me: 'does translator pro do kontakt/gsif to sfz conversions yet?'
Garth: 'buy it, then you'll know'
Silly nutter that I am I did buy it, to find out that the answer is no. And the answer to my inquiry for license transfer was no as well.
no comment.
Re: Chicken Systems Translator thread
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- KVRian
- 1202 posts since 8 May, 2003 from Munich
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- KVRian
- 690 posts since 31 May, 2002 from chez moi
Here's my latest experience with translator:
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=36703 &page=1&pp=10
I tried to translate from Halion or Kontakt to sfz. Garth offered to help with sfz translation on the forum. It turns out that translator freezes while converting to sfz. I emailed the support email address that I was asked to use. I never heard from them again.
Needless to say, I didn't buy the product. As they say, "buyer beware".
s
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=36703 &page=1&pp=10
I tried to translate from Halion or Kontakt to sfz. Garth offered to help with sfz translation on the forum. It turns out that translator freezes while converting to sfz. I emailed the support email address that I was asked to use. I never heard from them again.
Needless to say, I didn't buy the product. As they say, "buyer beware".
s
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- KVRist
- 440 posts since 9 Mar, 2003 from Denver Co
Awave studio anyone? I've never played with CST. I did a search and found too many disgruntled customers. No support. And well I didn't bite. They are many who swear by this app. But for me the thought of next to no support didn't seal the deal. Awave is not a converter, you do have to have some idea of how to work samples. But I CAN AT LEAST access the samples in most formats and go from there.
Thanks nutsadamis. Awave has always done exactly what I needed to do withour error. And as you can tell I have not explored every feature as I should have. RTFM: I have always used Awave to build samplesets and was unaware it did conversions. Nice to know though. Thanks again:)
To CST: By addressing complaints and getting the ball rolling you do neutralize complaints about you software. Keep that up, fix those bugs, and keep your user base informed and word will get around you look after your costumers. Once that happens you end up on users must have list. Simple. It was online posts I read when I was chosing which app to buy that lead me to conclued this. So I am happy you chose to address this directly.
Thanks nutsadamis. Awave has always done exactly what I needed to do withour error. And as you can tell I have not explored every feature as I should have. RTFM: I have always used Awave to build samplesets and was unaware it did conversions. Nice to know though. Thanks again:)
To CST: By addressing complaints and getting the ball rolling you do neutralize complaints about you software. Keep that up, fix those bugs, and keep your user base informed and word will get around you look after your costumers. Once that happens you end up on users must have list. Simple. It was online posts I read when I was chosing which app to buy that lead me to conclued this. So I am happy you chose to address this directly.
Last edited by lawapa on Fri Oct 28, 2005 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Pentagon,z3ta+,Tassman,Vsampler 3,FM7,Vocator,Sonar 3 Producer,SoundForge,Awave,Vegas 5
SFZ+,P5. And two kick ass DawBox machines!
SFZ+,P5. And two kick ass DawBox machines!
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- KVRist
- 268 posts since 28 Apr, 2003
Awave does indeed do straight up conversion. It worked the best out of all other apps for my needs, and its not hard to get a dialogue with the developers either here or via emails if you encounter problems or want to voice a feature request.
Another (cheaper)possibilty is Extreme Sample Converter, which is not as fully featured as Awave ie you can't extract individual samples of a given format to wav, but it has one of the best sample looping features and UI that I've used. It also does straight conversion well, although tbh i've only experimented transfering various formats to SF2.
Regards,
Nuts
Another (cheaper)possibilty is Extreme Sample Converter, which is not as fully featured as Awave ie you can't extract individual samples of a given format to wav, but it has one of the best sample looping features and UI that I've used. It also does straight conversion well, although tbh i've only experimented transfering various formats to SF2.
Regards,
Nuts
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 446 posts since 24 Apr, 2002
Responding to JaseisMusic:
I do bulk conversions every day with Translator, as long as most of our customers, so what you say is a falsehood.
