The state of sample players on Linux

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AnthonyCFox
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by AnthonyCFox »

plgDavid wrote:Hello

(blame it on google alerts) :)
AnthonyCFox wrote: Maybe developing a relationship with Plogue or Camel Audio and work with them to ensure that their samplers continue to work with Wine? Well, Camel Audio needs to get theirs working in Wine first...
Better yet, given time, I wish we could release a native Linux version!
Well thank you for responding and I appreciate the time and thoughtfulness you put into your comment. I hope you'll take any negativity I expressed with a grain of salt. I'm just a musician trying to find solutions.

I can tell you that, at least for the time being, I seem to have settled on using Sforzando as my primary sampler. I found the drealm.info mappings for Analogue Drums which I like a lot and the price is right. I also found a P-bass I like but I'm adding the Shreddage Bass to my wishlist now; thanks for that tip!

I'm not holding my breath for a Linux version. I just hope Sfozando keeps working in Wine.
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by plgDavid »

AnthonyCFox wrote:te the time and thoughtfulness you put into your comment. I hope you'll take any negativity I expressed with a grain of salt. I'm just a musician trying to find solutions.
Of course.
AnthonyCFox wrote: I'm not holding my breath for a Linux version. I just hope Sfozando keeps working in Wine.
I think the best thing I did for VMachine(wine) compatibility was to get rid of the MSVC manifests/runtime and used static linking which solved most nightmares. I don't think I would break Wine compatibly on purpose, but if it happens, please let me know.

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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by nils »

In my eyes all the reverse engineering etc. only does happen because there is no open source reference implementation.

Calfbox is too unofficial (and too late) to become a reference implementation but it can maybe become a model implementation. To my knowledge it is the only approach of an open source sfz engine. If that is not enough for another engine it can now at least have a look how things are done there. Without SDKs, NDAs and pseudo-GPLs like Linuxsampler.
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AnthonyCFox
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by AnthonyCFox »

plgDavid wrote:I think the best thing I did for VMachine(wine) compatibility was to get rid of the MSVC manifests/runtime and used static linking which solved most nightmares.
Hmm, that sounds familiar. I was running SampleTank on my 32-bit machine but when I got a 64-bit it wouldn't install. It said something about "msvcp71.dll". That's what started all this thrashing around looking for a sampler and sample formats.
plgDavid wrote: I don't think I would break Wine compatibly on purpose, but if it happens, please let me know.
Thank you, I will. This is the best thing I could hope for until there is a native Linux solution. :D
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by ssj71 »

I'm really late in the game here, and only got through the first 3 pages of this thread, but if you download the demo sfz pack from Plogue, with a little editing its playable in liuxsampler. There are some links to the files that you must repair and it otherwise works (their sampler must assume part of the file path or maybe it was even the difference between windows \ and linux / I don't remember now). I tried out the piano but it came with so few velocity layers it wasn't worth pursuing further. There are probably op-codes in there that aren't supported, but its still a text file, and it did work for me. I suppose there's some risk but you might be able to purchase one of their full versions instruments and use it.

**EDIT: oops it has been a long time. You have to download a windows or OSX installer. http://ariaengine.com/forums/index.php? ... ria-engine I did it at work on a windoze machine, then copied the installed samples to a usb drive and tested them at home. It may be able to install via wine. IDK. It seems they were hoping to get lots of community involvement and creation of new SFZs but looking at their forum under instruments I don't see a single topic along the lines of "Here's an instrument." So maybe this is another dead end.
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by TheSafePlaces »

A blog has been made for news/tracking progress - http://todsp.tumblr.com/
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by luster »

TheSafePlaces wrote:A blog has been made for news/tracking progress - http://todsp.tumblr.com/

It's probably just me, but I can't easily read much there due to the darkness of the theme. It's daylight here, and the sun is up.

If it were me, I'd either keep it dark and make the text almost the same color as the background, or lighten the theme a bit. As it is now, I had to highlight the side text to see it clear enough to read, so making the text nearly the same color as the background would have had little effect on my experience.

Note: If a site is too dark to read, I'll usually just go elsewhere. UNLESS I am determined to read it like I was here.

Note To Self: sure are closing alot of tabs these days... maybe should put aluminum foil on the windows and turn off all lights... LOL

:)

I don't like Disqus. Surely there are better options? Why not open comments? Spam? Too much work?
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by TheSafePlaces »

luster - Hey, thank you very much for the feedback.

Text colors...Sure it isn't a config/lighting issue on your end? People have generally given positive responses to the visual bit, and it looks pretty legible at my place, regardless of whether the light is on or off or whether I bump up monitor brightness to min or max :? (although I do mean indoors, not in sunlight...)

