Is Samplelord any better than Kontakt for playing Gig libraries?
Dorico, Notion, Sibelius, StudioOne, Cubase, Staffpad VE Pro, Synchon, VI, Kontakt Win11 x64, 64GB RAM, Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, August Forster 190
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Definetly better. Kontakt translates the gig files - by that you loose always something. Converting giga files to Kontakt does not work 100%. Samplelord just plays back the original giga sounds. There is no conversion necessary. It scales up to 8 cores and is fast. I think one instance has up to 2000 voices. As I recall you can even start several 32bit vsti instances so that each instance has its own memory enabeling you to go beyond VST limitations. I have Tascams GVI, too and Samplelord works a lot better and uses less Ram. What I like in particular is that it loads complete Giga Banks and gives you the opportunity to switch between instruments with program changes. The only thing is that the GUI of Samplelord looks plain awful. But for 80 eur it's a no brainer. It does not use dongles like GVI and I assume can be used with VE pro without any problems. I'll buy VE pro tomorrow and can report back.@Bill said:
Is Samplelord any better than Kontakt for playing Gig libraries?
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Another option is G-Player from soundlib. I am using it for MAC and it works perfectly. Natively opens giga files. Now, they are currently working on a Windows platform of it as well. On top of this, I have been in contact with Martin from VSL development and he claims he has resolved my issue with G-Player crashing VE Pro. He said the next update to VE Pro they will work.
So there's another option for you because eventually you will be able to use it both on a MAC or PC with all your native giga files.
Maestro2be
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Yes, it's actually smart though they went straight for the MAC market since no one else did. However, waiting for the windows is no problem for me at the moment. G-Player also looks/feels a lot more like gigastudio to me. It's very similar and extremely lean. It uses almost no resources.
Maestro2be
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Bill, if you send me an Email, I could mail you the new Win version of the free linuxsampler VSTi which also works perfectly fine on playing back giga samples. A 32bit and 64bit version is included.@Bill said:
Thanks! Too bad I'll have to wait for the Win version. Nice to have more keyboard showing, which is sort of a nuisance with Samplelord.
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I'm curious about what is the best way to implent Gigastudio using these methods. Would you have a VE Pro host on a PC, and run G-Player or Linuxsampler as a VST instrument inside VE Pro? I use a pretty big gigastudio template, and one of the things that makes keep it around is the low latency and heavy work load handling. Does anyone with experience using these other giga format players know if they can keep up with a fully loaded gigastudio template? Sounds like a nice option if it works.
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Well, it depends on your workflow. Giga-Player is essentially a Mac-Clone of Tascams GVI. It does not load banks. It loads one instrument per channel. So if you are used to work with one midi track per articulation this may be your solution. Samplelord loads per channel either a giga bank or a giga instrument. If you load a bank the you can switch on the fly between all instruments in the file. Furthermore you can combine several giga banks to a so called collection within Samplelord. Within these bank collectio you can again select all instruments by midi program change - and everything from one single track. I don't know exactly how the old VSL samples are organized but it would be possible to create a collection including for example all viola articulations and access all these from a single midi track. Linuxsampler works different. There you "map" all your instruments in a so called midi map. This is textfile that enables you to access all(!) mapped giga instruments via bank and program changes. The instrument is then loaded on the fly. To create a template you simply need to reserve 1 bar in your (midi) template with program changes for all the sounds you need. As soon as you play your song for the first time all preloads are made.@Tripi said:
I'm curious about what is the best way to implent Gigastudio using these methods.
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"Another option is G-Player from soundlib. I am using it for MAC and it works perfectly."
This is the first feedback I've heard on G-Player. I'd be skeptical of it, but it came from M2B, and he is thorough when he chases down tech issues.
Jaded as I am, I'm amazed that Giga, a natively PC platform, OS X on a Mac, Logic 9.0.1 VE Pro, and G-Player can all just get along. I outsourced Giga for several years on a PC with a simple MIDI cable and a stereo out. So the idea of folding it into a Mac is appealing. And I am not alone. Most of us were driving both platforms one way or another back when VSL was a native Giga / EXS format.
M2B, have you been able to play Giga legato instruments using VSL's mapper through G-Player within VE Pro? Does G-Player have a MIDI interpreter of its own to handle VSL legato instruments? Giga had its own MIDI mapper, as I recall, but I don't think it was linked to VSL's proprietary mapping.
