UVI Falcon - v4 = 2026 released - rumors, ads, praise, kindergarden, auto-sampling and off-topic inside!

[Zoopy]

Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples

Can you please share how in a DAW I can quickly sample 88 notes, with multiple velocity layers, not edit them in anyway and have it then automatically generate a preset for Falcon including automatically finding the zerocrossings so they loop properly?

I can easily do all of that in HALion7

Thanks in advance. I am unaware of any that can do that but maybe you are.

reaper

that does sound awesome tho, you should prolly go post in the halion thread

[IvyBirds]

Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples

Can you please share how in a DAW I can quickly sample 88 notes, with multiple velocity layers, not edit them in anyway and have it then automatically generate a preset for Falcon including automatically finding the zerocrossings so they loop properly?

I can easily do all of that in HALion7

Thanks in advance. I am unaware of any that can do that but maybe you are.

reaper

that does sound awesome tho, you should prolly go post in the halion thread

Only it can't do that, maybe missed that when I tried Reaper but it's sampler ReaSamplomatic most certainly can't, and a Google search turned up zero results, and there is nothing mentioned in the manual

You said "Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples" shall we just assume you were clueless?

Again I have Falcon, I understand Falcon, and like Falcon, but it can't sample and while your DAW can record audio it actually does a pretty poor job of making modern multi samples without a ton of work, even Reaper

However since Falcon is sample based and lacks the ability to you know actually make samples it's very relevant and on topic to talk about tools that do. HALion7 is one of those tools, and when you use it to make samples you not only get a preset to use with HALion7 but you get a stack of WAV files you could then import into Falcon, Kontact, and others

[Hyperbole]

Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples

Can you please share how in a DAW I can quickly sample 88 notes, with multiple velocity layers, not edit them in anyway and have it then automatically generate a preset for Falcon including automatically finding the zerocrossings so they loop properly?

I can easily do all of that in HALion7

Thanks in advance. I am unaware of any that can do that but maybe you are.

reaper

that does sound awesome tho, you should prolly go post in the halion thread

Only it can't do that, maybe missed that when I tried Reaper but it's sampler ReaSamplomatic most certainly can't, and a Google search turned up zero results, and there is nothing mentioned in the manual

You said "Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples" shall we just assume you were clueless?

Again I have Falcon, I understand Falcon, and like Falcon, but it can't sample and while your DAW can record audio it actually does a pretty poor job of making modern multi samples without a ton of work, even Reaper

However since Falcon is sample based and lacks the ability to you know actually make samples it's very relevant and on topic to talk about tools that do. HALion7 is one of those tools, and when you use it to make samples you not only get a preset to use with HALion7 but you get a stack of WAV files you could then import into Falcon, Kontact, and others

HALion can indeed record a whole keyboard of samples, automatically truncate them (with configurable automatic pre- and post-capturing to ensure sample start and end points are not set too late or too soon, respectively), optionally auto-normalize samples, and set samples to loop. And identify the root notes of samples and map them correctly to the keyboard, with different mapping options regarding keymap split points.

However, if you are on a Mac, the best tool for the job is hands down Logic's Autosampler plugin utility, which can automatically sample at specified intervals, perform round robin sampling, capture multiple velocity levels, and automatically crossfade loop the samples using the incredible technology from Redmatic that Apple acquired and has included in both Logic and its $30 live music performance software, MainStage.

SampleRobot on the PC works similarly but is much more expensive and not as elegant and doesn't produce as good results (especially when crossfade looping samples).

The great thing about using HALion with Logic's Autosampler plugin is that the EXS instruments that Autosampler generates can be immediately loaded into HALion. I believe Falcon used to import EXS instruments but I tried to load a newly created patch using Autosampler just recently and Falcon couldn't find the samples.

You could conceivably use the free ConvertWithMoss utility to first convert the EXS instruments that Autosampler creates to SoundFont 2 (or another format that Falcon reads,) but it would be a major pain to perform a separate conversion process for each instrument created using Autosampler.

Final words: The sample editor in HALion is FAR superior to the one in Falcon. It's almost like having a mini version of Wavelab built into HALion. Obviously, the Pro version of Wavelab does probably 100x more. But what's in HALion is nothing to sneeze at.

