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From: Nils <li...@ni...> - 2012-08-31 00:06:16
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Hello lists, (if you are note exited by freeing sampled instruments but only by the technical aspect skip to the line "But back to the topic:") I am doing a research and mail marathon right now. Again I am searching for more or less open source and free samples but this time I decided to browse more "free things" website archives. So far I found a handful of, more or less useful and nice, instruments or "noise" packs with a good license. Even better is that I try to contact as many instrument developers as possible per mail, asking them to release their already free-of-cost instrument under a more open license. Or if the license may be open alreaday but is unclear (sample licenses can be quite confusing if you press them into the Creative Commons frame) I asked for clarification. Surprisingly already several people answered which resulted in the freedom of some packs and, best of all, the producer with one of the closest and permissive statements (but otherwise very good) of all contacted me very quickly and said they want their free instruments as open as possible and the closed licenses were a misunderstanding, only for their fully commercial instruments. I'll release a list with download links on my blog nilsgey.de in the near future. If the linux audio community has enough webspace we could even mirror most of them. Part of my mails is always the permission to redistribute and mirror download. You don't believe how many say "do what you want with these samples, but you are only allowed to download them exactly here. If tommorow this website will be gone there is no legal way to get the samples anymore" But back to the topic: Sadly many of those instruments are in .nki or .nk* format which is the Kontakt Player or Kontakt Something Fullversion format. The wave samples are (often? by design?) there as plain files, but it is hard work to guess how they should be arranged and what is needed. As far as I know the kontakt format has more features, such as scripting, than sfz, which is currently the "Linux sample flagship". I hope I am wrong here. I know there are sample converter programs (for Windows) like Chicken Translator or the "W. Grabowski Extreme Sample Converter". I have used them and even simple conversions like sf2 to gig, or gig to sfz were always a bit odd or plain wrong. They have menu entries for Kontakt and EXS24 (the Apple Logic Sampler format, you see that quite often as well) but I don't believe that will actually produce accurate conversions. Is there someone who knows more about these formats? Even if it is not possible to write a sampler engine (it would not be the first [partly]binary, closed format loaded by open source software) maybe there is at least a way to get all the needed information to convert/correct them by hand or individual scripts. For the more pragmatical, non-100%-idealist people, that would be a major step in general Linux Audio mainstream direction. For the last years and currently many instruments are samples which seem to be interpreted data (I hope I am not wrong here). This is not the windows-VST problem but actually solvable without recompiling and re-releasing even the major commercial instruments. so far... Nils P.S. I got some packs which are just wave files or the nki files seem to trigger just one-shot samples. I thought about creating .sfz files for them. Any help would be welcome. I already have a github repository up with two projects (WIP), so contact me here per mail or IRC #lad if you are interested. |
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From: Nils <li...@ni...> - 2012-08-31 08:48:06
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On Fri, 31 Aug 2012 08:46:06 +0200 Graham Goode <ggo...@gm...> wrote: > Hi Nils, > > Have you read any of these forum pages? > > http://bb.linuxsampler.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=609&p=3641 > http://bb.linuxsampler.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3&p=2471 > > Kind regards, > GrahamG > Yes, I have read them. I am a (passive) forum member there as well. AFAIK these discussiosn were before sfz. The decision was sfz which was the correct move in my opinion. But nearly the whole thread ignores the fact that creating the engine, even reverse engineering the full retail kontakt 4.2 engine, is sill the lesser part of the deal. Creating the instrument libs is the real deal. This is not the typical software developer problem where you can do amazing things as a single person with enough motivation and effort and then inspire others to work remotely on the same project. Creating sampled instruments needs a high educational and skill level and costs a lot of money and there is no way around that. It is no surprise that most low cost and free instruments are drumkits ripped from an hardware drumcomputer or synthesizer and after that even more percussion from your kitchen and a few keyboard instruments. These are easy and quick task which requires little knowledge and can actually be done in any sampler format. sfz would be my choice here as well. But you don't find something like the East West Choir lib (with word builder to sing lyrics) or Vocaloid (solo singing voice emulation) as hobby project. This is actually so complex and complicated that you don't even find failed beginnings with a few samples recorded by the lousy local school choir. And you would have to write it as standalone program since there is no open sampler format powerful enough for such things. I couldn't care less about the kontakt (and other) format but even if LS had the most powerful sampling engine around there is still the need for instruments, and I bet they will be commercial. Still, a better sampling format, maybe based on sfz, would be still the correct move in the long run. (Until physical modelling takes over) It is the usual problem: How to attract people to contribute to the ecosystem (open or closed) without people who already contributed to the ecosystem. There is a need for the typical "killer app", or sample in this case. An interpreted, open (and therefore cross platform) format with LS as reference implementation and an instrument that will blow the people away. Nils |
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From: Devin A. <sur...@gm...> - 2012-09-01 22:44:06
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On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 3:13 PM, Florian Schirmer
<flo...@na...> wrote:
>> Is there someone who knows more about these formats? Even if it is not
>> possible to write a sampler engine (it would not be the first
>> [partly]binary, closed format loaded by open source software) maybe there is
>> at least a way to get all the needed information to convert/correct them by
>> hand or individual scripts.
