14 Oct
2011
14 Oct
'11
1:40 p.m.
I addressed the list yesterday regarding my dissatisfaction wrt the current
state of soft samplers under Linux. Since then I have checked out the latest
svn versions of Linuxsampler and qsampler just to make sure nothing had
dramatically changed since I last tried them. I'd much rather we fix up LS
and qsampler to be usable in all cases rather than anyone, such as myself,
go starting a whole new project. I was thinking about posting this to the LS
mailing list (if there is one) but the problems I've encountered today
involves a wider range of Linux audio projects than just LS (such as LV2 and
Ardour) so I thought it best to discuss these issues here.
I have two goals I'd like to see achieved:
1 - You should be able to import wavs into qsampler and create/use simple
.sfz files without opening/editing/manually creating any text (.sfz) files.
This should be easily achieved by adding a new menu option to qsampler
called something like 'Import audio files' or 'Create sfz'. In most cases
you just need to specify the soundfile and the note or range that will
trigger it. Comments Rui?
2 - It should be simple to copy/move an Ardour or qtractor session that uses
the LS LV2 plugin and sf2/sfz/gig files from one machine to another
I certainly know 1 is still a problem but should be easily rectified but
I've not been able to test 2 properly yet as qsampler or LS doesn't seem to
be working? Did I format my sfz file correctly? I'm not sure which is
exactly why I want to see point 1 implemented.
For 2 to work then I think it'd be ideal if the sampler data files got
stored within the session dir, in the case of Ardour at least, if we can.
When creating a sfz file you need to specify the path to the wav files used
and so I would imagine that Ardour and/or the LS LV2 plugin would need to be
modified to search within a specific sub-dir with the session folder to look
for any such files. If such files are missing then the plugin should notify
the user and ask for an alternate path to search for the files in. Maybe it
does the latter already?
I was pleasantly surprised when testing the HighLife lxvst with Ardour 3 to
discover that it stored all its sample data within the ardour project file
itself but unfortunately it has to be converted into plain text hence
samples end up consuming about 4x the amount of space used by an
uncompressed wav file so its not totally ideal but at least it makes
sessions easily portable, which is very important to group work and
collaborations.
Dan
14 Oct
14 Oct
1:57 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Dan MacDonald wrote:
1 - You should be able to import wavs into qsampler
and create/use simple
.sfz files without opening/editing/manually creating any text (.sfz) files.
This should be easily achieved by adding a new menu option to qsampler
called something like 'Import audio files' or 'Create sfz'. In most
cases
you just need to specify the soundfile and the note or range that will
trigger it. Comments Rui?
Just in case, Qsampler and Fantasia aren't the only GUIs for LS.
There's also Gsampler now -- a GTK+3 based front-end modeled after
Fantasia.
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
2:19 p.m.
On 10/14/2011 12:40 PM, Dan MacDonald wrote:
I addressed the list yesterday regarding my
dissatisfaction wrt the
current state of soft samplers under Linux. Since then I have checked
out the latest svn versions of Linuxsampler and qsampler just to make
sure nothing had dramatically changed since I last tried them. I'd much
rather we fix up LS and qsampler to be usable in all cases rather than
anyone, such as myself, go starting a whole new project. I was thinking
about posting this to the LS mailing list (if there is one) but the
problems I've encountered today involves a wider range of Linux audio
projects than just LS (such as LV2 and Ardour) so I thought it best to
discuss these issues here.
I have two goals I'd like to see achieved:
1 - You should be able to import wavs into qsampler and create/use
simple .sfz files without opening/editing/manually creating any text
(.sfz) files. This should be easily achieved by adding a new menu option
to qsampler called something like 'Import audio files' or 'Create sfz'.
In most cases you just need to specify the soundfile and the note or
range that will trigger it. Comments Rui?
in case you didn't notice, qsampler is a _front-end_ to linuxsampler.
that definition also applies to the other cases, like jsampler (aka.
fantasia) and gsampler.
the actual sampler engine is linuxsampler which also acts like a server
to any of its front-ends (clients) via lscp (linuxsampler control
protocol) a simple line text protocol over plain tcp/ip.
linuxsampler front-ends like qsampler only "talks" lscp, they don't know
nothing about jack, midi nor sound-files, whatsoever. it is linuxsampler
that does all the dirty work, even if its being redirected via its
plugin interface.
however, linuxsampler as an engine does not provide any interface to
edit sample files be that .gig or .sfz . you edit those files through an
appropriate stand-alone application (eg. gigedit) and then tell
linuxsampler to load the product into its engine. that's it.