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I'd love to hear from anyone who has tried using G-Player or GVI in VE Pro. I want to keep my PC around to run these giga instruments, but I love the idea do it inside of VE Pro and sending it back to my mac. Sound like GVI instruments inside of VE Pro on my PC slave is the most direct way of doing this. Just wondering if VE Pro can handle figuring out the latency issues from the PC running this.
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I've done a few tests with GVI on XP (hosted in VE PRO) and it seems to work fine.
I did try the G-Player a few months ago (I was looking for a Giga player - obviously I didn't check it in VE PRO) but had a few problems - in an A/B test the volume on the G-Player dropped in the middle of the crossfade. On GVI/Giga it stayed even. Otherwise I was very impressed. Can any of you using it say if this has been fixed?
M
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Well I can say that I haven't been able to use it with VE Pro yet as I was the one to turn it in for Martin and he got it fixed (however I can't confirm this yet as I was only told it was fixed, I haven't actually been able to test it). So once the update comes out I can tell you for sure how it works.
I am staring at my G-Player right now and going to try to answer some questions.
I actually don't use the VSL samples with G-Player. I have a ton of libraries for giga but never purchased the VSL libraries back then. My friend however does own the old giga opus 1. He brought over his firewire drive with those on it and they all worked perfectly from what I seen. We tested most every instrument in the library (loaded it up, and played it to hear if it popped or crackled etc. It played the proper dynamic and patch as well so if it was a crescendo violin patch, it played it perfectly). He also had a bunch of percussion that I don't own and all those worked. We tested every percussion track. The percussion was so good it made me realized that I need to buy the percussion library but I want MIR more at the moment I think lol. Unfortunately for me to test anything for you I would need to have him bring his stuff over to do so. But I can assure you the patches worked. I don't know anything about the performance tool though because I wasn't using the library back then, and I have no idea how it interacts or works with the samples.
I can say that it's far more stable then Gigastudio ever was though. Gigastudio was one of those things where you cringed when you started up the machine because you weren't sure if it was going to blue screen or if the machine would lock up and force you into Gigastudio Safemode. G-Player has never caused me any crashes or Logic lockups (other then the compatibility between it and VE Pro). When it first came out it had below acceptable playability with my samples. However, they continued to update it and I worked with support, sending in logs and issues and it quickly become able to play almost 100% of all my libraries. I think I have around 100GB of samples in giga format and there is only a few left that don't play accurately. (actually off the top of my head, the only one that I can recall was GigaPiano 2). I think the GPulse files were screwing it up because it's built into that sample. Whatever they have been doing in updates has worked. It's a very simple player but hey it lets me use all my giga samples again. It doesn't have the full potential of Gigastudio, but it does what I need it to do and doesn't crash Logic. (It works perfectly in Mainstage as well and doesn't hog up my resources).
But honestly I could care less about that piano sample since I use Pianoteq now. I do however WISH that Pianoteq sounded as good as my Giga PMI Bosendorfer 290. Which by the way plays perfectly in G-Player. I have a lot of garritan products (harp etc), I have the Notre Dame de Budapest organ which sounds incredible and works excellent. To many to list here but the point is they all work fine. My beloved Atema's Harpsichord and my Flemish Harpsochord work flawlessly too which makes me happy. Oh and I do know we tested the old giga VSL Harp library and it worked perfectly as well. The keyswitching in the program works and is very simple to use.
Half of my giga samples now a days are pointless because I have replaced them with better VSL patches but my harpsichords, guitars, voice of the apocalypse etc that I have for giga are still very good. I also have some rare instruments that VSL doesn't make and it's nice to be able to mix those in my projects as well.
The G-Player does a stereo or multi-timbral player, or a solo g-player within your DAW. It already uses little resources but then being able to freeze the tracks just makes it that much more useable and resource friendly. Even if your giga sample wasn't programmed for key switching, you can initiate a stereo version of the player, and then load up to 16 articulations into that window and simply send midi channel changes to change patches. It's worked fine for me that way.
Maestro2be
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@mosso said:
I've done a few tests with GVI on XP (hosted in VE PRO) and it seems to work fine.
