Subject: RE: [linux-audio-dev] name a realtime wave mixing library/program with an API
From: mikko.a.helin_AT_nokia.com
Date: Thu Jul 04 2002 - 16:28:44 EEST
Isn't Timidity able to load SF2 banks? Maybe that's a solution for you? If the soundfonts could be loaded/unloaded dynamically like in Windows API you could just load new soundfont bank when it's needed and unload when it's no more / not yet needed to save memory. If you don't like SF2 format also the DLS or DLS2 formats are available (you'll get specs from www.midi.org).
IMHO it's better to build a pure MIDI tracker (for Windows I haven't yet found a pattern-based MIDI sequencer like the one on Ensoniq EPS/+/ASR/ESQ samplers/synths which I've also used live, it's simply great) and send the BANK LOAD and BANK UNLOAD commands from the sequencer as SYSEX data to the synth part of application.
-Mikko
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ext robbins jacob [mailto:jacobrobbins__AT_hotmail.com]
> Sent: 04. July 2002 4:46
> To: linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu
> Subject: [linux-audio-dev] name a realtime wave mixing library/program
> with an API
>
>
> I am writing a sequencer application for performance use,
> sort of like a
> tracker but with a more flexible pattern structure. Such a
> sequencer will
> need to have random realtime access to banks of samples and effects.
> I've been having a devil of a time finding a library or sound
> program to
> provide the sample loading/playing/mixing features for this
> project. As of
> yet i have been smashing my head against a bunch of projects
> that don't
> quite allow enough pcm files to be simultaneously loaded into
> memory and
> mixed on demand. I really don't want to write this code
> myself (the result
> would not be pretty), So i am asking for suggestions of
> programs and/or
> libraries that i could hook up to my sequencer app to provide
> the actual
> sound generation.
>
> basically, i'm looking for a software sampler with an api,
> but it looks like
> i'm going to have to use a wav editor that can be abused into
> holding lots
> of samples (say a few hundred) "memory", you say? as much as
> you can handle!
>
> here's a short history of my blundering entrance into linux sound [a
> frustrating experience of stumbling through projects with almost no
> documentation and then delving deep into the code only to
> find out it's not
> what you thought]:
>
> -ecasound: this was an early favorite for its full feature set, but i
> discovered it can not load and unload wav files without a
> discontinuity in
> the output. so it's more for studio use.
>
> -RTcmix: my current fave, it has a great lineage and a
> totally awesome
> scheme of making instruments into libraries that can be
> loaded and unloaded
> on demand at runtime. unfortunately, it was created before it
> was feasible
> to put samples into memory. so soundfiles are treated as file
> descriptors
> which reside on the hard disk (i think). furthermore, the
> treatment of
> instruments-as-libraries does not allow instantiating and referencing
> multiple instances of a type of instrument. RTCmix is rapidly
> evolving and a
> few more hacks could make it what i need.
>
> -EsounD: has the wav storage and accesibility but is a little
> too rough to
> use for performance
>
> -JACK: anything of this sort one ends up making will
> eventually use JACK,
> but JACK is for tying the sound producing modules together,
> not for holding
> and mixing a bunch of individual samples.
>
> -Open Source Audio Library (Bruce Forsberg's): seems to be
> everything one
> would need... but not an application. To use this one would
> have to build a
> separate application that uses OSAP to load/play/mix samples,
> then interface
> with that app. i'd like to avoid that; i figure other people
> have done that
> better, and i should be able to spend time making a sequencer
> as opposed to
> a sample-player but, hey maybe i'm all mixed up...
>
> -SDL: same comment as OSAP. provides api for loading and then
> let's you
> schedule mixing on your own.
>
> -PSL the Portable Sound Library project from Andrew Clausen:
> can not locate
> this, even on sourceforge.
>
> -snd: seems to me to be the best thing to look into next, unless your
> comments steer me otherwise.
>
> p.s. i hope these comments don't seem negative towards the
> projects, i am
> really amazed by all of them. they are just not designed for
> doing what i
> want so i am asking for suggestions of projects that will need less
> shoehorning to fit into the mold i described above.
> -jacob
> -
>
>
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