Advise/suggestion needed for an 'universal' sample player

[encore1]

Hello,

I have got a pair of "sampling newbie" questions:

I have got various kind of sample file format: NKI, REX, SF2, SFZ, GIG, WAV, etc. I own Image-line DirectWave, NI Kontakt, and (since yesterday evening) Steinberg Hallion as It seems on the papaer that it could open a wide range of sample file format (GIG, NKI, etc) but after a few hours seems rather "domplicated" for my need. I agree I would certainly need to watch more tutorials and spend more time on it before saying this but... I am an 'impatient' guy ;o)

I also own "Extreme Sample converter" and since recently "Awave studio" to convert my sample libraries potentially to one UNIQUE format.

I would like to know if there is existing a SIMPLE sample PLAYER which would accept ALL the most currently available format.
By SIMPLE I means: you double click on a file or load it in the player and tadaaaaa it works ! without any need or creating programs/layers/etc. I do not need to create my own sample library neither or resample VST outputs, all those complicated stuff, etc.

Alternatively I would like to know in which format are you most commonly converting your samples ? SFZ, NKI ?

Any suggestion greatly appreciated.
Many thanks in advance for your help & wise advises.
Cheers, eric

[PTV]

TX16Wx can read many file formats:WAV/AIFF/AIFC, FLAC, OGG, Yamaha waves, SF2, SFZ, Logic EXS, Akai AKP and REX/REX2, which is more than what most soft samplers will read. Unfortunately it doesn't support NKI and GIG files.

[encore1]

Hello 'PTV',

I was not aware of this TX16Wx application I will check it.
thanks a lot for your (very fast) reply.

Cheers, eric

[thecontrolcentre]

Grace by One Small Clue is another great little freebie ... http://www.onesmallclue.com/plugin/grace/

•2 filters per voice (LP, BP, HP, comb, lofi & ring modulation)
•2 x AHDSR envelopes
•2 x LFOs
•2 x step sequencers
•4 x XY control pads
•WAV, AIF and SND formats support
•SFZ patch import
•Drag and drop sample loading from some DAWs
•Browser with sample preview
•Patch import & export support from Chicken Systems

Included Sample Content

The first patch library for Grace comes from WaveShaper and contains 54 original patches rich with vintage synth charactor. All patches use samples captured from a collection of analog synths and drum machines.

Library Contents
•14 bass patches
•18 synth pad patches
•10 vintage keys patches
•12 drum kit patches

[encore1]

Hello ' thecontrolcentre'

thank you for the information, I will take a look too at this tool but it does not seems to 'play' a lot of format at a first sight. Thanks anyway for your suggestion.

Cheers, eric

[encore1]

Hmmmm... Since earlier this afternoon I managed to 'import' also SFZ and GIG file to Hallion .
I stupidly thought that it would PLAY them directly but it simply comnvert them to wav files apparently...
anyway, Hallion was half the normal price and it came with a lot of .VSTSound so I wont complain ;o)

I have just tried also SampleLord which is playing the following format: GIG, SF2, FXP, NKI, EXB, WAV, AIFF and is quite cheap compared to what is is doing finally.

Why is it so difficult to found 'swiss army' sample player which could natively PLAY 'any' file without importing / converting it ?

[Tj Shredder]

If you just want to play ready made sounds, why do you insist on having a single tool? Use Kontakt for Kontakt libraries, Halion for Halion libraries and sforzando for sfz etc... That would be the no hassle solution. The one which supports the most is Kontakt, but the commercial ones, those which play in the player only version can’t be played in anything else but Kontakt, as the samples are copy protected... Its simply impossible to create that one fits all tool...
I think Halion is most likely the most powerful tool if you want to get into your own sound design, but its a technocratic monster and made to be hard to learn... I am very happy with the sampler which comes with Bitwig btw... (reads sfz at least...)

[encore1]

Hello @TJ Shredder,

Thanks for your suggestion. I start to realize that it will be very difficult to found a tool which will be able to handle most of sampler file formats .
As there are several available tools which knows how to convert from one format to another (Awave Studio, Extreme Sample Converter, CDXtract, ChickenSys Translator, etc) I was wondering why one of these companies having the skills to READ (and write) most of the existing sampler file format could not develop a simple U-NI-VER-SAL sample PLAYER ?

