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Comments
I was overjoyed to see AudioLayer support the GigaByte Salamander Yamaha C5 piano sample after converting the SF2 (SoundFonts4u) version to EXS using my Mac's Mainstage EXS24 sampler.
I played it and it really sounded good.
But I came back the next day and it said the instrument need to be downloaded from my iCloud to use... After 30 minutes I just gave up and thought: maybe I'll just use Ravenscroft 275 and wait for this to be addressed.
It's obviously not a good design for multi-GB instruments. The little instruments are not problem but you have to have your iPad on the internet to spin up multiple AL's in AUM so that's another issue for many use cases.
So, local storage selectable on a per instrument basis seems like a must have for rapid instrument switches and iPad mobility.
I have moved on waiting for another amazing @VirSyn update to the best "sampler" on the iPad (as I define it given there are 8 different types of samplers).
Learning about "samplers" which I have typically purchased as Digital Stage Pianos and ROMpler Synths for 30 years has also led to back to my Mac and the powers of the EXS24 Sampler anyone can pick up on a Mac for $30 with Mainstage which gives you a huge library of instruments to export into AL for $30.
Consider that when you started buying IAP's or Orchestras and such for $5-20 each.
There are also some amazing soundfonts out there in SF2 format that EXS24 imports and you get another 128 instruments to convert and import. It's better to look for that "Perfect Cello Solo" in all the free stuff and export that for a Project in Cubasis using the AL AUv3 Sampler.
SFZ gives a it more description of use of layers I think for aftertouch, release noises, etc. So, I'm encourage to see @VirSyn digging into SFZ and coding an importer for the packages that have the most specific instrument nuance.
I think @VirSyn has opened Pandora's Box with a user programmable Sampler. With import features and a large user community we just might not have to spend $200-500 to make music that sounds like we hired an orchestra or 30 studio players to record. Of course, the low budget "Hans Zimmer" composers have been using these technologies on Desktops to
lower their costs and create TV and Film music using headphones.
Most of the problems with IOS are related to misuse of system resources. We want to hear more than 3 of our Apps and the extra functionality (and resource consumption) of the Apps make the system miss critical timing events and the output craps out or the whole DAW crashes.
Great distributed systems are built (like the internet) from the interconnection of systems that perform using standards that
are designed to do their function quickly with a minimal waste of resources.
AudioLayer has that potential:
1. Select an instrument (MIDI Bank/Program Select? maybe).
2. Control the instrument via (MPE capable) MIDI.
Then it's a matter of product design... Load multiple instruments via multiple AUv3 instances or scale in product to support multiple instruments on Virtual MIDI entry points? If @VirSyn stick purely with AUv3 the next product will likely use a monolithic approach.
Anyway , @VirSyn has the leader's position and we should all buy the product to encourage this direction.
All the other "Sampler" models (BeatMakers, Loopers, Audio Glitch/Twitch/Reverse/Stretch-n-Retch'ers, are just variations of the product's target functionality and intended use case. Making one product emulate all these types is waste of essential IOS resources and gets you another AUv3 that can only run in 2-3 instances I think. If it's really tightly coded we could see AudioLayer run in a record number of instances and become the go to instrument in DAW's for people wanting to fake hiring musicians for $15. Of course, people in a hurry will still spend $100-300's on the best IAP's and importable Sound Libraries as they do now.
Another scalability thing I have learned with a lot of instruments playing I don't seem to care that the Piano is based on a 50 mb sample because I picked one that cuts through the mix and still runs without crashing. So, if every acceptable instrument loaded is less than 100MB and the system can support GB's of samples
then maybe we can get a DAW using 16-24 tracks of MIDI instruments that don't sound totally fake like they would not.
Wouldn't it be nice NOT to have to Freeze Tracks to add more instrumentation?
HINT: Get it before the price goes up with a killer update that's likely 2-4 weeks away. Of course, these amazing DAW's using perfect AUv3's may be years away. I, of course, could continue to be aggressively optimistic about our shared musical futures.
TL;DR - An AudioLayer Update is coming.
Quite a bunch to read... Sorry to late now here, will read this in detail tomorrow. But one important thing regarding downloading times: You don't have these times if you work locally.
@Lithalean The trick is to use the file sharing to get the bunch of audio files loaded:
no uploading or download via internet in this case
@VirSyn - tl;dr
@McDtracy
I have the Ravenscroft275. It's a nice piano for iOS, but not the quality i'm after.
I also have the Salamander. I'd say its comparable to the Ravenscroft275.
The Steinway Model B (Piano in 162 by ivyaudio) is also free.
When you download it though, its in SFZ, but with .flac samples and not .wav samples.
You'll need to batch convert the samples. (I used Fission by Rogue Amoeba.)
You'll then need to batch rename the sample names inside the .sfz
I used TextEdit's find and replace. (find .flac and replace with .wav)
This allowed me to get the SFZ to load in awave studio, and convert to exs24.
