KVR Audio

Megazoid · Post by **Megazoid** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:13 pm

Hey Guys,

Haven't been on the forum for about a year due to illness. Some people might remember in the past i spoke about working on a sample manager/explorer for the PC. This will be similar in nature to the current tools available for MAC/OSX with a few more features included for previewing large sample collections.

I would be interested in hearing what people would like to see. I will give a fuller description of what the current version has tomorrow but would like to get a rundown of what people want to see.

Let me know what you think!

- Dave

joshhunsaker · Post by **joshhunsaker** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:36 pm

ahh, perfect! I've always wanted a really happening sample manager. Here's my 2 cents

- preview support for huge number of any sample types(wav, aiff, mp3, soundfont, etc.)
- preview support for any bitrate/sample rate
- characteristic list, file type, size, bitrate/samplerate, and name filters for searching
- organization option to sort files per compatibility with vsti or effect (that is if you click "show" Kontact 2 files - it will list any file that is compatible with Kontact 2's loader...that would be cool)
- ability to load plugins and provide one note demo of each fxb or preset that you have personally designed...would allow for extremely fast auditioning of presets.
- making it geared toward musicheads like people here at kvr.

KKeene · Post by **KKeene** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:21 pm

-Easy file browsing, auditioning and file management (move/copy/delete/rename). The easier the better.
-All bitrates and sample rates supported

Megazoid · Post by **Megazoid** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:51 pm

joshhunsaker, i have almost everything done already as you described. I don't have support for sound font's though because i couldn't find information on the file specifications.

Regarding VST support, nothing is set in stone as of yet. You can load up DSP chains of VST's (or racks) and preview your samples through the chains without any trouble. However i didn't focus on VST presents/bank previewing at present.

zircon · Post by **zircon** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 3:50 pm

Preview support for soundfont would be hard, no? Considering there can be dozens (hundreds?) of sounds in a single file. How would the system know which to preview?

Megazoid · Post by **Megazoid** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:05 pm

The original idea was that when you clicked a soundfont file a treeview like sub-structure would appear below the selected file showing the available sounds in that soundfont file. You could click these from within the browser to preview each sound individually. However i couldn't find enough information on the format itself to do this.

griels · Post by **griels** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:37 pm

Megazoid wrote:joshhunsaker, i have almost everything done already as you described. I don't have support for sound font's though because i couldn't find information on the file specifications.

Does the SF2.1 spec not provide enough information on this?

There are already a number of sample browser/managers... What would be really handy (IMO) is some sort of file browser replacement/overlay that allowed preview of sounds within the standard Windows file browser...

Now if Wlodimierz could do that with EXSC3...

Megazoid · Post by **Megazoid** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 4:49 pm

Thanks for the link, i will do more research into this.

I couldn't locate any alternatives after a few days of searching except loophorse and maybe totalcommander with plugins. Both of which didn't have the features i really wanted or specific enough features for what i required.

Please keep the ideas coming though.

soulata · Post by **soulata** » Tue Jul 17, 2007 8:15 am

You could always nick an idea or two from the team that makes Altiverb, errrr...

k

chickeneps · Post by **chickeneps** » Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:50 pm

griels wrote:There are already a number of sample browser/managers... What would be really handy (IMO) is some sort of file browser replacement/overlay that allowed preview of sounds within the standard Windows file browser...

Now if Wlodimierz could do that with EXSC3...

Translator www.chickensys.com is a Explorer-clone interface already, and includes the context-menu options that Windows Explorer uses, so it's exactly what you want, available now. This has been in Translator for over 4 years. I suppose it can be integrated into the Shell without much effort.

Translator Free (that's free) can audition SiundFonts in exactly the treeview manner that was discussed on this thread - and it supports normal 16-bit SoundFonts AND 24-bit SoundFonts.

Plus, it auditions over 50 different formats - normal disk based ones and proprietary ones, with a waveform viewer. Plus you can save the sounds that run through the auditioner.

So such an "auditioner" does exist.

griels · Post by **griels** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:45 am

chickeneps wrote:
griels wrote:There are already a number of sample browser/managers... What would be really handy (IMO) is some sort of file browser replacement/overlay that allowed preview of sounds within the standard Windows file browser...

Now if Wlodimierz could do that with EXSC3...
Translator www.chickensys.com is a Explorer-clone interface already, and includes the context-menu options that Windows Explorer uses, so it's exactly what you want, available now. This has been in Translator for over 4 years. I suppose it can be integrated into the Shell without much effort.

Translator Free (that's free) can audition SiundFonts in exactly the treeview manner that was discussed on this thread - and it supports normal 16-bit SoundFonts AND 24-bit SoundFonts.

Plus, it auditions over 50 different formats - normal disk based ones and proprietary ones, with a waveform viewer. Plus you can save the sounds that run through the auditioner.

So such an "auditioner" does exist.

Hmm, thanks but what I really meant was something that augments/replaces the standard Windows File Dialogue offering patch/sample auditioning capabilities from directly within an application. There are already some applications which modify this dialogue (e.g. http://www.hyperionics.com/files/index.asp) so I'd guess this was possible?

sinkmusic · Post by **sinkmusic** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:16 am

I would like of course the display of duration, format, bit& sampledeth, size, date of creation, stereo/mono, etc.
But also a search engine (based on name, size, date of creation, etc).
And also a compare / find duplicates (also based on size / name, etc, but maybe also if possible on spectral / harmonic content

). I don't know any ssoftware doing this at the moment.

At the moment, i am using the excellent XnView, but it doesn't have sample bitrate/depth display...
WMplay is fine, too (it is mainly a media player).

joshhunsaker · Post by **joshhunsaker** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:18 pm

absolutely brilliant sinkmusic. A sample manager that catalogued harmonic content would probably be the first of it's kind (and, I dare say - extrodinarily useful in unexpected ways).

i think if it had a multiple modes (sample browsing/audition mode, a very fast loading vsti/dxi audition mode (that could audition set samples inside vst fx), and maybe some other mode for different type of music related files - it would be extrodinary.

a really cool gui with some sweet startup sequence noise would be luscious too (like flstudio except a million times cooler).

Sample Browser/Manager (Ideas Required)