New sampling tools at chickensys

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Just noticed some new sample tool products on the http://www.chickensys.com site.
Sample Manage, and Constructor. Maybe not so new, but it's the first time I've seen em.

Constructor looks interesting. I'm still on the perfect quest for an app that will allow the easy creation of soundfonts, as everything currently out there falls way short, especially in the looping/mapping department. If Contructor would make that whole process slick I'd buy it today. Trouble is, no demo, and not much info on the site about it.

So Garth, how is Constructor different from Translator Pro?

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Further digging finds that these are not available yet, looks like sometime in may?

[chickeneps]

We are doing much more work on coding Constructor then we are updating the web site, as you've found out. =)

Constructor is meant to be a platform-independent Instrument Editor. On some other posts here we have heard a need for an ability to put together instruments in a quick and intuitive way. While this is easy to say, it's a lot harder to implement.

In our opinion, the major 7 samplers fill this need to a certain level but always have their problems in one area or another. Because of the need to pay atention to their playback engine, they can't always put ample priority to their interface.

Constructor aims to be an Instrument Editor that is extremely flexible and customizable, because we know that many users have different ways of forming isntruments.

One tool that will figure prominantly in Constructor that we can talk about is the Script Mapper that is presently in Translator. It's a neat tool that allows you to simply design you instrument "on paper" using a text editor, then "run the script" and voila! you have your instrument. it's sort fo what people do with SFZ now, although this is 10 times easier. Plus, you can choose over different 40 different sampler formats to output to.

As for sample editing, there won't be one in Constructor, because we don't want to reinvent the wheel - Peak, DSP-Quatrro, SoundForge, and Adobe Audition, among others, do an excellent job and we tightly integrate with them to edit samples. However, there will be a rudimentary editor, but it's not something to be taken extremely seriously.

Sorry, there should be more info up as work progresses. Thanks for the interest.

[tahome]

Maybe you can license sonicworx from prosoniq - still the best editor out there but unfortunately discontinued. So maybe they give it to you for free/cheap...?

--th

[chickeneps]

Thanks for the tip - checked it out. Discontinued but they only made it for OS9.

Still there may be some hope there.

What did you like about it in comparison to others?

For instance, I LOVE CoolEdit, the original one. It's lighter and tighter than SoundForge, and feels really good. SF tends to be less intuitive IMHO, and SF7 was full of really bad bugs - fixed in 8, but still.

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Well to me it seems silly to have all these sample and looping tools within Kontakt (or another sampler), only to be able to use them within Kontakt. What happens when you want to 'port' your work somewhere else, like in my case sf2 - There you're reinventing the wheel too. If I could do all my looping mapping, sample editing in one place that then could be put into any format that would be euphoric!

As it is, many samplers import other formats, but none of them will let you export to any competitors - a bit stingy and overly protective of these guys if you ask me! Any owner of a top sampler is already loyal to it, so no threat of losing customers. This is where I see a big need for something like Constructor - otherwise what's the niche?

I guess I don't get your approach garth, or more likely, understand just what the aim of Constructor is, if not that.

[hcv242]

cooledit pro rox.... too bad the adobe guys made it so slow in the latest updates... audition 1.5 is still usable....but 2.0 is very slow opening and doing other stuff...only fast on exiting the app... ill keep on using audition 1.5

[1-2-Many]

cooledit pro rox.... too bad the adobe guys made it so slow in the latest updates... audition 1.5 is still usable....but 2.0 is very slow opening and doing other stuff...only fast on exiting the app... ill keep on using audition 1.5

I edited comments on Cooledit Pro out of my original post - basically about Adobe taking it over, and ruining it (twice the price half as nice).

And although, it was a good sample editor and there are plenty of sample editors around, you're still faced with the work of importing your work into your sampler of choice and mapping, checking all the loops, zones, tunings, setting rootkey etc. Sure would be nice to have all this done in one spot with the ability to 'save as <insert format of choice>'.

I also don't understand why the major soft-samplers don't do exports to other formats - since they almost all import each others - what's the diff?

[tomg]

I'm still on the perfect quest for an app that will allow the easy creation of soundfonts, as everything currently out there falls way short, especially in the looping/mapping department.

VSampler is AFAIK is the best SF construction tool out there. Much more dependable at making sfonts than used as a sampler. It was killer when it was $60.00 but now it's $180.00 and still not all that stable. For building sfonts it's super easy though. Once you learn how to get around that is.

[tomg]

cooledit pro rox.... too bad the adobe guys made it so slow in the latest updates... audition 1.5 is still usable....but 2.0 is very slow opening and doing other stuff...only fast on exiting the app... ill keep on using audition 1.5

ditto. It could have been better than Pro Tools how sad that it ended up as a video utility.

