Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] New release of the Smurf Sound Font Editor
From: Benno Senoner (sbenno_AT_gardena.net)
Date: Sun Sep 17 2000 - 00:19:49 EEST
On Sat, 16 Sep 2000, Josh Green wrote:
hehe , it seems that I made the right assumption that users want
software emulation of SF capable hardware.
I looked at the SF docs, and the modulation , filtering and
enveloping capabilities and LFO are quite simple.
I will take this into account when working the sample playback engine of EVO,
so that all parameters (hopefully) can be emulated.
And the funny thing is that thanks to the disk streaming capabilites,
you can play Soundfonts which are larger than your available RAM.
But notably SF aren't that big (32MB would be quite a big SF instrument).
That means that in EVO you will be able to load a large amount of SF instruments
simulaneously.
For now I am justfocusing on a flexible sample playback engine.
I sketched out a scheme where you can modulate all parameters
like volume,pan, pitch,filter cutoff etc (except voices with voices)
by every MIDI source and by almost arbitrary formulas.
(eg pitch = base_pitch * pitchbend_value + velocity ).
Since these formulas are not computed for every sample but only
every 32-64 samples or when a MIDI event occurs, the added overhead
is minimal. (the formula is computed calling a list of function-ptrs (or switch
statements which is even faster because it translates into jmp tables).
This is still vaporware but my plan is that EVO should have this feature,
because it will ensure a high degree of modulation flexibility.
(emulatiog SF modulation , translates into generating a set of simple forumlas
(like the reverb/chorus addition rules in SF patches etc).
And no one stops us from importing GUS patches too.
(what kind of modulation/ sample playback capabilities does the GUS offer?)
But the most interesting formats will be AKAI and a format whose name
starts and ends in G. :-)
Benno.
>
> I think one of the main things stopping common users from using this app
> is that it doesn't have direct support for software based wavetable
> emulation. Right now a user has to have an AWE 32/64 or Live! card to
> actually hear the changes they make. If they don't have one of these,
> they can still edit the sound font, but have no way of hearing it until
> they save the sound font, and then manually load it into some wavetable
> emulator like Timidity++ or csound (I have not tried either yet). If
> anyone is interested in helping with something like this, that would be
> great. I know Timidity++ has ALSA sequencer support, this is on my list.
> But the patch loading remains, and I'm not sure if this has been
> accomplished in ALSA yet.
> Josh Green
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