Making and using SFZs and SF2s for Auria Pro

Matt_Fletcher_2000

Thought this might deserve its own thread because there's a fair bit to it. I've just started having a go.

My first questions are ( @WaveMachineLabs )...

1. Is it correct that Auria will only play single instrument SF2s? (I.e. it will play an SF2 that's a flute, but not a single SF2 that is a whole bundled multi - instrument orchestra collection)?

2. Looking into commercially available SFZ beat 'kits' you can buy (that tend to span 16 pads) i'm finding that most run sequentially often from C0 (note 24 upwards) or sometimes from C1 (note 36 upwards). The slight problem with the current Lyra beat pad is that it only has 14 pads, starts at note 36 always, and it doesn't seem to run sequentially up the notes - it seems to use some Midi GM mapping probably. In the future, is it possible to consider being able to change this to sequential notes and choose the start note e.g. C0 or C1. Maybe also consider squeezing in 2 more pads. That would open Auria up to literally thousands of commercially available kits in SFZ format. At the moment it requires some rather fiddly editing of .sfz text files!

3. One day it would be good to improve on the pad player so that it has mute groups, made control of pitch (and even filter) 'per pad' etc... But I know - all good things come to those who wait!

EDIT: 4. (I knew there was one more) how many folders deep, please, can the samples go below the .SFZ file for Lyra to still find them. Is this unlimited or is it just one folder level?

Anyone else using 3rd party SFZs yet?

Will

1. This forum is better thanks to your sleuthing and sharing. Seriously, thank you Matt.
2. Yes please @2. I don't own AP yet (iPad 3) but moving the start note would be key (as is having GM drum mapping!). And yeah, God Spoketh 16 Pads. 2 of every animal except sampler pads.
3. @3 is actually a tricky one. There was lots of discussion around this on the NS forum years ago for the TRG. Can't speak for Rim but... If you want to make sure the instrument works on a single MIDI channel and conforms to the MIDI spec, it's really hard to do things like per note pitch/filter because in MIDI those are both channel level messages (as opposed to per note/event messages like velocity). One way is to use poly-aftertouch and assign that to something like pitch or filter within the instrument. The other is to have separate CCs (or, egad, sysex!) per note note to adjust those sorts of things.
4. I can't actually answer this re: Auria but the SFZ spec doesn't set a limit here. In the SFZ file is a literal path to the file for each sample (either from the root of the drive or relative from the location of the SFZ). Means they can be in the same folder as the SFZ or samples/neato/folder/deep/my-wave.wav and they player should understand it. iOS pathing can be absurdly wonky though.

Matt_Fletcher_2000

Thanks @Syrupcore - likewise...

So i've had a play and have had some success.

I've important a couple of pretty big commercial sample packs in (the Mad Professor one and a Drum & Bass one).

Re: 4 - I think that the sample folder can indeed contain sub folders and Auria is ok with that... so that's good (I don't have the mess with the nested folders of wav samples).

However, Auria insists that the SFZ files are only one folder down from the main 'sampler instruments' folder in Auria's itunes folder. Unfortunately all the commercial packs I have have more complex folder structures with the SFZ having to go a few folders up before then drilling down into sample folders - so it's not simply a case of copying across. I've had to reorganise the folders a bit and then do a speedy find and replace on every reference to a sample path in every .SFZ file.

But then it works.

So it's a bit of work beyond just copying across but not impossible... Then all the kits and instruments are spread across the keyboard nicely - and most seem to start their main kick at note 36 and work up from there - so the pad player in Lyra tends to work ok (apart from pad 13 and 14 often).

With a good kit it obviously gives you quite a range of sounds to sequence accross your track in just one Lyra instrument / track. And of course you can apply effects a plenty... All 'in the box' - So, good times.

WaveMachineLabs

Hi Matt,

I'll try to answer your original questions:

1. Lyra will play SF2 files which contain multiple presets, but these presets won't be displayed. You need to choose between them using the Patch and Bank selectors in the MIDI Control section of the channelstrip. It's not currently working in 2.00, but the 2.01 release will have this working correctly for Lyra. Eventually, I'll add direct support for SF2 presets into the Instrument menu.

2. I will also add customizable note numbers for the pads in Lyra at some point. Currently, they are assigned to general MIDI drum notes, so they should work "out of the box" with most instruments.

3. This is a standardization issue, and at the moment, I'm not sure how I would implement something like this.

4. Lyra can handle two levels of subfolders. For example:

Sampler Instruments
Basses
NiceBasses
MyNiceBass.sfz
MyNiceBassSamplesFolder

The samples folder needs to be in the same level as the SFZ.

Rim

Matt_Fletcher_2000

@WaveMachineLabs - Thanks Rim that's great. Hopefully useful for others too.

As discussed above "The samples folder needs to be in the same level as the SFZ." - but i'd add that the samples folder seems to be able to have any many subfolders as you like and still work (as long as the paths in the .SFZ correctly reflect this.

WaveMachineLabs

Yes, good point, that's true.

