Vember Audio Shortcircuit is now open source!

[wikter]

The problem to support Shortcircuit patches will be the VA/Synthesis capabilities inherited from SC1/2. Shortcircuit was a bit ahead of its competitors in its time, supporting a high number of layers of VA/synthesis+sample with a lot of modulation.
In fact, there are some patches made of VA+Sampler (drumkits too) here in KVR for Shortcircuit 1.
And of course, there's a lot of open source SFZ, Sounfont & wav/aiff all around the web that we just need to reference to be able to use it without distributing.
All Beat's Zampler free sample data is available as SFZ.
https://musical-artifacts.com/ has some SFZ+SF2 files.
...And all the samples that will rise when a crazy freakin sampler emerge from the Surge Team...

[baconpaul]

Yeah I think we have many of those capabilities in XT now and I'm porting the rest, plus some new ones. (I just ported the SC1 faux stereo and yesterday ported the morph eq into XT for instance). But the old SCM riff file format is something we decided indeed, we aren't going to support.

We load SF2 and SFZ fairly well in the alpha today, and do a passable job with bitwig / presonus multisample. Some things still not done and the engine only got round robin in the last fortnight so that still doesn't import correctly from bitwig/presonus.

but anyway KVR isn't our dev blog. Our discord is our dev blog

[baconpaul]

Oh I see you meant "the problem for other people to support the format is..."

yeah that's exactly right. We have processors, effects, and modulation sources which are way way beyond what's in the SFZ, SF2, Bitwig/Presonus and Decent standards. And it would be kinda weird and pointless to reproduce them I agree.

So bottom line:

1. SCXT will be able to do an OK job starting an SCXT patch from an SF2, SFZ, BWS/Presonus multi
2. SCXT will be able to save that resulting patch in a file that other SCXT users can open, both with samples in and samples by reference, as dir or zip and get 100% fidelity but that patch format should be considered "opaque" except for samples.
3. SCXT will be able to do a partial but not complete export of a part to at least one open format, probably SFZ, but also maybe Decent and BWS/Presonus, but the features not in those targets won't be in those targets, and there will be lots such features
4. This will all be true in the future. Most of it is false now. But I'm waiting for CI to finish on a PR so I hopped back here.

[audiojunkie]

Hehe... I'm glad you're excited and we are too!

I think the prediction that our format becomes a standard is a bit of a stretch though. Not every sampler today needs to reach feature parity with existing options to justify its existence. At the very least, there's room for smaller and/or more niche ones things. And that'll still be true when SCXT is done.

And honestly I expect Sforzando, Decent Sampler et al. to more or less retain their relevance thereafter. Lots of folks just want to load up a sample instrument and go, for which purpose SCXT is absolutely overkill.

Same for the main commercial library samplers (Kontakt, Falcon, Spitfire, Vienna Synchron etc etc). Their main selling point is commercial-grade sample libraries. Such libraries cost €€€ to produce that the FOSS community typically don't have, and will have the same commercial value once SCXT is out (even if the aforementioned players lack some of SC's features).

We're not really looking to replace or compete with anything else that's out there currently. You've hit the nail on the head when you say nothing quite like it exists yet (though I reckon TAL is the closest), we're going in a pretty empty niche. And with all that in mind, it doesn't seem that important to me to save a format that's adoptable by other samplers. Said samplers would have to be going for feature-parity with us (==implement lots of niche stuff) in order for that to be reasonable. We're open source so they'd be free and welcome to, of course. But why'd they do that when SC already exists? So again, I'm guessing we'll end up going for a SCXT-specific .fxp with sample paths, not something we'd expect others to load directly.

But hey, I could be wrong, and these are my thoughts and not the whole team's. We'll see how it turns out. Either way thanks for raising the concern!

Yes! I’m very excited! ….and hopeful.

But, let me explain my thinking a little better…

As far as true chromatic samplers go, there’s only a handful still in existence—which is beyond me why (but that is a digression for another time).

Of those, there are even fewer that remain with unencrypted formats with the samples available for long term future proofing—the worst thing in the world is to spend hours and hours on a sample set in a closed format, only for that sampler to be discontinued, and those samples lost.

Of the samplers that remain, with unencrypted formats, the most important ones are:

Sfizz
Decent Sampler
Linux Sampler
Tal-Sampler
TX16Wx
ShortCircuit-XT
Apple’s Sampler
Soundfont players

Sfizz, Decent Sampler, and Linux Sampler do not have friendly GUIs for sample preset creation. Most users do not enjoy the capable, but code-like text entry required to create presets. In addition to this, these sample players, along with most soundfont players, (with the rarest of exceptions) don’t offer a GUI for controlling even the most basic, but essential of controls, such as Attack or Release. These are the reasons that these plugins have basically grouped together as sample librarian “players”, rather than as samplers.

Of the remaining samplers, Apple’s Sampler is tied to a DAW and can’t really be considered a plugin that is available to everyone. Similarly, Bitwig/Presonus are also tied to a DAW and cannot be considered a plugin that is available to everyone. These samplers built into DAWs cannot be an open industry standard sampler.

