30 Jun
2004
30 Jun
'04
9:58 a.m.
I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge about generating giga or akai
compatible files?
With my recent interest in copyright-free samples I have come across a
link that was posted here a few months back to a really nice set of
orchestral instrument recordings by the University of Iowa, which are
free: the info states:
"
Please feel free to use these samples in your research or music projects
without restriction. You may also cite as a reference, link to our page
from another web page, or provide a link in a publication using the
following URL:
http//:theremin.music.uiowa.edu/
Please let us know how these samples are being used in your research,
creative work, or recreation by contacting Lawrence Fritts at the
University of Iowa.
"
the page is at http://theremin.music.uiowa.edu/MIS.html
I was thinking that it would be nice to build these samples into properly
layered instruments like the Garritan set for Akai and Giga. Since I have
not the faintest clue how to build one of these sampler formats, I thought
I would post here for some info. Alternatively, I was thinking that
soundfonts could be another way to do it though there is a size limit on
these AFAIK. I know that there is the freepat project which is trying to
do similar things (but as far as I can see at the moment they are just
building a general midi patchset.. perhaps this sort of thing is planned
by them for the future..?)
Anyway, I think it would be a great thing to be able to have some truly
free giga instruments for use with the linux sampler project.. In the
first instance I think we need to clear the use of these samples in this
way with the University of Iowa, but by the sounds of their webpage I
don't think they would have a problem with this.
James
30 Jun
30 Jun
10:14 a.m.
James Stone wrote:
I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge about
generating giga or akai
compatible files?
I've done it with GigaEdit, but that's not Open Source.
We've discussed this before on the LinuxSampler list. There will some
day be a LS-Edit application to do similar things. We've also cajoled
the author of Swami a few times to consider adding this to his feature
set. He's expressed moderate interest, but I don't think it's moved very
high on his priority list.
Anyway, I think it would be a great thing to be able to have some truly
free giga instruments for use with the linux sampler project.. In the
first instance I think we need to clear the use of these samples in this
way with the University of Iowa, but by the sounds of their webpage I
don't think they would have a problem with this.
There are many, many good, and completely free gig files. Look at
Worra's Place for the best overall set I know of:
http://www.worrasplace.com
Note the links to subsections are just below the ad at the top. (Not
everyone finds them)
Take care,
Mark
10:30 a.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: giga files and large soundfonts
There are many, many good, and completely free gig
files. Look at
Worra's Place for the best overall set I know of:
http://www.worrasplace.com
Note the links to subsections are just below the ad at the top. (Not
everyone finds them)
Take care,
Mark
Thanks.. yes I had seen that page before and there _do_ seem to be a few
more files now. It worries me that they are generally all so small in
size though: smaller than soundfonts some of them. Also there does not
seem to be much in the way of proper orchestral sounds.. the woodwind
section is not up to much and there is no strings section.
The sound files at the University of Iowa are massive: 40-60MB per
instrument. Could build up some really nice files from them! I think
perhaps the easiest way would be to write them as soundfonts and then get
some program to convert them..
James
12:20 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: giga files and large soundfonts
James Stone wrote:
Most certainly they do not represent a complete library. Many are
samples of older synths, etc., and are good for limited, but
interesting, applications.
Almost none of these are velocity sensitive (multiple samples/key) and
many don't even cover the complete keyboard.
There are many,
many good, and completely free gig files. Look at
Worra's Place for the best overall set I know of:
http://www.worrasplace.com
Note the links to subsections are just below the ad at the top. (Not
everyone finds them)
Take care,
Mark
Thanks.. yes I had seen that page before and there _do_ seem to be a few
more files now. It worries me that they are generally all so small in
size though: smaller than soundfonts some of them. Also there does not
seem to be much in the way of proper orchestral sounds.. the woodwind
section is not up to much and there is no strings section.
The sound files at the University of Iowa are massive: 40-60MB per
instrument. Could build up some really nice files from them! I think
perhaps the easiest way would be to write them as soundfonts and then get
some program to convert them..
No, massive is 2GB for a piano, or some of the newer orchestra libraries
that are running upwards of 9GB (Garritan) and 14GB. (Sonic Implants)
None of those are very practical for download over the web, at least
today. How would this be different if the library was Open Source? (Or
whatever I should call it...)
I agree that it should be possible to take a library of individual wave
files and turning it into a 'working' gig file, given at least some sort
of reasonable naming convention on the sample files. Take those
generated gig files, run them through some sort of analysis program that
looks at volume out vs. MIDI velocity in, using LS or GSt, or both, and
you d likely get part of the way there.