IMO, HALion is a better sampling workstation overall than Falcon (which, of course, has its strong points).

[machinesworking]

Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples

Can you please share how in a DAW I can quickly sample 88 notes, with multiple velocity layers, not edit them in anyway and have it then automatically generate a preset for Falcon including automatically finding the zerocrossings so they loop properly?

I can easily do all of that in HALion7

Thanks in advance. I am unaware of any that can do that but maybe you are.

$30 Mainstage does this.
MPC software and hardware does this.
Ableton Live can do this.
I have all of those, plus Translater Pro 7 that will do it to any format you want.

I do think it's a nice feature to have, but like anyone on an Mac with Mainstage, with all sorts of solutions for this, it's not anywhere near my main feature request.

[Liero]

There's a lot of lazy flippancy in this thread and I don't want to add to that.

I think the post about REAPER being able to do the automatic multisampling was referring to the fact that you could create a project template with chromatically set up midi notes, record whatever output from wherever you send those MIDI notes and use regions and a few automated actions to actually trim at zerocrossings, create loops and render out every note as a separate file. I have a set up like this and even though it does take a moment to create, once it's done I can multisample any instrument with a few clicks while I go make a coffee. The cool thing about doing it in the DAW is that I can create with automation lanes, say, an EQ with a highpass where the highpass cutoff rises with the midi notes so each sample has a hipass just below the note fundamental, things like that. Anyway, glad that Halion and other tools can autosample well too.

[Hyperbole]

Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples

Can you please share how in a DAW I can quickly sample 88 notes, with multiple velocity layers, not edit them in anyway and have it then automatically generate a preset for Falcon including automatically finding the zerocrossings so they loop properly?

I can easily do all of that in HALion7

Thanks in advance. I am unaware of any that can do that but maybe you are.

$30 Mainstage does this.
MPC software and hardware does this.
Ableton Live can do this.
I have all of those, plus Translater Pro 7 that will do it to any format you want.

I do think it's a nice feature to have, but like anyone on an Mac with Mainstage, with all sorts of solutions for this, it's not anywhere near my main feature request.

No piece of software (inexpensive or expensive) comes close to what the Autosampler plugin in Logic and Mainstage can do. So to present these other "solutions" as a case for "this isn't a big deal and no one should be asking for it" is disingenuous at best.

It would take even the most accomplished sound editor who is intimately familiar with the best tools for crossfade looping samples (e.g., the $500 Wavelab Pro) hours and hours to crossfade loop the samples in an Autosampler-generated EXS instrument that can be created in the time it takes to simply automatically record the samples. Again, NOTHING else even comes in terms of the quality of the results, which are almost always better than what even someone like myself, who had been manually looping samples for 20 years before the release of Redmatica's Autosampler, can do.

Man, how I wish I had Autosampler during those 20 years from 1985 to 2005. These other tools you mention are toys by comparison and absolutely do not do the hardest part of the process. If something similar were added to Falcon, it would arguably be Falcon's best feature.

[Hyperbole]

There's a lot of lazy flippancy in this thread and I don't want to add to that.

I think the post about REAPER being able to do the automatic multisampling was referring to the fact that you could create a project template with chromatically set up midi notes, record whatever output from wherever you send those MIDI notes and use regions and a few automated actions to actually trim at zerocrossings, create loops and render out every note as a separate file. I have a set up like this and even though it does take a moment to create, once it's done I can multisample any instrument with a few clicks while I go make a coffee. The cool thing about doing it in the DAW is that I can create with automation lanes, say, an EQ with a highpass where the highpass cutoff rises with the midi notes so each sample has a hipass just below the note fundamental, things like that. Anyway, glad that Halion and other tools can autosample well too.

Yes, you could do this if you were an insane masochist. And the results would still be unusable in most cases if you needed to crossfade loop the samples. Instead, I'll stick with the $30 Mainstage (or $199 Logic).