What's the issue with Disqus? Tumblr doesn't have comments implemented AFAIK, and I don't know jack about how to implement something myself.

I also want to move away from Tumblr to Wordpress or something on a VPS, but an utter lack of experience with that sort of stuff prevents me -_-'
Until I find an admin, maybe I'll shift it to noblogs.org...or stick with tumblr for a while...
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AnthonyCFox
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by AnthonyCFox »

Oh, Holy Crap! It's been under my nose all this time and I had no idea... Cakewalk Dimension is an SFZ player! Duh...

Digital Sound Factory https://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/ has thousands of samples for Cakewalk Dimension. I just downloaded DSF's freebie sample pack for Cakewalk Dimension and it works great with Sforzando (the SFZ player I've been using for the last few months).

I've been trying to find quality SFZ libraries for months. I did find one for bass guitar and another for drums, which IMO are the weak points in what Digital Sound Factory has to offer, but not much else. Digital Sound Factory has basically everything else I would want. This is a huge discovery for me. I've been looking into networking a windows machine so I could incorporate Kontakt into my studio. :( This will keep me going for years before I have to consider that option again. :D
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by lazyklimm »

TheSafePlaces wrote:Oh, right, sample converters, I forgot to respond about those.

The ones you listed (and basically all the ones that exist) probably don't handle the scripting part of Kontakt, which'd reduce the benefits of conversion. And apparently Chicken Systems Translator Pro is said to be so buggy that it's has been called 'alpha software sold for money', and there is supposedly incongruence between formats advertised as supported and formats actually supported. Personally, somehow, I can't get myself to trust any sample converter...or maybe it's the lack of a 'proper' solution (sample format support on Linux or sampler software supported by the company on Linux IMHO) that irks me when I hear of them :\
  • There are many sample banks that have no scripts inside.
  • Extreme Sample Converter converts K3 to sfz with acceptable quality (there are some minor issues with round robins and mappings aren't optimized - need some text processing, I use shell stuff for that), but at least they work. You can even use a Demo version, just don't forget to backup your original samples and move them to Samples subdir after conversion.
TheSafePlaces wrote:As for a native converter (or alternatively a sampler for these formats) on Linux - I spoke to nilsge and kfoltman about it earlier, offering to donate for and to test such programs, and...the idea was shot down and called impossible. I guess if the devs say it, one accepts it. And that's the way the cookie crumbles. >_>

What we need is for someone to reverse engineer the Kontakt and VSL formats and implement them in a sampler, and fast (fast, because the users need them now, not when the formats are long dead and gone (er-hem, GIG)).
there is an nkitool, which can export old (up to 4.2.1) nki files. So the hardest part here is converting from xml to sfz, some xslt processing should help.
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by lazyklimm »

IMHO, to have samples libraries without scripting is much better than to have none at all.

Here's my point of view for what should be done:
  • find good (or popular or both) sample libraries that contain raw non-encrypted wave files.
  • make sfz mappings and other stuff to make those libraries usable on linux
  • create a public repo with these files. Some sample makers even share 3rd party sfzs.
  • PROFIT :)
If someone is interested, I've already started to make some mappings for myself, you can take a look at the git repo with sfz files for Wavesfactory Classic Rock Drums, Premiersound Mellotron and Analogue Drums Rockstock (originally taken from http://www.drealm.info/sfz/AnalogueDrums/, though I don't like the way pljones splits velocities, going to make own version).
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by autostatic »

lazyklimm wrote:If someone is interested, I've already started to make some mappings for myself, you can take a look at the git repo with sfz files for Wavesfactory Classic Rock Drums, Premiersound Mellotron and Analogue Drums Rockstock (originally taken from http://www.drealm.info/sfz/AnalogueDrums/, though I don't like the way pljones splits velocities, going to make own version).
Awesome, my Rockstock copy is gathering dust because I only have a Hydrogen kit file and Hydrogen doesn't really fit my workflow anymore. So yes, I'm interested!
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by lazyklimm »

AutoStatic wrote:Awesome, my Rockstock copy is gathering dust because I only have a Hydrogen kit file and Hydrogen doesn't really fit my workflow anymore. So yes, I'm interested!
Glad to hear! If you have any other good sounding free (or not so expensive) sample library in view - kontakt^Wcontact me, please. And feel free to join :).
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

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TheSafePlaces wrote:A blog has been made for news/tracking progress - http://todsp.tumblr.com/
Is this project paused/abandoned? This is something I'd love to see happen and would be willing to contribute.
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Re: The state of sample players on Linux

Post by stanlea »

lfz wrote:
TheSafePlaces wrote:A blog has been made for news/tracking progress - http://todsp.tumblr.com/
Is this project paused/abandoned? This is something I'd love to see happen and would be willing to contribute.
It's deeply sleeping for now.
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