Sononym sample management/browser

[danoise]

You need to do a refresh. But that just deals with the changes.

Yep, a refresh does not mean that you have to start analyzing files all over, only newly arrived/changed or removed files are affected.
It would of course be great if such changes could be picked up automatically, but that's not necessarily a trivial thing to implement.

[jeskolajeskola]

Hey, I appreciate the feedback on the ADSR one. There's big update about to release including a standalone version, key detection and a big under the hood optimisation which should make everything a bit more snappy. Still will be free... i'd appreciate if you gave it another chance when it's ready. If you PM me I can send you a beta build if you would like to give it a test.

I ditched ADSR after I demoed and bought Sononym. It could ingest my sample library (~250k) in about a day, database is about 4GB on an SSD. ADSR's never finished, and I let it run for 3 days. Sononym is rock stable, ADSR's crashed quite a bit. ADSR's added BPM to too many non-loop samples and it interferes with searching. ADSR's is based more on the filename, Sononym doesn't seem to care about that much, since it is analysing the actual sound.

Of course it's not perfect but the main category is usually reasonable, and it will multi- and grey tag when it's not entirely sure. Wavetables, for example, are usually classified as Bass. Impact foley can be classified as various cymbals, snares, etc.. instead of breaks & smashes. But there are so many other thoughtful measures. There's class (oneshot or loop), pitch, BPM (only for loops and it's very good at detecting them), brightness, harmonicity, noiseness, rms, and you can sort the list by any of those. There are so many filter categories, including the aforementioned, and file info, and you can limit it by range. Then there's the similarity search, and you can prioritize the aspects: overall, spectrum, timbre, pitch, amplitude.

Sample playback is generally fast. You can browse by database or by file system. File system browse isn't analysed, so other sample browsers generally beat it. I like Resonic Pro; it's extremely fast and can loop sections. Anyway, nothing beats Sononym at classifying and searching for similarity. I am waiting for rx2 support, manual categorizing/correction, and it could use A-B looping, but otherwise I am very satisfied. Demo it and see if it works for your workflow.

I was also demoing Algonaut Atlas, but it also wants to be a drum machine, so I'm waiting for them to improve the classification and search aspects. I like the map concept but it's not too good with large libraries. Sononym's search workflow is faster and better in general. I also like the play random sample when I've got the entire database (I have smaller databases to narrow the search down), it's inspiring.

But since ADSR's is free I can't complain too much. It's wonderful for what it can do and they're open to feedback and are working on it. Competition's good and it'll be interesting to see how this develops.

[Mathematics]

How has your experience with Sononym been thus far? I like the functionality of XO in terms of how it has the ability to create drum kits from what you have, and offer suggestions varying levels of similar sounds, but it doesn't seem at all fair to compare the two. So, for now, after having used it for a few months, how do you rate it now? Has it been an effective tool?

[dandezebra]

I would let you know if it went on sale! Nudge nudge

[Mathematics]

I have run the demo of Sononym, and it definitely dug up some lost files and helps to revitalize the stock library of sounds that came with Live 8 (yep...back in the day) which I saved and imported into Live 10. Oddly, it doesn't play back all native Live files with the *.aif extension. I've contacted the developer about some UI features I think it lacks, but as it is now, I like it.

I agree, it's stable. I keep wishing it could do what XO does with drum samples, like creating kits and randomizing samples to pair up with different samples/kits. Honestly, that is such a brilliant plugin. Sononym, though, is a different beast. I feel like I'll be investing in both sometime soon because both should be integrated functions that every DAW should have.

As far as the price tag, I shouldn't complain much about it, but considering that it still is a bit too vanilla-ish in terms of how it suggests samples, lacks basic features like the ability to compare across all libraries, and the cumbersome way of creating new Collections of marked samples, I would definitely pick it up on a sale because it's not something I need, but it's definitely something I would use...from time to time.

[macmuse]

I tested both Samplism and Sononym, and although the match feature of Sononym was nice, the one I bought was Samplism. It's just really good for organizing, even though all my sample folders are already organized by developer, and then I have another folder with categories containing symlinks so that they are now categorized not by developer but by category (drums, ethnic, etc). So even though it just mirrors my actual folders, it still is very beneficial in just being able to preview samples quickly. Its tagging system is spot on and knows what developer it is (most of the time) and it's very fast. I also have Atlas for the drums, which will also handle MIDI parts. Both are very useful here.

[danoise]

Sononym now has an open roadmap where everyone (with a trello account) can comment/vote.
It's also a nice way to take a look over our shoulder and see what we're currently working on!
https://www.sononym.net/blog/open-roadmap/

Also: Beat magazine compares Atlas, Samplism and Sononym (March issue, reproduced with permission):
https://www.sononym.net/reviews/beat-ma ... .-sononym/

Since then, Atlas got competition from "XO", but our approach is still pretty unique AFAIK.

[dandezebra]

Summer sale?

[dionenoid]

I demoed this a while ago and the organising of my samples was so much better than with the free alternatives (ADSR, Loopcloud).

But my question is : any chance of a vst version ? Or another way of integrating with a daw ?

[yellowmix]

Very cool! I joined the Trello and posted some comments. Nice to see this level of involvement. Sononym is still my favorite audio asset search tool. XO and Atlas are specific to drums and are also drum machines, I am glad Sononym is purely an asset browser and management tool and not an instrument as the workflow becomes impacted to its detriment.

@dionenoid There are two items on the roadmap concerning that on the Trello.

[DrGonzo]

I just figured out that the library scan function is a bit temperamental.

Before I went to bed last night, I started a scan on one on my biggest collections. 8 hours later it was still not finished. Today I created a new folder where I put in one sample collection at a time and rescanning Sononym. Five hours later and it's done. Not a big problem but can be worth knowing if you guys have problems scanning your stuff.

/C

[dandezebra]

Labor Day sale? Sorry I keep asking, but being a teacher - I am broke as heck! Ha!

[danoise]

Hey all, there's an update to the update - v1.1.1. Fixes a bunch of stuff that was reported in the last couple of weeks:

* Fixed (v1.1.1): Security warning on install (macOS 10.14.5 and newer)
* Fixed (v1.1.1): Crash on app exit (affected some macOS installations)
* Fixed (v1.1.1): Misspelled category name (Athmosphere => Atmosphere)
* Fixed (v1.1.1): Inconsistent “Play and Stop” behaviour
* Fixed (v1.1.1): “Add to Collection X” not working from context menu

Release notes: https://www.sononym.net/blog/new-release-1.1.1

library scan function is a bit temperamental.

We will investigate, thanks!
Perhaps CPU performance was being throttled by power settings during the night? At least in theory, the "spoon-feeding" approach *should* have been slower.

[DrGonzo]

* Fixed (v1.1.1): Crash on app exit (affected some macOS installations)

Excellent! Thanks

/C

[aMUSEd]

I tested both Samplism and Sononym, and although the match feature of Sononym was nice, the one I bought was Samplism. It's just really good for organizing, even though all my sample folders are already organized by developer, and then I have another folder with categories containing symlinks so that they are now categorized not by developer but by category (drums, ethnic, etc). So even though it just mirrors my actual folders, it still is very beneficial in just being able to preview samples quickly. Its tagging system is spot on and knows what developer it is (most of the time) and it's very fast. I also have Atlas for the drums, which will also handle MIDI parts. Both are very useful here.

Samplism looks good - wish I'd done the same. I would like more control over the tagging in Sononym