Update: SFZ Instrument Maker for Philharmonia Orchestra (Beta Release) - Feedback Appreciated

[SoundGoddess]

Update:

I've spent about six weeks working on a program to automate easy creation of velocity-sensitive SFZ instruments using the Philharmonia Orchestra sample library.

I've released the first public beta copy here:
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/sfz-ins ... thors-love

This works on Windows computers with .NET Framework 4.5 installed (except Vista).

I'm in the process of getting it working on Vista now. Then I plan to get it working in Mono so that it runs on OS X, Linux, and XP.

It works by downloading and indexing the sample files from Philharmonia's Orchestra free sample library. It automatically extracts all the files to .WAV format and organizes them nicely into directories.

You can browse and play any of the individual samples.

It then creates velocity-sensitive SFZ files, by making guesses about what velocities to use to trigger which sample.

In order to play the SFZ files, you'll need a free player such as:

http://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando/
http://www.cakewalk.com/Download/sfz.aspx

The hard part of getting the samples downloaded and indexed and in a format conducive to easily generating SFZ files is done. However I'm not that knowledgeable yet in sound design so I need your help getting the SFZ files sounding good.

Here is more info about the format itself:
http://www.cakewalk.com/DevXchange/article.aspx?aid=108

Anyone who knows a bit about the SFZ format or who would like to collaborate with me on this, your help would be greatly appreciated

I will probably add a drum-kit generator for the percussion samples at some point.

Once I figure out SFZ better, the next step is to write an SFZ player of my own. Ultimately I'd like to create something similar to Image-Line's DirectWave. I like DW a lot but their SFZ support isn't that great and the interface is a bit tedious for creating instruments from scratch.

I am considering creating some kind of online community around the SFZ format. I find the information on it to be rather sparse, and would like to make this format a lot more ubiquitous.

[Musical Gym]

Which of the samples from the orchestra are you converting?

Which sfz player are you using to test?

[SoundGoddess]

Which of the samples from the orchestra are you converting?

All of them...basically you select the instrument, select the length, and tell it what velocity range you want to use for the dynamics, hit a button, and it spits out an sfz file. It also downloads the samples and converts them to wav for you, streamlining everything to make it easy.

I'll probably make a drumkit generator for the percussion instruments too...but that won't be in the initial release.

Which sfz player are you using to test?

sforzando and directwave

[Musical Gym]

Sounds like a fun project.

Will stay tuned. Thanks for doing it.

[MA-Simon]

Sounds very Interesting!

[SoundGoddess]

I just released the first public beta, version 0.9.1201:
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/sfz-ins ... thors-love

I also updated my initial post. I'll do an official announcement thru the KVR news soon.

Please read my original post as I updated it.

[CTStump]

Thanks for doing this, a little problem,

When I hit Download samples nothing happens?

Might want to add a link(to the sample library) here so we can download if necessary.

I'm on Vista X64

.Net Framework 4.5.1 installed

Also you may want to add Loop_mode, Loop_start and Loop_end to the editor and maybe effect1(Reverb) and effect2(chorus)(Global).

Thank's,
Charlie

[SoundGoddess]

Thanks for doing this, a little problem,

When I hit Download samples nothing happens?

Might want to add a link(to the sample library) here so we can download if necessary.

I'm on Vista X64

.Net Framework 4.5.1 installed

Also you may want to add Loop start and Loop end to the editor.

Thank's,
Charlie

Hey Charlie, thanks for the feedback

Did you hit "build database" first? Did that work to index the instruments? Did it generate any error messages? Have you tried running it as an administrator?

Please also try explicitly setting the Samples directory via the Options menu, and make sure the folder you pick has enough space, as you'll need at least 2 to 3gb of free disk space.

Occasionally in my testing it seems like the download button doesn't always capture the mouse click the first time; can you confirm for me if the button appears to disable itself and start processing, or does it just do nothing, as if the button isn't linked up?

I would hope that it works in Vista if 4.5.1 is installed; however I have not actually been able to test it in that environment since I don't have a copy of it installed anywhere. I've only tested it on 7, 8, and 8.1.

It's possible that there may be an incompatibility; I suppose I can install it in VirtualBox to see if I can debug it there. But if I do that for you and get it working in Vista (assuming that it's currently Vista-incompatible), I respectfully request that you be willing to spend an hour or two of your time working with the software and helping me improve it, is that a deal? Please try the stuff I listed first though and let me know

I could probably get it working on XP too, but I'm not really going to mess with XP unless someone is really interested in the software and doesn't have access to a more modern OS.

The samples can be downloaded directly here - http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/explore/make_music

They're MP3 files and have to be converted to WAV to be used as SFZ. There are over 13,000 files, so it's not really feasible to do that by hand; the software automates this.

I'm not going to bundle the samples separately as I feel like that could be construed as a license violation since their site states that the samples are free to use with the caveat: "The only restriction is they must not be sold or made available 'as is' (i.e. as samples or as a sampler instrument)".

With that restriction I may be skirting a bit into a gray area with this app, but I feel like I'm not outright crossing any lines. However I wouldn't feel comfortable bundling the samples with the app without asking for explicit permission from those guys first, and I want to get the thing a bit more polished and out of beta before I approach them.

Thanks for mentioning those opcodes to me; I am going to experiment with those tags and see what effects it has on the instruments.

[CTStump]

Okay I just tried it by first doing the database and it came back with a handling error,However it did compile the full list and displayed parameters.

When I tried the download samples it came back with an "only supported in windows 7" dialog(for each sample).

I had to open the task manager to kill the process however I am still going to download the samples manually and try it later and report sometime this week after I try it again.

As it stands it doesn't work so you can add Vista to the unsupported OS's(at least for the download button).

Really hoping we can get this to work, it IS a great idea, thank's.

[DSmolken]

Really hoping we can get this to work, it IS a great idea, thank's. :tu:

Yup, they put all those samples out there but the process of downloading, converting and mapping them could use a ton of streamlining.

[CTStump]

Well I'm sorry to say I have to bail on this project.

I starting getting runtime errors in my other software so I had to uninstall the 4.5.1 .NET framework and rolled it back to 4. I also uninstalled this app.

Safe to say Windows Vista is NOT supported, Oh well it was worth a try.

[SoundGoddess]

Well I'm sorry to say I have to bail on this project.

I starting getting runtime errors in my other software so I had to uninstall the 4.5.1 .NET framework and rolled it back to 4. I also uninstalled this app.

Safe to say Windows Vista is NOT supported, Oh well it was worth a try.

I'm in the process of getting it working on Vista. Perhaps I can port it to .NET 4 and make it XP compatible too; i think only one of the third party libraries i'm using is .NET 4.5-specific.

[Angrycrow]

I donwnloaded the samples separately from the software. I've pointed the sample directory to the right place. However. I'm unable to build the DB or generate SFZ. The sample data ( in the default DB i suppose ) is still pointing to the wrong location. Can I get some help with this please?

[SoundGoddess]

Use the software to download the samples, it organizes all the data for you and puts them into the DB.

[REALOldNick]

I asked to download samples and lost of data started streaming. But if I then ask to View Sample Folder, it's all empty.

Thanks

Nick