At Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:01:33 -0800, Matthew Allen wrote: > > > Pete, please keep on doing whatever the hell it is you want to > do. It was great getting in this morning and having a freshmeat > announcement with an update of specimen. This mail is not a feature wish > list for specimen (or for anyones sampler) this is just what I like > sampler wise. Well, I'm certainly not going to stop coding, and I'm quite interested in what features other people find useful because I'll probably find them useful as well (and then implement them). > Things Kontakt did that made me want to switch. > > 1. Easy of importing a bunch of samples at a time (or if you have a > GUI use it right). Definitely. The first thing I wrote when I started working on Specimen was the GUI, and I still think from the GUI in when I add features. The current interface works well enough, but unless you write a script to generate .beef files (not hard to do sense they're simple xml files), it isn't sufficient for quick creation of huge banks. I'm planning on adding a pane on the left with a scrollable keyboard layout for quick note and range assignment, and a pane on the right for sample browsing which can be customized to hold entries for your favorite directories. Probably gonna make both panes collapsable as well, for those who like the minimalist setup, but that's all taking a back seat at the moment... > 2. Modulation sources and Destinations coming out my ears. ...because my focus is on the ability to create music *first*, and the ability to accomplish specific tasks (like creating a huge bank) second. > Modulator can be tempo (midi time clock) synched. I didn't think about that, good call. > Pretty much every parameter can be modulated (even ones most people > wouldn't want to modulate). You can even modulate the parameters of > the modulators with more modulations, its very GNU. Ok, which approach is best: 1) A finite number of modulators which can control various parameters and/or each other. 2) A modulator per parameter (yikes). 3) A dynamic modulator management system, so you can have an arbitary number of modulators which can modulate any parameter that supports modulation (which should be all). I think number 3 would be the way to go, so long as it's done in an intuitive fashion. In the meantime, I plan to implement number 1. > Envelope follower > 32-stage step modulator > Poly aftertouch > Mono aftertouch What do these things do? Sorry for my ignorance, I am a mere ex-fruityloops user :\ > Having an internal Filter is debatable, but if you are going to > put it in there make sure I can modulate that to! I've already got a low pass in there, and I'm gonna add hi/band/notch-pass as well (and they will be modulatable). That, LFOs, and portamento are my biggest priorities because you can create an impressive amount of *good* music with just those tools (well, in addition to what is already in Specimen). > I don't want a sample editor, not even normalize or other common DSP > stuff). I'd like to think that mine is exempt, since it is only for setting play and loop points, although I think adding the ability to draw your ADSR (soon to become AHDSR) settings, and possibly arbitrary point envelopes as well, would be rather slick. > I guess now that I am thinking about it, one thing Linux people > could (and do) do in many cases is to give me complete access to all of > this stuff from the command line. It would be a wicked ass command but > if I could set up a complex instrument with a script, and then play it > without a GUI, ohhh I am drooling thinking about the weird stuff I could > force a sampler do. David Clark has already figured out a way to script the generation of .beef files. It probably wouldn't be that difficult to write a clspecimen that just takes a beef file as a command line argument, which would be a start. But this is low priority for me. However, LinuxSampler is designed as a console project with its own communications protocol for parameter manipulation. It also has a lot more design than specimen, so it might be capable of something like what you're describing already. [pb]
