LMS Suite 12.07. Euphoria, the new king of Linux samplers?

[jeffh]

In his opinion, samplers - kings, queens, courtiers, whatever - aren't our problem. Support for king-sized sample libraries is the problem, and there appears to be no good solution at this time. Kontakt's format includes features not found in simple WAV files, and it is just those features that users need. (IIUC the format includes information about how the sample can be played, how it can receive articulations, what loop points exist, tuning information, etc., but I'm guessing here, I don't use things like the VSL).

There are different levels of sampling. There's people who play a few single-hit drum samples and stretch a few samples across the keyboard, then there's people who make orchestra-style music with massive multisampled orchestras. The former group accounts for 99% of the market, and can get by with samples available in .wav format played in any sampler, and things like effects and easy editing are what set samplers apart. I personally don't care about the orchestral people, and Euphoria is already pretty good for the normal folks.

In the end my respondent advises using a Windows box running Kontakt or a similar sampler as an external sound source. He indicated - unhappily indicated, I might add - that until Linux gains direct support for the most popular sample formats we're forced to use either relatively inflexible WAV files or unsatisfactory SF2/SFZ files. Now, I know a great deal of good work can be done with those formats, but from what I understand they do not support features that have become expected in the major proprietary formats, features especially desired by orchestral composers and others who need the full range of conventional instruments and their articulations.

If somebody has already decided that only proprietary formatted instruments are good enough for their needs, then there's really no reason to be trying to use Linux. There's nothing inherently limitiing about wav samples, and it's not as if nobody has ever sold/uploaded samples in that format before. I was strongly considering freesound.org API integration for instant samples straight from the interwebz based on user search queries.

Time-stretching/pitch-shifting.

Easy to do, extremely hard to do right. Kontakt's time-stretching/pitch-shifting is still crap, after 10+ years and millions spent on development. I've done granular and FFT stuff before, but TBH it's pretty low on the priority list, there are much bigger fish to fry first, and those things are extremely difficult to a. get within a reasonable CPU usage in real-time, and b. still sound good.

Add/remove/edit loop points.

Coming soon soon, I've already done all of the hard work, it's just a matter of plugging in a few controls now.

Beat recognition/slicing.

Not too hard to implement, I suppose, but then again that's one of those things that are best done manually, rather than having the computer guess what you wanted it to do.

Plugin support.

I'm going to implement more effects into the multieffects, but there's not much reason to create a plugin host when there are already others out there. I may even integrate existing LADSPA plugins as multieffects choices.

Multisample layering (i.e. a single slot holds more than one sample).

It does that already. Samples can be layered and mapped by pitch or velocity.

Various GUI improvements (piano keyboard for mapping samples, knobs/sliders for parameter adjustments)

Kontakt has a keyboard, and it makes it about freaking impossible to click on the sample you want to select. There's still plenty of room to improve my aesthetics, but I feel that the current state of Euphoria actually makes for much more efficient sampler-ing than Kontakt, which I use all of the time. Kontakt requires endless scrolling and unfolding of every instrument, effect and sample, my layout is much easier to use.

Support for commercial sample formats (I know, I'm dreaming out loud here.)

Most of those are pseudo-encrypted so you can't do that(easily). Wav sounds are libre, and so are .u4ia files, I'd rather focus on that.

Other UI improvements (i.e. a general configuration dialog).

Planned.

A bulk sample loader script would make it much easier to set up very complex sample arrangements.

It already allows selecting multiple files in the file dialog, and 'map all samples to one white key'. I also plan on implementing autodetection of pitch based on the filename 'uberguitar_C#3.wav', etc... Anything past that is just bloat, Kontakt peaked at Kontakt2, everything since then has just been pure bloat.

[jeffh]

To be fair, the arguments 'my plugin works in jack-dssi-host so it should work anywhere' and 'CALF works in my host so any proper plugin should work in it' are basically equally flawed.

Not really. I can't necessarily fix what's 100% truly broken in their DAW short of writing the patch myself and hoping they'll agree to apply it to their source tree. I can't always work around it myself in the plugin, sometimes hosts do bad things that must be fixed in the host.

