AudioLayer

espiegel123

Please post wisdom about AudioLayer here. Discussion of AudioLayer other than knowledge sharing that would go in a wiki belongs in a discussion thread.

A great place to start if you are having trouble figuring out how to import EXS files into AudioLayer is this video from the AudioDabbler:

and this thread (which has a great trick if you are not see the AudioLayer folder in Files on your ipad):
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/28157/audiolayer-exs-import-attached-poll

@Lithalean has shared some nice instruments, here:
https://musical-artifacts.com/artifacts?q=Lithalean

(Notice that a few of these are sfzs which you will have to convert to EXS)

espiegel123

@rs2000 offered this advice about importing your own samples and using the auto-mapping feature

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.

Quote

espiegel123

@McD notes:

You can also use pitch ranges in the naming like instrument_vel_C1-F1.aif or .wav and AudioLayer will map that sample across 6 notes

espiegel123

@Lithalean has pointed out that the Windows program Awave Studio can convert sfz files to EXS24 format files that AudioLayer can open. There is an experimental Mac version, too which I have used successfully. (It is Awave Studio bundled with Windows emulation tool Wine). One can use it for 30 days without purchase to try it out.

In this post, @lithalean writes:

Awave Studio. It even comes with a free trial. It's only for windows, but if you're on a mac, then you can use porting kit (wine) to run it. (I have a video of this on my channel).

https://www.fmjsoft.com/awavestudio.html#main

^If you do the mac route, then everything is contained within a wrapper, and therefore you can simply delete the wrapper after trial. Then repeat process. (Buy if you like it)

Note:
Awave studio downsamples 24bit to 16bit. It also saves the .EXS's audio samples as .aif (windows for .aiff)
At this point you can either:
1.) Convert your 24bit .wavs to 24bit .aifs
2.) Use logic to change the .exs to look for .wavs and then replace the 16bit .aif samples with 24bit .wav
3.) Keep the lower quality 16bit .aifs and call it good.

espiegel123

There has been some AudioLayer instrument sharing in this thread.

McD

Tips for new purchasers of AudioLayer:

1) I recommend you use local drive for the instruments. Using iCloud saves disk consumption but you might want to load a complex sample and it might be pushed up into the cloud. Then it will take minutes before you can play it. Not good for a performance situation and it assumes you're always on the Internet.

4 Methods for Adding new instruments to AudioLayer:

1) use AB3 or AUM and place AudioLayer in the FX slot of any App you'd like to sample.
Use the record feature and create the number of samples needed to complete the instrument. For some PAD's and sounds without vibrato you might only need a sample per octave to make a passible light instance of a Synth Preset. Then you can apply FX later on the AudioLayer App in AUM putting AudioLayer in the Instrument slot. NOTE: Recording in the FX slot doesn't let you hear the results. Maybe an update will solve this. My hoped for update will add auto-sampler features to just hit go and get a set of samples to complete the process. One can only hope. @Virsyn is effectively a talented programmer named Harry. He has created 21 IOS Apps. You'll often hear that someone sent @Virsyn an email and didn't get a personal reply. Go figure. A larger company would hire someone to handle those "Please send me more details and we'll try to duplicate your issue." replies. They might even have programmers that duplicate and stomp out the bugs. @Virsyn addresses bugs but the email communication is limited. @Janosax has reported on the status emails he gets from Harry. He has built a relationship and gets consideration. But the statuses are "I'm working on it." The overwhelming message here was avoid @Virsyn products because they get abandoned so I did. Until, I bought one and now I have 8. They are some of my favorite IOS tools. Still... we want extra features to fine-tune the excellence of their design.

2) Look for EXS Instruments on the internet. Place the EXS product in the iCloud "AudioLayer/Import" folder and just tap the .exs file and AudioLayer will start and import. Expect surprises and some necessary editing to make an instrument playable. I wish there was a download site for AudioLayer Instruments or IAP's of tested/well design instruments.
Musical-artifacts.com has 20 free EXS instruments with one of them being a collect of 100 instruments (Nice-Keys) which includes the Salamander Yamaha C5 packed at soundfonts4u.com.

3) If you have a Mac with Mainstage or Logic Pro you can export some of the instruments in the EXS24 Sampler for import into AudioLayer. Those apps also import SF2 libraries so that's a way to turn SF2 packages into collections of EXS Instruments. NOTE: A lot of the Apple instruments created a sample bundle with a *caf extension and they will not open in AudioLayer.

4) There's an IOS App called SynthJacker that can make auto-sample sets of AUv3 Apps by hosting them as the sound source. IAA and AB3 Apps are not (yet) supported. Synthjacker can also send MIDI out to external hardware and other IOS devices and record using an Audio Interface. SynthJacker doesn't do complex velocity lists without messing up the ordering of the recordings so I recommend "save by velocity" in the app settings and doing runs at single velocities and importing into AudioLayer by discrete Layers to make multi-layer instruments. Also the recorded samples do not cut out the silence and need a hand editing but this for me is the most efficient method to clone IOS App Presets quickly compared to method #1.

espiegel123

More Awave Studio tips:

As noted above, Awave Studio will convert wav files (of any bit depth) to 16-bit aif files. Here are some tips if you would prefer to use the original wav files. This is also the case if your sample set is 24-bit aif files.

