Virtual Playing Orchestra - pre announcement

[Michael Willis]

Here is some feedback from my preliminary testing:

Overall the sounds are great to my untrained ears.

For some reason, LinuxSampler doesn't give me any audio at all when I use any of the keyswitch files. Yes, I tried triggering the keyswitches and still it doesn't work.  I understand that you're not officially supporting LinuxSampler, but I'll see what I can do to try to get it working. If I do, I'll let you know.

I noticed that the keyswitch files have a wholesale copy of other files.  If you are editing by hand, there is an unofficial "include" statement that is supported by both Sforzando and LinuxSampler, and possibly others. So you could do something like the following:

// ------------------------------
//      1st Violins Sustain
// ------------------------------

<group>
sw_last=c2
sw_label=C2 Sustain
#include "Strings-1st-violin-SEC-sustain.sfz

[Paul Battersby]

Michael

Yea, I know about the #include statement, but thanks for pointing it out.  Either No Budget or VSCO2 uses it, I forget which. Ideally I want to support multiple sfz players and I wasn't sure how common the implementation of the #include directive would be. It's listed as an Aria engine (sforzando) custom opcode so I wasn't sure it would be a good idea to use it. I wrote some software of my own to blend multiple .sfz files (cause I knew I'd need that) that also allow me to perform search and replace changes to the input files, and I created my own #include directive. I may have wholesale copies of files in files, but locally, there is only one source of each file. If I make a change to the sustain file in your example above, I run my software to automatically re-build the other files.

As for the key switch files not working in linux sampler, I'd like it to work because I'd like multiple sfz players to be supported. If you can figure out why it isn't working that would be great. I installed linux sampler but so far have had no luck figuring out how to make Reaper recognize it. Normally I'd expect to install the player on my computer and then copy a .dll file into my Reaper plugins directory but I've had no luck with that. I've also directed Reaper to scan the linux sampler install directory, but still no luck getting Reaper to recognize it.

EDIT: perhaps the problem is "sw_default"? I just discovered it's not a standard sfz opcode (seems rather important though). Try deleting that and see if that helps. Also, try deleting "sw_label", also not standard apparently.

[Michael Willis]

I got it to work, for some reason the <global> section didn't work, even though www.linuxsampler.org/sfz claims that it is supported.

To fix Strings-1st-violin-SEC-KS-C2.sfz, I removed the <global> section, and then copied the following under every group:

Code:

sw_default=c2  // sustain by default
sw_lokey=c2
sw_hikey=f2

I left both sw_default and sw_label, neither of them seemed to have any effect on LinuxSampler. I had to press one of the keys in the keyswitch range before getting any sound.

For what it's worth, I'm using LinuxSampler 2.0.0.

I can't help with installing it on Windows. This was bound to come out at some point, and I wouldn't be surprised if some people have already figured it out; I'm using Linux, specifically the latest release of Ubuntu Studio, with some customizations.

[Paul Battersby]

(10-16-2016, 04:39 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I got it to work, for some reason the <global> section didn't work

That's good news and an easy fix. I had already removed many <global> opcodes for the purposes of merging .sfz files so I wouldn't have more than one <global> opcode in the same file. Thanks for solving that problem. I'll seek out and destroy the rest of the <global> opcodes.

(10-16-2016, 04:39 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I left both sw_default and sw_label, neither of them seemed to have any effect on LinuxSampler. I had to press one of the keys in the keyswitch range before getting any sound.

Which is what "sw_default" does of course. Removes the need to press a key first. Now I know I can add LinuxSampler as being supported with the note that a keyswitch must be pressed to first get a sound.

(10-16-2016, 04:39 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I'm using Linux

Good to know this library will work on Windows and Linux although it's all text and sound files so it's really only dependent on the sampler.

[Paul Battersby]

I've uploaded a patch to remove all <global> opcodes and move the contents to <group> opcodes.

You can download a patch file containing only the updated .sfz files from the same link as before.

[Michael Willis]

I went through all of the strings this morning, trying to load each one and watching for errors (while the children were doing piano practice, I'm not sure how much they liked the sound changing 2 or 3 times each song ). Everything loaded and played successfully except for the following:

Loading sfz instrument ('Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/Strings/Strings-1st-violin-SEC-staccato-fix.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/libs/NoBudgetOrch/ViolinSect/Sustain/3_A.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/Strings/Strings-1st-violin-SOLO-sustain2.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/libs/NoBudgetOrch/SoloViolin/Vibrato/5_A.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/Strings/Strings-1st-violin-SOLO-sustain-SSO.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/libs/Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra/Samples/violin/violin-g3.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/Strings/Strings-2nd-violin-SEC-KS-C2.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/libs/SSO/Samples/2nd Violins/2nd-violins-piz-rr2-g3-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/Strings/Strings-2nd-violin-SEC-pizzicato.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: Virtual-Playing-Orchestra/libs/SSO/Samples/2nd Violins/2nd-violins-piz-rr2-g3-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Looks like the first three are left over files from some prior draft (with names like staccato-fix, sustain2, and sustain-SSO). The last two failed to load because the Linux filesystem is case-sensitive, and the file name is 2nd-violins-piz-rr2-g3-pb.wav (pb instead of PB)

I wasn't able to fully test Strings-harp-KS-C0.sfz, because my 88-key digital piano doesn't have a C0, and it's best to not monkey around with the transpose button while the children are practicing piano .