I checked your posting record and I found that you complained about this on KVR (not to us) on April 15th of this year, and not to us, as we don't have any Bug Report or issue that reports this. So you've been having this problem for 6 months now and yet you haven't said anything about other than complain about this anonymously it on a forum.
Don't you want to do something about it? First, stand up and sign your emails. Secondly, if you are having issues, contact us. You probably are using an older version or aren't doing it right; honestly, Translator is used by thousands of people and they don't have your problems; hopefully, that's good news to you in that with a simple email, report, or phone call to Chicken Systems, you can solve your problem, instead of complaining about it anonymously every 6 months abut it.
HTH,
I do bulk conversions every day with Translator, as long as most of our customers, so what you say is a falsehood.
I checked your posting record and I found that you complained about this on KVR (not to us) on April 15th of this year, and not to us, as we don't have any Bug Report or issue that reports this. So you've been having this problem for 6 months now and yet you haven't said anything about other than complain about this anonymously it on a forum.
Don't you want to do something about it? First, stand up and sign your emails. Secondly, if you are having issues, contact us. You probably are using an older version or aren't doing it right; honestly, Translator is used by thousands of people and they don't have your problems; hopefully, that's good news to you in that with a simple email, report, or phone call to Chicken Systems, you can solve your problem, instead of complaining about it anonymously every 6 months abut it.
HTH,
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 446 posts since 24 Apr, 2002
Regarding sluggos SFZ post:
If you look on that NS thread, you'll notice that we were conditional on what we said; that SFZ was supported but we had no way of testing it.
Cakewalk never sent us our copy of Dimension (P.5 2), BTW, that's likely why any SFZ stuff hasn't been worked on.
I got your email and you are right, I didn't respond to it - it got buried; our fault. That isn't normative, we make it a practice of always answering emails.
But it's partially because the proper place for reports is our Bug Reports site listed in our manual; usually we ask the suer to file it there, or we go ahead and do it. My guess is that we were waiting and waiting and waiting for the copy with never arrive and thus everything else submerged with it.
It's not like we were ignoring you; again my apologies - a simple reminder or phone call would be enough for an explanation.
See our return email to you.
If you look on that NS thread, you'll notice that we were conditional on what we said; that SFZ was supported but we had no way of testing it.
Cakewalk never sent us our copy of Dimension (P.5 2), BTW, that's likely why any SFZ stuff hasn't been worked on.
I got your email and you are right, I didn't respond to it - it got buried; our fault. That isn't normative, we make it a practice of always answering emails.
But it's partially because the proper place for reports is our Bug Reports site listed in our manual; usually we ask the suer to file it there, or we go ahead and do it. My guess is that we were waiting and waiting and waiting for the copy with never arrive and thus everything else submerged with it.
It's not like we were ignoring you; again my apologies - a simple reminder or phone call would be enough for an explanation.
See our return email to you.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 446 posts since 24 Apr, 2002
Response to lawapa on "no support":
I'm sorry, you have got to be kidding.
Most companies that don't publish a phone number; we do, and in the US it's even a free call. We sign our emails and we have multiple ways of reaching us.
Tech Support: 1-800-877-6377, or 3230-235-9798
Email: support@chickensys.com
Forum: Northern Sounds http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... y.php?f=30
It's usually help available 14 hours a day, 6 days out of the week. And we've been doing it for 18 years. We take calls on the road, during breaks, during product road trips, in the morning, at midnight, on vacations, etc.
I'm not trying to be rude, and I'm sorry if I am, but do you guys believe everything you hear?
I'm sorry, you have got to be kidding.
Most companies that don't publish a phone number; we do, and in the US it's even a free call. We sign our emails and we have multiple ways of reaching us.
