SynthMaker

Loop info readable and more

Archive · 2011 15 old posts

From the original SynthMaker forum (2004–2014), with its members’ names and dates.

jjs ·

Hi,

a few things i noticed. In synthedit and Maizesoft Sampler loop points in a wav are directly recoqnized and looped fantastic, meaning the sample plays from 0 and loops the points you've marked as loop, and then when you release the key it plays the rest of the sample (for example fading out from the sample till end) or just stops when you marked it. I searched the web and all info is available how Microsoft wav is written and build, even c++ files are available. I can't program but it shouldnt be too hard for such programmers as Outsim too implemend some of these basics from a wav file?

Also samples with very high rates should be playable. Synthmaker is walking behind on samplerates.

Sadly Maizesoft sampler is not so great when it comes to having mutiple banks wich contains multiple samples or patches so to speaks. It just spreads all samples from one bank over the keyboard, resulting in having a few keys available for every sample. But maybe when they extend the possiblities it could be very competative to synthmaker or synthedit. (more easy and quicker result).

But i'm not afraid to learn, i build a synth now in synthmaker wich should work with wav samples just to found out it totally does not work with loop markers. A lot of work for nothing, so lay it in the freezer.

I'm checking out SYnthedit now as it has the possiblities. But have to go from scratch again.

Thanks

infuzion ·

SM is 100% capable to have whatever loop markers & info that you want right now. You (or someone else) just have to add it. Search for exonorate's "Multi Stage Envelope" for a few ideas.

trogluddite ·

infuzion wrote: SM is 100% capable to have whatever loop markers & info that you want right now.

We can add them to a patch of our own making, within a synth of our own making - but AFAIK we can't read the file header of a wav saved in another application to extract any data other than the length, no. of channels, and sample rate - the wave loader just doesn't have the necessary outputs - so surely a convoluted method via a 'Shell Execute' would be the only way?...

Please correct me if this is wrong, because it is a feature that I'm sure has come up in several previous posts - even with the sfz modules, the audio samples and metadata are always in seperate files.

jjs ·

Thats what i remember from another thread too.

Sure it loops the points you add in the waveplayer itself, but not the ones you mark with for example Wavelab, because it does not handle the header info from the wav. I'd rather loop in Wavelab, because you can get very nice and precise loops with it.

regards, jjs

infuzion ·

You can load SFV specs, including loop start & end inside SM. I wish SM would load Ableton Live info also, or have Live load WaveLab looppoints. I guess you can build a reader inside SM for those wave info files, if you can find a spec sheet for them.

DigitalWhiteByte ·

infuzion wrote: You can load SFV specs, including loop start & end inside SM.

What do you mean by SFV ?

infuzion ·

DigitalWhiteByte wrote: infuzion wrote: You can load SFV specs, including loop start & end inside SM.

What do you mean by SFV ?

oops I meant SFZ; I miss-spoke in my mind 😉

jjs ·

check this:

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/422/projects/WaveFormat/ or http://www-mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/documents/audioformats/wave/wave.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV

and there are lots more

infuzion ·

jjs wrote: check this:

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/422/projects/WaveFormat/ or http://www-mmsp.ece.mcgill.ca/documents/audioformats/wave/wave.html or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV

That is for only WAV without loop point information, not SFZ, Live's .ASD files, & WaveLab's GPK files. Thanks though!

jjs ·

You're not complete correct. When you mark the loop points in wavelab and save it, then load it in a sampler, for example maizesoft sampler 2 or synthedit. It loops perfect. These markers are written in the wav file header. You don't need the extra files wavelab or soundforge write along while saving the wav.

Best regards, jjs

infuzion ·

jjs wrote: You're not complete correct. When you mark the loop points in wavelab and save it, then load it in a sampler, for example maizesoft sampler 2 or synthedit. It loops perfect. These markers are written in the wav file header. You don't need the extra files wavelab or soundforge write along while saving the wav.

Perhaps that is so, but I do not visually see in the linked spec sheets where in the header that info is kept, nor does a simple search for "loop" bring up anthging in those web pages. So we still need those spec sheets for the loop info.

rl ·

This document has info about loops http://www.sonicspot.com/guide/wavefiles.html

But IIRC the loop info is not contained in the wav/riff file specification at all!. Since the format is extensible there are proprietary extensions for loop points supported by some programs. The smpl chunk is not standard.

Regarding wave files this statement is very true:

"The down side to the Wave file format's popularity is that out of the hundreds of programs that support it, many abuse or misuse it due to bad programming and/or poor documentation. Once some of these "naughty" programs get fairly popular and churn out millions of incorrect Wave files, the rest of the software industry is forced to deal with it and write code that can read the incorrect files."

Another interesting read (in german, Chrome will automatically translate it for you; see post #9) http://audacity-forum.de/thread/3622

rl ·

Regarding Synthmaker: - the wave reader module does not scan for loop information - there is no build-in extension mechanism to extend the wave reader or build your own. - As a workaround you could code a little program that reads loop info from a wave file, stores that in a text file and read the textfile in SM

Did I already mention, an extension SDK for Synthmaker would be a great idea?

jjs ·

Thank you both for your replies.

In the sonicspot link, if you scroll down there is spoken about cue points wich are used for looping. So this looks like it is the standard.

I have checked the German link too, lots of info to read all that (i can read German very well as i live near the border in Holland), but there is some confusion about what is original or not.

What is correct? I guess that if i use Wavelab, i might consider they keep to the Microsoft RIFF/WAV standard and that looping/cue points are written correctly to the standard. So when i use this sample in a sampler it loops correctly as marked.

So i don't think that Steinberg is one of the company's who'll stick to the unofficial wav version. I could of course be wrong.

plastedre ·

The "smpl" chunk is a standard use by every descent sampler (like Kontakt, VSampler, Live, Sampler, FL Studio Sampler, ...) and it is save by editor like Sound Forge, WaveLab, Wavosaur, ...

If you read the official specification at sonic spot, the loop point is in the list of sample loop with the Start and End point. You could have the note root key with the MIDI Unity Note.

I'm surprised that there have no such facility for a professional product like SynthMaker.

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