you can now guess the answer is no ;)
cheers
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rncbc(a)rncbc.org
5:45 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Rui Nuno Capela <rncbc(a)rncbc.org> wrote:
On 10/14/2011 12:40 PM, Dan MacDonald wrote:
Yes, I know what a front end and what LS does and I really don't think my
request/suggestion was out of place. Far as I know gigedit just does that -
edits gig files and has nothing to do with sfz. You need to realise I wasn't
requesting anything like a full gigedit clone but for sfz, all I wanted was
a most basic sfz creation feature that would simply let you pick files,
assign them to notes or ranges and create a matching .sfz - thats all!
I addressed the list yesterday regarding my
dissatisfaction wrt the
current state of soft samplers under Linux. Since then I have checked
out the latest svn versions of Linuxsampler and qsampler just to make
sure nothing had dramatically changed since I last tried them. I'd much
rather we fix up LS and qsampler to be usable in all cases rather than
anyone, such as myself, go starting a whole new project. I was thinking
about posting this to the LS mailing list (if there is one) but the
problems I've encountered today involves a wider range of Linux audio
projects than just LS (such as LV2 and Ardour) so I thought it best to
discuss these issues here.
I have two goals I'd like to see achieved:
1 - You should be able to import wavs into qsampler and create/use
simple .sfz files without opening/editing/manually creating any text
(.sfz) files. This should be easily achieved by adding a new menu option
to qsampler called something like 'Import audio files' or 'Create sfz'.
In most cases you just need to specify the soundfile and the note or
range that will trigger it. Comments Rui?
in case you didn't notice, qsampler is a _front-end_ to linuxsampler. that
definition also applies to the other cases, like jsampler (aka. fantasia)
and gsampler.
the actual sampler engine is linuxsampler which also acts like a server to
any of its front-ends (clients) via lscp (linuxsampler control protocol) a
simple line text protocol over plain tcp/ip.
linuxsampler front-ends like qsampler only "talks" lscp, they don't know
nothing about jack, midi nor sound-files, whatsoever. it is linuxsampler
that does all the dirty work, even if its being redirected via its plugin
interface.
however, linuxsampler as an engine does not provide any interface to edit
sample files be that .gig or .sfz . you edit those files through an
appropriate stand-alone application (eg. gigedit) and then tell linuxsampler
to load the product into its engine. that's it.
you can now guess the answer is no ;)
Yep! Well at least I tried.
Mr Prokoudine:
Ah! I didn't know about gsampler- thanks for highlighting that. It compiles
but I'm not sure it actually works yet. I think I may get in touch with its
author and see if he is willing to integrate a very simple sfz creation
function into his app.
Mr Dyer:
Thanks for your example of a simple sfz but that doesn't work for me under
either qsampler or fantasia, specifying the full path to the sample or not,
putting all the commands on one line or separate lines like you did- I just
cannot get my basic sfz to load. I'm running very latest svn versions of all
the LS apps btw.
Everybody:
Paul says that we can store samples in a random subdir of an A3 session and
I have successfully got LS to load and play soundfonts but it looks like A3
has trouble loading such a session without moving anything atm so I've not
been able to test what happens when I move the session just yet.
5:59 p.m.
Excerpts from Dan MacDonald's message of 2011-10-14 17:45:41 +0200:
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Rui Nuno Capela
<rncbc(a)rncbc.org> wrote:
Recently a new release of synthclone was announced here, and as far as I
understood it it's a tool to create soundfonts in sfz, gig, etc.. Have a
look, maybe it works for you: https://code.google.com/p/synthclone/
Regards,
Philipp
On 10/14/2011 12:40 PM, Dan MacDonald wrote:
Yes, I know what a front end and what LS does and I really don't think my
request/suggestion was out of place. Far as I know gigedit just does that -
edits gig files and has nothing to do with sfz. You need to realise I wasn't
requesting anything like a full gigedit clone but for sfz, all I wanted was
a most basic sfz creation feature that would simply let you pick files,
assign them to notes or ranges and create a matching .sfz - thats all!
I addressed the list yesterday regarding my
dissatisfaction wrt the
current state of soft samplers under Linux. Since then I have checked
out the latest svn versions of Linuxsampler and qsampler just to make
sure nothing had dramatically changed since I last tried them. I'd much
rather we fix up LS and qsampler to be usable in all cases rather than
anyone, such as myself, go starting a whole new project. I was thinking
about posting this to the LS mailing list (if there is one) but the
problems I've encountered today involves a wider range of Linux audio
projects than just LS (such as LV2 and Ardour) so I thought it best to
discuss these issues here.
