bb.linuxsampler.org

Hi, folks.

I am investigating linuxsampler (freshly installed newest versions from source) as a more dedicated alternative to hydrogen as live-performance drum machine. Meaning: I want to connect my MIDI gear (that I don't have with me at the moment) and have the laptop generate the drum sounds from samples I recorded of my acoustic kit.

So far I tried in vain to create a drum kit with gigedit... I managed to get the whole setup so far as to loading up the existing millo.gig in qsampler and entering live editing with gigedit manages to produce some sound from the virtual Keyboard in gigedit.
But I fail at adding any sample of my own. I mean, I can add the samples in gigedit... I even stumbled over the info how to add regions... but I don't get any sound from my own samples. I've whitnessed the "Unable to cache sample - maybe memory full!" after adding a sample freshly in live editing and reckon that this is normal (a different error message would be superb, though)... but even after saving the gig file and reloading the whole set and entering the live editing again, the virtual keyboard is utterly silent when I play the notes that should trigger my samples (and additionally: I wonder why the velocity dimension I added starts not at 0 but at 90 or so).

I must be doing something very basic wrong... and the GUI is not very helpful (it wants some love and documentation, I presume). Might it be that linuxsampler just does not like my samples? I use 32 bit floating point stero WAVs, as that's what naturally comes out of JACK.
But I tried also 24bit and 16bit signed integer, no change.

PS: Is it normal that linuxsample segfaults when it tries to connect to non-existing ALSA sequencer ports? Hooking up to JACK MIDI is no issue ... I hope ALSA MIDI does work once I got my kit actually connected.

PPS: linuxsampler is really suited as digital drum, right? I mean, I see support for different velocities... and someplace there must be support for correctly coding a hihat pedal (mute a currently played hihat, trigger closed hihat with the hihat note until pedal is opened again... also choking cymbals by triggering a specific note) ... linuxsampler seems to have a lot of features when it comes to deciding what happens on a MIDI signal, at least gigedit suggests that.

sobukus wrote:But I fail at adding any sample of my own. I mean, I can add the samples in gigedit... I even stumbled over the info how to add regions... but I don't get any sound from my own samples.

Yes, you have to add the sample, then add an region and then finally drag the sample to the "Sample" field in the new region.

I've whitnessed the "Unable to cache sample - maybe memory full!" after adding a sample freshly in live editing

Yes, if you add samples during live editing you'll have to save the gig and reload it in LS to be able to hear the new samples. Note also that LS doesn't reload the gig unless you first unload it, which can be done by loading another gig.

but even after saving the gig file and reloading the whole set and entering the live editing again, the virtual keyboard is utterly silent when I play the notes that should trigger my samples

Sorry, I don't know why. It works here.

(and additionally: I wonder why the velocity dimension I added starts not at 0 but at 90 or so).

I don't understand what you mean. When you add the velocity dimension you get two or more "dimension regions". The first of them always begins at 0.

Might it be that linuxsampler just does not like my samples? I use 32 bit floating point stero WAVs, as that's what naturally comes out of JACK.

Yes, floating point WAVs don't work.

But I tried also 24bit and 16bit signed integer, no change.

But these should.

PPS: linuxsampler is really suited as digital drum, right? I mean, I see support for different velocities... and someplace there must be support for correctly coding a hihat pedal (mute a currently played hihat, trigger closed hihat with the hihat note until pedal is opened again... also choking cymbals by triggering a specific note) ...

I think you can use the Crossfade Attenuation controller to model the hihat pedal. Stopping a sample with another key can probably be done by using a key group and a silent sample.

OK, so... I fiddled around with modding an existing .gig, just trying to drop in my samples. I found out that I need to manually connect linuxsampler to JACK outputs. I am now so far that I occasionally managed to get a sound out of my sample from the virtual keyboard in gigedit, but it only occasionally triggers.
Even when re-replacing with one of the original samples, the relation of the keyboard and actual sound output is not clear.

Thank you for your attention, but I decided to drop linuxsampler for now. Hydrogen gets the job done and though I do not seem to be able to record my playing with it (not that I intend to, really, but it's strange) and I cannot map the input notes to specific instruments (just trial and error to find out that drum X needs to be instrument number Y), it works to produce output rather reliably and I was about medium-quick about finding out how to create my own drum set.
The GUI for manipulating the sets feels clumsy, but it is actually easier to edit the underlying XML by hand than making sense of the complex stuff that makes up a .gig file in gigedit (mind: I'm just a drummer wanting to play over MIDI, no keyboarder/pro MIDI musician).

What kills the fun totally is the lack of a learning curve with gigedit... there's just a silent brick wall. Fiddling around and just not getting any sound at all is very frustrating. Stuff like silently ignoring samples in a specific format (the program please TELL me that it cannot do 32bit floating point WAV) is not helpful when you are trying to figure out what to do.

I don't want to bash linuxsampler altogether, but it just seems like it currently has a nasty combination of need of polish (report user errors like bad sample format, gigedit GUI friendlyness, erratic behaviour of the virtual keyboard) and general complexity that arises from it being designed as a far more general thing than 'just' playing drums. I like the approach of the separate server (in fact, it resembles an app for playing/mixing audio streams I did myself;-), but for now I feel I don't have the time and nerve to continue to mess with it. I might come back. I might just write a simple stand-alone app for drum sampling (bank + note + velocity -> sample with certain amplification, mute groups, certain note on/off events switching sounds of other notes (open/close hihat)) when I'm really fed up with hydrogen.
I have the strange feeling that this might be quicker than tailoring linuxsampler or hydrogen to do exactly what I need without clutter:-/

Or I'm just talking rubbish at the moment... got my head busy anyway. So thanks again for caring to answer, and sorry for my incoherent ranting.