Incidentally, why do so many Reaper users insist that their beloved DAW can do every conceivable music production task (almost always in threads that have nothing to do with DAWs)? Before you know it, Reaper will fly us to the moon. (Sorry to the fellow fabulists over at Starlink.) Is it because in doing all these other things, Reaper could somehow make up for its ugliness and clunkiness?

If you need a powerful DAW, use Logic for $199. The Mac to run it is just a bonus.

[abi]

The great thing about using HALion with Logic's Autosampler plugin is that the EXS instruments that Autosampler generates can be immediately loaded into HALion. I believe Falcon used to import EXS instruments but I tried to load a newly created patch using Autosampler just recently and Falcon couldn't find the samples.

Cannot confirm this. I just made an EXS-patch with autosampler in logic and it loads just fine in Falcon - the mapping and looping points are correct.

In my opinion, UVI should optimize the import of EXS files, so that at least the basic envelopes are translated correctly (although this is not important when creating new samples with autosampler). An emphasis on functional preset import should take them less resources than trying to create an autosampling feature that can compete with e.g. autosampler.

Plus, I find it cumbersome to point falcon to samples that are moved on the hard disks. I think a feature for scanning a hard disk for samples that are used in user patches would be great. I don´t know, maybe it´s my lack of organizational skills, but I think it should not be too hard to accomplish.

[Liero]

There's a lot of lazy flippancy in this thread and I don't want to add to that.

I think the post about REAPER being able to do the automatic multisampling was referring to the fact that you could create a project template with chromatically set up midi notes, record whatever output from wherever you send those MIDI notes and use regions and a few automated actions to actually trim at zerocrossings, create loops and render out every note as a separate file. I have a set up like this and even though it does take a moment to create, once it's done I can multisample any instrument with a few clicks while I go make a coffee. The cool thing about doing it in the DAW is that I can create with automation lanes, say, an EQ with a highpass where the highpass cutoff rises with the midi notes so each sample has a hipass just below the note fundamental, things like that. Anyway, glad that Halion and other tools can autosample well too.

Yes, you could do this if you were an insane masochist. And the results would still be unusable in most cases if you needed to crossfade loop the samples. Instead, I'll stick with the $30 Mainstage (or $199 Logic).

Incidentally, why do so many Reaper users insist that their beloved DAW can do every conceivable music production task (almost always in threads that have nothing to do with DAWs)? Before you know it, Reaper will fly us to the moon. (Sorry to the fellow fabulists over at Starlink.) Is it because in doing all these other things, Reaper could somehow make up for its ugliness and clunkiness?

If you need a powerful DAW, use Logic for $199. The Mac to run it is just a bonus.

Dude, relax! I was just trying to elaborate on what the previous poster said. Maybe take a step away from the keyboard for today.

[otristan]

FWIW, EXS store its sample path in an absolute way (not relative to the .exs file) Falcon try to be clever but there is no silver bullet.
For the envelope, unfortunately, the format is not public so it's all reverse engineering.

[Stirner]

Is it possible to clear uninstalled soundware libraries from the library browser? I uninstalled some of the libraries and they are still shown in the library browser. I don't see any menu options for refreshing the cache or something like this.

[otristan]

Right click the search icon (magnyfing glass) in the tag browser, there is an option to do that

[IvyBirds]

Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples

Can you please share how in a DAW I can quickly sample 88 notes, with multiple velocity layers, not edit them in anyway and have it then automatically generate a preset for Falcon including automatically finding the zerocrossings so they loop properly?

I can easily do all of that in HALion7

Thanks in advance. I am unaware of any that can do that but maybe you are.

$30 Mainstage does this.
MPC software and hardware does this.
Ableton Live can do this.
I have all of those, plus Translater Pro 7 that will do it to any format you want.

I do think it's a nice feature to have, but like anyone on an Mac with Mainstage, with all sorts of solutions for this, it's not anywhere near my main feature request.

Awesome but Falcon doesn't and none of those automatically turn them into a Falcon preset with the exception of Translator 7 which I own. It's Autosampler is functional but clunky to be generous.

