Giga Studio is no MORE! At least with Tascam!

[bduffy]

Jeez. Hans Zimmer will have somebody's head!

Amazing. When Kontakt first came out, I thought nothing could topple Giga; funny how times change.

[retroz]

I liked Giga and the irony is for a PRO user, many had giga linked with Macs and now that the mac was just about to come out, zap, no more.

I can also understand the whole aspect of having the player wrapped as part of the software as it just works. That said, I have done numerous tests side by side and Giga always sounded a bit warmer, so if it makes it to open source, maybe the code can be figured out.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Apple picked it up. Would make good sense for them as the got their consumer products finished (iPod, iPhones, iMacs, macbooks) and soon tablets and from what I hear a new Final Cut that supposed to be very deep, still, but easy to use.

Apple Giga might work and since the marketshare of NON pro users are probably PC anyway vs MAC, (Kontackt, and so on) it would make sense for Apple to pick it up for their Pro App division. I think this could happen and I read today the team was only 5 members. I am sure Apple could have several dozen and don't think it would be that expensive to pick up.

They really dragged their feet (Tascam) with giga, but 5 people? WOW. that's asking a lot for five people, know wonder it took forever for updates. Sort of like Sony's Acid, great program for its time but hello, had they made a mac version years ago, it would have been the staple and abelton wouldn't have the share it does. That's another example. Acid, I mean the GUI looks like its still from Windows 98. Geesh.

[retroz]

Jeez. Hans Zimmer will have somebody's head!

Amazing. When Kontakt first came out, I thought nothing could topple Giga; funny how times change.

Yeah, I agree.

But heres the thing, I didn't know Tascam had only 5 guys on the project.
No wonder it took them so long and some can debate this forever but if
you listen to some samplers side by side (I have a really good ear, so good that
Paul (owner still? Groove Tubes), wanted me to come work for him, but I could hear
the difference and GIga just had a more natural sound.

Now if your're talking about instruments that have built in samplers,
I guess you just can't compare as you could never load them into Giga.

Ironic though that the Pros (like you said Hans) use MACS and link with PC.

I have a feeling Apple will go after this. All depends on the numbers I suppose but
it would make a good fit for them, of course, non mac users would be peeved, then again,
any macbook ($999 with college discount) works great as an audio machine. 2X+ faster than
a dual G5 and thats on a laptop.

We'll see.

[koolkeys]

Didn't Hanz Zimmer move to his own custom player? I could have sworn he did. I KNOW he has his own secret custom sample library that he uses now, but I thought he also moved to his own player.

Of course, he also has multiple workstations linked directly and is the equivalent of a super computer, so he can do anything he wants with samples.

Brent

[retroz]

Didn't Hanz Zimmer move to his own custom player? I could have sworn he did. I KNOW he has his own secret custom sample library that he uses now, but I thought he also moved to his own player.

Of course, he also has multiple workstations linked directly and is the equivalent of a super computer, so he can do anything he wants with samples.

Brent

I think he did and I think this group, forum what have you, had something of the same, e.g., last night I saw only one thread, then joined and saw more, then tonight I joined with another user id and this time it sent me an email to activate, still, it let me join, just wondering who's going to end up there and what will happen if we're not developers? Haven't posted anything yet and downloaded the free FX pack that came from Cinematix (Acid?) I use mac so I will try them, but believe I read newer stuff then poof, message, no, thread was gone.

Enjoying while I can.

A shame about Giga, wasn't that like the father of Samplers? The God Father of samplers?

[koolkeys]

It used to be the industry standard. Kontakt has since taken over that role, but I thought Giga was still going strong enough due to the large amount of people who still use it. But I guess not.

It's possible that Tascam, a hardware company, just couldn't justify the costs of a mainstream software sampler. There COULD be a sale that has taken place, although it doesn't sound like it. But there is no official news that I've seen on the Tascam page, just the product moved into the discontinued products page. So I'm sure more official news will come out.

I believe at this point all we have is what was written in an email to current library developers using the GVI engine.

Brent

[bduffy]

Jeez. Hans Zimmer will have somebody's head!

Amazing. When Kontakt first came out, I thought nothing could topple Giga; funny how times change.

Yeah, I agree.