I have two goals I'd like to see achieved:
1 - You should be able to import wavs into qsampler and create/use
simple .sfz files without opening/editing/manually creating any text
(.sfz) files. This should be easily achieved by adding a new menu option
to qsampler called something like 'Import audio files' or 'Create sfz'.
In most cases you just need to specify the soundfile and the note or
range that will trigger it. Comments Rui?
in case you didn't notice, qsampler is a _front-end_ to linuxsampler. that
definition also applies to the other cases, like jsampler (aka. fantasia)
and gsampler.
the actual sampler engine is linuxsampler which also acts like a server to
any of its front-ends (clients) via lscp (linuxsampler control protocol) a
simple line text protocol over plain tcp/ip.
linuxsampler front-ends like qsampler only "talks" lscp, they don't know
nothing about jack, midi nor sound-files, whatsoever. it is linuxsampler
that does all the dirty work, even if its being redirected via its plugin
interface.
however, linuxsampler as an engine does not provide any interface to edit
sample files be that .gig or .sfz . you edit those files through an
appropriate stand-alone application (eg. gigedit) and then tell linuxsampler
to load the product into its engine. that's it.
you can now guess the answer is no ;)
Yep! Well at least I tried.
Mr Prokoudine:
Ah! I didn't know about gsampler- thanks for highlighting that. It compiles
but I'm not sure it actually works yet. I think I may get in touch with its
author and see if he is willing to integrate a very simple sfz creation
function into his app.
Mr Dyer:
Thanks for your example of a simple sfz but that doesn't work for me under
either qsampler or fantasia, specifying the full path to the sample or not,
putting all the commands on one line or separate lines like you did- I just
cannot get my basic sfz to load. I'm running very latest svn versions of all
the LS apps btw.
Everybody:
Paul says that we can store samples in a random subdir of an A3 session and
I have successfully got LS to load and play soundfonts but it looks like A3
has trouble loading such a session without moving anything atm so I've not
been able to test what happens when I move the session just yet. 
8:22 p.m.
On 10/14/2011 05:59 PM, Philipp Überbacher wrote:
Recently a new release of synthclone was announced
here, and as far as I
understood it it's a tool to create soundfonts in sfz, gig, etc.. Have a
look, maybe it works for you: https://code.google.com/p/synthclone/
Actually it's something else: It sends midi notes to external gear or
plugins, samples the resulting sounds and does some automatic mapping.
Not sure what formats it generates, but I see sfz and hydrogen mentioned...
--
Atte
http://atte.dk http://modlys.dk
8:35 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Atte André Jensen <atte(a)email.dk> wrote:
On 10/14/2011 05:59 PM, Philipp Überbacher wrote:
Right now, SFZ and Hydrogen are the only supported targets. However,
`synthclone` comes with a plugin developer API that allows developers
to extend `synthclone` to support new targets (amongst other things).
--
Devin Anderson
devin (at) charityfinders (dot) com
CharityFinders - http://www.charityfinders.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
Recently a new release of synthclone was
announced here, and as far as I
understood it it's a tool to create soundfonts in sfz, gig, etc.. Have a
look, maybe it works for you: https://code.google.com/p/synthclone/
Actually it's something else: It sends midi notes to external gear or
plugins, samples the resulting sounds and does some automatic mapping. Not
sure what formats it generates, but I see sfz and hydrogen mentioned...
9:34 p.m.
Excerpts from Devin Anderson's message of 2011-10-14 20:35:22 +0200:
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Atte André Jensen
<atte(a)email.dk> wrote:
Ah, ok, I assumed it could just load .wav files as well. I realise it's
not the focus, but it could be done?
On 10/14/2011 05:59 PM, Philipp Überbacher
wrote:
Right now, SFZ and Hydrogen are the only supported targets. However,
`synthclone` comes with a plugin developer API that allows developers
to extend `synthclone` to support new targets (amongst other things).
--
Devin Anderson
devin (at) charityfinders (dot) com
CharityFinders - http://www.charityfinders.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/ Recently a new release of synthclone was
announced here, and as far as I
understood it it's a tool to create soundfonts in sfz, gig, etc.. Have a
look, maybe it works for you: https://code.google.com/p/synthclone/
Actually it's something else: It sends midi notes to external gear or
plugins, samples the resulting sounds and does some automatic mapping. Not
sure what formats it generates, but I see sfz and hydrogen mentioned...