Tech Support: 1-800-877-6377, or 3230-235-9798
Email: support@chickensys.com
Forum: Northern Sounds http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... y.php?f=30
It's usually help available 14 hours a day, 6 days out of the week. And we've been doing it for 18 years. We take calls on the road, during breaks, during product road trips, in the morning, at midnight, on vacations, etc.
I'm not trying to be rude, and I'm sorry if I am, but do you guys believe everything you hear?
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 446 posts since 24 Apr, 2002
Reponse to xxRAVENxx:
I would NEVER say such a thing ('buy it, then you'll know'), I would never tell someone to buy a product to find out what it does. I would tell them either 1) if Translator did what they asked, if I could at the moment, and 2) tell them how to find that information if they forgot later or if they needed to know something else and they couldn't get a hold of us.
You can check on our web site all of this info - our web site is crammed full of information; it's completely out in the open with nothing to hide.
I don't want to accuse you of lying, but we never said anything resembling that.
I would NEVER say such a thing ('buy it, then you'll know'), I would never tell someone to buy a product to find out what it does. I would tell them either 1) if Translator did what they asked, if I could at the moment, and 2) tell them how to find that information if they forgot later or if they needed to know something else and they couldn't get a hold of us.
You can check on our web site all of this info - our web site is crammed full of information; it's completely out in the open with nothing to hide.
I don't want to accuse you of lying, but we never said anything resembling that.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 446 posts since 24 Apr, 2002
In summary:
Translator converts over 25 different source and destination formats, has an easy to use interface, lots of different features, and more. We have been in the sampling business for 18 years (going way back to the Transoniq Hacker days, for those of you that remember the pre-Internet days). it has a large Help File with tutorials and complete instructions. Our web site is large and has many helpful hints and history about samplers.
Translator technology exists in several prominant samplers, noteably the entire conversion engine for Kontakt, which many more coming out soon. We do all of NI's support concerning conversions, and help with many other Kontakt issuese for their customers.
We work in tandem with many prominant sample developers, such as Sonic Reality, Discrete Drums, Sonic Implants, ProjectSAM, Dan Dean, and many others; making their libraries work in varied formats and consulting when needed.
Personally, I have an article about Translations coing out in next months (I think) Electronic Musician.
Translator won the Editors Choice award from EM for the year 2002 for Best Ancillery Software.
We offer toll-free customer service via phone; 1-800-877-6377, or 320-235-9798. We answer that hone usally 14 hours out of the day, and often early and late at night.
We offer a forum on Northern Sounds for help questions, and have a automated well configured Bug Reports section for our customers for any issues they want to report. We try to address all things if we can within 24 hours.
We also often help people over messenger, although we don't publish those addresses for time reasons.
If you have an issue, take it up with us - we're available, and certainly capable. I hate to dispute everything that seems to be written, but where these people (not everyone, but the ones I mentioned) come up with this stuff I have no idea.
Translator converts over 25 different source and destination formats, has an easy to use interface, lots of different features, and more. We have been in the sampling business for 18 years (going way back to the Transoniq Hacker days, for those of you that remember the pre-Internet days). it has a large Help File with tutorials and complete instructions. Our web site is large and has many helpful hints and history about samplers.
Translator technology exists in several prominant samplers, noteably the entire conversion engine for Kontakt, which many more coming out soon. We do all of NI's support concerning conversions, and help with many other Kontakt issuese for their customers.
We work in tandem with many prominant sample developers, such as Sonic Reality, Discrete Drums, Sonic Implants, ProjectSAM, Dan Dean, and many others; making their libraries work in varied formats and consulting when needed.
Personally, I have an article about Translations coing out in next months (I think) Electronic Musician.
Translator won the Editors Choice award from EM for the year 2002 for Best Ancillery Software.
We offer toll-free customer service via phone; 1-800-877-6377, or 320-235-9798. We answer that hone usally 14 hours out of the day, and often early and late at night.