But heres the thing, I didn't know Tascam had only 5 guys on the project.
No wonder it took them so long and some can debate this forever but if
you listen to some samplers side by side (I have a really good ear, so good that
Paul (owner still? Groove Tubes), wanted me to come work for him, but I could hear
the difference and GIga just had a more natural sound.

Now if your're talking about instruments that have built in samplers,
I guess you just can't compare as you could never load them into Giga.

Ironic though that the Pros (like you said Hans) use MACS and link with PC.

I have a feeling Apple will go after this. All depends on the numbers I suppose but
it would make a good fit for them, of course, non mac users would be peeved, then again,
any macbook ($999 with college discount) works great as an audio machine. 2X+ faster than
a dual G5 and thats on a laptop.

We'll see.

Giga has a more "natural sound"? That's funny: it never comes out on top in tests.

[Compyfox]

Didn't Hanz Zimmer move to his own custom player? I could have sworn he did. I KNOW he has his own secret custom sample library that he uses now, but I thought he also moved to his own player.

His "secret custom sample library" is actually no secret at all. It's Audio Impression's DVZ.

I had a nice chat with Chris Stone in 2007 (or was it 2006 already?) about DVZ and who already got that system (it was out of beta at that time, but not for the public majority yet), and I can remember he mentioned his name, along some other well known soundtrack producers.


I mean, it's no wonder. DVZ is built up of several PC rigs with one control unit that takes care of the automatic key switching, the sound layering and section splitting (much like Synful Orchestra now). That is indeed more powerful and the system is also more efficient than GIGA or Kontakt at the moment. It's only that you pay a ton for it, but then again, you get 5 ready setup PC rigs in the process.

To be honest, TASCAM never reached that, even if you created a cascaded 5 PC/MAC rig system and used VSL. It was easier in terms of scoring, indeed. But it didn't save Zimmer from recording an Orchestra later on. Now it's a totally different ballgame - especially if you look at the fact, that he made OSTs for Anime, several games (co producer) and recently "Kung Fu Panda", too.

[Bob Nova]

Apple Giga might work and since the marketshare of NON pro users are probably PC anyway vs MAC, (Kontackt, and so on) it would make sense for Apple to pick it up for their Pro App division. I think this could happen and I read today the team was only 5 members. I am sure Apple could have several dozen and don't think it would be that expensive to pick up.

I dont see this happening at all.Logic already had a big Mac user base when it was bought, and Apple wanted the audio engine for other products.

Giga has no Mac market share,and when Apple kill PC support for it ,they'll be left with a user base that hates them ( All those PROs with 3-5 PCs )bitching about the cost of buying 3-5 Macs and PITA that would be.

If they kept the PC side of it ( the only way to guarantee any ongoing sales), significant work needs doing on the app anyway.GSIF is more a liability to attracting new customers than an asset with today's powerful machines.The hassle of getting a GSIF card kept many from even considering Giga.

I went Kontakt instead.It's easy to set up and use and sounds great.And the distinction of say, being able to run 600 stereo voices in Kontakt vs. maybe 800 in Giga doesnt cancel out driver issues, BSODs, GSIF, library availability,etc.

They were in trouble with Giga 3.And 4 was a flop, many of their base didnt upgrade.That's why it's dead.

[egbert]

They were in trouble with Giga 3.And 4 was a flop, many of their base didnt upgrade.That's why it's dead.

Exactly.

I think the genesis of all their problems was that Gigasampler/Studio was built originally on the endless wave technology which was (IIRC) licenced from Lucent.

This was both a blessing and a curse.

The kernel level driver gave Giga excellent performance and efficiency (voices@latency) back in the day. It also caused a lot of OS difficulties back in the Win98 era and made the transition to 2K/XP support much more difficult than that transition was for any ASIO or VST sampler. Giga bled market share during these delays.

When you have bought-in technology at the core of your application, you aren't necessarily equipped to keep the application abreast of the competition - people like NI, Steinberg and Emagic who build their sampler apps from the ground up.

