Jazz And Big Band sample library

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Greetings all,

Just recently, I came across a (proprietary) Jazz And Big Band sample package (by Garritan). Might there be any way of operating this in Ubuntu 12.04, too?

Programmer or developer I'm definitely not. And not likely to become any time soon. But one forum I came across gave an indication that Jazz And Big Band might work in Linux, too - without going in finer detail. So now I'm curious.

tnob

[DoosC]

According to Garritan's website, it is in SFZ format which you can play with linuxsampler or carla

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Hi DoosC!

May I ask a few more things?

- My MIDI controller will be an electric string instrument (not necessarily electric guitar). Apart from sfz and Carla, what else would I need (software- and hardware-wise)? An Audio or MIDI interface, perhaps?

- Furthermore, from Jazz And Big Band, I may need one musical instrument sample in particular on Ubuntu. The library in which it sits is currently on laptop (in Aria, on Windows 7). But Ubuntu 12.04.is on desktop, so the sample in question has to be transferred, in some way or other - preferably without too much data loss.

- I have Carla on my desktop, too - but no previous experience with it. How should I go about in order to make this sample work (i.e. to play it successfully, with a 4-string MIDI controller) in Carla?

Thank you very much for your help - upcoming (hopefully) as well as already given.

tnob

[bluebell]

Nearly any Windows system has a "stereomix"-device. You can install Audacity for Windows (it's free) and record the sample into a wav file. Transfer it to the Linux system. Use http://samplv1.sourceforge.net/samplv1-index.html on Linux to play it.

There are many more ways to do it but this might be one of the simplests.

[DoosC]

Hi tnob,

- My MIDI controller will be an electric string instrument (not necessarily electric guitar). Apart from sfz and Carla, what else would I need (software- and hardware-wise)? An Audio or MIDI interface, perhaps?

I don't know anything about such midi controllers but that must be pretty enjoyable to use!
On my side I have a usb midi keyboard that just works.
I mean I just connect it to the computer and it is readily available to any midi aware app.
I just have a built-in integrated soundcard that came with the computer, nothing fancy a line-out for speakers (on the back) and one for headphones (on the front).
No specialized hardware at all (apart from the midi keyboard of course).
Software wise I went for kxstudio on top of ubuntu because I wanted the ubuntu simplicity with the benefits of a full blown up audio ready suite.
So having this basic working setup, whenever I want to try and play an sfz instrument I just follow some simple steps :
1/ launch carla
2/ drag'n'drop any sfz on it
3/ lauch claudia
4/ connect my midi keyboard to the instrument and the instrument to my audio out (see below)

carla-sfz.png (22.63 KiB) Viewed 1246 times

- Furthermore, from Jazz And Big Band, I may need one musical instrument sample in particular on Ubuntu. The library in which it sits is currently on laptop (in Aria, on Windows 7). But Ubuntu 12.04.is on desktop, so the sample in question has to be transferred, in some way or other - preferably without too much data loss.

Um... I probably missed something here, did I ?
You mentionned Aria, and Aria does sfz, so I would say copy the sfz and its associated sample folder from the laptop to the desktop.
In case you have a big sample library and don't know where the samples belonging to an sfz are, just open the sfz in a text editor like notepad and look for a line with "sample=" in it, like "sample=violin/A3.wav" then "violin" is the associated folder you are looking for.

- I have Carla on my desktop, too - but no previous experience with it. How should I go about in order to make this sample work (i.e. to play it successfully, with a 4-string MIDI controller) in Carla?

Seems like I anticipated your question
See my 4 steps approach above. If how to make the connection is unclear, it is just a matter of clicking on one of the ports you want to connect and draging the mouse up to the other one.

If that sounds confusing I'm sure it will become crystal clear once you have done it once.
If you can't reproduce those steps, you may have something misconfigured in your setup in which case I bet that some wizard here on the forum might be able to help further !

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Thank you very much, Bluebell an DoosC both!

Nearly any Windows system has a "stereomix"-device. You can install Audacity for Windows (it's free) and record the sample into a wav file. Transfer it to the Linux system.

I have Audacity in Ubuntu as well as Windows. In Windows, it's not in use very often; the Ubuntu version is very much more to my liking.

As said before, I'd only need one single musical instrument sample from the Jazz And Big Band library. As far as I'm aware, a musical instrument sample consists of many single notes. So do you mean that each and every single note of the sample has to be recorded separately, in .wav? And then dragged to and dropped in samplev1 in Linux, perhaps?

Can you please expand a little? I can't quite visualize how this'll work in practice.

To DoosC:

I don't know anything about such (i.e electric string) midi controllers but that must be pretty enjoyable to use!