• Convert the sfz to exs24 (which will also create a folder of aifs)
• Open up the exs24 file in a text editor, do a global search/replace all to replace '.aif' with '.wav'
• Save a copy of the edited exs24 file
• Use your original files in place of the 16-bit aif files

AmpApps

Is it just me? I’m trying to build drum kits in AL and negotiating single note samples with multiple layers makes my skin crawl. The zoom stops before it gets to a comfortable position to work on the sample placements. The delete X is so easy to hit. You can’t resize a velocity if its too close to 127 without pulling the whole thing down. And if you accidentally delete a sample there doesn’t seem to be an undo...or a cut, or a paste. What am I missing?

Audiojunkie

@AmpApps said:
Is it just me? I’m trying to build drum kits in AL and negotiating single note samples with multiple layers makes my skin crawl. The zoom stops before it gets to a comfortable position to work on the sample placements. The delete X is so easy to hit. You can’t resize a velocity if its too close to 127 without pulling the whole thing down. And if you accidentally delete a sample there doesn’t seem to be an undo...or a cut, or a paste. What am I missing?

Patience? 😜 Seriously. Sampling is almost considered a dark art. I actually like it though I don’t have much time for it. Equate it with building a ship in a bottle and you’ve got it summed up. The satisfaction of building a high quality sampled instrument is about the same as well. Not everyone builds ships in bottles for fun. Likewise, Sampling isn’t for everyone. 🙂

espiegel123

REMINDER: KNOWLEDGE BASE THREADS ARE FOR SHARING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HOW TO USE APPS!

Discussion of apps should be done in the main forum.

espiegel123

Instructions for getting the Slender Salamander (250MB version of the Salamander Grand Piano) are found here.

espiegel123

Instructions for getting the full 1.2GB Salamander piano into AudioLayer are here.

AmpApps

@Audiojunkie said:

@AmpApps said:
Is it just me? I’m trying to build drum kits in AL and negotiating single note samples with multiple layers makes my skin crawl. The zoom stops before it gets to a comfortable position to work on the sample placements. The delete X is so easy to hit. You can’t resize a velocity if its too close to 127 without pulling the whole thing down. And if you accidentally delete a sample there doesn’t seem to be an undo...or a cut, or a paste. What am I missing?

Patience? 😜 Seriously. Sampling is almost considered a dark art. I actually like it though I don’t have much time for it. Equate it with building a ship in a bottle and you’ve got it summed up. The satisfaction of building a high quality sampled instrument is about the same as well. Not everyone builds ships in bottles for fun. Likewise, Sampling isn’t for everyone. 🙂

I see, thank you for the very helpful and insightful response. This will make a tremendous impact on my ameturish impatience. Although, I think using a file name scheme and auto import might serve me even better...and no witchcraft!

espiegel123

When importing EXS instruments, AudioLayer creates a folder for the samples whose name matches the EXS instrument name.

Audiojunkie

@espiegel123 said:
When importing EXS instruments, AudioLayer creates a folder for the samples whose name matches the EXS instrument name.

Do you know of any way to have sub folders in AudioLayer? For example, Shreddage X by Impact Soundworks has about 12 different articulations of the same instrument. Other instruments are similar. I don't see a way to do it.

espiegel123

@Audiojunkie said:

@espiegel123 said:
When importing EXS instruments, AudioLayer creates a folder for the samples whose name matches the EXS instrument name.

Do you know of any way to have sub folders in AudioLayer? For example, Shreddage X by Impact Soundworks has about 12 different articulations of the same instrument. Other instruments are similar. I don't see a way to do it.

I think it creates a sample folder for each exs you import. Please email Harry about this issue. I know he is working on AL and has improved importing instruments. Whether he responds or not he is reading his email.

Tones4Christ

I deleted the app and reinstalled it fresh!
Disabled iCloud and disabled install of iCloud instruments.

First thing I did was to create a dummy instrument and saved under the name of “placeholder” this is so that AL will create a folder in the Files App called AudioLayer.

Downloaded the Stratocaster EXS file from one of the links above and followed the Audiodabbler’s instructions and bam! Worked perfectly! I loved how AL automatically loaded everything up!

Will try creating my own now but the Stratocaster EXS instrument is amazing!

rs2000

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rs2000

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[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

[Deleted User]

Anybody been able to figure out how to import SFZ files into the updated app? The manual instructions aren’t working for me.

espiegel123

@InfoCheck said:
Anybody been able to figure out how to import SFZ files into the updated app? The manual instructions aren’t working for me.

Post in the forum and I’ll be happy to reply. The knowledgebase has essentially been retired...it was a temp place to put info intended for the wiki during the period before the wiki was online.