>
> Besides the technical problem there is also a legal problem involved here.
> To protect the IP of sample developers the instruments sold by 3rd party
> developers are encrypted.
>
> My guess would be that using something like Autosampler to capture a certain
> snapshot of a library and convert that into something that your favorite can
> read is by far the most promising solution. But of course this depends on
> what you're looking for.
I haven't heard of Autosampler until now, but this seems like an
appropriate time to bring up synthclone:
http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
... which has some similar features, is free, and has a plugin API
that allows a programmer to add missing functionality.
--
Devin Anderson
surfacepatterns (at) gmail (dot) com
blog - http://surfacepatterns.blogspot.com/
psinsights - http://psinsights.googlecode.com/
synthclone - http://synthclone.googlecode.com/
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From: Christian S. <sch...@li...> - 2012-08-31 09:35:53
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On Friday 31 August 2012 02:06:05 Nils wrote: > I'll release a list with download links on my blog nilsgey.de in the near > future. If the linux audio community has enough webspace we could even > mirror most of them. Part of my mails is always the permission to > redistribute and mirror download. You don't believe how many say "do what > you want with these samples, but you are only allowed to download them > exactly here. If tommorow this website will be gone there is no legal way > to get the samples anymore" We still have plenty of webspace, so we can mirror sound libraries. And so can probably also do many other people from the Linux Audio community. So that's not a problem. > Sadly many of those instruments are in .nki or .nk* format which is the > Kontakt Player or Kontakt Something Fullversion format. The wave samples > are (often? by design?) there as plain files, but it is hard work to guess > how they should be arranged and what is needed. As far as I know the > kontakt format has more features, such as scripting, than sfz, which is > currently the "Linux sample flagship". I hope I am wrong here. Yes, Kontakt provides a script engine. For example some piano libraries use it to simulate the resonance effect in a real piano (that is triggered keys stimulating overtones of strings of other keys in the real piano). You might want to use this tool to view the human readable xml file encapsulated into nki files: http://www.linuxsampler.org/nkitool/ It might give you some insight about the articulation informations, and it helps to automate things like conversions. > I know there are sample converter programs (for Windows) like Chicken > Translator or the "W. Grabowski Extreme Sample Converter". I have used > them and even simple conversions like sf2 to gig, or gig to sfz were > always a bit odd or plain wrong. They have menu entries for Kontakt and > EXS24 (the Apple Logic Sampler format, you see that quite often as well) > but I don't believe that will actually produce accurate conversions. As soon as a sample library is not just a a collection of raw samples, but involves articulation of the material (filter, envelopes, ...), those conversion tools will never result in a library that sounds like in its original format. The sampler formats are simply too different. For example a low pass filter is not simply a low pass filter. Every sampler has its own specific filters, which have completely other characteristics than in any other sampler. Same applies to envelopes, the curves differ completely in every sampler. And sometimes it is even impossible for converters to apply certain concepts from one format to the different concepts in the target sampler format (e.g. dimension system of the gig format vs. script system of nki format). > Is there someone who knows more about these formats? Even if it is not > possible to write a sampler engine (it would not be the first > [partly]binary, closed format loaded by open source software) maybe there > is at least a way to get all the needed information to convert/correct > them by hand or individual scripts. Just ask. In case you want to work on converting Kontakt libraries, you probably might just read the Kontakt manual. Should take about 2 days or so to read through it and should be enough to understand the format from the aspect of a sample library designer. > For the more pragmatical, non-100%-idealist people, that would be a major > step in general Linux Audio mainstream direction. For the last years and > currently many instruments are samples which seem to be interpreted data > (I hope I am not wrong here). This is not the windows-VST problem but > actually solvable without recompiling and re-releasing even the major > commercial instruments. Sure! I agree with you in many aspects. It really needs a good collection of (preferably free) sample libraries. And pushing a cross platform sampler format like sfz might be become one would greatly improve the work and freedom of musicians. CU Christian |
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