LMS Suite 12.06 - Big sampler improvements, more compatible

[jeffh]

Hello Again,

It's time for the LMS Suite 12.06 release.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/libmods ... s/plugins/

The changelist includes:

1. More/better Makefiles that work better on non-Ubuntu hosts, and can be used with or without my custom build system. (special thanks to FalkTX)
2. Euphoria sampler now has a polyphonic effects section similar to Ray-V
3. Euphoria can now save/load instruments from files. Please note that most(all?) hosts aren't accurately recalling loaded samples, so early adopters will need to manually save their sampler instruments.
4. Euphoria is now pretty much usable as a sampling instrument. Granted, I still intend to add more features to help bring it up to par with the "big boys", but it's no longer a pre-alpha toy...
5. Better dependencies in the .deb file, should work better on non-Ubuntu OS.

I also added a a2jmidid-lms.desktop file, since Ubuntu doesn't have one by default, but it now looks like I screwed that up, I left the 'd' off the end... Debating whether to fix that now, or for the next release....

Enjoy...

BTW, As of late last week, I seem to have developed some really strange health ailments, if you never hear from me again, I probably died(seriously). Just know that I didn't forsake you, and please fork my work savagely.

[StudioDave]

Hi Jeff,

First of all, I hope your health has improved. Can't do much without it.

Next I just want to let you know that the latest git pull builds as-is on my AVLinux system, and Ray_V works again. I'd love to put some time into patch production for that synth. Any chance you could add a patch randomizer ? That's a feature I liked in some of the software editors for my old MIDI hardware synths, it provides a starting point for the odd design or two.

Euphoria is looking finer all the time. I'd still like to know how/where to set the external editor, I prefer mhWaveEdit with JACK.

I hope that you continue evolving the LMS project, it's developing nicely. Again, I hope you're feeling better these days.

Best,

dp

[jeffh]

Thanks Dave.

Patches for Ray-V + Randomizer: You're welcome to contribute any patches, I'll gladly include them in my official release. A randomizer is on my TODO list, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. OTOH, Ray-V is quite simple(by design), a randomizer button may be a better fit for my forthcoming uber-synth called [CENSORED]. I think I'm going to go ahead and make an uber-effect and an uber-synthesizer before I begin work on my plugin designer, I want to create something that can toe the line with Yoshimi/ZynSub, but with a GUI that isn't completely ridiculous.... Because of all of the effort I put into making the code for LMS modular and reusable, it should be quite easy to make such a synth.

Euphoria Sample Editor: Currently it's hard-coded into the application, although I do intend to make it configurable soon. If you look at my latest Git, you'll see that Euphoria's going through some rather big changes right now, I need to finish working the bugs out of those features before I add anything else, otherwise it will never be stable.

[GMaq]

Hi,

@StudioDave

Would you mind sharing how you're building them on AV Linux? The prebuilt debs aren't working for me and I haven't had time to dig into building them from source yet, are you using automake or jeffh's build system? Just a few hints would save me some time and I'd like to roll these into AV Linux 6.0...

@jeffh

Ditto on the best wishes and concern for your health situation.

[GMaq]

Thanks falkTX!

[jeffh]

Thanks everyone.

GMaq & FalkTX: Do you know why the packages aren't working in AVLinux? If I can fix my provided packages to work in AVLinux without breaking them elsewhere, I don't mind doing so.

Dave: Also, regarding contributing presets for Ray-V; I have a file saving format for Euphoria in my latest Git for saving entire instruments to files that can be distributed and used by others. I plan on providing a library of sample instruments on my Sourceforge page, if you'd like to contribute there as well (I wouldn't start quite yet though, I may make some minor adjustments to the format before I freeze the spec).

[jeffh]

Hmmmm... I don't get it, I compiled those on Ubuntu 11.10, which I had compiled the previous .debs that did work on AVLinux...

Thanks FalkTX, I'll reconsider which OS to run my build VMs on closer to the next release.

[GMaq]

jeffh,

Just to clarify, going back over what happened with 12.05... your original debs based on Precise didn't work at all on AV Linux, when you moved back to 11.04 some of the debs worked (and still do currently) however Ray-V and Euphoria don't. falkTX has gone back to Lucid which has roughly the same QT version as Debian Squeeze.

I agree with falkTX that these packaging issues aren't your problem, I happen to use his because they work for me and there's no sense in duplicating our efforts if his packages work on both systems. Also AV Linux 6.0 will be the last version based on Squeeze so in a years time I'll be based on Wheezy which will be the new Debian Stable by then and have much newer QT4 libs.

Thanks for your hard work, I certainly didn't want to sound like I was complaining

[jeffh]

GMaq & FalkTX: FYI, I think I'm going to release LMS Suite 12.06-2 this weekend, you may want to hold off on any packaging work for 12.06-1 for your repos.

