Re: [Linuxsampler-devel] AKAI samplelibrary loader is online

[Christian S. <chr...@ep...>]

On 25 Mar 2003 22:28:31 -0800
Josh Green <jg...@us...> wrote:

> Are you sure Akai patches are distributed as files? I'd like to find
> this out, because I'm thinking that filesystem and lowlevel device
> access code really does not belong in libInstPatch. It seems somewhat
> like a portability nightmare and I wan't to try and keep libInstPatch
> as portable as possible.

Yes, I'm sure. There are mostly two file types: sample and program files
of course, but I also found another type (0x00) now, which I'm not sure
about what it's purpose is yet. I would bear the sacrifice to lose some
portability, because I think the user should not be forced to use
another tool just to copy and convert Akai ROMs to HD.

> that can then be imported using libInstPatch. Can one find Akai
> patches on the internet for example? What format would they most
> likely be in?

I've only seen images so far. And I don't think you will find something
else. Ok, except S5000 / S6000, as they use FAT fs, and wav files for
samples.

> What revisions of the Akai formats are most desirable to support? Here
> is what I currently have:
> 
> S900/S950
> S1000
> S3000
> MPC-2000
> S5000/S6000
> 
> From what I have heard on this list S1000 is the most popular?

Yes, S1000 has the biggest library in the world. And BTW S2000, S3000
(XL), CD3000 (XL), S3200 (XL) use all exactly the same format and differ
only slightly from S1000.

I already started to write some code to read CDs' TOC and extract only
the first data track. I've not checked it yet, but I think that code
would be dependent on Linux. But it would also possible to fopen()
/dev/cdrom directly, so it would be more portable, but on the other hand
that way you would have to handle the whole disc by yourself and not
only the interesting Akai data track, so I would prefer the first one.

CU