Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Comments
"Easily" depends on your experience with command line stuff like bash, grep, sed, awk.
You'd auto-analyze each file and depending on the level criteria you've set, you map value ranges to one of the velocity shortcuts and rename each file accordingly.
It can become a time-consuming session to find the right parameters and file sections to analyse, but it usually works and it's probably the most flexible (yet the most unintuitive) way to do it.
With the number of samples I’m ever likely to use in one instrument, it’s not likely worth the time. Especially since the way Virsyn distributes the velocity zones I’d probably end up adjusting them all anyway.
What I hope is they’ll support SFZ so I could just manage patches in a text editor independent of file names.
+1
With SFZ always depending on file names and AudioLayer only supporting a tiny subset of SFZ features, what exactly would the advantage be?
I imported the "Yamaha C7" grand piano and every note plays the loop to completion (that's like hitting every note with the sustain pedal down). I spent a significant amount of time trying to reconfigure the Looping details to fix it but got nowhere. It's such a shame because the sample quality seems good... the tone is rather dark so I was really trying to fix the sustain issue but once loaded the loop = "one shot" behavior wouldn't change to loop = "forward" with "release"set to "in loop" versus "at end" like the other pianos I have installed.
If anyone has a clue to fix this "Yamaha C7" ESX25 package at musical-artifacts.com let me know.
I’m sure I could think of more.
Same exact problem here, sorry I don’t have any answers but maybe it at least helps to know it is not you. ;-). It must be some error inside the exs or the original sf2
Had some fun tonight just playing this:
Piano with a send bus to a reversed reverb then AUFX: Dub for some delay. Soooooo relaxing
I went back to the Mac OS Logic Pro/Mainstage ESX24 sampler and I can see an option to label a sample as "1 Shot" in the checklist of the editor. I tried to load the ESX Instrument and the location of the associated Samples seems to make the import fail. So, I keep picking up clues but I'm still stuck. Maybe someone with a solid understanding of ESX24 will fix the package for everyone's benefit. It looks like a nice piano to test drive.
I'm not (yet?) using Mainstage's Auto-sampler, but can you change in what path, relative to the EXS file itself, it will store the samples?
@wim Thanks fo your reply!
In fact I was one of the first asking @VirSyn to add SFZ support, and the reply I got was something like "oh, interesting idea"
But the more I use it, the more I wish other stuff could be added first.
In your case, when only using a couple of samples, that's certainly a good option.
IMHO that's what you can use AL's layers for. Make the layers atomic and re-use them.
No duplicate samples.
In my case, selecting a lot of samples and editing velocity and key settings using the UI is so much faster, although yes, I'm a fan of commandline LEGO and vi/vim
Very good point indeed.
That's a matter of taste for sure, but before anything happens, Harry would have to change his mind to really enhance AudioLayer further. It doesn't seem like any of this will happen soon.
Yeh. I don’t really need any of that. My needs are pretty simple as far as sampling goes and AudioLayer has me more than covered. I’d rather see the UI improved a bit so it’s not so difficult to edit layers, that’s all. SFZ support is more of a nerd wish than anything for me.
P.S. vim is for noobs. SED ftw.
I went back to musical-artifacts and downloaded and fresh copy of the "Yamaha C7" zipped packages and figured out how to drop it into the OS X Music Applications folder and created a new ESX24 instance with the "1 Shot" attributes turned off and exports it out to AudioLayer via iCloud and it works perfectly in AudioLayer.
OT: I want to use the "1 Shot" setting on some cymbals and resonant drums. I hate it when the ride cymbal chokes on the key release. I'm going to check out how some Drum Kits are made. You learn something new everyday and forget 2 old things at my age. What was I writing about?
That's weird. So have you used EXS24 in Logic Pro X to re-save the EXS program?
For the purpose of record, I was joking when I jibed about the Piano-Forte naming convention.
Something I was warned about when I mentioned that I was posting a fair bit in the Audiobus forum to others music producers I know, was that some people on the forum have a totalitarian dislike of any criticism, be it a well meant constructive criticism or random ranting. A side product of this is that it leads to a good old fashioned sense of humour bypass.
Those that read the forum regularly, will know that I'm a huge fan of VirSyn and have been since the early 00's. But my personal take was that AudioLayer isn't for me and I've posted the reasons why (and in what I believed to be a constructive tone). You'd think I'd put curse on Harry and his descendants for 500 years by the response it's elicted!
With regards to the Apple file system, to suggest that Apple make holes in the security so their expert users can jailbreak them is ridiculous. I would consider myself a reasonably expert Apple user having used UNIX long before OS X was even imagined. And I jailbreak older iOS devices just like many other 'power' iOS users but that doesn't mean that it makes me hate the file system restrictions of iOS any less. e.g. how do I get a sample into Simpler in Ableton - I drag/drop from the file system. If you do a lot of sample manipulation, working in iOS its akin to teaching your kids their times tables; they'll get there in the end, but its a long slog.
I'm not attempting to stop others from buying AudioLayer and I can see that many see value in AudioLayer as it stands. I'll very probably buy it myself if it ever gets a 'Simpler' flavour as well as 'Sampler' (this is most important with regards to automation/modulation, as multiple layers aren't a consideration). Most of all, I'd like to see some of the synthesis tools from other VirSyn products make their way into AudioLayer (just the stuff that's apt to sample based workflows).