[steff3]

Well, Giga was a great idea when it came out - but Nemesys was never able to really develop it further. First they ignored the mac market - which worked up to a certain time (when computers got powerful enough to easily run big sampler on the sequencer's computer) and then they ignored the plugin-trend. And all this with a arrogance that made them Digidesign of the sampler market (but the decisive difference: they only wanted to be the standard for most of the time of their existance)

Crossplatform plugins (HALion, Kontakt) where over long time more powerful, did not have the limitations of Giga 1 and Giga2, had better interfaces etc. They dropped the ball and innovation come for other companies.

For Mac users it is great - a lot of us have other samplers and now maybe some of the GIga-Developers now offer their products for other samplers that are crossplatform.

And why should Apple buy Giga - their exs can access more than 4GB ram, it has more third party support, is perfectly integrated with their sequencer .... Of course it has some short-comings here and there but would it be worth throwing money on a dead product or putting it into the development of the foundations they already have and which are solid ....

Maybe Steinberg - they are currently rewriting HALion so it could be a good time to add some things from Giga.

best

[magellan1492]

Didn't Hanz Zimmer move to his own custom player? I could have sworn he did. I KNOW he has his own secret custom sample library that he uses now, but I thought he also moved to his own player.

His "secret custom sample library" is actually no secret at all. It's Audio Impression's DVZ.

I had a nice chat with Chris Stone in 2007 (or was it 2006 already?) about DVZ and who already got that system (it was out of beta at that time, but not for the public majority yet), and I can remember he mentioned his name, along some other well known soundtrack producers.

Not sure where you're getting your information, but Zimmer does not use the DVZ library -- no one at his studio (including the man himself) even owns a system.

[bduffy]

Where the hell have I been? I've never heard of this "DVZ"!

Man, that turnkey systemlooks like something else!

[erminardi]

Jeez. Hans Zimmer will have somebody's head!

Amazing. When Kontakt first came out, I thought nothing could topple Giga; funny how times change.

Yeah, I agree.

But heres the thing, I didn't know Tascam had only 5 guys on the project.
No wonder it took them so long and some can debate this forever but if
you listen to some samplers side by side (I have a really good ear, so good that
Paul (owner still? Groove Tubes), wanted me to come work for him, but I could hear
the difference and GIga just had a more natural sound.

Now if your're talking about instruments that have built in samplers,
I guess you just can't compare as you could never load them into Giga.

Ironic though that the Pros (like you said Hans) use MACS and link with PC.

I have a feeling Apple will go after this. All depends on the numbers I suppose but
it would make a good fit for them, of course, non mac users would be peeved, then again,
any macbook ($999 with college discount) works great as an audio machine. 2X+ faster than
a dual G5 and thats on a laptop.

We'll see.

Giga has a more "natural sound"? That's funny: it never comes out on top in tests.

http://www.simonv.com/tutorials/quality.php

Gigastudio 2.x and later is one of the best sampler ever (antialiasing, etc.)
Kontakt is IMO "muddy" in extreme low and high keys

[bduffy]

Jeez. Hans Zimmer will have somebody's head!

Amazing. When Kontakt first came out, I thought nothing could topple Giga; funny how times change.

Yeah, I agree.

But heres the thing, I didn't know Tascam had only 5 guys on the project.
No wonder it took them so long and some can debate this forever but if
you listen to some samplers side by side (I have a really good ear, so good that
Paul (owner still? Groove Tubes), wanted me to come work for him, but I could hear
the difference and GIga just had a more natural sound.

Now if your're talking about instruments that have built in samplers,
I guess you just can't compare as you could never load them into Giga.

Ironic though that the Pros (like you said Hans) use MACS and link with PC.

I have a feeling Apple will go after this. All depends on the numbers I suppose but
it would make a good fit for them, of course, non mac users would be peeved, then again,
any macbook ($999 with college discount) works great as an audio machine. 2X+ faster than
a dual G5 and thats on a laptop.

We'll see.

Giga has a more "natural sound"? That's funny: it never comes out on top in tests.

http://www.simonv.com/tutorials/quality.php

Gigastudio 2.x and later is one of the best sampler ever (antialiasing, etc.)
Kontakt is IMO "muddy" in extreme low and high keys

I didn't mean to imply it was bad or anything, but I didn't recall it being the best, but I was thinking of some different - but similar - websites. And most of those pages are Kontakt 1.x; I wonder how Kontakt 3 stands up (probably shite; seems like everything I buy has the worst aliasing/quality/etc)?