Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Link to good samples/soundfonts at http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/free_audio_data

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j_e_f_f_g
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Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

I did some tweaks to the solo cello, and the orchestral cello section.

This zip file also shows the new directory structure. All the files will go in a "NoBudgetOrch" folder. They are separated into instruments. For example, here we have a "Cello" folder. It contains two folders -- a "SoloCello" folder, and a "CelloSect" (ie, the orchestral section).

http://wikisend.com/download/428206/cellos.zip

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kbongosmusic
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Re: Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Post by kbongosmusic »

Hey @jeffg,
Thanks! I see your name on a few others of the SFZ files I downloaded, good stuff.

I did try out your BackupBand, eDrummer, and your midi-dump progy.
It was a bit of a struggle to get these compiled and installed/running(running i386 generally due to some older desktop machines). But I did manage to get them somewhat running where I could get some sounds out at least. So for example I was able to get BackupBand to play some notes from keyboard, but for whatever reasons could not get it to play alternative parts. The GUI was a bit scary, kinda big and all. I think we need to send you back to modern GUI school or something, just kidding, hope you don't mind. I've done some GUI for small touch screens before and perhaps you are ahead of your time. You need to tone down the 'jack is shutting down, it's really slow' message. That scared me a bit(I'm thinking, why are you shutting down jack!)(I think you are just disconnecting from it).

It's good to see someone making wave-table synth/sampler/sequencer programs. Especially ones that are focused on Linux. So many apps are all caught up in the 'cross platform' dumb it down to least common-denominator thing. The midi-dump progy(forget the name) I was least impressed with, the gui and all. Why not skip the gui and just do a console thing. There are so many midi-dump progs already too. Maybe consider skipping the gui for the others as well or offer console/network control? Allow you to focus more on the important guts? Let someone else write a gui for em. I did get eDrummer to show up in Carla as a plugin and it did play fine, so I think you are exploring some things to try and get these apps to play nice with others and perhaps allow some other connectivity offerings. I think it was BackupBand that insists to use raw alsa midi interface. Somewhat inconvenient if you are just trying it out.

I hope to get back to looking at them, keep plugin away at them ;)
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Re: Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Post by Lyberta »

Are there plans to update all other instruments to the new folder structure? Maybe a website dedicated to NBO?
j_e_f_f_g
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Re: Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

FaTony wrote:Are there plans to update all other instruments to the new folder structure?
Yes. And then after we have a particular directory convention, there are plans to create a "General MIDI Software synth" in LV2 and DSSI formats so that you'll be able to play GM midi files as easily as you can on Windows... but with a vastly better audio quality (ie, something comparable to a Roland Fantom, Yamaha Motif, Korg, Kurzweil, etc. The GM software synth built into Windows was made by Roland almost 20 years ago, and the soundset is from the now-very-dated Roland SC-7).

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kbongosmusic
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Re: Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Post by kbongosmusic »

Hi @j_e_f_f_g ,

I got the BackupBand accompaniment working ;) When I checked it out a few weeks ago I had to make a few corrections to get it to compile and it complained on startup about some kits, so I think I caught it then in-between changes. Pulled in you latest changes and it compiled and ran nicely. Other than I forgot to start jackd before starting it and then it complained about jack being set to 48000 instead of 44100(which I have qjackctl setup for). If I have jack problems I do a ps -e | grep jack, and if I see jackdbus running I kill it, cause it makes things not work for me. That's probably a personal problem and not related to BackupBand, it's on my list of things to figure out what that thing is trying to do for me and either banish it from my computer or make it do whatever it's supposed to do.

Anyways, I had fun trying to play along with the virtual musicians and I hope to beat on it some more and hopefully be helpful tester. And I take back everything bad I said about the gui ;) It's a perfectly lovely gui. Cheers. Love the piano sound with the hammers and all.
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Re: Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

kbongosmusic wrote:I think I caught it then in-between changes. Pulled in you latest changes and it compiled and ran nicely.
Prior versions compiled fine on my own systems. But until another forum poster here tried compiling it, I didn't realize there were problems. We fixed those (although gcc versions between 4.4 and 4.8 still produce bad code on my highly hand-optimized C code, unless you disable gcc's optimization. GCC version 4.9 is what I use).
It's a perfectly lovely gui.
Lovely it ain't. Everything is very big, very plain, and very flat. Because that works best on a small touchscreen. BackupBand is the only linux app I can easily operate using only my finger on a 7 inch touchscreen. I mount it right on my midi keyboard, effectively making it similiar to gigging with a Roland BK, Korg PA, or Yamaha Tyros arranger.

But BackupBand is also designed to be used with bass pedals (for guitarists/bassists), or a wind controller.

The next version will have a configurable UI. Not just "themes" or "skins". You start with an empty window, and pick out what controls you want, where to place them, and how big you want them. So maybe one guy wants only 2 buttons on his raspberry with a 2 inch touchscreen -- a button to scroll through the style names, and a Play/stop button. Another guy has a 30" HD display. He doesn't want to flip between the Styles, Patches, Songsheet, and various setup screens. He wants to fill one window with every available Backupband control.
Love the piano sound with the hammers and all.
That's the "Little Lizard" piano, my version of one of the best sampled pianos -- Salamander Grand.

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Re: Improved solo cello, and cello ensemble

Post by GMaq »

Hi,

Playing catch-up this weekend moving all the new improved NBO stuff to the archive, the link for the cellos has expired, can you please repost?
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