I think in the past 5 days since 12.06-1 I've fixed literally everything that was wrong with Euphoria, it appears to be 100% rock solid now, and it now also has a waveform viewer that can set start/end points for the samples. I'll spend all day tomorrow playing with it to make sure I haven't introduced any new bugs.

[jeffh]

hm, then I have a feature request.
Please implement the get_program/set_program DSSI descriptor calls, so I can directly access the plugin presets on my host (and map program changes to midi events properly).
as you might know, the DSSI spec dictates that the host should not pass any midi-program midi-data to the plugin, but map those events to the C calls. In turn, the plugin should not depend on the midi-program changes data too, but use the C calls for managing presets.

I've been using this method for presets for a long time, so if you any doubt about how it's suppose to work, just ask.

Ray-V is the only plugin of mine that even uses program-change, were you talking about implementing it in Ray-V? Or implementing it in all of them?

I'm not sure how program-change would even work in Euphoria, as presets would have to have corresponding samples to load, and I haven't made an official sample library yet.

[tripomatic]

How can i get the lms suite working under ardour3 wich doesn't support dssi?
Is there a way to do this with 64-bit system?

thx!

[jeffh]

I'm referring to Ray-V, yes (those presets available in the UI).

I agree that Euphoria doesn't need presets, but for regular FX plugins a single "Default"-name preset is handy because you can precisely define the plugins' default control-port values (the LADSPA API with 'hints' is not precise enough here).

If you have some example code handy for this, it would help a lot. I tried early on to implement proper DSSI program-change, back when I was a complete n00b ~5 months ago, and failed, so seeing it done properly would definitely help. OTOH, I'm not a complete n00b anymore, so maybe I'd be able to do it now

[jeffh]

How can i get the lms suite working under ardour3 wich doesn't support dssi?
Is there a way to do this with 64-bit system?

thx!

I don't know for sure because I don't use Ardour3, but I'm pretty sure it supports sending MIDI to external instruments, so you can use Ray-V and Euphoria externally(you'll have to remember to save your Ray-V preset, and save your Euphoria instrument to a file).

The effects plugins are also available as LADSPA, so they should be usable directly in Ardour3, but I haven't tested them.

[jeffh]

jeffh,

Just to clarify, going back over what happened with 12.05... your original debs based on Precise didn't work at all on AV Linux, when you moved back to 11.04 some of the debs worked (and still do currently) however Ray-V and Euphoria don't. falkTX has gone back to Lucid which has roughly the same QT version as Debian Squeeze.

I agree with falkTX that these packaging issues aren't your problem, I happen to use his because they work for me and there's no sense in duplicating our efforts if his packages work on both systems. Also AV Linux 6.0 will be the last version based on Squeeze so in a years time I'll be based on Wheezy which will be the new Debian Stable by then and have much newer QT4 libs.

Thanks for your hard work, I certainly didn't want to sound like I was complaining

Hey GMaq,

I've fixed my build system to create the full debian package with all of the bells&whistles in AV Linux, which I successfully tested. The problem was that AV Linux returns 'unknown' for the architecture when running 'uname -i', instead of i386 like it should. I added a workaround for AV Linux, and for non-AVLinuces that return 'unknown', the script now offers the user an opportunity to manually type in their own arch.

So, it now goes like:

Get a copy of the source:

Code: Select all

git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/libmodsynth/git libmodsynth-git

Find the list of tags, for the release you want:

Code: Select all

git tag
#now run:
#git checkout name_of_tag_you_wanted

Compile and package:

Code: Select all

cd libmodsynth-git/plugins
perl build-all.pl
#(answer some basic questions)

This will create a full .deb package including .desktop files, icons, etc...

[jeffh]

I've uploaded the new 12.06-2 packages here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/libmods ... s/plugins/

Pretty much all of the improvements are to Euphoria:

1. A sample viewer where you can set start/end points on the sample
2. Numerous bug fixes
3. An improved audio engine, is now capable of tighter timing, suitable for drums
4. Numerous improvements to the sound and feel

Next month, I'm going to start including a small sample library with LMS Suite in my own .u4ia format, and offer a bigger one on my Sourceforge page. I'm open to any user contributions as long as they meet the following criteria:

1. You either created the samples yourself, or they come from a library with a license compatible with the GPL. I'll gladly credit you for your work, but I'm not going to risk creating licensing issues.
2. They have a favorable size-of-the-files/usefulness/quality ratio. I'm not going to distribute a single piano instrument that weighs 2GB, and I'm not going to distribute anything that is lo-fi, unless it's some kind of industrial drum-kit that's actually meant to sound that way.

I would encourage a broad selection of instruments, things like drum-sets, pianos/strings/etc..., synthesizer sounds and so on....