We offer a forum on Northern Sounds for help questions, and have a automated well configured Bug Reports section for our customers for any issues they want to report. We try to address all things if we can within 24 hours.
We also often help people over messenger, although we don't publish those addresses for time reasons.
If you have an issue, take it up with us - we're available, and certainly capable. I hate to dispute everything that seems to be written, but where these people (not everyone, but the ones I mentioned) come up with this stuff I have no idea.
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- KVRAF
- 3158 posts since 2 Jul, 2005 from Stuck in the closet
If I can butt in here for a sec. A long time ago I had a question about Korg files. I emailed Chickensystems and the next day I got a reply. It turned out that Translator couldn't do what I wanted it to do, but the person who emailed me back was very nice and down to earth. He or she wasn't mean at all. This was the first and last time I dealt with Chickensystems, but that's only because I have no need for their product. That's just my personal experience.
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- KVRist
- 293 posts since 9 Dec, 2002 from Europe, Stockholm, Brussels or Rome
Snarebottom, could you describe the procedure to trasnfer your S330 disk to HALion. I have a whole box full of my old S50/S550/S330 diskettes and would really like to convert them, once and for all.Lord Snarebottom wrote:I translated my entire s330 sampler library (yeah I know) into HALion programs, HOWEVER, there was no guidelines on how to specifically do this (the help file is rather lame) I figured it out okay on my own.
I remember trying to convert them and my old Emax diskettes to any useful format (using a friends PC which had Translator and Awave on it) and everything came out sounding totally strange or nothing at all. It was though two years ago, maybe the new Translator is better at doing it now.
I'd like to buy Translator but if this conversion doesn't work correctly maybe I better give up the idea.
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- KVRian
- 1202 posts since 8 May, 2003 from Munich
Ok I just looked up the archives, the email is from 10/19/04 and doesn't exactly read the way I recalled it above - so my apologies for the exaggeration.
Here's the quote from the email:
The included poster with all the nice arrows etc. made me believe it does kontakt & gig to sfz. Kontakt wasn't included as source at the time (it might now, I removed it from my machine after 3 or so months after buying it). Also you sent me a replacement CD as the onne I purchased had a corrupt installer on it, which I apreciate. It just gets really frustrating when having to deal with crashes, weeks of delay because the CD doesn't work, then some patches leave translator crashing on launch. Things like that are very frustrating when you're on a schedule and need to do conversions and the product that's supposed to do the job doesn't.
I'm not really interested pointing fingers, but what I am interested in is to have working conversions from my libraries into sfz (the sfz format definition has been available on the rgc website openly every since).
Back then of course there was no dimension and there was nothing known of rgc becoming a cakewalk asset, so maybe the economic appeal just wasn't there at the time to spend manhours on an sfz implementation into translator.
How do I get these conversions done? Help me out here. Garth, I know 'normal' users may not look as flashy as sample library or software developers do, but please do keep in mind we don't buy translator for shits'n giggles either. I'm sure you understand that.
best
Markus
Here's the quote from the email:
Thing is that the conversions didn't work, some crashed translator, some created unusable sfz files.Garth wrote:It is now, if you'd like, get it and let us know how it is.Markus wrote:>when will the sfz format be supported please? How extensively do you
>plan on supporting it for the conversion? I have some very extensive
>conversions coming up, and am on the hunt for a converter thats as
>accurate as possible and reliable support for opcode translation
>inquiries (over 100gig of conversions coming up so thats very important
>for us).
The included poster with all the nice arrows etc. made me believe it does kontakt & gig to sfz. Kontakt wasn't included as source at the time (it might now, I removed it from my machine after 3 or so months after buying it). Also you sent me a replacement CD as the onne I purchased had a corrupt installer on it, which I apreciate. It just gets really frustrating when having to deal with crashes, weeks of delay because the CD doesn't work, then some patches leave translator crashing on launch. Things like that are very frustrating when you're on a schedule and need to do conversions and the product that's supposed to do the job doesn't.
