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Comments
I acknowledged that some feel the need for such a thing, I disagree that it's a sizable audience given the current limitations.
Absolutely!! This is one of the best features this sampler has! I'm using desktop sample sets over a gig in size each and this thing does great!!
OK, if you want to make good use of your single-cycle waveform collection then something like the PPG synths, Waldorf Nave or Groove Rider would likely offer you more fun. Or even Obsidian in NanoStudio 2.
AudioLayer fills a few very specific gaps, in my case it's the ability to pack a good 5GB Grand Piano into an iPhone that I can leave in my pocket, attach wired headphones and play it over Bluetooth MIDI, for example. I have converted my go-to sampled pianos to the AudioLayer-proprietary file naming and to create a new instrument, I just copy them to the device using iTunes and import them all. No internet bs required. When not going the Auria path, AudioLayer is the only standalone and AUv3 app that will do this. Also, it's still much better than the gimmicky "sampler" in Cubasis, so it has its little place.
As for Harry's other synths, yes, I know the good old desktop synths like Tera, Cube and Poseidon which are real powerhouses, but because they're more or less limited on iOS I feel much more drawn to the more advanced PPG Wavemapper, Nave, Synthmaster, iWavestation, iMonoPoly, Mood, Zeeon, thor, Model 15, Laplace etc. synths.
Heck, even Groove Rider is a very accessible 4-voice polyphonic, 16-timbral synth that is lots of fun when throwing single-cycles and Serum wavetables at it
@rs2000 I own all of the PPG/Waldorf apps as I'm a previous owner of both a Microwave and PPG (picked it up second hand for a steal in the late 80's). And as mentioned in my original post I create bespoke wavetables for use in any/all of the wavetable powered synths at my disposal. BTW I own all the iOS synths you mention, but that doesn't preclude me seeing value in TERA, Cube, Poseidon and Addictive Pro.
But crikey, I already stated that I'm aware that there are many in this thread that see a lot of value in AudioLayer. The points I raised were posted for VirSyn's attention because all artist feedback is important, not just feedback from those individuals that have purchased and see value in their purchase.
Plus in lieu of VirSyn posting their long-promised manual (first promised in August), I think it's important that potential purchasers get to see some well-reasoned feedback from those that decided not to purchase the product. $5 to $10 is fine as a punt on something that has no demo version available, but a $30 purchase is a considerable amount to waste on something which doesn't do things you hoped for or expected.
The layering functionality in AudioLayer is pretty cool, and allows me to build complex soundscapes quickly.
I don’t like the cloud saving thing though, I can never work out whether my files are on the cloud or the iPad.
The iCloud saving thing is great if you use multiple devices. You can create an instrument on one device, then grab it seamlessly on another device.
If the instruments are huge then I guess it might not work quite so well.
I've turned it off as I don't want to have any issues when I am not on the cloud.
I had not really tried it before today, but for the record this is super easy to transfer an EXS zipped instrument and import it into AudioLayer. No PC or Mac needed, just bring it in from the iOS Files app. I’ll be having some fun playing the instruments from @Lithalean
For me the cloud storage option would be more of a nuisance, but it is easy to work without it, and kudos to Virsyn for making it easy to turn off cloud storage.
Can anyone provide some help with importing the Salamander grand piano library to AL? It is available here https://musical-artifacts.com/ and is part of the “Nice Keys Ultimate” library https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts/664
I’ve been trying to load it from the iOS Files app but it keeps crashing AudioLayer and it is unsuccessful.
I had no problem with importing other EXS instruments from that website so I’m wondering if there is a trick to the Salamander Piano. @McD ?
What hardware and iOS version are you running?
Which of the Nice Keys EXS files is failing for you. I downloaded it but haven't loaded all of the included EXS files in AudioLayer.
I downloaded the Nice Keys Ultimate zip that you have on that site and cannot get the instruments to load in AudioLayer. But I have had luck with the other EXS Files you posted. Are you able to open the Nice Keys instruments in AudioLayer as-is?
I don’t get any errors, but when the EXS opens in AudioLayer, AL searches for the samples and whe it is done there are no samples n the resulting instrument.
