SFZ Instrument Maker for Philharmonia Orchestra samples...

[Kati Maya]

Hey guys, I finally finished the public beta of my first freeware app, which downloads and indexes the 13,000 sample library of the philharmonia orchestra into a sqlite database and then allows you to generate SFZ files from it:
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/sfz-ins ... thors-love

I have some more details here as well:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=395109

I have this working on Windows 7/8 with .NET 4.5. However I want to get it working on Linux and Mac, as well as Vista and XP.

I could use Mono or Java but I don't really like them that much. So I'm thinking of using this as an excuse to finally learn C++ for real (I haven't used it really since when i was in college something like 20 years ago, mostly to learn OO concepts). I'm thinking Qt Creator seems like the best option for a quality cross-platform free IDE. I want to support as many platforms as possible, and native code is a big plus. I just never really liked C++ that much, since it seems tedious, and I'm lazy, so I don't feel like worrying about memory and garbage collection and rigid typing. However, c++ is what seems to be most ubiquitous, like for writing VST's and VST hosts, which is on my todo list of things to learn. Plus I want to make some contributions to the ChucK language and its IDE, which is also in c++ (not sure if they're using Qt or not, as I haven't looked into it that much).

I finally got VirtualBox working nicely. I'm on Win 8.1 now, and I have VB images working for Xubuntu 13.10, Vista SP2, XP SP2, and Snow Leopard (I know it's old, but i'm on AMD so it's hard to get it to play nice). I really like how the Xubuntu in particular can merge in with windows using the seamless mode, so that makes me happy. I was using Xubuntu exclusively for about 18 months and only got back into Windows because of music production, and I was dual-booting but something glitched when I tried to update from 13.04 to 13.10, so for now I'm happy to be able to make Windows the primary O/S and do both at the same time.

Anyway I want to figure out the SFZ format as deeply as possible from both creation and playback angles. I'm thinking of perhaps writing my own cross-platform sampler software, primarily focusing on the SFZ format. I like DirectWave and Kontakt for players, but for making SFZ files from scratch I haven't had much luck finding good software for working with that format...it seems like the only free editor is SFZed, which is still too tedious for me.

I would also like to come up with some sort of security method for SFZ's so that I could approach sampler makers. People like Wavesfactory for example, to offer them a free method for selling their samples as crypto-sfz or something, so that they could sell samples to end users that could play them with free software without having to also invest in an expensive sampler solutions like Kontakt. I generally don't like DRM, but if there was a way to protect samples to where it opens up the doors to get higher quality instrument samples working on more platforms and usable in more open formats, I would like to utilize my skill-set to help facilitate that.

Anyone who has suggestions for me or can point me in the right direction, I would really like to help. I think Qt Creator with C++ is probably my best option, but I'm open to suggestion; I want to use whatever makes the most sense. I'm not a n00b developer so I don't think C++ is going to present too much of a challenge so long as I only have to worry about writing my code instead of debugging other's code.

My personality is systems integration and reverse-engineering; I like getting divergent things to play nice together. I like making things as easy for the end-user as possible, and although I don't think I'm that talented with UX stuff, I do feel like I have a lot more intuition about workflow than a lot of developers.

I may release some aspects of things as FOSS as well. I'm all about freedom, however to me part of my ability to enjoy personal freedom is protecting myself from exploitation, and licensing is only as good as your willingness to go to court to protect it. I don't mind helping out other developers, especially hobbyists, but I'm not comfortable with letting others earn income directly off the back of my labor. So I'm hoping to find a happy balance between the two paradigms. But if I do end up turning it into a business, the licensing is probably going to be structured very similar to how Reaper does it, to where it's very inexpensive for hobbyists, while being in a more typical price range for those who are making a living with it.

Also SFZ format information is rather sparse and leaves much to be desired, so I'm considering setting up a wiki or something to start documenting it better so that it can be more of an official standard than what it is right now. Perhaps even spearhead an ISO committee or something, so that it became an industry standard of sorts, assuming it can gain a bit of popularity and momentum.

I had my own company for 7 years in the e-commerce space, but for various reasons I shut the company down. I'm kind of burned out from running a company. All my bills are paid for now so I'm not in this for the money; I don't even want to run a company right now. So what I'm going to put my energies towards now is cross-platform guilt-free donation-ware.

I really was just going to focus exclusively on writing music, but when I see all the software that is currently out there, the software developer in me starts getting giddy and wants to take on those challenges too. I feel that using my programming skills to help other musicians is as fulfilling as writing music, so I'm trying to find some balance between the two. I greatly appreciate any feedback on the ideas I have and the direction I want to go in and welcome any suggestions. I'm also open to collaboration with anyone who shares similar goals.

[AnthonyCFox]

This sounds great. I'm looking forward to following what you do.

Digital Sound Factory https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/about has the largest SFZ library I've been able to find. They package their SFZ's with Cakewalk's Dimension LE.

And, being that they have the largest SFZ library it seems that it might be worthwhile to make a sampler that works well with it and when you have something to show it could be beneficial to contact them to let them know what you're doing. Maybe they'll work with you? Give you free access to their library?

I don't know what deal they have with Cakewalk, but maybe they'd like to put out a version of their product that doesn't have Cakewalk's name all over it. Who knows, they might throw a couple bucks your way for the commercial license to use your sampler.

[varpa]

I think its great what you are doing. Concerning SFZs using Philharmonia's Orchestra if you have created some good SFZs perhaps you could post those? Users will have to download the actual samples (which will have to be converted from mp3 to wav, flac, or ogg, but that is easy).

Concerning developing an SFZ player, I would suggest first contributing to one of the existing linux SFZ players, linuxsampler or Calfbox. If you want to develop your own you might consider using python.

I think it would be great if developed some scheme for crypto-sfz if that made more commercial samples available in linux. However, the big problem is probably the small size of the linux music market. If/when linux music becomes big enough commercial vendors will port their software to linux anyway.

[Kati Maya]

I don't know what deal they have with Cakewalk, but maybe they'd like to put out a version of their product that doesn't have Cakewalk's name all over it. Who knows, they might throw a couple bucks your way for the commercial license to use your sampler.

That sounds pretty good to me. I don't think I'm quite ready to start approaching sampler companies just yet, although one of the smaller publishers has already approached me expressing a lot of interest in supporting SFZ format and perhaps even helping me form the committee on flushing out SFZ more.

Concerning developing an SFZ player, I would suggest first contributing to one of the existing linux SFZ players, linuxsampler or Calfbox. If you want to develop your own you might consider using python.

Okay I can check them out. I don't know python, although it seems easy enough, and I did spend a couple days last year doing the "learn python the hard way" tutorials out of curiosity. But it feels like if I am going to put energy into learning a new language music software tends to all be c++ based from what I've noticed, so I'm thinking of focusing on that first.

I think it would be great if developed some scheme for crypto-sfz if that made more commercial samples available in linux. However, the big problem is probably the small size of the linux music market. If/when linux music becomes big enough commercial vendors will port their software to linux anyway.

Yeah, well that is why i'm wanting to do cross-platform stuff. If they start using tools to make crypto-sfz libraries for windows or mac then they should work just fine on linux as well since i'm going to ensure up front that it's compatible. While many commercial vendors aren't going to go out of their way to support linux, if I set things up in such a way as to make it trivial enough for them to make it compatible then it should be a no-brainer for them to support it too.

[Kati Maya]

linuxsampler looks really good, but i spent a long time writing up an introduction and it got deleted, so i'm not sure if that's the path i should be taking or not, or if it's just that i'm currently out of synchronization and it's not quite time yet, like i need to get my song done first or something.