I join in the chorus of hope for VSL ease and intelligence.

But there is a caveat when we compare VSL to Synful. VSL needs sample RAM. Synful generates its own waves and takes up only 32 MB of RAM.

So it's fine to imagine a program sorting through MIDI data, interpreting the articulations and rendering them on our behalf, as Synful does. But in VSL, those articulations first need to be loaded. I can't imagine that changing, and it does bring my dreams back to Earth.

But the greater truth is, VSL is being assembled by musical minds. And I find great encouragement in that, whatever they present to us. I'm so impressed that they are re-engineering VSL to empower the composer *as he conceives of music,* not as technology forces him to think.

Sometimes in Logic, I get that "tail wags the dog" feeling. And I think VSL is working hard to avoid just that.

@Plowman said:

I join in the chorus of hope for VSL ease and intelligence.

But there is a caveat when we compare VSL to Synful. VSL needs sample RAM. Synful generates its own waves and takes up only 32 MB of RAM.

So it's fine to imagine a program sorting through MIDI data, interpreting the articulations and rendering them on our behalf, as Synful does. But in VSL, those articulations first need to be loaded. I can't imagine that changing, and it does bring my dreams back to Earth.

But the greater truth is, VSL is being assembled by musical minds. And I find great encouragement in that, whatever they present to us. I'm so impressed that they are re-engineering VSL to empower the composer *as he conceives of music,* not as technology forces him to think.

Sometimes in Logic, I get that "tail wags the dog" feeling. And I think VSL is working hard to avoid just that.

Nice post, Plowman. For as long as I've used Logic, I've never fallen in love with it. I would have avoided it altogether were it not for VSL.

I must say that if I've found this particular thread in any way entertaining, the VSL team must be thoroughly enjoying themselves while soaking in all the spec. Nothing like a mystery to get everyone chatting with vigor!

It will be most interesting to compare the long list of imaginatve feature requests on this thread with the actual package to appear soon-- and then to see which features suggested over the past few days will find its way in one incarnation or another to VSL in future updates.

Cheers!
JWL

2 days!

but the movie [and today's clue!] hasn't loaded yet.. [:(]

It's there. At first I didn't even realize that the "woodwinds, strings, brass, percussion" thingy is a clue. [:)] It must be pretty obvious what's coming. Can't wait to hear that how long I have to live poorly to be able to afford it. Not that I'm rich without it. [8-)]

I just noticed the number 10... What could that possibly be?

I also just noticed this thread has over 12 thousand views!

Plowman,

I wouldn't be so quick to assume that VSL is completely unlike Synful, even in the ways you suggest. After all, Synful is sample-based. It's just that they've turned to a sample-resynthesis method, rather than using the raw samples themselves -- the "library" is small simply because it consists only of control data for the resynthesis engine, not the complete original samples themselves.
Also keep in mind that with an intelligent front-end it simply is not necessary to pre-load all the articulations. The whole point of an "intelligent" front-end is that it no longer needs to load a complete "sample map" every time a new articulation is required. Rather, it is only necessary to load the sample for the desired articulation at the desired pitch. Very possible to do... in fact, I've even done it myself! (Yes, I will release it someday... but it's a little deflating when I imagine what VSL will/might be coming out with... gulp! It's all very exciting though.)

J.

@magates said:

I also just noticed this thread has over 12 thousand views!

That's cause there's twelve people here that have looked at it a thousand times.

@magates said:

I also just noticed this thread has over 12 thousand views!

That's cause there's twelve people here that have looked at it a thousand times.


[:D]

2 days left. Has everybody bought their lottery tickets?

I think I should win a free copy for starting this thread!

It's so close now you can almost smell it!

So today is 2 days - does this mean tomorrow (Friday) is 1 day or the day of the annoucement? Otherwise its a Saturday and I'm sure VSL will be having the weekend off....

[:O]ops: apologies if this has been covered but i've not read the entire 20+ pages of postings... [:D]

@magates said:

I think I should win a free copy for starting this thread!

And that's what you'll get for it: A piece of thread!

@timkiel said:

So today is 2 days - does this mean tomorrow (Friday) is 1 day or the day of the annoucement? Otherwise its a Saturday and I'm sure VSL will be having the weekend off....

[:O]ops: apologies if this has been covered but i've not read the entire 20+ pages of postings... [:D]

No it means there is 1 day left tommorow. The announcement will come the 26th - saturday

"The whole point of an "intelligent" front-end is that it no longer needs to load a complete 'sample map' every time a new articulation is required. Rather, it is only necessary to load the sample for the desired articulation at the desired pitch."