I'll do further testing on the other sections throughout the week.

[Paul Battersby]

Yup. First 3 are not supposed to be there.

As for the last 2, although I was careful, I figured I'd get bitten at least once by upper / lower case file name issues in Linux. Fortunately, it seems the direction of directory name separators doesn't matter (forward vs back slashes) because I know different source libraries used different slashes between directory names.

Thanks for pointing these out. I'm glad I can remove these mistakes before the first official release.

For transposing to reach all the harp notes, in my DAW there is a built in plugin I can load to transpose incoming MIDI. Perhaps your DAW has one somewhere as well?

[Paul Battersby]

I discovered that I broke the glockenspiel when I created the 0.2 patch. I've created a new patch that upgrades from 0.1 (or 0.2) to 0.3. This also fixes the upper / lower case LinuxSampler filename problem with 2nd-violins-piz-rr2-g3-pb.wav. I can't issue a patch to remove the unused .sfz files identified above, (you'll just have to delete them), but they won't be included in any future .zip files.

[Michael Willis]

I tested all of the choirs and woodwinds this morning, and saw the following errors, likely all due to the case-sensitive filesystem:

Code:

Loading sfz instrument ('Choir-mixed.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/chorus/chorus-female-g4.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-bassoon-SOLO-KS-F5.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/bassoon/bassoon-a#1-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-bassoon-SOLO-marcato.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/bassoon/bassoon-a#1-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-bassoon-SOLO-sustain.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/bassoon/bassoon-a#1-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-bassoon-SOLO-sustain-mod-wheel.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/bassoon/bassoon-a#1-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-oboe-SOLO-KS-C2.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/samples/oboe/oboe-a#3-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-oboe-SOLO-marcato.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/samples/oboe/oboe-a#3-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-oboe-SOLO-staccato.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/samples/oboe/oboe-a#3-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-oboe-SOLO-sustain.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/samples/oboe/oboe-a#3-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-oboe-SOLO-sustain-mod-wheel.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/samples/oboe/oboe-a#3-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-piccolo-SOLO-KS-C2.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/piccolo/piccolo-c4-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-piccolo-SOLO-marcato.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/piccolo/piccolo-c4-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-piccolo-SOLO-staccato.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/piccolo/piccolo-c4-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-piccolo-SOLO-sustain.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/piccolo/piccolo-c4-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

Loading sfz instrument ('Woodwinds-piccolo-SOLO-sustain-mod-wheel.sfz',0)...OK
Caching initial samples...sfz::Engine error: Failed to load instrument, cause: ../libs/SSO/Samples/piccolo/piccolo-c4-PB.wav: Can't get sample info: System error : No such file or directory.

I noticed that some of the keyswitch SFZs will play a default sound without me having to trigger a keyswitch, I'm not sure what's different about them than the ones that didn't, but I'll look more into it.

Something I forgot to mention that I discovered earlier is that sometimes if I press and release a key quickly, the note drones until I press and release the key again.  I'm wondering if this is a bug in LinuxSampler with how it handles the offset_random=200...  maybe if the offset delays the beginning of the note such that it happens after the key release, the release doesn't stop the note?  I'll do some more investigation, it might be easier to reproduce using a DAW. Right now I'm just piping midi events directly from my piano to the sampler.

[Paul Battersby]

(10-18-2016, 02:11 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I tested all of the choirs and woodwinds this morning, and saw the following errors, likely all due to the case-sensitive filesystem:

Those errors will be fixed in the next patch. If you used Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra with LinuxSampler, you should have seen these same errors. I checked and these errors are part of the files I copied from that library. Most of the time, I re-use the original .sfz files and apply search and replace changes to create the new, modified .sfz files that I use in my library. So, if the originals contain some error, my .sfz files likely will too.

(10-18-2016, 02:11 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I noticed that some of the keyswitch SFZs will play a default sound without me having to trigger a keyswitch, I'm not sure what's different about them than the ones that didn't, but I'll look more into it.

That's good news provided we can figure out why. Can you give me the name of an instrument where the default sound plays properly and another where it doesn't and I'll see if I can spot an important difference.

(10-18-2016, 02:11 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: Something I forgot to mention that I discovered earlier is that sometimes if I press and release a key quickly, the note drones until I press and release the key again.

If you can provide the name of the instrument and the articulation, I'll look into it. I'd like to know if it also happens with Sforzando and I'd like to examine the waveforms to see if your hypotheses as to the cause, could be right.