Scratching the Gigastudio market

[Wade Cornett]

Squids,

Any plans to extend SR's line of samples into the Gigastudio markets?

Wade

[nexussynth]

I shouldn't get in on this but I can't resist!

Seriously, Gigastudio is a dead platfrom at least from a developer's standpoint. The future is NOT Giga mainly because it has no copy-protection for the samples. Thats why Giga libraries like VSL and SAM and SI are being traded so furiously on the file-sharing networks. It has become a fact of life that built-in players that tie the samples together make it much less prevalent.

Sure, any product can be cracked but just witness the wild abandon that accompanies Giga sample trading.

No, I think Giga would have locked-up the samples if they could have.

Thats why we have the Philharmonik tied into ST2 and GPO and EWQLSO tied into Kontakt. Kontakt has made real inroads there. Now SI is going Kontakt as well as Big Fish.

But of course there IS the benefit of expertly programmed and edited samples and presets that make life much easier now for composing. There is also enough tweakability in the players to get whatever edits you might need.

Ditto for SS2 and Miroslav.

Giga streams from disk better than anybody right at the moment. Giga also STILL violates the Windows spec to do it. The GSIF is in conflict constantly with Windows. But, it still works fine you just have to dedicate a PC or two (or three! ) to it. I would not run it on the same PC as my DAW application

Then it really is just for pros and they don't comprise a big enough market for developers.

It also does not offer the kinds of programming potential that Kontakt has especially now that K2 has scripting.


Giga is not the thunderbolt it once was when it came out several years ago. I think Nemesys knew it would wind up this way and sold Tascam a turkey ( that used to be an eagle).

Tascam keeps flogging a dead horse with Giga 3 like SONY is doing with ACID now. (all these animal metaphors! )

Sorry but it's had it's day. We just had a small announcement of new libraries for it proceeded by SI's announcment that they are going to support Kontakt player versions of their libraries. The libraries that are out now are going to be it. They were in development in anticipation of Giga 3.0 that missed it's entry window and is now fading gradually.

Big Fish held-off on their First Call Horns to wait and integrate it with a Kompakt Player.

And so it goes.

If I had plunked down the cash for the Giga 3 I'd kind of feel like a MAC purchaser right now

Okay, just my opinion but watch and see over the next year how many NEW libraries are announced compared with Kontatkt ST2 and even MOTU.

I've said my peace here on this..

As usual for violating the Giga cult (and it really does have one!), let the flames begin

[Stairsteps]

Sounds of birds chirping can be heard, and a tumbleweed or two.

[TrekStar]

I The future is NOT Giga mainly because it has no copy-protection for the samples. Thats why Giga libraries like VSL and SAM and SI are being traded so furiously on the file-sharing networks. It has become a fact of life that built-in players that tie the samples together make it much less prevalent.

what you're talking about? the into-kontakt fixed libraries are not being traded? why do you think so? any experiences ?

these fixed libraries as gpo and ewql etc are very annoyong imo. I want to chose the sampler on my own with which I play the library. meanwhile it all has become a big kontakt monopole. that's no good development imo.

[ChimeraMan]

I'm not part of any cult and I love Kontakt2 etc...but;

Giga 3 is by far the most pro and easiest sampler/host I've come across. The sound is shit-hot especially with the incorporation of Gigapulse. Compared to Kontakt and all the other offcuts, Giga 3 is like..well..better than sex? No, that can't be right...my wife loves taking it up the Gary Glitter and spring cleaning the General after. Must just be that it's better (IMO) than anything else for the job.

I do have a dedicated 2500XP+ machine for it and although I'm happier with it being on it's own system...it used to run fine when sharing with other hosts at the same time (i.e Logic 5). Now it's all slaved to a G4..shame that.

[nexussynth]

I The future is NOT Giga mainly because it has no copy-protection for the samples. Thats why Giga libraries like VSL and SAM and SI are being traded so furiously on the file-sharing networks. It has become a fact of life that built-in players that tie the samples together make it much less prevalent.

what you're talking about? the into-kontakt fixed libraries are not being traded? why do you think so? any experiences ?

these fixed libraries as gpo and ewql etc are very annoyong imo. I want to chose the sampler on my own with which I play the library. meanwhile it all has become a big kontakt monopole. that's no good development imo.

Okay, I'll clarify.

I have seen for example, just the 8 section horns from VSL being downloaded. 28 megs. OR just handful of instruments etc. Just take what ya' need like a grab-bag.

The strength of the big libraries is that unless you've got REAL fast connetion or your conncected all most of the time to like T1 line, your're NOT going to be downloading an 8 gig file. The cracked versions of like QLSO still have the huge monolithic file the samples are in.

This makes it less prevalent. It still goes on but if I were a developer I'd go the player route with a new release not Giga.

And First Call Horns will be available for Giga too... for a while.

Okay, now I'm out of thread!

[nexussynth]

I do have a dedicated 2500XP+ machine for it and although I'm happier with it being on it's own system...

Well there you go. Pro level. Most average musicans are lucky if they can get one fast PC. Glad you could afford a dedicated computer to it.

Okay, just my opinions from being around the music business for 30 + years...

[Squids]

I like it when my sounds are protected. I hate it when anyone trades our worse SELLS bootleg copies of our stuff. It doesn't happen as much to SR for some reason.

