How do I use my STS 3000 as a midi selectable sound library?

Eternal Advancement · Wed May 26, 2004 10:00 pm

Hello to everyone at PlanetZ. I have a rather unusual question. I have a huge number of samples (3000 Programs, across 2GB),
and I have a very hard time trying to manage and audition most of the files. I wanted to know if there is a way
to setup the samples into banks of multis (Bank Presets) that have midi selectable programs in them. This way
I could load all of my samples during boot up of my machine, and then switch sound banks (presets) by sending controller 0
messages, and select programs using the program controler messages all through Midi. I like to do this, because
often when making my music, I go through hundreds of presets to find that "right sound" and I like to flip thorugh
them in real time, as the sequencer is playing. I'm sure this is a similiar method you would use for composing
music from devices like a Roland XP or XV sound module containing hundreds of sounds. Please, anyone, let me know
how to go about doing this.

Thank you all very much.

-Eternal Advancement

Post by **hubird** » Wed May 26, 2004 10:23 pm

I'm on mac, but that doesn't matter really...
I've activated Cubase sequencer to 'play in backgrouind', play a relevant loop of my current song, and open the 'open' menu of my sample editor Peak, reading Aiffs, Wavs or mp3's.
Then, in the 'open' window, I listen to the 'preview', choosing every next file with the down arrow key, without loading actually the file as a file

you can also do this in another 'player', I can easily do this in iTunes, reading mp3's as well.
Works great, if a sound seems to fit, I make a copy of it to a special named folder in the current song folder, and check later the details by importing those files in the song

I guess I have about 500 or 700 times 3000 samples, so it's quite a job indeed to find the right one

[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-05-26 23:26 ]

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Thu May 27, 2004 4:54 am

Have you checked the Program Pool for STS out?

Eternal Advancement · Post by **Eternal Advancement** » Fri May 28, 2004 9:17 pm

Thanks Hubird for the advice, but I need a way to actually audition the programs. It is true that listening to the waves will give me an idea of what the instrument will sound like, but listening to the waves after they are processed thorugh the sampler is entirely different. I will implement your idea as mentioned with Cakewalk Sonar 2.0 XL to get me started. In regards to Plato's comment, again, thank you very much, and I have checked out the program pool. I've succesfully been able to load 127 programs before, and select them all through midi using Sonar. But that was it. I still have 2900 other sounds to audition. The documentation doesn't really mention how to set up your sampler as a huge sample playback machine. If any of you have any further ideas, please let me know.

-Eternal Advancement

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Sat May 29, 2004 9:40 am

Imho there isn't much 'on board' to ease what you have in mind - it's a bit beyond the concept of the original Akai lookalike.

Unfortunately the native software sampler competition is fairly tough and doesn't offer much business opportunities, considering current rock-bottom prices.
The latest Giga thing sells around 200 bucks streetprice and there's even a convolution verb (obviously a good one) included.

Giga seems to have a rather sophisticated library handling included, so it might be worth considering if that is a crucial point for you.
Maybe even a double strategy applies.
Giga for audition and STS for final production - though I doubt that STS will have a significant improvement in sound quality.
There are sellout versions of Giga - I recently bought a card with LE and the piano and a GM lib bundled for $60

Though I didn't check it's library abilities in comparison to the current (full) version it looks much simpler than STS in that domain.

cheers, Tom

Post by **hubird** » Sat May 29, 2004 10:41 am

maybe I'm missing something here, but wasn't the Akai programs' content fairly neglectible?
I mean no serious filter settings are involved, so what's the problem listening to the samples alone?

Ok, you'll loose the ability of uing existing looppoints, and you cant play a sample over a keyboard layout, but to find the right sound it's ok to me.

I'm not confident with the STS, but I know you can use the preview funktion of the Kontakt to step throught your sample library, just klicking on the name in the preview triggers the sample, and it stops when klicking another.

If you really wanne play through 'programs', selected by midi, you should get you a hardware sampler I'm afraid, and create lots of banks to load.
My Kurzweil K2500 rack sampler does what you want, like other hw samplers too I guess.
(BTW, I sell it for €1200,-

)
At least if sample streaming is not involved (Giga isn't it?), working with samples still takes more care than synth presets

good luck anyway

Eternal Advancement · Post by **Eternal Advancement** » Sun May 30, 2004 7:27 pm

Thanks Astroman and Hubird.