Not an "all singing all dancing" and ultra complicated one like HAllion or Kontakt but something like SampleLord (with a more modern resizable GUI perhaps) and supporting more file format would be the ultimate tool.

Even Kontakt is reading less and less file formats. I read some posts in NI forums saying that it was possible (until recently apparently) to open (AKAI, ROLAND,etc) ISO CD images with older versions of Kontakt but it is now impossible with version 6... I should have bought Kontakt a few years ago.

Cheers, Eric

[enroe]

Why is it so difficult to found 'swiss army' sample player which could natively PLAY 'any' file without importing / converting it ?

That is because every company developed its own specific format.
There are 3 things you need to know about samplers:

1. A sampler always uses:
a. audio-files. The formats are: wav, aif, flac, ogg
Most samplers just use "wav".

And a sampler always uses:
b. its specific audio-definition files. The formats are: nki, fxp, exs, sf2, sfz, ...
These files don't have any audio-content. They just define how the audio-files
have to be played by the sampler. These files are rather small. And these file
formats are the ones in which all samplers differ. So we have to look at these
"audio-definition-formats"!

2. Every Sampler or Sampler player uses his own audio-definition-format basically:

akai ---- akp
gigasampler ---- gig
kontakt ---- nki
halion ---- fxp
sfplayer ---- sf2, sfz

3. As you already found out: Steinberg Halion can read + convert
most audio-definition files. But what Halion really does: Halion converts these
audio-definition files into his own audio-definition file-format "fxp". So basically Halion
only plays "fxp".

Hmmmm... Since earlier this afternoon I managed to 'import' also SFZ and GIG file to Hallion .
I stupidly thought that it would PLAY them directly but it simply comnvert them to wav files apparently ...

Yeah. With Halion it is the easiest way to read audio-definition files and convert them
to the Halion-propriety format "fxp". If you really want to work with Samples you'll have
to do this conversion to "fxp". And yes: With Halion you can easily build up your own library.
It would be then all in "fxp".

Two remarks:

1. You could also try to convert audio-definition files by using the Chicken Systems
Translator. You named it already. This software does the most versatile translation
of audio-definition files, though it cannot convert everything.

2. You should be aware of the fact that a propriety-format like that of Halion "fxp"
or that of Kontakt "nki" handcuffs you to this company (Steinberg or NI) and its future
policies. If you create your whole library in their format, you will always in the future
need their current software and their dongle-system.

[encore1]

Hello @enroe,

many thanks for your very detailed explanations and especially the wise remarks at the end of your post. Based on them and your points 1) & 2) I finally decided to convert most of my different "exotic" file formats to the GIGasampler one.
This format is not really "tied" to one specific company and the very important point to me in favor of this format is that it creates 'monolithic-all-in-one' playable files. After using other files format for a while it ends always with problems that the sfz /nki / etc does not found the associated wav samples which are somehow 'lost' somewhere else on the hard disk, unreadable or where simply moved or... deleted by mistake and therefore the preset/patch is useless without its associated samples and can be simply thrown to the bin if one single .wav file is not available.

I do not have (yet) the Chicken System Translator application (their demo had a lot of limitations so I could not really test if it would work on my machine and above all unfortunately crashed several times on my Windows 10 PC so I am a bit afraid of paying a significant amount of money for something not working on my machine) but I have now the 'infernal-sample-format-converter-trio' :

• Awave Studio : Its batch conversion tool is really impressive and really easy to use but it needs a third party too to mound virtual CD images (the Free Elby's Virtual clone Drive is just fine for this)

• extranslator.com - Extreme Sample Converter.

• Soundlib - CDXtract... since this weekend.

With all these tools I finally managed so far to convert a few sets of most of the different sample file format I got to the GIGasampler format as a 'proof of concept'.
To play the GIG files I am using the Soundlib G-Player (their solo player version is really great as it is compact and does the job) or extranslator.com SampleLord which fits my need in term of simple and compact GUI.

I won't convert the Kontakt and HAllion stuff but all other 'exotic' format
=> Therefore, with maximum 3 applications I should be able to play "ALL" my samples without having to LEARN how to use 20 different applications to be able to read 20 different file formats.

Thanks again to all of you who kindly took some time to answer my questions related to this 'jungle' of sampler file format.

Best regards, Eric

[MillerGiga]

In the description of DirectWave, what does the Giga * asterisk mean?

[MillerGiga]

Found my answer on a eBay listing selling DirectWave