There is currently no DAW that I am aware of that automatically or semi Automatically generates a Falcon preset

So you are forced to use other softwares which is fine but many of those options cost as much or more than Falcon does

I have Gig Performer which destroys Mainstage in functionality, you can use it to Autosample things and it makes a preset out of them for Decent Sampler it handy

But rather than make all kinds of intellectual leaps defending a piece of software that costs $299 can we just have the integrity to admit that it lacks a feature that should be rather basic for something like this. It's an expensive sample based tool that doesn't have the ability to make samples into its own proprietary preset format, and if you want to do so have to jump through all kinds of tedious hoops, and/or spend money on other software

Falcon is not the only software that does this of course but it's hard to say it's the best tool for people who want to make their own custom sample based patches without this basic functionality to you know actually make samples

[machinesworking]

Pro tip: ur daw is pretty good at recording samples

Can you please share how in a DAW I can quickly sample 88 notes, with multiple velocity layers, not edit them in anyway and have it then automatically generate a preset for Falcon including automatically finding the zerocrossings so they loop properly?

I can easily do all of that in HALion7

Thanks in advance. I am unaware of any that can do that but maybe you are.

$30 Mainstage does this.
MPC software and hardware does this.
Ableton Live can do this.
I have all of those, plus Translater Pro 7 that will do it to any format you want.

I do think it's a nice feature to have, but like anyone on an Mac with Mainstage, with all sorts of solutions for this, it's not anywhere near my main feature request.

No piece of software (inexpensive or expensive) comes close to what the Autosampler plugin in Logic and Mainstage can do. So to present these other "solutions" as a case for "this isn't a big deal and no one should be asking for it" is disingenuous at best.

It would take even the most accomplished sound editor who is intimately familiar with the best tools for crossfade looping samples (e.g., the $500 Wavelab Pro) hours and hours to crossfade loop the samples in an Autosampler-generated EXS instrument that can be created in the time it takes to simply automatically record the samples. Again, NOTHING else even comes in terms of the quality of the results, which are almost always better than what even someone like myself, who had been manually looping samples for 20 years before the release of Redmatica's Autosampler, can do.

Man, how I wish I had Autosampler during those 20 years from 1985 to 2005. These other tools you mention are toys by comparison and absolutely do not do the hardest part of the process. If something similar were added to Falcon, it would arguably be Falcon's best feature.

Well your screen name is accurate at least!
Sorry, just joking there.

Yes, I owned the Atosampler when it was Redmatica, it's great. Translater again, does MULTIPLE file types, straight to Falcon, Kontakt, Abletons Sampler, EXS etc. etc. etc. Ableton can slice out REX files to it's drum plugin even splitting the names to kick, snare etc.

But to your point, if Autosampler is the best to you, then why would you want a very likely inferior version in Falcon? I'm not against Falcon getting auto sampling, but it likely won't be as good as the one in Mainstage, it will only spit out uvi files, and it won't know what to do with REX files. I mean one can hope that they go overboard and it's miles above the rest, but you mentioned Redmatica, you've been in the game long enough to know that's unlikely. I was just pointing out that there are numerous solutions to sampling, you really do not need to have it inside the sampler now that it's all on computers.

[IvyBirds]

There's a lot of lazy flippancy in this thread and I don't want to add to that.

I think the post about REAPER being able to do the automatic multisampling was referring to the fact that you could create a project template with chromatically set up midi notes, record whatever output from wherever you send those MIDI notes and use regions and a few automated actions to actually trim at zerocrossings, create loops and render out every note as a separate file. I have a set up like this and even though it does take a moment to create, once it's done I can multisample any instrument with a few clicks while I go make a coffee. The cool thing about doing it in the DAW is that I can create with automation lanes, say, an EQ with a highpass where the highpass cutoff rises with the midi notes so each sample has a hipass just below the note fundamental, things like that. Anyway, glad that Halion and other tools can autosample well too.

Awesome so you have a stack of separate WAV files then what? You will notice it's not in Falcon's priority preset format which was my point

But thanks for the lazy flippancy in explaining that a DAW can make WAV files that you then need to further process and import. I never would have guessed that was the case

How awesome it is to have 264 WAV files and load each one individually into Falcon just to make a patch

It's amazing that as owners of a $300 piece of software we can't honestly talk about it's shortcomings of a major missing feature