The state of sample players on Linux
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 4:26 pm
I am by no means anti-synth nor an electronica hater. I have several electronica recordings in my music library that I enjoy a great deal but when I make music I only occasionally will use synthesizers. I play guitar, but I don't play bass, drums or piano; so I need a sample player to make the music I want to make, but the state of sample players on Linux makes for some steep hurdles to overcome.
There's a ton of synthesizers available for Linux, why not more sample players? It can't be that people don't want samplers, can it? Native Instruments Kontakt is hugely popular so clearly there is a demand. And if you Google "Kontakt Linux" you'll see people trying to get it to work on Linux.
SFZ is an open standard for samples. There are quite a few free SFZ samples out there and a lot more available for purchase but there is no sampler for Linux that can take advantage of this. Linuxsampler has SFZ 1.0 support but all the commercial SFZ samples that I can find are SFZ 2.0; and there are virtually no free SFZ 1.0 samples either.
Linuxsampler also supports the GIG format but that is pretty much dead; just try and find GIG samples at any price. They're out there. but you really have to dig for them and there isn't much of a selection. That is unless you want an entire orchestra for $2500.
That leaves us with SF2; the granddaddy of sample formats. Fluidsynth is great and if you spend enough time digging around you can find some half decent SF2 files both free and for purchase. Unfortunately, half decent is as good as it gets for SF2; it's a very "early days" format.
I've spent the last week scouring the internet and piecing together a usable library from all the above formats and I'll get by for awhile, I suppose. I had to do this because I just got a 64-bit machine and the WinVST sample player "SampleTank", which is what I had been using on my old laptop, refuses to install on my new machine. I wish I was happy to say I'm using native Linux applications instead, but the state of sample players on Linux doesn't justify enthusiasm.
I wonder sometimes if there is a way to get NON running on windoze?
There's a ton of synthesizers available for Linux, why not more sample players? It can't be that people don't want samplers, can it? Native Instruments Kontakt is hugely popular so clearly there is a demand. And if you Google "Kontakt Linux" you'll see people trying to get it to work on Linux.
SFZ is an open standard for samples. There are quite a few free SFZ samples out there and a lot more available for purchase but there is no sampler for Linux that can take advantage of this. Linuxsampler has SFZ 1.0 support but all the commercial SFZ samples that I can find are SFZ 2.0; and there are virtually no free SFZ 1.0 samples either.
Linuxsampler also supports the GIG format but that is pretty much dead; just try and find GIG samples at any price. They're out there. but you really have to dig for them and there isn't much of a selection. That is unless you want an entire orchestra for $2500.
That leaves us with SF2; the granddaddy of sample formats. Fluidsynth is great and if you spend enough time digging around you can find some half decent SF2 files both free and for purchase. Unfortunately, half decent is as good as it gets for SF2; it's a very "early days" format.
I've spent the last week scouring the internet and piecing together a usable library from all the above formats and I'll get by for awhile, I suppose. I had to do this because I just got a 64-bit machine and the WinVST sample player "SampleTank", which is what I had been using on my old laptop, refuses to install on my new machine. I wish I was happy to say I'm using native Linux applications instead, but the state of sample players on Linux doesn't justify enthusiasm.
I wonder sometimes if there is a way to get NON running on windoze?