My biggest worry with AudioLayer is that it never attracts a wide enough audience to ensure that Harry continues adding features. Across desktop and iOS, Harry has a history of stopping development on products that are not bringing in enough income (since moving to iOS development, many desktop customers see their investments as abondonware). Just look at the frozen state of Cube and microTera here on iOS. Even his iOS arpegiator is stuck at an early iteration even though he has wonderful arpegiators in Addictive Pro and Reslice.
The constructive criticisms I posted were left in the hope that VirSyn develop AudioLayer enough that it will appeal to a wider audience. I wasn't discounting the fantastic achievement of the multi-layered streaming engine, but IMO that's not enough to appeal to a wider audience.
There's no doubt that iOS deserves a strong sampling app, and AudioLayer looks like it could develop to be that option. But unless AudioLayer becomes far more flexible to alternative sampling workflows I worry that it to will end up abandoned much like other Virsyn products.
There is one other major consideration with AudioLayer. The longer that it chews up all VirSyn development resources, the longer that other VirSyn products will fail to get the development resources their existing customers deserve.
@jonmoore Reasonable and informed point of view. I do wish Harry was more like Bram or Michael or Jonatan sometimes. Not fair to compare devs or their approach but sometimes Virsyn silence makes it hard to know their intent and progress.
For anybody looking for a great overview of the best of software pianos around 2008 (as mentioned in another thread, it's easier to find libraries with a less militant approach to encryption with piano's from this era). Many of them have been upgraded to more modern versions of UVI/Kontakt etc as they've stood the test of time well. I have a particular liking for many of the PMI pianos and TVBO remains one of my all-time favorites (an earlier version of this library is mentioned in the article).
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/software-pianos
Whilst you won't be able to share these libraries with others if you go to the efforts of converting them, it will be useful to share with others which libraries are the most likely to survive the conversion process to EXS.
BTW, I'm going to double post this to the recent piano thread too.
+1
Custom UI ? Wallpaper, Knobs, etc ...
Glad you got everything working. You could also get the .SFZ versions, tweak them to your liking in any text editor, and then convert that .SFZ into anything.
Also, try the Baldwin Vertical (EXS): https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/700
@jonmoore said:
No, not jailbreaking. Apple doesn't want anyone getting "/", I know that.
Although, using Xcode to develop iOS Apps that are never intended for the AppStore... I'm not so sure.
I know you can do a lot with "/var". GeoFilza & FilzaEscaped do not require jailbreaking.
@VirSyn used to comment on here a lot. @VirSyn stopped around the time I began to insist on SFZ support. I hope I wasn't a factor in the ghosting.
I keep hearing about an "update" being worked on. I'm hopeful.
Not at all. iTunes already has full access to the app folders, and being forced to use a third party utility to extract files from a full backup and not being able to write to it (with user permission, just like when backing up) is what I call ridiculous and one of the reasons why file handling on iOS is such a great mess compared to desktop OS. Clearly an indication that iOS was built for mobile phones, not for iPad musicians using their devices at home like a desktop OS.
I guess that's exactly the case here. AudioLayer is a "take it as-is or leave it" app.
Why do you think that AudioLayer would only support a "tiny subset" of SFZ features? Has the developer made any comments to indicate that? Also, there are basically 3 standards of SFZ: SFZ v.1, SFZ v.2, and SFZ v.2+. SFZ v.2 would cover most of what Sforzando and Cakewalk supports. Very few systems currently support SFZ v.2+ (ie Garriton's Aria). I would love for SFZ v.2 to be implemented, but honestly, as long as SFZ v.1 is supported, that would pretty much cover most of sampler basics.
Please read the SFZ spec, compare it with AL's current capabilities and you'll know what I mean.
@Lithalean : you mention being able to translate sfz files to other formats. What are the available tools for converting sfz files to EXS24?
Thanks
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the SFZ standard has nothing to do with customer GUIs. That is something that is pure Sforzando. Sforzando comes by default with no GUI, and custom GUIs can be created, but those GUIs don't carry on beyond Sforzando. In fact, I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with Sforzando--although it supports SFZ v.2, it is almost better for content developers to state that their instruments are in Sforzando format than to state that they are in SFZ v.2 format. I say that because of all of the custom GUI work that normal SFZ sample players are not able to take advantage of. For the benefit of most users, Content developers should be developing for the lowest common supported standard until developers all start supporting a higher common standard. In this case, software developers should all be supporting SFZ v.2 right now, but the majority of them are only supporting SFZ v.1. So, those content developers who support SFZ v.2 instruments with custom GUIs are really creating presets that will work completely ONLY in Sforzando. This causes problems with consumers who buy sample sets advertised as SFZ only to find out that they only work properly in Sforzando.
Oh, I know the SFZ spec very well. I thought you had heard some comment from the developer saying he'd never support more than a tiny subset.
I can answer that one for you!
There are several, but the two that have tried to remain up to day are:
ChickenSys' Translator Pro 6.x (which I personally own)
Awave Studio
I believe ChickenSys does the best job. Also, there are others such as CDXtract, Extreme Sample Converter, etc, but they are more outdated.
EDIT: I didn't read your post well. I was thinking you were asking about sample instrument converters in general, rather than Specifically SFZ to EXS24. Not all of the applications that I mentioned above (especially the older ones) are able to do that conversion.
Oh yes, we can always hope ... but no response for months speaks for itself I think.
Agreed. Sadly...
Any chance that you could share the EXS file that works (just the exs file and not the samples) that works?
Are there any inexpensive apps that convert SFZ to EXS? Translator looks nice but at $149 is more expensive than makes sense for me personally since I am only likely to convert a few instruments.