Computers as samplers

[Sporter]

I've been playing around with Gigasamlper LE that was included free with a sound card I purchased. It has limited functionality, but I must say, I am impressed. I'm considering the upgrade to 64, which is surpisingly inexpensive.

Also, it seems the price of computers are dropping almost daily. I was thinking along the lines of getting a second computer, and dedicating it just to Gigasampler. I'm expecting to see 1gigmz and less systems in the $500.00 range, so price wise, it's still under what a comparable "real" sampler would cost.

Am I in left field, or is this feasable?

I look forward to reading replys on this...thanks!

Steve Porter

[Clay Stahlka]

I am in 100% agreement with you Sporter! I think that we'll see much of the sampling done on PC's in the future. Editing and looping are so easy on the "big screen" and with the help of a good audio editor, samples can be pre-processed for the best quality in the finished sample. I do agree that if you are going to use Gigasampler as a "real" sampler, you must use a dedicated computer. Gigasampler streams the sample audio from the harddrive, much like a harddisk recorder. Therefore, if you try to record tracks and playback big samples at the same time, a single system will be too limiting. Let us know what you think of GigaStudio64 when you get it. -cs

[Sporter]

Thanks for the excellent info, Clay. Any thoughts of what the minimum system should be? I would think a big drive, with a liberal amount of RAM, with a "relatively" slow processor to keep the cost down...after all, the box is only going to be doing one thing. The Celerons are pretty cheap, but slow. I've seem PIII in the 600-700 range really dropping in price.

What would you use?

[Clay Stahlka]

I would build a PC for Gigastudio just like I would build one for harddisk recording. The more horsepower, the more voices, just like tracks when you're using it as a recorder. So, only you can determine what cpu to get, depending on how may voices you will be needing on the "sampler." The bigger the cpu, the more voices you can use simultaneously. Remember, that stereo sample take 2 voices. Also, the faster the drive the more voices it will stream. So, if you get a big cpu for a lot of voices, you will need a big-bad drive to handle it... like a 15k RPM Cheetah, or something. If you're like me, a modest cpu and 7200RPM ATA drive will do fine. At the price of computers these days, as you mentioned, you might be better off getting 2 inexpensive computers and and running GigaStudio on each, much like 2 seperate samplers, than you would be if you bought a state-of-the-art computer and a couple of Cheetahs. Don't forget the MIDI interface. Get enough ports for what you need. Each MIDI port will handle 16 MIDI channels, so if you wanted to have a full orchestra of samples playing, you'll need an 8x8 MIDI interface. -cs

[ethorsen]

You said:
<<Don't forget the MIDI interface. Get enough ports for what you need. Each MIDI port will handle 16 MIDI channels, so if you wanted to have a full orchestra of samples playing, you'll need an 8x8 MIDI interface.>>

Help me here (I'm a newbie) - Can't you just use the MIDI port through the Game Port?
What kind of MIDI interface is the best to get?
And is an 8x8 interface set up with 8 channels on 8 ports?
Point me to a web page to do more research if the answer is too big for this forum.
Thanks,
Eric

[Sporter]

Originally posted by ethorsen
You said:
<<Don't forget the MIDI interface. Get enough ports for what you need. Each MIDI port will handle 16 MIDI channels, so if you wanted to have a full orchestra of samples playing, you'll need an 8x8 MIDI interface.>>

Help me here (I'm a newbie) - Can't you just use the MIDI port through the Game Port?
What kind of MIDI interface is the best to get?
And is an 8x8 interface set up with 8 channels on 8 ports?
Point me to a web page to do more research if the answer is too big for this forum.
Thanks,
Eric

My favorite is:

http://www.yamaha.com/cgi-win/webcgi.exe/DsplyModel/?gMCD00005UX256

I'm not sure why and 8x8 is recommended in this case...perhaps Clay can elaborate a bit. It seems to me that, if there are 16 channels per port, and each sample were on a seperate channel, then you could play your "symphony" of samples with only a 1 port midi interface, assuming your symphony had no more than 16 players...what am I missing?

It seems to me that if your game port has an interface, and your software and the midi driver have no conflicts, you could use the midi-in to play your samples, or record sequences to play them. Does the game port have midi-out as well as midi-in? If not, you couldn't use a software sequencer on the computer to play and external tone module...but you could play the software sampler on the same computer.

Of course, as Clay said, having the "engine" (sequencer) and the sampler on different computers is the way to go.

[shaneperc]

I think Clay just meant, "Get as many ports as you need." Most people can do fine with one set of ports (i/o), but some people need lots of channels. For instance, people that sequence serious orchestral arrangements. In this case, there can be many more than 16 voices. If you're just sequencing dance, rock, anything with a backbeat, 16 or 32 channels should be just fine.

[podlegoop]

as far as the midi is concerned yeah one midi channel will do fine for one piece of midi hardware. but if you have lots of synths or whatever you need more ports. One midi port is 16 channels as mentioned earlier, but that is from only one device. In other words you could have a keyboard synth playing 16 parts through one port. But if you had a keyboard, a drum machine, and maybey some rack mount sythns, you would need more ports. plus it is always better to get more. You never know when you might need it. Also if you want a real time mix of your production, you would need a midi controller or digital mixing board which would also take one more port

[shaneperc]

Yup, this is true. Just remember each channel is one voice, no matter how many machines those 16 voices are spread out over. One way to steer around this is to create sample combinations on your keyboard. Then you can have more than one voice per channel, although those voices will always be playing the same part.
Also remember that each port carries 16 channels at one time. You can actually have hundreds of patches in a single piece of music using just one midi port if you get creative (or even not so creative) with your program change messages. It's very possible that you'll want more than 16 simultaneous voices for brief periods in your music, but if you find yourself constantly using more than 16, you're probably scoring too thick anyway!

[Sporter]

Thanks for all the great help and advice!

I finally took the plunge and bought a PIII box and Giga64. My setup now has an AMD900 box loaded with Giga as the "sampler", and the PIII loaded with Logic as the "engine". I tried it on the same box, and had a variety of problems...Clay wasn't kidding when he said you needed two computers. It takes much, if not all, of the cost benefits out of Giga over a dedicated sampler, but I still think Giga, or one of the other software samplers, is the best choice if you're looking for a sampler right now.

I have several sound sources and tone modules, but I can see using Giga more and more. AMF, it wouldn't be hard at all to most everything with the two computers, with all the samples loaded and ready to play on the hard disk.

Again, thanks for all the help and advice. This is a great forum.