert or post-processing, and is
not part of the soundfont itself. The reverb was added just for the
sake of the demo music recorded using the soundfont.
You're right, of course. I didn't even check after "not" reading the
op's message. I'm sorry.
Wolfgang
2:06 p.m.
New subject: Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano (132MiB, new improved version)
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 04:30:03PM +0200, Wolfgang Woehl wrote:
May I ask whether you are aware of the regretful fact
that the reverb
renders your soundfont unusable for most, if not all people?
Uh? The soundfont does not have any reverb at all! The reverb is only
in the ogg demo file. The samples in the soundfont are completely dry.
This way is more flexible because you could add the amount of reverb
that you want. I really don't understand why adding a reverb in the
demo renders the soundfont unusable (?)
2:19 p.m.
Roberto Gordo Saez:
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 04:30:03PM +0200, Wolfgang
Woehl wrote:
Roberto, ignore me. I just didn't read your message right. I thought
the samples had reverb and didn't check. Sorry. Great soundfont, thank
you.
Wolfgang
May I ask whether you are aware of the regretful
fact that the
reverb renders your soundfont unusable for most, if not all
people?
Uh? The soundfont does not have any reverb at all! The reverb is
only in the ogg demo file. The samples in the soundfont are
completely dry. This way is more flexible because you could add the
amount of reverb that you want. I really don't understand why
adding a reverb in the demo renders the soundfont unusable (?)
5914
days inactive
5920
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
84 comments
17 participants
participants (17)
-
Anders Dahnielson -
Arnold Krille -
Dave Phillips -
drew Roberts -
Emanuel Rumpf -
garryo -
Hartmut Noack -
James Stone -
Jan Depner -
katelyn -
Mark Knecht -
Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas -
Randy Kramer -
Rob -
Roberto Gordo Saez -
Stephen Doonan -
Wolfgang Woehl