I am a one-year giga-user, and a professor of Music Technology at a small college. I love Giga studio. It won't work with early XP (or home) editions, but when I finally got around to upgrading W98 to XP pro this month, I installed Giga and it booted and has worked perfectly with zero trouble.

My biggest disappointment has NOT been Giga, but the samples I have spent a fortune on which have not lived up to the hype. I am hoping the VSL will finally be worth the high price tag. The biggest problem with the industry is the "buy it... but if you hate it, you're stuck with it" attitude. I don't mind paying full price for a great product, but I am now stuck with $4,000+ of lame samples. I'm plain ticked off with the shameless hiding behind the "it's software, so you can't return it or try it before you buy it" scam.

Peter, if you have written a better program, why don't you send them it to show there are different solutions.....

Geert.

I haven't written an entire sampler, just various modules and pieces of code that could be made into a sampler. And if I did that they could still sue me for patent infringement, especially if I sent it to them and rubbed it in their face.

Nevertheless, I have something new I am contemplating making that would not infringe their patent, that would not be a realtime sampler at all but could be the best thing yet for orchestral creations. It's just in my head right now, but it gives me something to do. [:)]

something to do, because there is no VSL in the mail yet?

If you are talking about your idea to render a score.... Why render? Isn't it possible and much preferable to do everything realtime these days?

If Halion is going to handle these samples right, it would be possible already [:)]

About sending your proggie, do you really believe sending them an idea is suable? An idea is far from a finished product.
If you really think Gigastudio sucks, you can finish your sampler for home use without risk... (I'm up for Beta testing [6] )

Regards,
Geert.

"About sending your proggie, do you really believe sending them an idea is suable? An idea is far from a finished product. "

I've posted my ideas on their website and they are either not interested or (I hope) plan on incorporating some of them in their next version of Gigastudio. But they've been tight lipped about it.

'If you really think Gigastudio sucks, you can finish your sampler for home use without risk... (I'm up for Beta testing)"

Unfortunately I can't. I am very familiar with US patent laws, and it's illegal merely to make or use an invention that infringes a patent, to say nothing of giving it to others or selling it. Unfortunately my hands are tied there.

As for rendering a score, I've found that even Gigastudio (don't know about Halion) has limitations that can only be solved by a non-realtime renderer. And with a non-realtime render, you can do so many amazing things that you can't do in realtime - such as complex wavetracing for accurate environmental effects, and (this is the most important) MULTI-CHANNEL sound rendering for distribution as 24-bit 96khz DVD-audio or AC-3 5.1 surround sound for movies. How would you accomplish this in any way other than rendering? In GS you'd have to separately record all your tracks and then use a hardware mixer to mix each one of them. I'm talking about making something that could render the whole score and create a 5-channel WAV right on the spot with accurate spatial depth and environmental effects without having to use a hardware encoder.

And then there'd be no limit to the samples you could use, too - you could have a score that utilized totally random parts of the 200 GB Vienna library with no problem at all.

Peter,

Regarding rendering to DVD/5.1:
If you use a program like Logic Audio Platinum, you can create full surround mixes and simply use the "bounce" function to write the files to hard disk, in 24-bit 96khz format.

On Mac, you could then use A.Pack (part of DVD Studio Pro) to encode your files in Dolby Digital format for burning on DVD.

All in software.....nothing needs to leave your computer.

Regards - Colin

The patent obviously can't cover all that, since both Halion, EXS24 and soon Kontakt will use diskstreaming in the same way as GS uses it.

"If you use a program like Logic Audio Platinum, you can create full surround mixes and simply use the "bounce" function to write the files to hard disk, in 24-bit 96khz format. "

How do you mix your sampled instruments from Gigastudio in surround though? Or is Logic a sampler separate from GS?

I'm guessing even with what you're saying you'd still need to record each track from GS separately and then use Logic to mix them.

As for the patent and the other programs, I'll have to take a look at them. Is it possible that they have much higher latency than GS? GS uses a sample caching system for an "instant on" sample - it takes the first few milliseconds of the sample and stores it in memory, and then as soon as the sample is played, it loads the later parts into a sample buffer. That's the patent. If someone else (Halion, etc.) figured out another way to have an instant play that doesn't use GS's technique, that's great, but I can't figure one.

Anyway is there anything like Logic Platinum for the PC? That's mac only as far as I can tell.

Peter,

Logic is currently up to v5.5 for Mac & PC. In July, it was announced that Apple had bought Emagic and that no further products for PC would be forthcoming. However, Emagic has been supporting their PC userbase and has supplied all new updates since then for both Mac and PC. I'm on Mac and I don't use or know Gigastudio at all, but from numerous posts on the Logic-users group, I gather that folks are running them together, probably with ASIO drivers.