I did try the G-Player a few months ago (I was looking for a Giga player - obviously I didn't check it in VE PRO) but had a few problems - in an A/B test the volume on the G-Player dropped in the middle of the crossfade. On GVI/Giga it stayed even. Otherwise I was very impressed. Can any of you using it say if this has been fixed?
M
Can you tell me what samples you were using I might own them. And how were you doing the crossfading? I will try it for you if possible.
Oh and one more thing. The demo they offer is the EXACT same thing as my full version except every 10-15 seconds it drops the volume about 80% and then back up. So you can always download the demo, and keep trying it until it works for you but be aware that in the middle of your playing the volume will almost mute and grow, then mute and grow ever 15 seconds or so.
Maestro2be
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@plowman said:
"Another option is G-Player from soundlib. I am using it for MAC and it works perfectly."
This is the first feedback I've heard on G-Player. I'd be skeptical of it, but it came from M2B, and he is thorough when he chases down tech issues.
Jaded as I am, I'm amazed that Giga, a natively PC platform, OS X on a Mac, Logic 9.0.1 VE Pro, and G-Player can all just get along. I outsourced Giga for several years on a PC with a simple MIDI cable and a stereo out. So the idea of folding it into a Mac is appealing. And I am not alone. Most of us were driving both platforms one way or another back when VSL was a native Giga / EXS format.
M2B, have you been able to play Giga legato instruments using VSL's mapper through G-Player within VE Pro? Does G-Player have a MIDI interpreter of its own to handle VSL legato instruments? Giga had its own MIDI mapper, as I recall, but I don't think it was linked to VSL's proprietary mapping.
Thanks Plowman for the compliments. So far with Logic 8.0.2 and Logic 9 G-Player is performing with zero hiccups at all. It sounds to me like you own the older libraries. This could be very valuable information for some. If you go to soundlib.com and download the demo (it's very small) I wonder if it will work for you. It really reminds me more of GVI then Gigastudio because it's very lean and more of a VST plug then a true "powerhouse gigastudio editor/player". It doesn't like some of my gigapulse files but in honesty I don't care. Between space designer and soon to be MIR, I won't even need the reverb responses. Just being able to play the samples correctly was worth the 130 dollars.
Now all they need to do is finish up the windows version (I suspect they are waiting on Windows 7, if they were smart they would) and I will be able to host all my giga's on both platforms, without having to be a hack, convert files or using opensourced software. The other thing is i have worked with them for months now helping the work things out. They have taken a lot of my old gigastudio ideas and implemented them. The point is, if you want something in it they have a support number and you can call in/email them and tell them exactly how you used Gigastudio and what's missing and they will look at putting it in. They seemed open with me on this so far.
I tried using convertors and importing into EXS24 and I can tell you that EXS doesn't even come close to the proper conversion compared to loading up this 130 dollar software and instantly you're working on your old samples the way they did in gigastudio. It's just not worth the months I spent importing/converting to get only subpar results and to much wasted energy. You should give the demo a shot and see how it works for you. I tested it on Snow Leopard and regular Leopard and it worked on both with Logic 8 and 9.
Maestro2be
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I’m looking forward to a PC version of Q-Sampler…
I’ve just been playing around listening to the same GS patches played on GS, Kontakt, Samplelord and LinuxSampler. My conclusion is that nothing sounds even remotely as good as GigaSampler.
My test subjects were Dan Dean solo strings and Diva.
Dorico, Notion, Sibelius, StudioOne, Cubase, Staffpad VE Pro, Synchon, VI, Kontakt Win11 x64, 64GB RAM, Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, August Forster 190 -
@cgernaey said:
Can you tell me what samples you were using I might own them. And how were you doing the crossfading? I will try it for you if possible.
Oh and one more thing. The demo they offer is the EXACT same thing as my full version except every 10-15 seconds it drops the volume about 80% and then back up. So you can always download the demo, and keep trying it until it works for you but be aware that in the middle of your playing the volume will almost mute and grow, then mute and grow ever 15 seconds or so.
I was having problems on any patches that use modwheel crossfades (I think I was using VOTA). In any case, no need to check as I thought I'd download the demo to try it again. They have indeed fixed the problem!
Thanks for your kind offer though. Happy composing!
M