I'm not really interested pointing fingers, but what I am interested in is to have working conversions from my libraries into sfz (the sfz format definition has been available on the rgc website openly every since).
Back then of course there was no dimension and there was nothing known of rgc becoming a cakewalk asset, so maybe the economic appeal just wasn't there at the time to spend manhours on an sfz implementation into translator.
How do I get these conversions done? Help me out here. Garth, I know 'normal' users may not look as flashy as sample library or software developers do, but please do keep in mind we don't buy translator for shits'n giggles either. I'm sure you understand that.
best
Markus
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 446 posts since 24 Apr, 2002
Reponse to invitia:
Emax isn't supported yet, so that wouldn't have yielded anything productive or anything at all.
S-5x support, which includes S-330, has been in Translator for a long time. There were a couple times along the way where the conversion was broken for these reasons which we had to find out through experience; and also the documentation wasn't completely clear on this for awhile.
-S-5x patches from floppies as opposed to CD's was different
-Multiple floppy parts had to be considered
-S-7x floppies needed to be supported
-The many, many permutations of Roland S-5x/W-30-S-330 all behave slightly differently
-DJ-70 floppies were yet again different
-S-5x stuff convers floppies, CD's, 12 or 16-bit, old bitwise parameters, and other funny stuff
We don't get documentation for these things, so as a result we have to find out these things along the way and support them in the program, which can lead to crumbling the "house of cards" from time to time. For us we try to minimize this as much as possible, which makes it important that we get as close to our users as posssible.
I should mention that Awave's support of S-5x only convers certain Roland S-5x types, I believe only S-550, adn not the plain S-50 stuff.
Which is why I like to stress that we like reports from the field such as yours. We do plenty of testing and regerssive testing but ultimately the user base is the best area to collect information, it usually is the best.
AFAIK, the S-5x stuff has been stable for awhile, and we are working on some DJ-70 stuff on that line right now (If you are reading this Bernie, that's you!).
This is how you convert S-5x floppy disk:
Use SDisk, which is included with the Translator package, in WIn98 using the Win98 bootdisk in the Translator package, to get a .out file of your particular S-5x floppy.
Get the .out to appear on the left. It will NOT show if it is a second part of a floppy set; only the first part shows on those. Right-click and Convert As... to your selected format. Each Patch will get it's own file, except for bank formats such as SoundFont, which will bunch them in one file.
S-7x floppies work a little differently; use Translator to make a Virtual Drive out of the .out file created (Tools-Register). It will appear under Virtual Drives on the left, you can then operate on it like you would a Roland S-7x CD.
Please note that you can bulk register Virtual Drives and even convert the whole Virtual Drive folder to make this an easier job.
HTH,
Emax isn't supported yet, so that wouldn't have yielded anything productive or anything at all.
S-5x support, which includes S-330, has been in Translator for a long time. There were a couple times along the way where the conversion was broken for these reasons which we had to find out through experience; and also the documentation wasn't completely clear on this for awhile.
-S-5x patches from floppies as opposed to CD's was different
-Multiple floppy parts had to be considered
-S-7x floppies needed to be supported
-The many, many permutations of Roland S-5x/W-30-S-330 all behave slightly differently
-DJ-70 floppies were yet again different
-S-5x stuff convers floppies, CD's, 12 or 16-bit, old bitwise parameters, and other funny stuff
We don't get documentation for these things, so as a result we have to find out these things along the way and support them in the program, which can lead to crumbling the "house of cards" from time to time. For us we try to minimize this as much as possible, which makes it important that we get as close to our users as posssible.
I should mention that Awave's support of S-5x only convers certain Roland S-5x types, I believe only S-550, adn not the plain S-50 stuff.
Which is why I like to stress that we like reports from the field such as yours. We do plenty of testing and regerssive testing but ultimately the user base is the best area to collect information, it usually is the best.
