SFZ in Ubuntu

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VictorSeven
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SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by VictorSeven »

Hello all,

Recently installed Ubuntu 16.04 and moving all the samples and VST I had, from Windows to Ubuntu. Usually my workflow is to write music using Musescore, and then try to polish the sound using SFZ/VST in LMMS.

I would like to continue working this way. Of course, there is no problem with Musescore 2 -just get from the repos. For the SFX/VST, I have tried to go in LMMS. I installed Wine and the KXStudio repos and configured the lmms-vst-full following the official guides. The VST work like a charm, no problem! :D

The bad thing comes with the SFZ. I tried to download Sforzando (for Windows) from the official site and install it using Wine (2.0.3), but it says that the software "is not compatible with my Windows version". I have tried to change the Windows version using winecfg for the installer, but it is useless -always the same error.
So, I have two possible alternatives: one, try to bypass the sforzando error to install it (this is the one I would prefer), or two, use another software.

The second option is not clear for me. LinuxSampler, in my experience, does not integrate well with LMMS: LMMS has to host it for one channel, when LS is multi-channel. Having one instance of LS per channel consumes a lot of memory. I cannot install Carla in LMMS without compiling from source, which is difficult for me...
What about Ardour? Looks like I can install it from the KX repos. If Ardour can be configured with Carla or any other plugin to play VST/SFZ, it would be an option. However, I don't know what are the packages I should install. :oops:

As you can see, there are many options and I could not find detailed information about them. I promise that once I finish configuring everything I will make a tutorial for newcomers (which I think it is neccesary), but now I need help.

Any suggestion on how to install Sforzando or any other alternative will be highly appreciated. Thank you very much! :D :D
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by Michael Willis »

I am using LinuxSampler with Ardour, but it took a bit of work to set it up.

You might try SFZero first to see if it works for you: https://github.com/osxmidi/SFZero/releases

If you want more details about using LinuxSampler, there are enough people here who can help you with it. The way I use it in Ardour is with a bus that has the LinuxSampler plugin, and multiple midi tracks routed to the bus. You might be able to do something similar in LMMS, but I'm not familiar enough to give instructions.
VictorSeven
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by VictorSeven »

Thanks for your suggestion.

Unfortunately, LMMS does not load LinuxVST (which is really bad in my opinion, "Linux" MultiMedia studio with no support for Linux vst...), so SFZero cannot work with it.

The good news is that I can easily redirect the MIDI output of channels in LMMS to LinuxSampler. When I open the QSampler window, it is automatically detected by LMMS and I can redirect all the output to it (yay! :D ).

The bad news are that my QSampler is not working properly. I do not know the reason -just installed QSampler from KX repos using Syanptic and letting him get the dependencies (which are the LinuxSampler itself and the GIG editor). The problem is that whenever I try to create a new channel, it throws an error and I can do nothing. Here is the log, maybe some experienced user knows how to solve the issue.

Code: Select all

11:08:40.123 Client connecting...
11:08:40.129 Server is starting...
11:08:40.133 linuxsampler
11:08:40.141 Server was started with PID=5213.
lscp_client_create: cmd: connect: Conexión rehusada
LinuxSampler 2.0.0.svn75
Copyright (C) 2003,2004 by Benno Senoner and Christian Schoenebeck
Copyright (C) 2005-2017 Christian Schoenebeck
Binary built: Sep 17 2017
Detected features: MMX SSE SSE2
Automatic Stacktrace: Off
Creating Sampler...OK
Registered sampler engines: 'GIG','SF2','SFZ'
Registered MIDI input drivers: ALSA,JACK
Registered audio output drivers: ALSA,JACK
Loading instrument editor plugins...Failed to load instrument editor plugin: '/opt/linuxsampler/lib/plugins/libgigeditlinuxsamplerplugin.so', cause: /opt/linuxsampler/lib/plugins/libgigeditlinuxsamplerplugin.so: undefined symbol: _ZN12LinuxSampler6Thread10DestructorEv
OK
Registered instrument editors: 
Registered internal effect systems: LADSPA
Registered internal effects: 44
Starting LSCP network server (0.0.0.0:8888)...Thread: WARNING, can't mlockall() memory!
OK
11:08:43.347 Client connecting...
11:08:43.358 Client receive timeout is set to 1000 msec.
11:08:43.370 Client connected.
11:08:43.386 Sent fine tuning settings.
11:08:43.403 New session: "Untitled1".
LinuxSampler initialization completed. :-)