Reaper for Windows/Mac has a public changelog per-commit, you always see:

* July1,2012 - fixed our VST host implementation(again),

which implies that even the ~15y/o industry standard VST format still requires some adjustments in mature, stable hosts. Linux DAW developers are confident that it couldn't possibly be them, and/or they just don't care.

Then you also frequently see:

* Added quirk/workaround for plugin XYZ

Sometimes it's the plugins fault, sometimes the host, sometimes it's just a gray area in the VST host spec, but Windows DAW devs want their users to be able to use their plugins, and rightfully make it happen when they can.

It's unfortunate you ran into DAW developers unwilling to help debug the problem, and they might even have been rude about it, but throwing their own flawed argument back at them doesn't seem productive.

Yeah, and neither does sitting around and doing nothing, which is what exactly what you and everybody else is doing about the situation.

It makes sense to advertise that the plugin is not supported in any of those DAW's until somebody steps up and actually looks into the problem. I'd prefer to hear about it with less drama, myself, though .

Well, FWIW I don't value your opinion. Sometimes you have to light a fire under somebody's bum to ignite positive change in something. You're not going to bring Linux audio up to Windows standards by being a pacifist, and clearly the current community isn't going to step up and pull their head out of their arse, or else they would've done it a long time ago.

[jeffh]

BTW, LMS is officially a private project now, no public releases, and no public Git.

I don't have the patience to deal with all of the half-witted, no talent hacks that develop the rest of the Linux stack. I swear some of you are being hired by Steinberg and Native Instruments to lead the Linux audio community right off a cliff, your words and actions defy all reason.

So if I understand the other devs:

1. Linux will never be as good as Windows, yet they spends 23 hours a day working on the stack???
2. Plugins should use the default OS theme, even though Windows plugins don't, because the Windows95 look is so hott. Plus, Linux users are all metrosexuals who value a color-coordinated desktop.
3. It's a sin to even suggest your project could ever possibly compete with top Windows plugins.(geez, wouldn't want anybody to think that, would we? You'd surely all cry if somebody used Linux plugins without the notion that it sucks. That is very suspicious, covert propaganda straight from Steinberg headquarters)
4. Command-line only Linux sampler (or with lame Fantasia UI), is far more advanced than Euphoria, as are lame and outdated Specimin and Petri-Foo.(Hey, 1996 called, they want LinuxSampler back).
5. Only proprietary sampler instruments are worth using, because that's somehow totally different than .wav files plus an open instrument file format. Besides, your friends won't think you're cool if you just load your own wavs without using $500 uber-drums4gigasampler....

This, my friends, is why you can't have nice things. Evey Linux plugin becomes abandon-ware for these same reason.

CALF is a great plugin pack by Linux standards, while being totally sub-par by Windows standards. It had so much potential, why did they stop developing it? The same reason every plugin before and after it stopped being developed. CALF conceivably could've been great with a couple more years of development, but they obviously hit the same wall that I and everybody else did.

[GMaq]

jeffh,

Dude...really?!

I have to admit up until now I found your 'frankness' kind of refreshing but this thread is giving me too much information...

Obviously you are extremely intelligent and one hell of a coder, extra points to you for having the decency to spread a few shekels around to some projects in need of a cash injection but I think you are failing to grasp that Linux is a big sloppy organic mess of various divergent motivations and for as many people who want it to be 'as good' as Windows or OSX (whatever that means) there are an equal number that could care less about such things and are happy with their command line applications, the microcosm of Linux Audio is no different in this regard.

I think one of the most refreshing things about Linux is the lack of 'dick measuring' that is the status quo in the proprietary software world, here you can find folks like Rui Nuno Capela saying some encouraging things about Ardour or Paul Davis acknowledging Rui's great accomplishments with Qtractor as a single developer. I personally have a great productive and mutually respectful dialog with falkTX a guy many years younger and 5 times as talented as myself. Do you really have to run down LinuxSampler, Lisalo, Petri-Foo, Specimen, Calf and the other projects you mentioned? Does that really change ANYTHING about how good (or bad) Euphoria is? It's one thing to have self-confidence but you're crossing rapidly into kindergarten territory by insulting fellow developers who really aren't competing with you in the first place...

To go private is entirely your prerogative but it really reeks of insecurity, why don't you take a deep breath, relax your sphincter and reconsider not only what you have to offer here (and I truly believe you have a lot to offer) but also what you have to gain by some mutual respect and collaboration?