[chickeneps]

Concerning Constructor and the need for it:

A sampler is based around making sounds and playing them back in a musical and effeciant manner. Historically the most important items is the playback, because of course if it doesn't playback well, who cares?

Construcor is designed just for the designing and building of instruments. A lot of samplers, even the best ones, don't necessarily do this well. Constructor fills that niche.

[1-2-Many]

I'm still on the perfect quest for an app that will allow the easy creation of soundfonts, as everything currently out there falls way short, especially in the looping/mapping department.

VSampler is AFAIK is the best SF construction tool out there. Much more dependable at making sfonts than used as a sampler. It was killer when it was $60.00 but now it's $180.00 and still not all that stable. For building sfonts it's super easy though. Once you learn how to get around that is.

Hey Tom,
Would you like to write a quick tutorial for doing soundfonts with Vsampler for me? Hurry though, cause I recently DL the demo, so I've got less than 30 days.

No, really I spent about an hour with the demo and couldn't make heads or tails of anything - like you say, this one's not the easiest to learn.

[tomg]

I'm still on the perfect quest for an app that will allow the easy creation of soundfonts, as everything currently out there falls way short, especially in the looping/mapping department.

VSampler is AFAIK is the best SF construction tool out there. Much more dependable at making sfonts than used as a sampler. It was killer when it was $60.00 but now it's $180.00 and still not all that stable. For building sfonts it's super easy though. Once you learn how to get around that is.

Hey Tom,
Would you like to write a quick tutorial for doing soundfonts with Vsampler for me? Hurry though, cause I recently DL the demo, so I've got less than 30 days.

No, really I spent about an hour with the demo and couldn't make heads or tails of anything - like you say, this one's not the easiest to learn.

Sure one tute comming up.

[Bassballjg]

I'm still on the perfect quest for an app that will allow the easy creation of soundfonts, as everything currently out there falls way short, especially in the looping/mapping department.

VSampler is AFAIK is the best SF construction tool out there. Much more dependable at making sfonts than used as a sampler. It was killer when it was $60.00 but now it's $180.00 and still not all that stable. For building sfonts it's super easy though. Once you learn how to get around that is.

Hey Tom,
Would you like to write a quick tutorial for doing soundfonts with Vsampler for me? Hurry though, cause I recently DL the demo, so I've got less than 30 days.

No, really I spent about an hour with the demo and couldn't make heads or tails of anything - like you say, this one's not the easiest to learn.

Not to step on Tom's toes, I'm sure his exposition will far more elegant, here's the quick version:

First, make sure you are using the editor view. Look in the view menu for this. The editor view has modules for the instrument player(VS), Import, Sample(editor, and an actually good well-featured one), MIDI, Mixer, etc.

Go to the import page by clicking on the Import button. Click on the wav button, and browse to the folder containing the samples you want to use for building the soundfont. You will have several import options. You may choose to create one instrument per directory, or one instrument per file(sample). You may choose to set the root note by name, eg organ_A2, etc, or wav information(the midi unity note of a sample may be stored in the wav file's information), or mapped to consecutive keys beginning where you specify(good for drum maps). The idea is to check the boxes in appropriate combinations for what you are doing, so you will get with very little fuss nicely automapped instruments. For example, for a multisampled organ with its samples named by note, check one instrument per directory and Zone mapping from filename(if the sample is named as above, check the box "from end"). If you have say 20 samples of a single note form an analog synth, check one instrument per file, and each sample will be its own instrument.

You also have the ability to set root key and keyrange manually. This is done on the zones page of the VS module.

After you have arranged yur samples in zones as you want them, drop down the file menu, export and click on sf2. You will then be promted to name your soundfont and browse to where you wish to save it.

It is that simple. It will just take some time to get to know the lay of the land.

[tomg]

I'm still on the perfect quest for an app that will allow the easy creation of soundfonts, as everything currently out there falls way short, especially in the looping/mapping department.

VSampler is AFAIK is the best SF construction tool out there. Much more dependable at making sfonts than used as a sampler. It was killer when it was $60.00 but now it's $180.00 and still not all that stable. For building sfonts it's super easy though. Once you learn how to get around that is.

Hey Tom,
Would you like to write a quick tutorial for doing soundfonts with Vsampler for me? Hurry though, cause I recently DL the demo, so I've got less than 30 days.

No, really I spent about an hour with the demo and couldn't make heads or tails of anything - like you say, this one's not the easiest to learn.

Here you go. It's a little terse but there are so many ways to do things I just went the direct route. It's enough to get you started anyway.

http://www.ele4music.com/sfont/vsampler_sfont_help.htm