LSCPServer: Client connection established on socket:4.
LSCPServer: Client connection established on socket:5.
11:08:46.055 New Channel setup...
11:09:03.833 Channel 0 added.
11:09:03.846 Channel 0 lscp_set_channel_audio_type: AudioOutputDeviceAlsa (errno=100)
11:09:03.875 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
ALSA lib conf.c:3357:(snd_config_hooks_call) Cannot open shared library (null)
ALSA lib conf.c:3820:(snd_config_update_r) hooks failed, removing configuration
AudioOutputDeviceAlsa: Cannot open sound control for card 0 - No such file or directory
AudioOutputDeviceAlsa: Can't find any card
11:09:03.883 Channel 0 lscp_get_midi_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:03.894 Channel 0 MIDI driver: ALSA.
11:09:03.911 Channel 0 MIDI port: 0.
11:09:03.914 Channel 0 MIDI channel: 0.
11:09:03.915 Channel 0 Engine: SF2.
11:09:03.917 Channel 0 MIDI map: 0.
11:09:03.920 Channel 0 Some channel settings could not be set. Sorry.
Thread: WARNING, can't assign realtime scheduling to thread!
Thread: WARNING, can't mlockall() memory!
11:09:03.981 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:04.186 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:04.391 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:04.597 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:05.540 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:05.604 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:05.806 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:06.012 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
11:09:06.219 Channel 0 lscp_get_audio_device_info: DESCRIPTION (errno=0)
I tried to touch a bit the settings in the GUI, but no results. Maybe some package is missing? Do I have to configure something?
Thank you very much for your help (again)
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by ubuntuuser »

VictorSeven wrote:Hello all,

Recently installed Ubuntu 16.04 and moving all the samples and VST I had, from Windows to Ubuntu. Usually my workflow is to write music using Musescore, and then try to polish the sound using SFZ/VST in LMMS.

I would like to continue working this way. Of course, there is no problem with Musescore 2 -just get from the repos. For the SFX/VST, I have tried to go in LMMS. I installed Wine and the KXStudio repos and configured the lmms-vst-full following the official guides. The VST work like a charm, no problem! :D

The bad thing comes with the SFZ. I tried to download Sforzando (for Windows) from the official site and install it using Wine (2.0.3), but it says that the software "is not compatible with my Windows version". I have tried to change the Windows version using winecfg for the installer, but it is useless -always the same error.
So, I have two possible alternatives: one, try to bypass the sforzando error to install it (this is the one I would prefer), or two, use another software.

The second option is not clear for me. LinuxSampler, in my experience, does not integrate well with LMMS: LMMS has to host it for one channel, when LS is multi-channel. Having one instance of LS per channel consumes a lot of memory. I cannot install Carla in LMMS without compiling from source, which is difficult for me...
What about Ardour? Looks like I can install it from the KX repos. If Ardour can be configured with Carla or any other plugin to play VST/SFZ, it would be an option. However, I don't know what are the packages I should install. :oops:

As you can see, there are many options and I could not find detailed information about them. I promise that once I finish configuring everything I will make a tutorial for newcomers (which I think it is neccesary), but now I need help.

Any suggestion on how to install Sforzando or any other alternative will be highly appreciated. Thank you very much! :D :D
Sforzando installs and runs ok in my testing with Ubuntu Studio 16.10.

