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  • Basic VSL & Gigastudio Questions

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    Hullo, all! I will admit right away to being a sampler neophyte. In fact, I don't even own Gigastudio yet. I'm looking to buy that soon. Right now, most of my composition is done using Cakewalk Sonar 2 XL in combination with a Roland XV88 synth keyboard, the SRX-02 Symphonic Strings, and the SRX-06 Complete Orchestra.
    While the Symphonic Strings module sounds great (even drawing compliments from a couple Chicago Symphony Orchestra members), it doesn't provide the range I need. So I'm looking into Gigastudio and some orchestra sample libraries. So far, VSL looks (and sounds) the most promising, though I may wait for the Pro Edition to buy.
    I'd like to find out: What do I need to know about Gigastudio and software samplers? How does composition and arrangement differ using GS from using syths? How does GS handle patches and MIDI channels, etc.? How is music arranged? How does hardware configuration differ?
    I'm sure these are really basic questions. But, as I said, I am a beginner. So if anyone would help me along here, I'd appreciate it. Thanks!

    ~Chris
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    Wow many questions,

    1. Gigastudio provides 4 ports each with 16 midichannels.
    So you can run 64 midchannels on one engine.

    2. Gigastudio is a streaming sampler, so you can load much more samples into one engine than on a non streaming software sampler.
    This feature is very important for long samples - our string sustains for example are 20 seconds long. Simply, a long sample needs exactly the same Ram than a short sample.

    But our library is very huge, so you should use as much RAM as possible in your PC. Gigastudio can handle 1 Gig Ram in the moment effectively.
    You have the option to make digital bounces of your miditracks directly in gigastudio, if this is OK for you, you can work wih only one Gigastudio system.
    If you want to have many instruments "online" than it would be better to have 2 to 4 engines, depending on your composing style.

    3. Gigastudio features 16 stereo Dimensions.
    So you can switch between 16 different instruments or 16 playing techniques, or simply 16 velocities using one midichannel.

    This feature is very important for our library, the performance tools are using this dimension options very effectively.
    Only one example: now it is possible to play real legato with our library - simply: you play an intervall step on your keyboard, our legatotool checks what intervall you've played and switches automatically in the right dimension, where this intervall sample is mapped.

    Gigastudio supports also programm changes (your sequenzer has to support this feature also)

    There are so many aspects, maybe other forum visitors could give you more advises, especially for hardware issues.

    best wishes
    Herb
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    last edited
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    @herb said:

    Wow many questions . . . best wishes
    Herb


    Herb, you've been very helpful. Thanks so much. I still have other questions, but after doing some research, (i.e. following the TASCAM/Gigastudio debate, I think I'm going to hold my breath and see what the industry has in store. I think some VSL people here have even hinted at some great things in the future. So I probably won't be an immediate customer, but believe me, I am sold on the Vienna Symphony Library!

    ~Chris