I had some trouble too. The Salamander Grand is in that Nice Keys Ultimate zip file and when I try to import it crashes AL. I have not succeeded yet A few of the smaller instruments in that library seemed to load OK.
The takeaway for me is that it just isn't that easy to drag and drop EXS instruments in to AL. I imported the Yamaha C7 from Lithalean, and it loaded up OK in AL. BUT every note plays the sustained, full audio file. No release at all, and sustain pedal has no effect. Velocity layers seem OK so that is good. Anyway, I'm guessing it could be cleaned up by manually editing the instrument after import.
Then again the Marimba EXS loaded up great, no issues and plays really well.
I'm not sure what it takes for AL to recognize and properly import an EXS. Others have mentioned that iCloud import is more reliable than the internal folder transfer. And I think it was @rs2000 who said his best results are when he just manually builds the AL instruments from the exs audio files.
Let me repeat in short how I go about it:
First, rename the files to match AudioLayer's auto-mapping file naming scheme:
name_NoteName_velocity.wav
Examples:
AcGuitar_C#3_ppp.wav
AcGuitar_B3_fff.wav
Note that the following velocity ranges are available, in this order from low to high:
ppp
pp
p
mf
f
ff
fff
When all files have their names right, I copy them all to AudioLayer's iTunes shared files folder into a sub folder given an appropriate name for the new instrument (I'm using iFunbox but iTunes works too) over USB.
You can import all these files without the need for an EXS file, AL will place the samples horizontally by evaluating the note names and vertically by evaluating the velocity letters.
I've done it with >500 files, no problem.
By selecting groups of samples, you can fine-tune the exact velocity ranges later.
Blimey, Piano-forte naming for velocity ranges. Who says us music technology folk have no need of classical music theory.
Yeh, that’s a one really strange naming choice. Why purposefully choose somethindg restricted in the number of zones. What so I do if I have five samples? Or ten? Why does it map them over different size ranges? How does it decide how to distribute them? Bugs the hell outta me.
I had drumkit samples with nine layers per kit. So went to go through each one, decide which to keep, carefully renamed the ones I kept, which was a pain to keep track of because the naming scheme results in weird sorting. Got it all done, imported, and then ended up with the zones covering odd, uneven ranges of velocities. As much as I struggle with the tiny zone mapping UI, it was easier just to bring in the samples myself one by one than to import!
Seems like a pretty reasonable naming convention to me. Strikes a reasonable balance for automated import. I suspect that any simple to learn/use naming convention is going to have its ups and downs.
Thanks for that @rs2000 ! I hope I don't need to bother with all that but it is good info. To be honest all I really want is a decent piano sound that I can load in AL for an AUv3 piano in a live multi-channel set.
And the good news is that it looks like if I use the AutoSampler in Mainstage the EXS file that Mainstage creates actually seems to import fairly well into AudioLayer
. I'll be testing this out a little more, but I think I'll be happy with this.
@rs2000 good information. I have been working on gathering this same information as well. I might use this in an audio layer video I am working on. I will make sure I give some credit to you.
There is an Minimum Viable Piano(MVP) piano from Pianobook, Christian Henson. Sounds good. Needs a little renaming in the files but he put a gap at the beginning of each sample. Which is fine for EXS or Kontakt but there seems to not be a global sample start option. So I need to batch process each of the samples to take out the gap or import as is and drag the slider of each sample to the correct start position. Trying to figure out which is easier.
Balance? From what? What’s wrong with just plain ol’ numbers? They’re open ended make sense to most people, and sort cleanly in file lists.
It just occurred to me that it would be kinda cool if samples were analyzed on import and distributed according to peak or rms.
@Hmtx said:
I have had this on my list of things to try for a long time. The availability of wonderful IOS sounds made me give up... along with the rumors that @Virsyn is working on an update.
Of course, they could be hitting the same issues with standard SF2 and SFZ packages and finding it too difficult to make the import process work well.
@richardyot put up a post that can be helpful for anyone wanting to create input wave samples with the correct naming scheme. You'd be surprised how few samples are needed for a lot of useful sounds... a flute for example is typically used over 2 octaves and 6 decent samples can cover that range. Just keep adding samples to improve the realism. You can also layer sounds in and create new complex sounds.
