Future of softsamplers

[Cheez]

I'm not sure how many softsamplers users are there our there. But the development of softsamplers is making a turn in the past few days with Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) creating it's own standalone VST sample player, leaving the gigastudio format it has been supporting since it's brith. VSL, as most into sampling will know, is the revoluionary library that created a lot of stir, particularly with their true legato samples (unmatched by any other libraries to date).

This leaves a lot for us to think. It appears that many developers are moving into creating their own playback sampler rather than relying on the standard softsamplers like Gigastudio and Kontakt. So far, Gigatstudio has taken the orchestral arena of sampling library while Kontakt owns the electronic music field. Halion and EXS are struggling behind.

The latest news is that East West (one of the largest distrubutors of samples and a developer of a large number of libraries like the East West Symphonic Orchestra etc) is also going to develop their own standalone player, leaving Kontakt which they have been supporting for so long. Complaints are that NI are slow in solving their bugs etc.

Although many developers like Zero-G etc are still supporting Kontakt and others supporting gigastudio, it appears that many are leaving these behind. So what is the futire of softsamplers? Will we see a shift into more of these standalones? It sure is better for consumers not having to buy a softsampler now that most of these libraries don't need one. Still, Gigastudio 4 is currently in the making which boast of new and powerful features. How well will that take off?

Back to VSL. Now that they have come with their own player, they have also made many changes to their pricing (including not so good offers for current users). The entire library cost close to 10,000EUR. Who's going to pay for that???

 

[embryo]

It's business and politics afterall ya. Rather than hoping that production houses around the globe will buy your softsampler and then the softwares that support your player why not put it all under one roof? The pricing structure works both ways as pricing it too low will make it accessible on a controlled but targeted market. Interesting move and development there. Thanks for sharing such infos mate.

 

[bongman]

all boils down to $money$

 

[Cheez]

There's one shortfall of these new standalones though - we don't really know how much CPU power they will need when we open multiple sessions of the same or different libraries. Gigastudio, for example, is extremely power effiecient and has very low latency (lower than Kontakt in my experience). I know I can load in a huge number of samples without problems. If everything is standalone, I may need to open 10-20 different sets of standalone VSTis - I don't think any single PC can handle that. I can load an entire orchestral template + e bass + e guitar + drums etc (at least 20 instruments) in Gigastudio running on one machine playing complex sequences without any problems.

 

[soft]

i think very soon we will see iSample. a 2.5cm x 6cm x 0.6cm firewire device that plug right into your computer providing 100G of high quality samples.

optional hub to add mulitiple iSample cards.

* this is a concept ok, not available in store yet

 

[Cheez]

Haha! Actually, that possibility is not impossible. Large samples need to be streamed to be usable at low latency - that means fast hard-drives. If hard-drives evolved to that size, then it is possible.

Anyway, nowadays large sample developers like VSL are selling their samples together with hard-drives. It will take a lot of DVD to hold 550GB of samples, which VSL is offering!

 

[LuZeR]

Well, Muse Receptor is already out there. It is a rack unit which handles VSTs without the need to have your computer with you once you've programmed everything before hand.

 

[Cheez]

Muse Receptor is mainly for softsynths. Softsamplers with large samples are not impossible with Receptor.

 

[lowjk]

Muse Receptor is mainly for softsynths. Softsamplers with large samples are not impossible with Receptor.

Receptor has a hard disk. Storage of samples is possible.
BTW Kontakt 2 is one of the VSTi supported by Receptor.

Main issue that puts people off is the price. For S$2k+, I can build a mid range dual core system.

 

[Cheez]

Sorry - what I meant in my last post is that "softsamplers with large samples are not possible with Receptor." That doesn't mean small sample libraries are not possible. Streaming large samples requires a dedicated hard-drive for max performance, not shared. Can Receptor take more than 1 drive? Can't find it on their website. If not, number of samples playable will be significantly reduced not to mention having pops and clicks.

I know they support Kontakt since Kontakt is VST. So probably small libraires like GPO can be supported. Small sample libraries that uses Kontakt are optimised by using the RAM, not hard-drive streaming (DFD). Large libraries like EWSO and certain piano libraries are another question - they will require streaming.

Also heard that if the hard-drive crashes, one have to send the hard-drive back to Muse Research for a replacement since their Linux OS is not available openly - only they can install it. Can someone confirm that?

 

[lowjk]

.

I know they support Kontakt since Kontakt is VST. So probably small libraires like GPO can be supported. Small sample libraries that uses Kontakt are optimised by using the RAM, not hard-drive streaming (DFD). Large libraries like EWSO and certain piano libraries are another question - they will require streaming.

It may surprise you to know that supported VSTis include:
East West Colossus, Bösendorfer 290, EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Silver, Gold and Platinum Editions, Ra, Symphonic Choirs.

So they must be relatively confident of their product since they strongly promote the Receptor for Live use.

 

[Cheez]

Very intersting claim by Muse Research indeed! Although they support it, I do hear that people are not getting too much polyphony from these large libraries. EWSO platinum needs a few PCs to run to get a template of most of the orchestral instruments - can't imagine it can be done with one Receptor. But I guess it is no problem if they just play one instrument live - but then most will need libraries like EWSO for sequencing which means a large template.

Heard from people who tried the Bosendorfer 290 having problems, although Michiel Post who produced the library did say it is possible albeit with limited polyphony compared to PCs, but still "playable". It also appears that the system have to be optimised just like a PC. Thanks, lowjk for that. It will be interesting to know what real-life situation is out there. Anyone using it with these libraries?

Howver, I did hear of success stories of people using a rack of Receptors. That must be costly!

 

[Cheez]

Oh, just remembered another thing. The Kontakt standalone third-party softsamplers have limited licenses on which it can be authorized on a PC. It will be quite a waste of money if Receptor takes up one license key and yet give limited polyphony.