An electric string instrument as MIDI controller would indeed be pretty enjoyable, I imagine. But I have been struggling, for quite a while, to make it work as such - so the simplicity of your solution certainly appeals to me.

You mentioned Aria, and Aria does sfz, so I would say copy the sfz and its associated sample folder from the laptop to the desktop.

In case you have a big sample library and don't know where the samples belonging to an sfz are, just open the sfz in a text editor like notepad and look for a line with "sample=" in it, like "sample=violin/A3.wav" then "violin" is the associated folder you are looking for.

If you happen to use Aria as well and would be able to make screenshots, might I ask you for one of the sfz and one of the associated folder - as in your example "sample=violin/A3.wav", for instance - just for a general impression of what I'd be looking for?

To Bluebell and DoosC: your help is greatly appreciated.

As mentioned before, Carla is in my system. Claudia as well. KXStudio as a whole, as a matter of fact. But, once again, with neither have I had much experience, so far. Hence the additional guidance asked for.

And to anyone else who may read this post: my interface is a Behringer Guitar Link (UCG102). Will this be compatible with Carla/Claudia?

tnob

[DoosC]

As said before, I'd only need one single musical instrument sample from the Jazz And Big Band library. As far as I'm aware, a musical instrument sample consists of many single notes. So do you mean that each and every single note of the sample has to be recorded separately, in .wav? And then dragged to and dropped in samplev1 in Linux, perhaps?

If you happen to use Aria as well and would be able to make screenshots, might I ask you for one of the sfz and one of the associated folder - as in your example "sample=violin/A3.wav", for instance - just for a general impression of what I'd be looking for?

No I don't use Aria, I just happen to know that Aria uses sfz as its format, because I already encountered librairies that claimed to be Aria compatible without mentionning the format was sfz, and after getting them, the format was actually sfz.

About your issue, I think I get it now !
Yes you are right, an instrument is usally comprised of many samples associated to specific note ranges (that is what the sfz files actually describes to the sampler that loads it, in your case Aria).
I will assume that your library is structured the same way as another one I use which is called "Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra", so try to follow the same steps on yours and it should be fine :
1/ locate the library directory (in my case the folder is called "Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra")
2/ find the sfz file corresponding to your instrument of choice (here I chose Brass - Horn Solo.sfz")

sso.png (30.89 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

3/ either the folder name for the samples is obvious and specific to the instrument (in that case jump to step 5/), or you have to locate the samples manually (see step 4/)
4/ open the sfz file and look out for the sample= lines, this should tell you which folder and files to choose. For me as you can see, it is "samples\horn\"

sso-horns.png (20.17 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

5/ copy the sfz file and its associated sample folder to an usb key (or over the network, or whatever) and paste it wherever pleases you on your desktop. Here you must respect the same folder structure : in my exemple I must have a folder named /samples/horn and in the folder the sfz file along with the samples folder :

sso-horns-2.png (8.36 KiB) Viewed 1236 times

6/ go back to my other post where I explained how to use Carla and Claudia

This way you should be able to isolate your instrument to your licking.

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Thank you so much, DoosC, for your screenshot tutorial! This certainly helps to clarify a few things.

I had a look at SSO as well, some time ago already - but in terms of sound quality, versatility and flexibility, SSO still doesn't convince (me personally, that is), to be honest - based on YouTube clips seen and heard, so far (there aren't very many there, though) and SSO compositions as presented to these forums, for instance.

Linux (Ubuntu 12.04, on desktop, Mint on laptop) will forever remain my favourite everyday OS. I love it because of its reliability and flexibility. Yet the first time ever I touched a computer was relatively late in life - so I'll probably never be a 'proper' whizz. And thus, aware of my limitations with respect to IT, I need to keep things relatively simple (or accessible/surveyable, at least). Plain common sense usually helps - but shedloads of impenetrable jargon being poured out over me, and I'll be most definitely lost.

With a view on samples and sampling, though, I sometimes fall back on libraries stored on an auxiliary Windows-only laptop (TSO, on which SSO is based, in there as well). This is merely in use for musical instrument sample playback (namely of instruments not at my command - like brass, woodwinds and violins, for instance). On the other hand: emulating virtual guitar flavours, in Windows (aided by suitable hardware plus interface) - or, more specifically, banjo (in my case) - is a nightmare, requiring lots of additional bells and whistles; as well as generating extra cost, to boot. From this perspective, transferring sfz-s & associated folders, relevant to requirement, from Windows libraries to Ubuntu 12.04 (my music production unit) seems to make sense - since Carla and Claudia appear to offer much better prospects as to getting to sounds I'm actually (or acutely, sometimes) in need of.

Therefore, your double kindness of taking the time to explain matters hitherto unclear to me and, furthermore, making the effort to visualize those, for my benefit, is hugely appreciated!

tnob