[nils]

There are different levels of sampling. There's people who play a few single-hit drum samples and stretch a few samples across the keyboard, then there's people who make orchestra-style music with massive multisampled orchestras. The former group accounts for 99% of the market,

Where does this 99% number come from? It looks fictitious. Please support such claims with evidence.

And I think it is sad that you stopped public releases. It was a good piece of software eventhough it was not my liege.

For the rest of us here is the latest release.
http://www.wargsang.de/libmodsynth-git-12.07.1.tar.gz

Maybe it can be uploaded to some more official place. Do we have a site where discontinued projects are uploaded so others can develop them further?

[raboof]

To be fair, the arguments 'my plugin works in jack-dssi-host so it should work anywhere' and 'CALF works in my host so any proper plugin should work in it' are basically equally flawed-

Not really. I can't necessarily fix what's 100% truly broken in their DAW short of writing the patch myself and hoping they'll agree to apply it to their source tree. I can't always work around it myself in the plugin, sometimes hosts do bad things that must be fixed in the host.

It is absolutely true that DAW bug should be fixed in the DAW. At this point, though, it's unclear whether the bug is in the DAW or in your plugin. Your argument "my plugin works in jack-dssi-host so it should work anywhere" is flawed just as hard as their "CALF works in my host so any proper plugin should work in it".

It's a shame they're not diving in to see where the problem is. It's also a shame you're not diving in to see where the problem is. Calling each other lazy and careless is one approach that will certainly not lead to the solution.

If you can pinpoint the problem further, you might be able to convince the DAW guys to take another look (or find a bug in your plugin). I doubt just complaining and ranting about them in forums will help much - but who knows.

[studio32]

If you claim to be writing an sampler close to Kontakt, it's fair that people ask some questions. The same would be true if I announced a competitor to Ableton Live. It would be wrong if those questions couldn't be asked.
It's sad that this seems to end in some kind of flamewar. A good medicine for this is often a few days of rest
my 2$

[james=jwm//art@net]

If there's one good thing to come out of this it could be the filters - as I'm too much of a half-wit to code filter DSP I might appropriate these for Petri-Foo. Hopefully that will make Petri-Foo a little less lame. Trouble is I'm a half-wit, so it might be too complicated - after all, I once intended to use the filters from ZynAddSubfx in Petri-Foo... Oh wait a minute! I did experiment with that idea briefly but found some sort of incompatibility and being a half-wit without sign-posts meant all I could do was just sit there and stare blankly.

Anyway, I think we should be fair to Jeff - look at that question mark appended to the title! He had his doubts about the lofty heights he bestowed upon his work!

Ignoring his tantrums and name-calling, I have some empathy towards his position. I've frequently felt pleased with code I've written and excited about releasing it. The reality others see can be very different though, and work is frequently greeted with silence. This can either simply be a little frustrating or sometimes feels like I've just crash-landed back down on earth. I do tend to get really focused in on code as if nothing else matters at times.

Hopefully this will just be a small lesson in how not to make release announcements and how not to deal with users who dare criticise it. He'll get over it and return with better software and attitude.

[rncbc]

please, forgive me to be this str8.

jeffh already reported he's in ailment. do NOT judge him at this time of peril.

i'm sure he will cope with all, once he's back in shape

let's be reasonable, and hope for the best

best wishes jeffh

[i2productions]

So, let me get this straight. Jeff's been excited about these plugins for months posting releases here, but now he's run into some programming issues and people asked him "questions" so he's just taking his marbles and going home to play by himself?

After all the hype I was looking forward to trying these too. Oh well, guess ill just have to keep using ole proprietary Reason for my sampling and other needs. At least I can use it in linux with few issues. It kinda bothers me that Jeff has been developing for linux but still uses windows for audio work. Doesn't strike a lot of faith. I can't code to save my life, but as an audio engineer, I couldn't ever go back to windows or Mac for audio. The level of freedom brought mainly by JACK is hard to be matched. Seriously the only thing that I can't do in linux that I could in windows was find a tool similar to the waves xnoise plugin. Short of that I've found plenty of ways (many better once I got used to them) to do things in the linux audio ecosystem. But to Jeff's point I do totally agree there's a.serious lack of "standards" that come with it making it a nightmare for developers and end users alike. Personally if its going to be a hastle within the constraints of a particular plugin environment, and its a great tool I'm just as happy to run a stand alone program as opposed to a dssi, vst, or lv2 one! May not be as simple, and definitely doesn't do anything for the "standards" problem, but its better than giving up and going home.