As for Giga, I personally like it and always have. I would have supported it sooner (as in Giga 1 or 2) but for some reason I was stuck on waiting until it supported both Mac and PC. Now I don't care quite as much about that but I still do like it when both platforms are considered. But, the other reason is that we've always been different than every other sound developer and have done things like SampleTank format sounds (I mean, what other sound developer has really?) and Reason which even though there are quite a few refills out there you don't find THAT many that REALLY use the NNXT heavily (which happens to be a cool sample module in many ways). ST2 and Reason are top sellers so it kind of pays the bills. So, even if we may WANT to do Giga we'd have to have some good demand for it from our customers to make it a priority. But, we definitely have it and love it. So, it is probably only a matter of time.

As for protecting the sounds again, I am all for it whenever possible. It DOES affect sales one way or another even if it still has people finding a way to get around it. But, it doesn't mean I will only do fully protected sounds. We have a loyal customer base who support us and that is what keeps us around. I really don't think the caliber of customer that we've attracted would really WANT to rip us off knowing how cool we are to our customers and what we continue to do for their potential musical benefit. So, this allows us not to always have to be TOO crazy over it. However, when it comes to distributors and retailers it is more fair for them to be selling something that is protected. Miroslav Philharmonik will be protected in a new way and even the sounds will have to be authorized. That will be the way the ST2 sounds will be in the very near future.

[jmh]

If you're "in the know" - all the available sample formats and instruments with huge sound libraries are all shared or "traded" just the same, be it on p2p or ftp or whatever method of distribution.

This is rather simple to observe really, check out any of the blossoming p2p websites...

Certain companies making the most respected and known software in their respective fields have commented something like "copyprotections only work for the casual copying of the product. we're fully aware that our products are available as full versions on the internet - there's little we can do about that but the main reason for copyprotection in our software is stopping business users from using a single license across all their computers, and to make casual copying of the product harder".

Dunno if this is directly related to the topic. Thought I'd mention it since I cannot really see that GigaStudio is dying, and especially not because the libraries have no protection.

Another thing that caught my attention...

Giga streams from disk better than anybody right at the moment. Giga also STILL violates the Windows spec to do it. The GSIF is in conflict constantly with Windows.

Care to elaborate? What "spec" is being violated? And what kind of a conflict is there?

I also find it rather weird to claim how GS is a dead horse... certainly all the big name movie composer type users aren't going to switch to something like Kontakt overnight? And purchase new Kontakt versions of all the libraries they've invested in? (Unless of course their studio monkeys take care of importing and finetuning the libraries - time is money after all and you quite likely won't have a studio based on 20+ GS machines waiting for the sound libraries to get converted in-house while there's actual use for machines that brings in the money...)

One thing that kind of seems to be forgotten quite often is that those big multi-DVD GS libraries aren't directed to the consumer / "prosumer" market though the changes in pricing and appearance of new companies with different pricing policies have changed the image of the GS library market.

Personally, I'll consider calling GS a dead horse when I see VSL announced as a Kompakt / Kontakt based instrument...

Regards,

JMH

[Wade Cornett]

I feel like I opened some old wounds with this post (and maybe some new soars). Guys, thanks for the comments. Squids thank you for some insight on marketing samples. I belive the IK/SR Miroslav Philharmonik (too difficult to spell had to paste)has been marketed intelligently to folks like me that could not float a loan for the finer VSL products. I may be a customer agin real soon.

Wade

[DevonB]

But, it still works fine you just have to dedicate a PC or two (or three! ) to it. I would not run it on the same PC as my DAW application

<Cough> Like the Kompakt players are efficient compared to Giga? If you REALLY want to run QLSO Platinum, for example, each section should be run on a seperate computer. Big libraries have no 'better' solution. Multiple tracks (IE 30-40-50+) are going to take up multiple computers if you want to run in real time.

Devon

[DevonB]

The strength of the big libraries is that unless you've got REAL fast connetion or your conncected all most of the time to like T1 line, your're NOT going to be downloading an 8 gig file. The cracked versions of like QLSO still have the huge monolithic file the samples are in.

This makes it less prevalent. It still goes on but if I were a developer I'd go the player route with a new release not Giga.

And First Call Horns will be available for Giga too... for a while.

Okay, now I'm out of thread!

Ummm, T1 is slow. It's 1.5 Mbits per second. My cable modem does 4Mb or 2.5 times faster than T1. So with that in mind, I can download 1 gigabyte in about 8 minutes, one full DVD of content in about 40 minutes. This ain't 1992 anymore with 2400 baud modems. Cable modem only costs me $57 a month, or $42 if I subscribe to cable TV. In short, high speed is cheap and available these days.

Devon

[Squids]

Yes, a T1 is freakin' slow!!! Especially when shared in the office. We had to get a T1 because the lame telephone company didn't offer DSL where we are. Hard to believe! They just want more money. But, maybe a cable modem would be better if we can get that. Good idea.

[DevonB]

Yes, a T1 is freakin' slow!!! Especially when shared in the office. We had to get a T1 because the lame telephone company didn't offer DSL where we are. Hard to believe! They just want more money. But, maybe a cable modem would be better if we can get that. Good idea.

Actually, there is very specific distance requirements from a switch office. If you're over something like 20000 ft from an office, the signal is too degraded. Where I lived in Colorado, I couldn't get DSL, but it was a brand new neighborhood, and plenty of other places in town you could get it. Really, I didn't care, I had cable modem that worked fine.

Devon

[Alan Lastufka]

What "spec" is being violated?

GigaStudio works at Kernel level, meaning below Windows, it acts as hardware as far as your computer is concerned. This is why the Giga users' keyboards' "B", "S", "O" and "D" keys are all worn out from writing about their problems on forums.