Rim

Matt_Fletcher_2000

Hi @WaveMachineLabs

Am i imagining things or does Auria accept EXS24 as well as .SFZ?

dblonde

Hi matt
Yes auria will load exs files like a charm into the lyra sampler.

WaveMachineLabs

That's right, Lyra supports EXS (the full specification), SFZ and SF2. And it's a true disk streaming player, so large files are no problem. Even 4GB pianos.

Rim

o_imseng

This is by far the coolest thing about Lyra. I have tons of Instruments I use in Live or in Mainstage, I can now easily Autosample EXS Instruments for use in Auria with Mainstage

Matt_Fletcher_2000

Please tell me more (if you don't mind) @o_imseng

Mainstage (just £30 I believe) has alchemy in it, so are you saying there's a fast and easy way to quickly create Alchemy (and other) EXSs for use in Auria????

Matt_Fletcher_2000

@WaveMachineLabs - next question.

Is there a max length on samples in Lyra?

o_imseng

@Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
Please tell me more (if you don't mind) @o_imseng

Mainstage (just £30 I believe) has alchemy in it, so are you saying there's a fast and easy way to quickly create Alchemy (and other) EXSs for use in Auria????

Of course there is, Mainstage 3 is easily the most overlooked gem Apple has in its sleeve for producers.
You can stack and layer and edit every AU Instrument even Alchemy in Mainstage. Then prop the Autosampler Plugin in the Masteroutput (Remember Apple bought up Redmatica some time ago) and then quickly Autosample your creation as a EXS File. You then just need to locate your samples and exs file and voilà

Here is a tutorial:
https://ask.audio/articles/how-to-sample-exs24-instruments-using-autosampler-mainstage-and-logic-pro

The tutorials always focus on sampling external hardware but this is just a set up thing to sample AU Instruments as well

WaveMachineLabs

@Matt_Fletcher_2000 said:
@WaveMachineLabs - next question.

Is there a max length on samples in Lyra?

There is no max length for samples in Lyra. It's only limited by memory and disk space.

Rim

[Deleted User]

Have you actually tried using your "autosampled" instruments in Auria Pro?

o_imseng

https://brianli.com/sampling-synths-auto-sampler-mainstage-3/

o_imseng

here is the tutorial for software instruments:
https://brianli.com/sample-software-instruments-auto-sampler/

Happy sampling

[Deleted User]

Thanks, I know how it works. But I'm 99% sure you can't use those EXS file and samples in Auria Pro

Hmtx

^This is what we really want to know! I don't really want to take the time to learn how to auto sample instruments until I know people are successfully creating and transferring these to Auria.

...or I may just get impatient waiting and have to try to figure it out myself. ;-b

o_imseng

As far as I understood Rim they just need to be in one place. Lyra supports the full EXS specification so this will work for sure.

[Deleted User]

The problem is that the EXS files from Logic/Mainstage, even the auto-sampled ones, contain only the absolute paths to the referenced samples. And the file itself does not look like a plain-text file so I don't believe you can edit it

WaveMachineLabs

Absolute paths don't matter. Lyra is smart enough to find the samples in most cases. It does a lot of extensive searching.

Hmtx

Good news, thanks! I may have to just try it out and see what happens. The only way to import is thru a PC or Mac, correct? iTunes or iFunbox, I presume.

[Deleted User]

@WaveMachineLabs said:
Absolute paths don't matter. Lyra is smart enough to find the samples in most cases. It does a lot of extensive searching.

Wow, that's great. Happy to hear that it actually works and I was wrong

I just had a look at the files that the AutoSampler produces. Apparently, the sample file names contain note names. So, I was going to write a script that would scan the files and generate an SFZ file based on the sample files... Well, not needed anymore. Though it may be still a good idea - I will be able to use those sfz instruments in Cubase and Live. Hmm...

WaveMachineLabs

Let me know how it works. It's still early days, so for any samples that don't work, please send them to me, so I can see what's going on.

Rim

WaveMachineLabs

@Hmtx said:
Good news, thanks! I may have to just try it out and see what happens. The only way to import is thru a PC or Mac, correct? iTunes or iFunbox, I presume.

You can also use AudioShare to copy Lyra instruments directly into Auria by creating a zip file within AudioShare. I posted the instructions in the Auria forum.

Rim

[Deleted User]

By the way, does Lyra support CAF files? The samples of some of the Logic instruments are stored within a single .caf file

WaveMachineLabs

Yes it does, and it also supports playing compressed FLAC samples in real time.

Rim

BiancaNeve

Read your instructions for using Audioshare. But Auria doesn't come up on the list of apps that you can copy zip files to. ( I have upgraded to pro)

BiancaNeve

Install iOS Apps from IPA package
iFunbox allows you install IPA packages from in-house distribution, which is produced with Apple's Developer Enterprise Program. It also allows you install *.ipa files archieved from an App under development or cracked by you.

Odd to see a developer advocating the use of ifunbox whose authors see it as a tool for installing cracked apps........

Hmtx

@BiancaNeve said:
... Auria doesn't come up on the list of apps that you can copy zip files to. ( I have upgraded to pro)

Same issue for me iOS 8.4.1