The exs24 Model B comes in at 4.95gb, and has the most natural sound I've been able to achieve on iOS (Currently).
Most .SFZs can be converted to .SF2s with polyphone (If samples are in wav).
sforzando will convert .SF2s to .SFZs
@McDtracy
@VirSyn
Yes, If I had a SFZ sampler with MPE support I'd absolutely lose my s**t!
A multi gigabyte SFZ violin being controlled by a seaboard block with full MPE = gtfoh!
I agree, and as I've said I'm a very big fan of .SFZ.
I just wonder if @VirSyn could get things like MPE to work with SFZ?
No need to respond. It's an "editorial" comment.
No need to read this either.
Yeah, I get the local files load fast issue. Currently, my 128GB iPad is at :127GB used. So, I'm painfully selecting Apps to delete to switch over and start using AudioLayer again.
I seem to have this problem on all my devices and storage in general.
Throwing anything of "perceived" value away is hard for me. It's easier to run out and get another iPad for AudioLayer and start again. But it's a holiday and all the stores are closed so.
I should have got the 512GB iPad Pro. Live and learn.
I can buy a 128GB Lightning connected Flash Drive and park file there: App Backup and Restore? Is that a thing?
A USB drive that has a program which allows it to access more than just pictures is an option for offloading storage, but can’t be used for live access of those files. You couldn’t have a kit loaded in external storage and access those files live from an app. They’d have to be copied back onto local storage when needed.
I use a TripMate travel router, which allows me to attach any external storage and access it over wifi. I can even copy files up to an external 2TB hard disk this way.
Apps such as FileBrowser allow you to copy between network shares from a desktop PC or Mac. AudioShare and Documents by Readle allow you to transfer by ftp.
Another often overlooked option is to individually offload programs that you don’t use often. You can free up the storage used by the app (but not the data), then download it transparently again when you need to use it. I do this for large, infrequently used, apps such as FL Studio Mobile and (sorry folks....) GarageBand.
So the right process is to use iTunes file sharing, then copy to iPad/iPhone and a new folder will be created on local storage?
AL folder in Files app was only on iCloud. Is it possible after a first iTunes file sharing import to copy paste files directly locally from AudioShare, etc to local storage, without the need for iTunes?
That should be mentionned in manual !!!
Finally got the 24bit .exs version of the Steinway Model B (7.47gb)(Piano in 162 by IvyAudio) up and running. I had to change the buffer size to 512 inside of AUM.
It sounds amazing!
Drool.
I want to play this piano... I need to clean up my iPad's storage situation and convert an SFZ to EXS24. Using a Mac that sounds like:
Did I mention my Mac is also close to full?
New iPad release on Sept 12th required to simplify both options
TIP: SFZ's can be imported into Auria Pro and made playable quickly.
The "Piano in 162" sounds so quiet in Auria Pro that I had to buy a better Limiter to make it work in a mix. It also comes in 2 flavors "close mic" and "ambient/room mic" so I ran 2 instruments and mixed them for the ambience to be added. I later decided to toss the ambient instrument and just use Reverb to reclaim room for more App purchasing.
Getting the close mic Piano loaded into AudioLayer would be great. Maybe I could live without the Colossus 12GB Piano on my iPad. Too bad I can't resell these Apps.
@McDtracy
A couple of things.
The Piano in 162's samples are in .flac and not .wav
Polyphone does not accept .flac, so you'll need to convert them to .wav. (Fission by Rogue Amoeba).
You'll then need to find and replace with textedit in the SFZ. Find .flac replace with .wav
Also, polyphone has issues loading SFZs of that size.
Awave Studio.
Note: At the end of your 30 Day trial. Delete the Wine Wrapper (porting kit), and start the process all over with another porting kit wrapper and a new 30 days.
Note: Awave Studio can also convert Kontakt 2 & 3 Libraries to SFZ/EXS (Not 4 & 5)
Awesome detail. Thank you for the advice.
I went partially down this road before with "Piano in 162" and I used a command line Application on OS X called Sound eXchange (sox) to convert flac's to wav's. At that time I was making AudioLayer instruments using the 1.0 version and every wave sample had to be specified manually in the GUI.
I just grabbed some waves like all the C's and renamed them using the "pp,p,mp,mf,f,ff" labels in the file names to get layers. No round robins or release samples, etc. It just barely worked and I was ready to toss AL in the dust bin for making a great piano. Then Update and the EXS24 import was exposed and that got me a Salamander Yamaha C5 (from the SF2) that works but breaks the iCloud storage behavior to load.
So, I need to convert to local which means throwing away a very large App (or 2) or buying another iPad. I always like getting more gear and on 9/12 we might get new Pro's so...
I have confidence that @VirSyn is headed in the right direction and they specifically mentioned internal use of an SFZ importing tool so I will wait a few weeks and revisit this plan.