@Astroman:

I know that the latest Akai samplers will do what I'm looking to do with managing large amounts of samples, and I checked this by downloading the users manual. In regards to Kontact or Gigasampler, I've never really used these programs before. My biggest concern with the software sampler option is that it will use far too many system resources and cause my pentium 4 2.4 GHZ machine to choke. I'll download a trial version of both programs and check it out, to see how they work. I would probably need a VST plugin or DXI plugin that will work well with sonar.

@Hubird:
The wave option would probably work if I wasn't trying to audition all of my soundfonts files. I have a lot of soundfonts that I've created myself, and that I've dowloaded off the internet, for emulating classic synth sounds using the modulation properties of the synthesizers. So I have a lot of patches using simple sine waves, pulse, square waves, etc. to create synth pads, long filter sweeps, lfo modulation, etc. Therfore, the listening to wave option won't work well for these types of programs. Astroman suggested software samplers, so I'll look into that. I think Kontakt and or Gigasampler are the best ones, so I'll look into that. Another question I had for you is how does SFP 4.0, Cubase and the Creamware cards work on A Mac G4 or Mac G5, which is what I'm assuming you have. A lot of audio professionals at my current place of employment use Mac's for doing Multimedia development, Professional Sound Production with Protools and similar systems, and also Graphic Intensive programs. I'm starting to wonder if this is the better way to go since Mac's have hardware that are geared and optimized for the type of tasks mentioned above. Holla at me and let me know what you think. I will keep you and Astroman informed as to what I come up with for my Sampler isssues.

Thank you all again.

-Eternal Advancement

Post by **hubird** » Sun May 30, 2004 10:40 pm

There is a thread about this mac subject, if I'm right Nestor started it when he was preparing to build an own computer about a year ago I think.
Pro's and contra's of mac and pc.
Also there's good information about the G5 hardware issues related to the CWA cards, has to do with changed voltage of the PCI slots in the newer G5's.
Anyway, a second hand G4/>700Ghz could be a perfect machine for CWA to try a mac, support for OS-X is announced by CWA programmer friends (wsippel c.s.), so there's hope CWA will find a solution at the hardware side

Try a search, my mind is too far away at the moment to check it for you.

zzzzz.....

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Mon May 31, 2004 1:23 am

well, im probarly attacking this the other way around, but here goes:

i u want to manage your samples library in a simple way, the easiest route is (whatever "sampler" you use): Organize programs into sub-things.

like, hammond, electic piano etc into "keybords" etc

u should manage beats etc. by style, maybe bpm etc

as i inerpret your question you use sampling as a creative instrument. if this is the case, aforementioned method should be sufficient as it will help u categorize what u are after. "improvising" with samples mostly regards running thru a sub folder or sampling something you just heard that gave u inspiration. Cycling thru presets isnt really a big deal in these matters .

Post by **hubird** » Mon May 31, 2004 7:33 am

On 2004-05-31 02:23, piddi wrote:
Organize programs into sub-things.
like, hammond, electic piano etc into "keybords" etc

Agree Piddi, best way to go, I just started up this idea.
Untill now I checked a textfile that I made by describing shortly what's on my sample cd collection, following the cd's classifications.
With the searchmachine of the text program I could search the text for typical sound descriptions, like 'loops', ambient, drones, voices, synths, etc.
But this method is not (fast) enough, so from now on with every search activity I will create a new category to collect the selection in.
Working with aliasses then avoids excessive doubling of samples.

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Mon May 31, 2004 7:59 am

Recently I tried to clean my modular patches folder. What to do to have a quick access to all the sounds available ??? The only thought that came to my mind was to prepare audio files containing a short demo of each patch and each preset in it. It's a very time involving thing and very boring but once done it saves you time! And even more - while listening to all the sounds you discover patches you didn't know they sound so beautiful, interesting, bright, mellow and so on.

So preparing a library catalog is the way for me. Samples or patches - doesn't matter

Listening to the patches with winamp or macamp is easy and the mp3 files you have don't take too much space

_________________
Sir Sam Plaire Scopernicus

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2004-05-31 09:02 ]

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2004-05-31 09:03 ]

Eternal Advancement · Post by **Eternal Advancement** » Fri Jun 11, 2004 8:27 pm

Sorry I took so long to get back but, I wanted to thank you guys. I've narrowed it down to a couple decisions as to how to manage my large sample library.

1. Invest in Vsampler or Kontact that will allow me to compile large sample banks that are midi selectable.

or

2. Invest in purchasing the latest Akai Z8 sampler, which also has great computer integration.

I wish that Vsampler and Kontact were plugins for the Scope Boards. One would think that there are more DSP Plug in Sampelers, 3rd Party, that support the Creamware cards. Well again thank you all very much for your advice.

Best Regards

-Eternal Advancement