Re: SoundFont/DLS2/Gig (was Re: [Linuxsampler-devel] testing of linuxsampler and cvs activity)

[Mark K. <mar...@co...>]

On Wed, 2003-10-29 at 03:37, Steve Harris wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 12:19:49 +0100, be...@ga... wrote:
> > Ok, it is still monolithic (the recompiler stuff will come later,
> >  for now let's focus on good playback of existing sample formats)
> > but we will have no problems to accomodate
> > new loaders and engines because the Voice:: classes can be subclassed
> > to implement the characteristics of the engine associated to a certain
> > sample format.
> 
> I'm starting to doubt that the recompiling stuff is neccesary, the
> Gig/DLS2/SF2 formats seem to be quite expressive, yet efficiently
> implementatble, not even counting the XML+WAV formats used by newer
> things. I dont think that there would be much/any performance gain in
> using dynamic compilation, and how many peopel would want to design thier
> own instruments, when they could use standard formats have have greater
> compatibility?
> 
> Its still a nice idea though, but maybe more suited to a softsynth.
> 
> - Steve

Hi,
   In a private email to Benno earlier, I had asked the question "What
sort of sampler do you want LS to be?" (I have no opinion formed today) 

   I see GSt and Kontakt as the two leaders today, and they really are
different sorts of animals. GSt is pretty much a playback engine. You do
all the editing in GigaEdit to set up samples, filters, envelopes, etc.,
to do what you want, but primarily the wave files just get played in
digital bit order. Nothing much happens in GSt. The *current* version of
GSt doesn't do a lot to modify sounds.

   Kontakt seems more oriented toward allowing you to mangle the sounds
in strange and interesting ways. It will chop samples, play parts out of
order, play them in reverse, etc., so you can get more wild stuff.

   What does this team want LS to be? I expect that LS will *need* to
have some wild capabilities or users of GST, Kontakt and others will
find it sort of boring. GSt 3.0 will be out some day. It will likely go
beyond where Kontakt is today. By that measure, LS would seem boring wo
many without some interesting ways to twist the sounds around.

   Personally, I agree with you. I'll probably just use the standard
model where LS looks like GSt most of the time. However, like the
difference between Reaktor and Reaktor Session, should some interesting
person take LS and mangle it into an interesting new configuration, I'll
probably use the compiled version of that also.

   I somehow doubt I will ever wire together pieces and compile them
myself, but it would be fun to see what others dream up.

Mark