As for making a good gig file, there's a lot more to it than just raw
samples. Tuning issues, deciding where to do velocity splits on each
note, artifacts in certain wave files, etc. It's a huge undertaking, and
in the end it seems you can buy these things for a few hundred
dollars. Is it worth the effort to try and replace that? Garritan's
Orchestral Strings advertizes over 8500 string sounds and over 500
patches. This boils down to maybe 10 cents per wave file which seems
pretty cost effective. How long would it take to put this stuff
together? I know a number of the recent releases have taken years of effort.
Anyway, I wish you and whoever else wants to undertake such a task the
best of luck. It would be greatly valuable to have some good, free
libraries.
With best regards,
Mark
2:28 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: giga files and large soundfonts
Tobiah wrote:
Mark Knecht wrote:
libgig has support for this sort of thing. I don't remember how to use
it but it's in there.
James Stone wrote:
>> There are many, many good, and completely free gig files.
What is the best way to extract the soundfiles from a 'gig' file
using linux programs?
Thamks,
Tobiah
5:39 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: giga files and large soundfonts
Es geschah am Mittwoch, 30. Juni 2004 19:30 als Tobiah schrieb:
Mark Knecht wrote:
libgig comes with a couple of command line tools. You can use 'gigextract' to
extract either all as well as individual samples from a gig file.
http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~cschoene/projects/libgig/
'man gigextract' for details
CU
Christian
James Stone wrote:
>> There are many, many good, and completely free gig files.
What is the best way to extract the soundfiles from a 'gig' file
using linux programs? 
10:53 a.m.
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 14:59:52 +0100, James Stone wrote
...
I was thinking that it would be nice to build these samples into properly
layered instruments like the Garritan set for Akai and Giga. Since I
have not the faintest clue how to build one of these sampler formats,
I thought I would post here for some info. Alternatively, I was
thinking that soundfonts could be another way to do it though there
is a size limit on these AFAIK. I know that there is the freepat
project which is trying to do similar things (but as far as I can
see at the moment they are just building a general midi patchset..
perhaps this sort of thing is planned by them for the future..?)
...
Soundfonts are OK, but they don't handle everything, say, a GIG file does,
such as key-switching. That said, I have a Windows program that I use to
regularly translate GIG files to SF2 format - Chicken Systems' Translator.
What it does when it comes across a key-switch is create a new patch or voice.
So you still have everything, it's just programmed a bit differently. I've
successfully gotten Voices of the Apocalyse translated to SF2 format - the
files are huge. File sizes range from 400 meg to aounrd 600 meg.
I'm currently trying you get Translator running under Wine (crossover office).
It installs fine, but when I go to start up the pgm for the first time, it
needs to read a hidden file on the CD. I haven't figured out a way around
that one yet.
R.
==
5:30 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] writing gig files (was: giga files and large soundfonts)
Es geschah am Mittwoch, 30. Juni 2004 15:59 als James Stone schrieb:
I was wondering if anyone has any knowledge about
generating giga or akai
compatible files?
You know we discussed that several times on the LinuxSampler list. At the
moment libgig is only capable to read, not to write gigs. Extending libgig
with write support would probably take me a week, so it's not that much. But
I would only do so if there are people who are definitely willing to develop
an instrument editor for the Giga format or extend an existing one.
The Giga format is more powerful than the Akai format, so I would definitely
prefer that instead of Akai, but the Giga format has some drawbacks:
* most important it's based on RIFF, thus it has (officially) a file size
limit of 4GB
* it's proprietary
* it has many relicts in the format which are simply unused nowadays, means
there are dirty redundancies
* it's binary only, so you can't easily adjust articulation informations with
a simple ASCII editor
* the unknown fields in the format = relicts (which aren't necessary to know
about when you just read the gig) might cause that the original Gigasampler
to not accept the patch file anymore after editing / creating it or at
least could cost us some time til it actually accepts it. So like with any
proprietary format, at the moment I simply can't guarantee that it will
also work right away with the original Gigasampler (I'm quite optimistic
though)
That's why we came to the decision that it might be better to define our own
sampler patch file format (maybe XML based) before we implement write support
e.g. for the Giga format.
What are your opinions?
CU
Christian
7:28 p.m.
New subject: [linux-audio-user] Re: writing gig files (was: giga files and large soundfonts)
On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 23:03:02 +0200, Christian Schoenebeck wrote:
That's why we came to the decision that it might be better to define our own
sampler patch file format (maybe XML based) before we implement write support
e.g. for the Giga format.
What are your opinions?
Personally I would be happy with a new format..it would avoid potential
wranglings with tascam and anyway, noone goes back from Linux to Windows,
right?! If the patches were good (and free) enough, it might even
encourage some more people to try out Linux.
James
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10 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
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Christian Schoenebeck -
James Stone -
Mark Knecht -
Rick Henry -
tim hall -
Tobiah