Clueless

...sorry, wrong thread...too many of similar theme here.

sujoybose77

I am looking for a sampler that will allow me to sample the great sound of Yonac steel (slide) guitar and play it through Geoshred... I am wondering whether this sampler allows me to multi-sample that guitar so that I can play glides and slides smoothly. I am not sure about the pitch bend range it can support. If I sample each note correctly and then play AudioLayer using Geoshred - will I be able to glide and slide smoothly?

espiegel123

@sujoybose77 said:
I am looking for a sampler that will allow me to sample the great sound of Yonac steel (slide) guitar and play it through Geoshred... I am wondering whether this sampler allows me to multi-sample that guitar so that I can play glides and slides smoothly. I am not sure about the pitch bend range it can support. If I sample each note correctly and then play AudioLayer using Geoshred - will I be able to glide and slide smoothly?

It is a velocity layered multi sampler. I haven’t explored it in a scenario trying to glide between notes t9 see if that can be accomplished. It also has a handy auto-sampling capability built in to simplify sampling your synths.

sujoybose77

@espiegel123 said:

@sujoybose77 said:
I am looking for a sampler that will allow me to sample the great sound of Yonac steel (slide) guitar and play it through Geoshred... I am wondering whether this sampler allows me to multi-sample that guitar so that I can play glides and slides smoothly. I am not sure about the pitch bend range it can support. If I sample each note correctly and then play AudioLayer using Geoshred - will I be able to glide and slide smoothly?

It is a velocity layered multi sampler. I haven’t explored it in a scenario trying to glide between notes t9 see if that can be accomplished. It also has a handy auto-sampling capability built in to simplify sampling your synths.

Can you please try to glide between notes and share your experience? I hoe it does not sound synthetic as it moves further away from the original note...

espiegel123

@sujoybose77 said:

@espiegel123 said:

@sujoybose77 said:
I am looking for a sampler that will allow me to sample the great sound of Yonac steel (slide) guitar and play it through Geoshred... I am wondering whether this sampler allows me to multi-sample that guitar so that I can play glides and slides smoothly. I am not sure about the pitch bend range it can support. If I sample each note correctly and then play AudioLayer using Geoshred - will I be able to glide and slide smoothly?

It is a velocity layered multi sampler. I haven’t explored it in a scenario trying to glide between notes t9 see if that can be accomplished. It also has a handy auto-sampling capability built in to simplify sampling your synths.

Can you please try to glide between notes and share your experience? I hoe it does not sound synthetic as it moves further away from the original note...

Sorry, I don't have any sample sets that would make sense for that and don't really have the time to experiment with getting it set up. Are you not able to control the steel guitar app from Geoshred? Not sure if this makes any difference, Audiolayer isn't an MPE app.

sujoybose77

@espiegel123 said:

@sujoybose77 said:

@espiegel123 said:

@sujoybose77 said:
I am looking for a sampler that will allow me to sample the great sound of Yonac steel (slide) guitar and play it through Geoshred... I am wondering whether this sampler allows me to multi-sample that guitar so that I can play glides and slides smoothly. I am not sure about the pitch bend range it can support. If I sample each note correctly and then play AudioLayer using Geoshred - will I be able to glide and slide smoothly?

It is a velocity layered multi sampler. I haven’t explored it in a scenario trying to glide between notes t9 see if that can be accomplished. It also has a handy auto-sampling capability built in to simplify sampling your synths.

Can you please try to glide between notes and share your experience? I hoe it does not sound synthetic as it moves further away from the original note...

Sorry, I don't have any sample sets that would make sense for that and don't really have the time to experiment with getting it set up. Are you not able to control the steel guitar app from Geoshred? Not sure if this makes any difference, Audiolayer isn't an MPE app.

Yonac steel guitar can not be played via Geoshred or any other midi controller. It has very basic midi input capability (e.g. pedal control etc)..

espiegel123

As an FYI, an AudioLayer update is coming soon that fixes the auto-mapping bug where samples were mapped to a one note range and restores the behavior of tapping in an empty zone bringing up the import/record panel.

@tahiche : this solves the problem you mentioned elsewhere creating instruments by importing just C’s. It was the byproduct of a nice new feature: being able to have a note range specified in the sample name.

gosnote

Hello, I have a specific issue with Audiolayer that I would like to ask for your advice on.

When importing an EXS file from a Drum Drops multisample library into AL that according to Drum Drops has been generated by the newest Logic Pro 10.6 Sampler, the resulting AL instrument only contains part of the whole drumkit (hihats) on one layer and nothing else. This is a new Drum Drops library (Neo Soul). EXS files of older libraries have apparently been generated using an older version of the Logic sampler and the imported EXS file in AL results in the whole kit being imported correctly, with kit pieces on different layers.

Since I don't have Logic or Mainstage I am not able to open the EXS file to try to understand how it is built. Drum Drops weren't very helpful except for mentioning that this EXS was generated with the latest Sampler in Logic Pro. This library didn't come with SFZ files (some older libraries do), but I was wondering if the EXS could be converted to SFZ, maybe it could import correctly into AL. I'm also wondering is it worth to invest in Mainstage, to be able to open the EXS and possible edit/export it in a format that would import properly into Audio Layer?

Thanks for any insights!

Janosax

AudioLayer is on sale for 8.99 $