I just downloaded the "Piano in 162" torrent and tried to unzip it and filled by file system completely. So, I'm cramming files, photos, apps up into iCloud to make room for trying these steps.
I have a Windows Computer in a box somewhere but Awave for 30 days doesn't appeal to me.
Don't you wish we could just have 1-2 of us making the big freakin' 4-8GB instruments and pushing then into a DropBox account for the community to "sample" for review? Isn't that what Friends are for?
This is the reason why I have disco DSPs Bliss sampler. I am able to export in SFZ format. It’s the only sampler I have found that does that. And for that reason alone it is well worth it to me. Oh, did I mention that it can sample other VST’s automatically?
@McDtracy
I have a Seedbox, and this will happen. I'm still tweaking/learning SFZ. Once I know the level of SFZ support from the AudioLayer update, then I'll release some things.
Oh, I almost forgot.
1.) The volume of the 162. Easy Fix
The default volume of the pedal off = 6, and the pedal on = 12. (Open the .SFZ in TextEdit)
Then select the find and replace.
You'll use the Find and Replace (Same used to rename sample=... .flac to .wav)!
Hit the all button and then TextEdit will rename all corresponding lines.
2.) Trimming down the size of the .sf2 files (with polyphone)
Ok lets say you download the " Nice-Keys-Ultimate-V2.3 (1150mb)" from Soundfonts 4U.
That comes with multiple pianos.
1st.) What you want to do is delete all instruments other than the one you are interested in. (with Polyphone)
2nd.) Then you want to remove the unused samples from the deleted instruments to reduce the size.
"Remove unused elements"
Awesome. I'm going to modify the SFZ file for "Piano in 162" and import it into Auria Pro and decide if it compares to the 12GB Colossus and if it does then delete that storage hog. Colossus runs on my iPhone 5S as s sound module.
Obviously, I need a new iPad right? More storage...
I had a quick look at the SFZ V1 specification (the most widespread) and it looks like it supports every tag that AudioLayer requires, except portamento/glide but why not add a new tag for use with AudioLayer?
Of course, for @VirSyn to switch from the current *.instrument to *.sfz format, we first have to make sure how all current instrument properties will translate to SFZ tags, and what to do with instrument properties that are not (yet) available in the SFZ V1 spec.
so I got the spitfire piano to load, but several others where incomparable. so audiolayer accepts what format?
also, where are you guys finding libraries online?
Actually with AudioLayer, I'm getting back the fun of sampling all kinds of instruments and building sampler programs myself, something lost since the hardware from the 90s.
Now with SFZ (or even EXS) export, AudioLayer could become interesting for musicians that use desktop OSes and wouldn't otherwise be interested in iPad music apps.
Coming from NI Kontakt, a touch device seems like the better user interface for creating new instruments.
If it had an auto-sample capability (tell it how many notes to play per octave and how many velocities per note) where it could be set to send midi to an outside app, then automatically process the sounds to an instrument, it would be over the top.
I really appreciated this feature in FL Studio’s DirectWave plugin.
Currently, AudioLayer accepts the EXS24 format for import only.
I can't find many free EXS24 instruments so I was loading SF2's from Googling for free SF2's and converting them to EXS using Mainstage on my Mac. I got a lot of good instruments using this process. Mainstage itself is a huge source of instruments from Apple you can export and import into AudioLayer and skip looking for SF2's assuming you have access to a Mac. If not there's another path using Awave I think.
It's likely the next update will add more import features and save going to other desktops to get instruments for import.
I've just tried the automap feature with WAV samples given appropriate names for velocity range and note numbers. The first time I tried it, it seemed to work (although the resulting mapping was nonsense and didn't match the name tags at all), but the second time, after trying to let AudioLayer detect sample pitches for the same process, the app crashed and I cannot open it again since, tried force-closing the app too.
Any known workaround?
I would try moving the samples/instrument file you were working on so the app won’t be able to find them on start.
This could also be the bad, invisible file thing. @VirSyn described the workaround (probably in this thread), which involved renaming copying the files out of a folder, deleting the folder, restarting the app, and then moving the files back into the folder after it’s auto-created ... or something like that.
If you don't have a lot of instruments created then delete the App and re-install it. If you do maybe save the "instruments" and "samples" directories. Re-install and move over instruments and sample folders. Just thinking what I might try to get something working again...
In iTunes file sharing, I was only able to access the samples for import, not any file I was working on, so I guess @wim is right about the majority of files being inaccessible over iTunes.
That's what I ended up doing and that worked of course.
Thank you all!
Maybe @VirSyn can give us a word about he's going to handle the current findings.
Stagelight DAW for iOS currently in beta supports SFZ on its default instruments.
I'm sure SFZ would have a great time in AudioLayer too
I don’t have any sfz on my iPad & away from desktop , does Stagelight supports disk streaming? Easy way to find is by loading a big Soundfont