9:49 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Philipp Überbacher
<hollunder(a)lavabit.com> wrote:
Excerpts from Devin Anderson's message of
2011-10-14 20:35:22 +0200:
The functionality isn't there yet. The plugin API does allow you to
set a dry sample for a zone without sampling the sample, meaning a
plugin could be written to import samples into `synthclone`, but I
haven't written such a plugin yet, partially because I'm not yet sure
how to best go about it, and partially because I don't have a lot of
time right now (looking for a new job).
--
Devin Anderson
devin (at) charityfinders (dot) com
CharityFinders - http://www.charityfinders.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Atte André
Jensen <atte(a)email.dk> wrote:
Ah, ok, I assumed it could just load .wav files as well. I realise it's
not the focus, but it could be done? On 10/14/2011 05:59 PM, Philipp Überbacher
wrote:
Right now, SFZ and Hydrogen are the only supported targets. However,
`synthclone` comes with a plugin developer API that allows developers
to extend `synthclone` to support new targets (amongst other things). Recently a new release of synthclone was
announced here, and as far as I
understood it it's a tool to create soundfonts in sfz, gig, etc.. Have a
look, maybe it works for you: https://code.google.com/p/synthclone/
Actually it's something else: It sends midi notes to external gear or
plugins, samples the resulting sounds and does some automatic mapping. Not
sure what formats it generates, but I see sfz and hydrogen mentioned...
6:14 p.m.
On 10/14/2011 04:45 PM, Dan MacDonald wrote:
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Rui Nuno Capela
wrote:
afaict, there's no dedicated .sfz editor app that i know of yet. maybe
there are. you always have as last resort to edit one as plain text,
taking care to obey to syntax and semantic rules (ok, sorry, this is
just me thinking out loud, because i know this much about the .sfz spec:)
and yes, there's a linuxsampler mailing-list and also a forum. also
#linuxsampler on irc.freenode.net . i believe most of your worries are
best answered by the sfz engine's author(s) hanging out there ;)
cheers
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rncbc(a)rncbc.org
however, linuxsampler as an engine does not
provide any interface to
edit sample files be that .gig or .sfz . you edit those files
through an appropriate stand-alone application (eg. gigedit) and
then tell linuxsampler to load the product into its engine. that's it.
Yes, I know what a front end and what LS does and I really don't think
my request/suggestion was out of place. Far as I know gigedit just does
that - edits gig files and has nothing to do with sfz. You need to
realise I wasn't requesting anything like a full gigedit clone but for
sfz, all I wanted was a most basic sfz creation feature that would
simply let you pick files, assign them to notes or ranges and create a
matching .sfz - thats all!
15 Oct
15 Oct
12:25 p.m.
afaict, there's no dedicated .sfz editor app that i know of yet. maybe
there are. you always have as last resort to edit one as plain text, taking
care to obey to syntax and semantic rules (ok, sorry, this is just me
thinking out loud, because i know this much about the .sfz spec:)
and yes, there's a linuxsampler mailing-list and also a forum. also
#linuxsampler on irc.freenode.net . i believe most of your worries are
best answered by the sfz engine's author(s) hanging out there ;)
I think I vaguely remember someone posting a script to create sfz files to
this list but maybe that was to create Hydrogen files? Once I have got a
working sfz (I should've just downloaded a free one instead of trying to
make one myself first really) then it'd be easy enough for me to write a
script to automate the creation of sfzs but I'd still prefer to see such
functionality integrated into qsampler, gsampler or fantasia - my philosophy
being that if we want to stand a good chance of attracting non-unix geeks to
Linux audio then all common tasks should be achievable without any scripting
or cli voodoo.
4:43 p.m.
On 10/15/2011 11:25 AM, Dan MacDonald wrote:
afaict, there's no dedicated .sfz editor app that i know of yet.
maybe there are. you always have as last resort to edit one as
plain text, taking care to obey to syntax and semantic rules (ok,
sorry, this is just me thinking out loud, because i know this much
about the .sfz spec:)
and yes, there's a linuxsampler mailing-list and also a forum. also
#linuxsampler on irc.freenode.net <http://irc.freenode.net> . i
believe most of your worries are best answered by the sfz engine's
author(s) hanging out there ;)
I think I vaguely remember someone posting a script to create sfz files
to this list but maybe that was to create Hydrogen files? Once I have
got a working sfz (I should've just downloaded a free one instead of
trying to make one myself first really) then it'd be easy enough for me
to write a script to automate the creation of sfzs but I'd still prefer
to see such functionality integrated into qsampler, gsampler or fantasia
- my philosophy being that if we want to stand a good chance of
attracting non-unix geeks to Linux audio then all common tasks should
be achievable without any scripting or cli voodoo.