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/31015/a-tip-to-help-speed-up-the-process-of-sampling-iaa-synths-instruments
Make something and add it to musical-artifacts.com and we'll get a community going making better sounds for audio layer and encourage @Virsyn to sink more investment into the product to grow the community.
The problem being that the amplitude of the waveform might not represent the degree of loudness of the strike. When sampling a lightly touched piano or lightly bowed string, to get the ppp tone -- it is still wise to have a reasonable noise floor. So, such signals are often recorded with a fair amount of gain so that the audio isn't too close to the noise floor. Maybe better put, the relative volume of the sample files often doesn't equate to intended output volume for the sample.
You're welcome.
As long as your AutoSampler files import well, all is good!
It's by far the easiest way to get sounds into AL.
I tend to tweak, edit and select samples a lot but I'm sure only few are as crazy as I am
Cool, feel free to do so
My next project will certainly include release samples .. bummer the modulation options are so limited in AL.
Agreed. Making a meaningful estimate of the relative ranges would be difficult. It’s difficult by ear as well though, and thus graphical waveform displays are useful aids. Still, I have to think a clever developer could come up with some kind of algorithm that would do a decent job. Especially since we’re talking about very similar samples since they’re from the same instrument. Pitch detection isn’t always precise either, but is a feature of AudioLayer.
If nothing else, it would be a nice gimmick that could have marketing mileage.
This little utility already exists. It's a free commandline tool, it's called "sox" (no, not what you're guessing, sox stands for "sound Xchange"
) and it has more options for detecting/measuring levels than you ever wanted. It's my go-to audio file processor.
Can it be easily mugged into auto-naming samples with ppp, pp p, etc.?
The device is not what is limited here.
Apple gives you everything you need. It's just, they only, want advanced users doing things many feel should be basic function. This is the a big difference between android and iOS. iOS and macOS are based on BSD, and UNIX! Personally, my iPad Pro will always be jailbroken for productivity. My iPhone will remain unjailbroken for security (Credit/Debit). Even un-jailbroken though, a lot is still possible, but just, for some hard. That is by design.
It's not even that they don't want you to see the file system, but they don't want everyone seeing the file system. "Can't", when talking about anything, is a strong word!
Completely disagree. I only WISH it could become a EXS24 clone, or better yet, sforzando (SFZ).
Just not converted to .instrument at import @virsyn, but actually exist on the device as a .SFZ!
It's ok @virsyn, to store the .SFZ in the container, I'll get to it just fine.
MTerminal:
"/" of my 2TB LaCie:
Aquaman x265 HEVC 10bit 6+gb:
The Setup on a desk:
Uncut video of it live:
Jailbroken:
1.) MTerminal
2.) Filza*
Full / (root)
Un-Jailbroken:
1.) MTerminal
2.) GeoFilza or FilzaEscaped*
*Filza clones that will only let you go to /var
@Lithalean : Do the instruments in the Nice Keys Ultimate zip import ok into AudioLayer for you?
General User GS 1.471 (EXS) &
Nice Keys Ultimate v2.3 (EXS)
These two uploads didn't start as .SFZ, but as .sf2, and they are not mine. I list their creators at the bottom of the info. These were request, and as is. Quick(ish) converts in logic with the .sf2, and only tested a handful. I hear the Gen Usr works, and some of the Nice Keys have issues.
For all other uploads (EXS):
1.) Worked on as a .SFZ; and tested in sforzando (macOS & Windows).
2.) Then I convert the .SFZ to .sf2 with Polyphone (macOS & Windows).
(This will downgrade 24bits to 16bits).
3.) I then take the .sf2 and convert it to .EXS with Logic Pro X.
(Mainstage I hear works, but the EXS24 sampler in Logic can edit the .EXS)
4.) I could replace the converted 16bit .wav samples now with 24bit .wav from the .SFZ,
5.) but I instead convert the 24bit .wav to 24bit .aiff with Fission. (batch rename .aiff to .aif)
6.) Then edit the .EXS in logic to look for .aif and not .wav
I personally think .aif /.aiff & .EXS perform better than .wav & .EXS in AL for large libraries.
Thanks for all the work you have done.
Since Nice Keys is tagged with AudioLayer in that database, you might want to add a note in the description to let people know that some of the instruments don't load correctly in AudioLayer.