I did quite a bit of testing with LinVst and Sforzando because of some small problems LinVst initially had with it.

I've had Sforzando running pretty well as a vst in Linux Reaper, Linux Tracktion etc using LinVst.

Airwave and Carla would probably be similar.

LMMS is something that I've only used for a short time and I think they have their own windows vst feature, so I don't know much about LMMS.

I'd try reinstalling wine and see what happens or try deleting the /home/user/.wine folder and running winecfg again.

You could try wine staging from winehq.
VictorSeven
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by VictorSeven »

falkTX wrote:qsampler seems to be wanting to use ALSA, which in case you're using jack with lmms it won't work.
both lmms and qsampler/linuxsampler need to be setup to use jack.
The problem with QSampler is not related at all to LMMS. QSampler standalone is not able to load any SFZ or SF2, not even when LMMS is closed. There is something wrong in the installation of QSampler. Maybe I need to install something more or configure something?
ubuntuuser wrote:Sforzando installs and runs ok in my testing with Ubuntu Studio 16.10.
I did quite a bit of testing with LinVst and Sforzando because of some small problems LinVst initially had with it.
I've had Sforzando running pretty well as a vst in Linux Reaper, Linux Tracktion etc using LinVst.
Yes, it looks like a lot of people in the forums is using Sforzando with no problem. Not my case. I cannot test the thing you propose with LinVST because I cannot even install Sforzando. I only have the exe installer, not the dll plugin, so I cannot do anything with it. The wine installation is fresh, I installed it only for using the VST stuff -so I don't think there is any problem with it...

Thank you very much for the suggestions and ideas. I have to say that now I am completely stuck, I do not know what else to try.
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by Michael Willis »

VictorSeven wrote:The problem with QSampler is not related at all to LMMS. QSampler standalone is not able to load any SFZ or SF2, not even when LMMS is closed. There is something wrong in the installation of QSampler.
You can try JSampler Fantasia, I have had better results with it compared to QSampler that would sometimes crash on my computer.

JSampler requires Java, which some people don't like, but if you're willing to install Java, you should try it. You can get java by installing OpenJDK with your package manager.

Download Fantasia-0.9.jar here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/jsampl ... sia%200.9/

While you have the LMMS project open with the LinuxSampler plugin, invoke this command:

Code: Select all

java -jar Fantasia-0.9.jar
It should detect that you are running the plugin and use it instead of launching a new LinuxSampler instance.
VictorSeven
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by VictorSeven »

falkTX wrote:Maybe an issue with the kxstudio packages, I know the gigedit plugin for qsampler is broken, but I believe the rest is supposed to work.
I will take a look at this very soon, since we have a new linuxsampler release and I need to update the packages anyway.
Ok, I think I have located the source of the problem.

Looks like Linuxsampler is not recognizing the sound card (?). When I try to create an audio device, the options for the card are (0,0), (0,3), (0,5) and (0,8). Default buffer sizes etc are all 0. When I try to create the card, it says that it could not create the device. In the log I have an "Invalid card number" error.
So, when I was trying to set a channel, it had no audio output, so it does not work properly.

I have read some random posts on the Internet, but it looks like there is no easy fix... Any ideas?
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by ubuntuuser »

VictorSeven wrote:
falkTX wrote:qsampler seems to be wanting to use ALSA, which in case you're using jack with lmms it won't work.
both lmms and qsampler/linuxsampler need to be setup to use jack.
The problem with QSampler is not related at all to LMMS. QSampler standalone is not able to load any SFZ or SF2, not even when LMMS is closed. There is something wrong in the installation of QSampler. Maybe I need to install something more or configure something?
ubuntuuser wrote:Sforzando installs and runs ok in my testing with Ubuntu Studio 16.10.
I did quite a bit of testing with LinVst and Sforzando because of some small problems LinVst initially had with it.
I've had Sforzando running pretty well as a vst in Linux Reaper, Linux Tracktion etc using LinVst.
Yes, it looks like a lot of people in the forums is using Sforzando with no problem. Not my case. I cannot test the thing you propose with LinVST because I cannot even install Sforzando. I only have the exe installer, not the dll plugin, so I cannot do anything with it. The wine installation is fresh, I installed it only for using the VST stuff -so I don't think there is any problem with it...

