[music-dsp] What features does a good soft-sampler need ?

[Olli Niemitalo]

On Sat, 15 Jul 2000, Benno Senoner wrote:

> we are currently designing an opensource MIDI software-sampler and wish
> to know what features a good (eg suitable for professional use) sampler
> would need. [...]
> 
> For example how does the patch structure of good MIDI expanders like 
> the roland JV 1080 etc look like ?
> 
> any good webpointers which describe these structures ? 

If you haven't yet done so, check out the SoundFont 2 specs at:

ftp://ftp.creaf.com/pub/emu/

> Where do we have to draw the line between a good sampler and a 
> synthesizer ?

Volume, panning, filter. Those are the things i think you should implement
in your sampler. There! I put a resonant lowpass filter just perfect for
you at the end of this mail. (Made it for a friend's SoundFont 2
softsynth)

> Do you know any good mailinglists/newsgroups about these topics ? 

There most certainly are people on this mailing list who are interested
in what you are doing, and i wouldn't say the subject is *that* far
from music-dsp. :) No idea how many ppl here are midi experts (i'm not).

alt.music.midi?

-olli

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/* Resonant IIR lowpass filter 12dB/oct, maximally steep if amp = 1
 *
 * resofreq = pole frequency
 * amp = magnitude at pole frequency (approx)
 *
 */
double pi = 3.141592654;

/* Parameters. Change these! */
double resofreq = 5000;
double amp = 1.0;

DOUBLEWORD streamofs;
double w = 2.0*pi*resofreq/samplerate; // Pole angle
double q = 1.0-w/(2.0*(amp+0.5/(1.0+w))+w-2.0); // Pole magnitude
double r = q*q;
double c = r+1.0-2.0*cos(w)*q;
double vibrapos = 0;
double vibraspeed = 0;

/* Main loop */
for (streamofs = 0; streamofs < streamsize; streamofs++) {

  /* Accelerate vibra by signal-vibra, multiplied by lowpasscutoff */
  vibraspeed += (fromstream[streamofs] - vibrapos) * c;

  /* Add velocity to vibra's position */
  vibrapos += vibraspeed;

  /* Attenuate/amplify vibra's velocity by resonance */
  vibraspeed *= r;

  /* Check clipping */
  temp = vibrapos;
  if (temp > 32767) {
    temp = 32767;
  } else if (temp < -32768) temp = -32768;

  /* Store new value */
  tostream[streamofs] = temp;
}
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