AFAIK, the S-5x stuff has been stable for awhile, and we are working on some DJ-70 stuff on that line right now (If you are reading this Bernie, that's you!).
This is how you convert S-5x floppy disk:
Use SDisk, which is included with the Translator package, in WIn98 using the Win98 bootdisk in the Translator package, to get a .out file of your particular S-5x floppy.
Get the .out to appear on the left. It will NOT show if it is a second part of a floppy set; only the first part shows on those. Right-click and Convert As... to your selected format. Each Patch will get it's own file, except for bank formats such as SoundFont, which will bunch them in one file.
S-7x floppies work a little differently; use Translator to make a Virtual Drive out of the .out file created (Tools-Register). It will appear under Virtual Drives on the left, you can then operate on it like you would a Roland S-7x CD.
Please note that you can bulk register Virtual Drives and even convert the whole Virtual Drive folder to make this an easier job.
HTH,
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 446 posts since 24 Apr, 2002
Response to xxRAVENxx:
I agree completely with your post; yes it is frustrating when things aren't going right. I've been there with programs that I've needed to work and they aren't.
SFZ was unqiue in that the format was completely open but yet wasn't supported by anything! That's why we put in SFZ support; it was so easy since it is a text-based format and it was available dcoumentation.
But it was not easy to test, since nothing loaded it! That was the reason for the response to your question that you posted, which I agree could have been and should have been more explicit. We answer up to 100 emails a day and sometimes we make shorter answers than we should.
Per sluggo, we were explecting to get Project 5 in 3 months ago from Cakewalk, in which it was a slam dunk for us to iron out any SFZ things at that time. They promised us a copy shortly after Summer NAMM. Once it would have came in, we would hav immediately worked on it. But since it didn't come, and no one was on our back about it, it got buried.
At AES, we got another committment it would come, and yet it is still not here. We aren't fans of shelling out when we don't have to, but it looks like we're got to just go out and get it.
(Why companies do that I'm not exactly clear, but I know they are busy too.)
We recently got done a MV-8000 format conversion successfully using a very thorough and helpful beta-tester; we certainly did not want to invest $2995 on a MV-8000 just to finalize a conversion we already had specs for. I am certain that an equivilant beta-tester could do the job for SFZ as well.
So if you'd like, sluiggo and/or xxRAVENxx, let's pick up on it and let us know privately if you want to get this going, the process shouldn't take more than several days, since SFZ is practically done as it is.
I agree completely with your post; yes it is frustrating when things aren't going right. I've been there with programs that I've needed to work and they aren't.
SFZ was unqiue in that the format was completely open but yet wasn't supported by anything! That's why we put in SFZ support; it was so easy since it is a text-based format and it was available dcoumentation.
But it was not easy to test, since nothing loaded it! That was the reason for the response to your question that you posted, which I agree could have been and should have been more explicit. We answer up to 100 emails a day and sometimes we make shorter answers than we should.
Per sluggo, we were explecting to get Project 5 in 3 months ago from Cakewalk, in which it was a slam dunk for us to iron out any SFZ things at that time. They promised us a copy shortly after Summer NAMM. Once it would have came in, we would hav immediately worked on it. But since it didn't come, and no one was on our back about it, it got buried.
At AES, we got another committment it would come, and yet it is still not here. We aren't fans of shelling out when we don't have to, but it looks like we're got to just go out and get it.
(Why companies do that I'm not exactly clear, but I know they are busy too.)
We recently got done a MV-8000 format conversion successfully using a very thorough and helpful beta-tester; we certainly did not want to invest $2995 on a MV-8000 just to finalize a conversion we already had specs for. I am certain that an equivilant beta-tester could do the job for SFZ as well.
So if you'd like, sluiggo and/or xxRAVENxx, let's pick up on it and let us know privately if you want to get this going, the process shouldn't take more than several days, since SFZ is practically done as it is.