That leaves TX16Wx, TAL-Sampler, and ShortCircuit-XT. All three of these (once ShortCircuit-XT reaches maturity), are very powerful, high quality samplers. Of these, TX16Wx is probably the most full-featured, most complete (right now), and the best currently available open format software sampler on the market today. However, it doesn’t offer linux support, and it uses Challenge/Response copy protection which are points against it

TAL-Sampler is also a very powerful, high quality, full-featured sampler. It uses simple serial copy protection, and supports all three major desktop OSes. But it too has weaknesses that hold it back as a candidate for becoming a defacto open industry standard sampler. First, and probably the biggest problem, is that it supports only 4 layers total. There is not much opportunity for dynamics variation in samples. The other major problem is that it only uses an 8 point sync interpolation, where it is not at all unheard of for basic samplers to have as high as 128 point sync interpolation nowadays. As you know, TAL-Sampler was by design meant to be a lower quality sampler, recreating the lo-fi magic of the samplers of yesteryear. It serves its purpose exceptionally, but that hardly meets the needs of everyone—especially those who are trying to reproduce acoustic instruments very well. These things rule out TAL-Sampler.

This leaves ShortCircuit-XT. ShortCircuit-XT offers the following benefits:

* It is free, open-source software: Anyone can use it, regardless of lack of money. That’s going to attract everyone that can’t afford other plugins, and FOSS supporters.

* It contains no copy protection. That increases the long term viability of the plugin— no limited number of authorizations, no worries about companies going out of business and leaving users high and dry with no authorization servers.

* ShortCircuit-XT (if I’m not mistaken) has a higher quality interpolation than TAL-Sampler, and has the number of layers one would expect from a full-blown sampler—providing better dynamic range reality with samples from each layer, and better quality transposition between each semitone.

* ShortCircuit-XT supports Windows and MacOS, as well as Linux!

* ShortCircuit-XT will support an unencrypted format where the samples will be available to retrieve, if for any reason a user needs to move to another sampler—the effort of creating/recording, cutting, looping, etc will not be lost if a person moves on. This provides long term security and future-proofing of one’s most important investment—the samples.

* ShortCircuit-XT provides a GUI for creating, editing, and perfecting sample presets—no text coding required.

* ShortCircuit-XT provides a GUI for playing and performance—ADSR controls, modulations, effects, everything!

* ShortCircuit-XT, because of its open format, will be able to convert everything that any of the other samplers can do, and import it—even if that requires the use of an external converter like ConvertWithMoss.

* No other sampler in existence contains ALL of these features all at once! None!

This is why I believe it will become an industry standard. I’m not saying that there won’t be other standards recognized by the industry as well, and I’m not saying that it will be the ONLY standard. But I believe it will be an accepted standard.

Think about it! Kontakt, Halion, and other commercial library players are not going to go away any time soon—-people will always want those high quality 20Gb - 100Gb sample libraries, and developers of these extensive libraries will always want encrypted formats. These samplers won’t be going anywhere.

But, except for the largest of open format libraries—the kind that SFZ and Decent Sampler were designed for, all of the open format sample sets will be playable from within ShortCircuit-XT (and if ShortCircuit-XT gets DFD, it will be able to play those too. ). And with the GUI functionality, they will be more controllable and performable from within ShortCircuit-XT.

Capabilities of this magnitude will not go unnoticed. While it won’t replace all of the other tools, it is very likely to become a favorite among users. As the amount of sample libraries in the ShortCircuit-XT format continues to grow (even those libraries converted and imported from the other samplers), is it so far a stretch to believe that most other samplers of any consequence will adopt the ability to import the ShortCircuit-XT format (at least a basic subset of it) ?

It makes total sense to me that this is within the realm of possibility. And when this has taken place, the ShortCircuit-XT format will have become a defacto open standard of the industry.

In my personal, not so uneducated opinion this is a very real scenario—one that will likely take place if done properly.

I hope this explains my enthusiastic opinion.

Best wishes!

[baconpaul]

That’s very compelling point of view. Thank you for sharing

It also makes me think I would be remiss if I didn’t call for dev volunteers to help us make thst real!

[audiojunkie]

Hehehe that’s actually what I was originally trying to do when I was asking about format specs. I was planning on getting them over to Moss, and asking him to add support for into ConvertWithMoss, as well as getting them to the developers of Awave Studio and Chickensys Translator.

[EvilDragon]

I will just add that I do think that saving patches as a monolith is definitely super important for patch portability - self contained and no path resolving shenanigans regardless on which machine you load it. There is nothing wrong with monoliths as a concept, and so we should support that. Especially because the use case is so important.

It can just be a ZIP, though. No further complications.

[baconpaul]

Hehehe that’s actually what I was originally trying to do when I was asking about format specs. I was planning on getting them over to Moss, and asking him to add support for into ConvertWithMoss, as well as getting them to the developers of Awave Studio and Chickensys Translator.

They should really not do thst from sc files. Instead sc can do a fidelity reducing export to a public format.