as you might infer from my replies, having a stand-alone application to
edit, create and possibly also play a specific sampler file format is
the way to go.
qsampler (probably the other siblings too) have a hook to the gigedit
editor. yes it's a .gig file editor (no .sfz i'm afraid) and last time
i've checked there was a big "edit" button on each sampler channel strip
for just that.
all that to say, once a genuine sfz editor becomes available it won't be
much of a trouble for you to ask and integrate it into the
linuxsampler/qsampler workflow.
how about joining the gigedit project? adding support for .sfz might be
interesting if not the answer for your questions ;)
cheers
--
rncbc aka Rui Nuno Capela
rncbc(a)rncbc.org
11:26 p.m.
On 10/15/2011 06:25 AM, Dan MacDonald wrote:
I think I vaguely remember someone posting a script to create sfz
files to this list but maybe that was to create Hydrogen files? Once I
have got a working sfz (I should've just downloaded a free one instead
of trying to make one myself first really) then it'd be easy enough
for me to write a script to automate the creation of sfzs but I'd
still prefer to see such functionality integrated into qsampler,
gsampler or fantasia - my philosophy being that if we want to stand a
good chance of attracting non-unix geeks to Linux audio then all
common tasks should be achievable without any scripting or cli voodoo.
Have you tried Swami? I haven't used it in years, since I pretty much
got away from using .sf2 files, so don't know if the author still
supports it or not, but it creates and edits .sf2 files.
--
---
My website is down. I had a motherboard failure on that computer!! (ugh)
http://lateralforce.no-ip.org
My blog, with commentary on a variety of things, including audio,
mixing, equipment, etc, is at:
http://audioandmore.wordpress.com
Staat heißt das kälteste aller kalten Ungeheuer. Kalt lügt es auch;
und diese Lüge kriecht aus seinem Munde: 'Ich, der Staat, bin das Volk.'
- [Friedrich Nietzsche]
2:59 p.m.
On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 4:19 PM, Rui Nuno Capela wrote:
linuxsampler front-ends like qsampler only
"talks" lscp, they don't know
nothing about jack, midi nor sound-files, whatsoever. it is linuxsampler
that does all the dirty work, even if its being redirected via its plugin
interface.
however, linuxsampler as an engine does not provide any interface to edit
sample files be that .gig or .sfz . you edit those files through an
appropriate stand-alone application (eg. gigedit) and then tell linuxsampler
to load the product into its engine. that's it.
Well, I guess the initial question was more in the lines of "why do we
make it so difficult to create sample libraries?" :)
I gave gigedit a go a while ago to try creating a sample library from
public domain files I stumbled upon, but eventually gave up, because
even after doing it by the book I couldn't get any sound of
gigedit/LS.
Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
3:14 p.m.
On 10/15/2011 08:59 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
Well, I guess the initial question was more in the lines of "why do we
make it so difficult to create sample libraries?" :)
I gave gigedit a go a while ago to try creating a sample library from
public domain files I stumbled upon, but eventually gave up, because
even after doing it by the book I couldn't get any sound of
gigedit/LS.
Hi Alex,
I've created some handy GIGs with Gigedit from WAVs I made in Tao and
Csound. It all worked well for me, though like everyone else, I'd like
to see some easier way to create sample libraries for LS.
And to whoever posted it: Thanks for the tip on GSampler, I hadn't heard
of it.
Best,
dp
14 Oct
14 Oct
8:26 p.m.
fredagen den 14 oktober 2011 12.40.02 skrev Dan MacDonald:
...
dramatically changed since I last tried them. I'd
much rather we fix up LS
and qsampler to be usable in all cases rather than anyone, such as myself,
go starting a whole new project. I was thinking about posting this to the LS
A new project? LS is fantastic and makes noise with huge samples even on very
modest hw. Isn't better that you send patches to them or join them and help to
make LS even better? :-)
Jostein
4790
days inactive
4791
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
15 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Al Thompson -
Alexandre Prokoudine -
Atte André Jensen -
Dan MacDonald -
Dave Phillips -
Devin Anderson -
Jostein Chr. Andersen -
Philipp Überbacher -
Rui Nuno Capela