[Linuxsampler-devel] DLS, libInstPatch and Python

[Josh G. <jg...@us...>]

Just wanted to mention what I'm up to with Swami/libInstPatch
development branch CVS and also some things about DLS files I'm finding.

libInstPatch is now split off from Swami and stand alone. I just got a
Python binding working with it, which has been real nice for testing
purposes, since creating a script is rather simple, and using
libInstPatch in an interactive Python shell comes in handy too. I've
been holding off on Swami development, till I get libInstPatch in a nice
state (been overhauling a few things to increase performance and the
like).

I finally realized that some P2P networks would be a good place to look
for DLS files, so I found a bunch of them there. Most of them are DLS1,
but I did find a DLS2 file finally. Its nice to throw some of them at
the DLS parser in libInstPatch, since I found some places where things
were being a bit too strict about things. I've also seen lots of weired
custom chunks, which I'm trying to figure out what to do with from an
editing stand point (should libInstPatch try and preserve custom unknown
chunks?)

I just ran into a DLS1 file that stores its audio as MP3!! I've often
thought about this before, but I figured that the looping would be a
problem (hard to ensure that the loop points overlap well after
de-compression). This file was written by Awave Studio
(http://www.fmjsoft.com/awmain.shtml). Anyways, just thought I'd throw
that one out there since it seems interesting that programs are actually
using other than PCM 8/16 bit formats. Ohh, and to correct something I
said before, it kind of sounds like DLS1/2 doesn't officially support
stereo interleaved samples, guess that didn't stop GigaSampler from
doing it though. There are a number of things that seem kind of
confusing with the DLS format though, this might become a nightmare as
more DLS editors have their own spin on how things should be done. The
upside is that the DLS format is rather customizable. I've already seen
a few files being flexible about what kind of sample data is used (MP3
being one example). Cheers.
	Josh Green

P.S. I have yet to commit any of my recent work, since it has been
rather broken up until a few days ago. I'll be creating a new toplevel
libinstpatch directory in the CVS repository soon though.