Thank you very much for the suggestions and ideas. I have to say that now I am completely stuck, I do not know what else to try.
I've had the exe install file (WIN_sforzando_v1.916.exe) work on Ubuntu and Debian.

The exe file might be corrupted.

The wine install might have problems with something.

It could be something else.
VictorSeven
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by VictorSeven »

ubuntuuser wrote:
VictorSeven wrote:
falkTX wrote:qsampler seems to be wanting to use ALSA, which in case you're using jack with lmms it won't work.
both lmms and qsampler/linuxsampler need to be setup to use jack.
The problem with QSampler is not related at all to LMMS. QSampler standalone is not able to load any SFZ or SF2, not even when LMMS is closed. There is something wrong in the installation of QSampler. Maybe I need to install something more or configure something?
ubuntuuser wrote:Sforzando installs and runs ok in my testing with Ubuntu Studio 16.10.
I did quite a bit of testing with LinVst and Sforzando because of some small problems LinVst initially had with it.
I've had Sforzando running pretty well as a vst in Linux Reaper, Linux Tracktion etc using LinVst.
Yes, it looks like a lot of people in the forums is using Sforzando with no problem. Not my case. I cannot test the thing you propose with LinVST because I cannot even install Sforzando. I only have the exe installer, not the dll plugin, so I cannot do anything with it. The wine installation is fresh, I installed it only for using the VST stuff -so I don't think there is any problem with it...

Thank you very much for the suggestions and ideas. I have to say that now I am completely stuck, I do not know what else to try.
I've had the exe install file (WIN_sforzando_v1.916.exe) work on Ubuntu and Debian.

The exe file might be corrupted.

The wine install might have problems with something.

It could be something else.
Yes, this things, you never know. I had the hope somebody went through this before and found a solution.
Same with QSampler: I had no luck trying to make it work.

However, I tried a last thing: install Ardour and use the support for native Linux VST to load SFZero as somebody recommended. That worked perfectly! Now I can play my SFZ sounds, so you can consider this "solve". I may open a new thread on how to install Carla and more fancy stuff, but that is another story.

Thank you for all the support. If you find solutions to this problems, still post them, they can be useful for new users.
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by Michael Willis »

VictorSeven wrote:However, I tried a last thing: install Ardour and use the support for native Linux VST to load SFZero as somebody recommended. That worked perfectly!
That's great to hear that you found a solution! Just curious, what kind of music are you making?
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by VictorSeven »

Michael Willis wrote:
VictorSeven wrote:However, I tried a last thing: install Ardour and use the support for native Linux VST to load SFZero as somebody recommended. That worked perfectly!
That's great to hear that you found a solution! Just curious, what kind of music are you making?
Yes, and today I have connected a MIDI keyboard and everything is working like a charm. Very happy with the final result =)

I usually work with traditional instruments, making chamber music, piano, little ensembles... However, I was very insterested in VST stuff because now I want to start adding synths and more modern stuff to my compositions.
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Re: SFZ in Ubuntu

Post by Michael Willis »

VictorSeven wrote:I usually work with traditional instruments, making chamber music, piano, little ensembles...
If you're interested, I just made an alpha release of a concert-hall-style reverb plugin that I'm working on:

https://github.com/michaelwillis/dragon ... b/releases

Any feedback would be helpful, even if it's just "Yeah, I tried it and it didn't really give me the sound I wanted..." It's mostly just a port of another reverb plugin called Hibiki that didn't have a Linux build, but whereas I'm thinking of simplifying it a bit, I decided to rename it.
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