I understand. I presently can't conceive of intelligence so powerful, it can interpret MIDI live and access any one of the numberless VSL arts, then *load* them, then play them back without latency, even if it is only one note and not the entire map. I'd think at least the head of the sample would need to be in RAM still.

But here, I'm speaking about "live" playback. And your observations make me wonder if we're looking at a post facto playback. Could this be the "sequencer" seen in the tease campaign, and have we broached the world of "look-ahead" or "second pass" interpretation? Give VSL one look at the music, and it would then decide how to perform it (or otherwise equip the user to make some better choices).

The alternative would be re-synthesis, or wave form generation. I don't think that we'd be seeing a Symphonic Cube of these mammoth proportions if Synful-like technology was being introduced.

At the end of the day (or two days, at this point), I still think we're going to get a sample-triggering program from VSL. It will analyze MIDI data, sure enough, but only to the end of playing back the right sample. As such, the core difference between the two technologies remains (or three, as I'm sure we'd happily consider your work, jbm, in this emerging embarrassment of riches).

Well what it will be doing is interperting your notation. You will enter notes dynamics articulations tempi etc. We talked about this a long time ago and I am sure it's what they are going to be introducing with the new samples and mir [;)]

Hmm..........
Some wonderful, intelligent, and highly entertaining specuiation in these 20+ pages.

I once heard a woman say
'men are really boys, and they always will be.'

And right now, us lads and tomboys have our noses pressed against the glass of the VSL shop window, chattering away, exaggerating and speculating, eager to get a glimpse of that next 'rolls royce' or 'fast motor bike' or some other form of shiny kit.
(Me, Paul 'Spartacus' Robbins, and Bill 'Slugger' Kersten will be lounging round the corner smoking Dave 'Bluebeard' Connor's cigarettes, and pretending we're above that kid's stuff)
God only knows the window cleaner will have a deal of work in front of him wiping the drool, and remains of many excitedly half chewed chocolate bars off the glass when the moment finally arrives!

I would be amazed if the software developers from many companies haven't read many of these posts and taken many notes from the ideas and concepts postured here merely to kill time.
If they haven't then they will most certainly get left behind.

Regards to you all, and as i understand it, here in Moscow I'm two hours ahead of Vienna time, so i'll only have one day of waiting left, when most of you will still have two.
Seems fair somehow!

Alex.

[H]

@Plowman said:

I understand. I presently can't conceive of intelligence so powerful, it can interpret MIDI live and access any one of the numberless VSL arts, then *load* them, then play them back without latency, even if it is only one note and not the entire map. I'd think at least the head of the sample would need to be in RAM still.

That would really be the holy grail of large scale sampling though - eliminate the need for any and all RAM loading, and suddenly you can run as many samples as your hard drives can hold. Just imagine - the whole of the Cube (plus whatever else you care to throw in!) from a single computer... no more network glitches... the roaring fans of a hundred computers... and the chaotic software setups to keep those multisystem patch arrangements at least semi-coherent....

I don't know if this is possible now, but I do not doubt that it can be done. Pure disc streaming is what we are really waiting for.

Yes, Plowman... it's the "without latency" that's not likely to happen. The problem, of course, is that you can't know how long a note is until it's finished, so any samples that rely on duration info -- stac, portato, etc -- need at least _some_ indication of the duration to make a good selection. I was making the comparison to Synful, which has a 1-second delay. I've used this same approach in my program, except I've made it somewhat flexible -- you can have zero delay (or almost zero, given 15 ms, or so, to buffer the sample), but you lose the ability to auto-select stac, port, etc., or you can wind it out to 4-seconds and get more accurate selections for longer notes. You still get legato, though, with the zero delay setting, since in that case the deciding factor actually happens in "real time" (i.e., the overlap of notes).

Now, the big difference with VSL's software will come if it is, in fact, a sequencer. If it is, then it will be able to "look ahead" -- through the entire score, if necessary -- and make all sorts of brilliant decisions. It still wouldn't have to buffer all those decisions, since it could safely buffer just a few notes ahead. This is the sort of option that little hacks like me just don't have when trying to work with existing sequencers -- we can't look ahead, so we have to introduce the "analysis delay". A necessary evil, I suppose.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to the "1 day" page loading later today. Though the hinting seems to be dminishing... nasty tactic -- even MORE suspense!!

J.