With most VST instruments, their outputs come up directly in Logic and can be processed using Logic's native plugins: EQ, reverbs, delays, chorus, gate, compressor, etc etc etc. Seems lots of people run Giga on a separate computer though, and simply bring the Giga outputs into their soundcard on the Logic computer, via the input objects, so there's no need to commit to files, if I understand correctly.

From where I sit, I'm obviously very attracted by the EXS24 option - it runs from within Logic and you can have up to 64 instances of EXS24 running at once, depending on your CPU of course. You should take a look around the Emagic site for more info:
http://www.emagic.de/english/news/index.html is the main page
http://www.emagic.de/english/products/logic/lap.html is the Logic Platinum start page.

Obviously the folks at VSL believe in Logic, hence their choice to support EXS24.......

Regards - Colin

Ah, I see now - thank you very much for your explanation. It sounds like Logic combined with EXS24 and all that, and that version of VSL, is the solution I'm looking for.

Still, I may experiment a bit with sound "rendering" - maybe with some good algorithms I can make some pretty nice realistic environmental effects and spatial surround sound, for myself if for no other reason.

Thanks again.

Peter

Concerning EXS24 for Windows, I have an XP Pro fully updated system that I just installed Logic 5.5.0 on, along with the EXS24mkII, solely for later installing Vienna Symphonic Library. There have been no problems with the Logic software itself, however some driver conflicts occurred with the particular sound card, a Mia. Gigastudio was crashing often to begin with. I received no support from the website via email, however, after reformatting the drives and reinstalling the basic XP operating system, the GS system now seems to be functional, without a clear reason as to why it had problems in the first place.

One thing that would be extremely desirable is dedicated help for using the EXS24 from "within" the VSL. In other words, something designed for musicians, by musicians. At this stage of the technological game, there are many problems with the interfaces designed by other companies, and to work from within the actual software one is attempting to use would be wonderful.

Very interesting post Willian, but I´m curious about one thing. Seeing how you obviously speak from a proffessional point of view...how will you deal with the situation of not going to have any more Windows updates for Logic (while Mac people will do)? What if you really need to update the software for any future need? Will you buy a Mac or what?

I´m interested because at our current point, and being myself a PC user, I feel we are really trapped. We can´t deal with Gigastudio limitations (well, some people can, some others don´t) but we can´t put our faith on Logic either, as they´re going to abandon further Windows versions support.
What´s your take on this?

@Another User said:

how will you deal with the situation of not going to have any more Windows updates for Logic (while Mac people will do)?

Anyone can be a Mac person. Apple does NOT discriminate on the basis of religion, sex, race, or national origin. [;)]

That out of the way, I think it might be good to wait and see what happens at the coming NAMM show before making any purchase decisions. There's much change in the wind, and a lot is happening (more so than is usually the case, at least in my observation).

Although I don't know how much stock to put in them, I've heard rumors that Emagic is going to steal the show. Time will tell.

Lee Blaske

Disregard.

Yes, Netvudu is right that Emagic in USA is ignoring (I suppose officially) Windows. But going to the international website seems (at least so far) to generate information.

William,

It's strange that you say the EXS24 is strictly Mac. Emagic has just released their v5.5 update for Mac & PC, and both versions (as I understand) include the EXS24 MkII. In any case, all of Logic's instruments (EXS24, ES1, ES2, EVOC20, EVP88, EVB3 & EVD6) are contained within the program code. They all work as time-limited demos and simply require a code (for the XSKey) to unlock them.

So, anyone who has Logic for PC can now run EXS24 (MkII) and consequently the VSL. Certainly there'll come a time when the PC updates dry up, but that won't stop users from remaining with Logic 5.x for as long as they like. As it stands, it's a remarkable and fully operational program.

I'd be curious to know what the VSL sales are going to be like for the various options and platforms........

Regards - Colin

Yes, actually I have the Exs24mkII for Windows myself, as well as Gigastudio, but I'm just thinking about the US Emagic company's turning its back on Windows. It does not exist as far as they are concerned. If you go to that website you can see what I mean. But you may be right and people don't need to deal with it at all, and can just use the program on their own. I certainly have a number of programs that function without any support. Though I still worry about updates or other changes necessitating such support.

For what it's worth..

I've found the Windows XP version of GigaStudio to be very workable, and I produce a significant enough quantity of music to be certain of this result. I think the key disappointment has been with those who had a working Windows 9x setup, which then didn't work under XP. Setting up an XP rig with known good hardware-compatibility is no problem.

Emgic/Windows is not a good investment right now. Of course, people who are already invested have a more complex decision. But a fresh investment in PC platform products from Emagic would be a bad idea.

Thanks very much for that reply Bruce. I have a feeling you may be right about the EXS24 for Windows. It seems too unsupported to be used professionally at this point.