All I can hear right now is Cartman's voice from south park,"Screw you guys, I'm goin home!"

[danboid]

I can't believe this thread is almost 2 months old and I've only just spotted it now!

I've just installed the latest (hopefully not the last) release of Euphoria under Wheezy - I've not properly tried it yet though as I was really hoping to use it under Muse2 as Jeff recommended as it would indeed seem to be without equal its own microscopic niche of DSSI samplers - samplv1 being LV2.

As I mentioned, I've not tried it properly under qtractor yet but at least its GUI does open under qtractor which is more than I can say for Muse2 where, contrary to Jeff's rant about hosts, I've had no luck getting its GUI to open although I have successfully added it into a session. I can open the GUIs of the integrated Muse2 synths OK. I did only use Muse 2 for the first time today though so I could be missing something.

Its a bit OT here maybe and I've just emailed Rob Jonsson to check but does anyone know if Muse2 supports Linux native VSTs or is it just Window's dll VSTs via dssi-vst right now? I'm very impressed by how much muse 2 has improved since the last stable release and as soon as it supports LinuxVSTs and LV2s its going to be a force to be reckoned with!

I've just discovered what the H in JeffH stands for. I didn't know he shared surname with the the Grandmaster of chip tunes and (retro) video game music! I hope you're getting better quickly Jeff and hopefully you'll be fit and happy to return to work on libmodsynth soon!

[GraysonPeddie]

Guys, can't we work to better ourselves? Collaborate.

(Nevermind my post. I did not realize it's two months old.)

[briandc]

Aisi,
the beauty of Linux/oss is that the creativity remains in the hands of the public. Just like music.

I don't know how to program, and I'm sure it's a lot of work (and maybe time-consuming more than anything). Just guessing.
However, I will say this: things are growing and changing quickly.
Many people today (like me) are discovering that Linux is on the heels of Windows/Mac. There isn't much out there that can't be done in linux, and I'm confident that even the few things that aren't achieved yet will soon be overcome. Simply because there are so many hands involved, and by working together lots of neat, beautiful and useful stuff is made. I always enjoy looking at new projects people are putting out at sourceforge and distrowatch. Talented people all over the world with lots of ideas, making things a reality today that a few years ago would have been considered impossible.

Linux/oss is amazing. It's the common people's creativity at work, making computers and technology into something beautiful for all to benefit from and enjoy. Beautiful!!

brian

[linuxdsp]

I'm sure it's a lot of work (and maybe time-consuming more than anything). Just guessing

Yeah, you could say it is.. I've been fixing up some updates to one of our linuxDSP plugins, which, (including the GUI toolkit we had to develop in order to make all the pretty graphics work - the ones people complain are counter-intuitive - what with having to drag a rotary control with a mouse and everything... ) comes in at around 20,000 - 30,000 lines of code - which is a lot of typing.
There's also quite a lot of very complicated problems to solve in order to actually make this stuff do anything vaguely useful too, so you're absolutely right, it's not just time, but a huge amount of work as well )

[briandc]

I'm sure it's a lot of work (and maybe time-consuming more than anything). Just guessing

Yeah, you could say it is.. I've been fixing up some updates to one of our linuxDSP plugins, which, (including the GUI toolkit we had to develop in order to make all the pretty graphics work - the ones people complain are counter-intuitive - what with having to drag a rotary control with a mouse and everything... ) comes in at around 20,000 - 30,000 lines of code - which is a lot of typing.
There's also quite a lot of very complicated problems to solve in order to actually make this stuff do anything vaguely useful too, so you're absolutely right, it's not just time, but a huge amount of work as well )

I'm amazed at how driven people in the oss community are. Many of you programmers are not paid, or paid little. Yet you do what you do because you believe in it. And sometimes you might not get the positive results you'd like, but I'm positive that there are many many people out there who are appreciating all the work!
Someday all that programming might become less tedious. Just as in so many other areas, programming I'm sure will become lighter, faster, more powerful, etc...

brian