The sc metadata file which will be in the zip will be loadable by sc but will not be a documented public format

Maybe we just automatically put the low fidelity public format metadata in the bundle too. If we have the code we can do so.

But please do it think of scxt files as a format for non sc to read. I’ve explicitly made design choices which make scxt work but which make thst an anti goal

[baconpaul]

I will just add that I do think that saving patches as a monolith is definitely super important for patch portability - self contained and no path resolving shenanigans regardless on which machine you load it. There is nothing wrong with monoliths as a concept, and so we should support that. Especially because the use case is so important.

It can just be a ZIP, though. No further complications.

Yeah of course that’s what I mentioned too. Just audio junkie wants the metadata part of the zip file to be public format other tools can use. And it shouldn’t be. “Zip of metadata file plus wav” is multi sample and decent formats. And will be scxt patch too. Just the sc metadata will have all the extra sc nonsense which is not in the decent and multi sample engines

[Lind0n]

* No other sampler in existence contains ALL of these features all at once! None!

HISE.

[BackInCheck]

I used Shortcircuit 1 and 2 extensively in the past, but I never viewed Shortcircuit as a playback engine for synth-like patches or sfz files or even as a replacement for an "industry standard" sample library playback engine like NI Kontakt.

My understanding of using samplers is more aligning with the sampling philosophy of HipHop, Trip Hop and Jungle / D'n'B producers.

A very typical way of using capable sampler (whether in plugin format or if you think of legendary devices such as the Akai MPC, Akai S-series, E-Mu SP 1200 etc.) is for chopping up audio sequences often taken from another record, drum breaks in particular (but also melodic / harmonic content), assigning them to a key and creating new sequences by playing the chopped up parts in a manner that musically makes sense. Whether creating an entire song this way or using this technique to add texture and character to a musical composition.

I always found Shortcircuit very well-suited for this approach, since you could quickly load an audio sequence from your library, assign the same sample to different keys and cut each instance of the same sample to play back a different section of the audio sequence (simply by adjusting start and end points), thus rearranging the musical elements contained in the original audio sequence. This sounds simple, but I found that many of the existing sample engines overcomplicate this process or are cluttered with features that make the workflow for such simple tasks less straightforward.

Hopefully that the future versions of Shortcircuit can maintain that ease of quickly assigning samples and cutting (+ editing) them as opposed to becoming an overly complicated thingy with many features addes, but lacking in the workflow / UX department.

Straightforward workflow is everything when it comes to working creatively with samples. Think more Ableton Simpler then Ableton Sampler. More Logic Quick Sampler (or even their new full Sampler) as opposed to the old cumbersome Logic EXS sampler.

[Andreya_Autumn]

...
I hope this explains my enthusiastic opinion.

That does make it a lot clearer yeah, thanks!

Like Paul said though, SCXT patch files will let you transfer sample instrument to other shortcircuit users, and Multi-Sample/Decent/sfz will let you transfer it to other samplers (without the glitch gate, oscillators, vowel EQ etc etc etc those samplers don't have). Again, like Paul said. Those formats are open (while you're right that their associated samplers aren't) and suitable for the purpose you have in mind here.

EvilDragon makes a good point about a simple monolith format. When I said we won't do it I was thinking of something encrypted indeed. An (uncompressed) zip with xml and samples is a good idea.

And also like Paul said, any C++ devs reading this are very welcome to join the effort! The team has grown a bit bigger which is exciting, but we certainly could use more hands still.

[Andreya_Autumn]

* No other sampler in existence contains ALL of these features all at once! None!

HISE.

Oh good mention right there. Although it isn't quite comparable is it? I honestly haven't used it, but from my understanding it's more of an instrument design platform than a straight-up sample loader plugin.

[Andreya_Autumn]

...
Hopefully that the future versions of Shortcircuit can maintain that ease of quickly assigning samples and cutting (+ editing) them...
...
Straightforward workflow is everything...

I get it, and thanks for sharing! It's a balance we're trying to strike for sure. The hope is that we'll be able to do both.

Cutting up samples the way you're describing is already possible a few different ways in the alpha. Though there are some kinks to iron out with the start/end points, and lots of UX to polish, and and and... Did I mention volunteer C++ devs are welcome?

But yeah we definitely are well aware that people loved the ease of use that SC1 had. And are trying to keep that alive. Drag in a single sample -> set start/end/loop points -> load an effect or two -> play; is a workflow that already feels pretty fun now. And if you don't need any of the other features you can ignore them and hopefully they won't feel in the way.

[baconpaul]

Yeah that’s exactly right - “more like a sample initiated synth than a library playback box”

Decent sforzando sfizz daw samplers and more all do a good job on the later and kontact does it very well. The thing that makes this fun is taking those piano samples and making something very much else

But the pre alpha is runnable! Does quite a lot (including crashing in some circumstances). It’s very not complete and not streaming stable but we welcome folks to give it a whirl and chat with us in the discord. It’s much easier to get your ideas in the queue now than it is after we ship 1.0!