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1 senoner 542 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
2     <html>
3     <head>
4 senoner 702
5 senoner 542 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="index.css">
6     <title>The Linux Sampler Project</title>
7    
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9     content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
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104    
105     <body>
106    
107     <div id="mainwindow"><img name="LinuxSampler" src="gfx/lsbackground.jpg" alt="LinuxSampler">
108    
109     <h1><span class="hidden">The LinuxSampler Project</span></h1>
110    
111     <table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0><tr><th colspan=2 align=left>
112     <img name="h1about" src="gfx/h1about.png" alt="About"><span class="hidden">about</span></th></tr>
113     <tr><td valign=top>
114     <a id="news" href="index.php" onmouseover="javascript:if(document.images)document.news.src = newsover.src" onmouseout="javascript:if(document.images)document.news.src = newsout.src"><img name="news" src="gfx/mnews.png" alt="news"></a>
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118     <a id="demos" href="demos.html" onmouseover="javascript:if(document.images)document.demos.src = demosover.src" onmouseout="javascript:if(document.images)document.demos.src = demosout.src"><img name="demos" src="gfx/mdemos.png" alt="demos"></a>
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128     </td><td valign=top width="100%">
129     <div id="contents">
130    
131 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Project</h2>
132 senoner 542 <p class="default">
133 schoenebeck 1613 The LinuxSampler project was founded with the
134 schoenebeck 1770 goal to produce a free, streaming capable open source pure
135     software audio sampler with professional grade features,
136     comparable to both hardware and commercial Windows/Mac software
137     samplers and to introduce new features not yet available by any
138     other sampler in the world.
139 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
140    
141     <h2>The Engine</h2>
142     <p class="default">
143     <u><b>LinuxSampler</b></u> was designed very modular, especially
144     (and in contrast to other samplers) it was decoupled from any user
145     interface. LinuxSampler itself usually runs as own process in the
146     background of the computer and usually does not show up anything on
147     the screen, or at most it can be launched to show status
148     informations and debug messages in a console window:<br>
149 senoner 542 <br>
150 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console.png">
151     <img src="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console_preview.png">
152     </a><br>
153 senoner 542 <br>
154 schoenebeck 1610 That means LinuxSampler itself is the "engine" of the sampler, it
155     is the software component which performs all the heavy and time
156     critical computational tasks of handling MIDI events, calculating
157     the audio data and sending the final audio data to your sound
158     card(s). We call LinuxSampler the <i>sampler backend</i>.
159     </p>
160    
161     <h2>The Face(s)</h2>
162     <p class="default">
163     Obviously you need some way to control the sampler. That's where a
164     2nd application comes into game, which we call a
165     <i>sampler frontend</i> application. A frontend is (usually) a
166     graphical application, visible on the screen, providing the user
167     a set of e.g. menus, buttons, sliders, dials, etc. to allow the
168     user to control the sampler in a convenient way. It merely sends
169     the user requests to the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) and in turn
170     shows the engine's status informations on the screen. A frontend
171     does not perform any signal processing tasks, so you can see it as
172     a "face" of the sampler.<br>
173 senoner 542 <br>
174 schoenebeck 1610 For luxury we already provide you two different frontends / "faces"
175     for LinuxSampler:
176     </p>
177     <ul>
178     <li>
179     <u><b>QSampler</b></u> is a light-weight frontend written in
180     C++, using straightforward native graphical controls of the
181     underlying operating system. That way the appearance of
182     QSampler on the screen is very fast and it only consumes very
183     little resources. Due to its utilization of the operating
184     system's common GUI controls, it looks slightly different on
185     every operating system (also dependent of the user's selected
186     theme on his OS):<br>
187     <br>
188     <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win.jpg">
189     <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win_preview.jpg">
190     </a>&nbsp;
191 schoenebeck 1612 <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu.png">
192 schoenebeck 1610 <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu_preview.png">
193     </a><br>
194     <br>
195 schoenebeck 1624 Note however, QSampler does not fully support all features of
196     the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) yet. Most notably the
197     engine's instruments database feature is not yet covered by
198     QSampler. But if you don't need that particular feature,
199     you're certainly fine with QSampler as well.<br>
200     <br>
201 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
202    
203     <li>
204     <u><b>JSampler</b></u> is a full-fledged frontend for
205     LinuxSampler, written in Java and currently comes in two
206     flavors: <b>JSampler "Classic"</b> offers straightforward GUI
207     controls whereas <b>JSampler "Fantasia"</b> provides a modern
208     skin based user interface:<br>
209     <br>
210     <a href="screenshots/fantasia.png"><img src="screenshots/fantasia-preview.png"></a>
211     <br>
212     JSampler supports all features currently available in the
213 schoenebeck 1624 sampler engine (LinuxSampler). Also note that even though
214     JSampler is written in Java and slightly more hungry
215     regarding resources (compared to QSampler), this usually
216     does not have any impact on the audio rendering performance
217     of the sampler, since the engine runs completely independently
218     and with much higher CPU priority than the frontend(s).<br>
219 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
220     </ul>
221     <p class="default">
222     It's completely up to you which frontend to use. You could even use
223     both parallel at the same time for the same sampler engine
224 schoenebeck 1624 instance, really! ;-) You're concerned that your sampler frontend
225     might waste precious resources of your computer? No problem, just
226     setup the sampler session for your needs and then quit the
227     frontend application. The sampler engine doesn't care! It continues
228     to do its job. You need to change something? Start the frontend
229     again (or another frontend) and you see what you expect to see: the
230     current setup and state of the running sampler engine.
231 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
232    
233     <h2>The Format</h2>
234     <p class="default">
235     It is planned to support all common sampler formats in
236     LinuxSampler, but at the moment we chose to concentrate on the
237     Gigasampler format, because when we started this project, the
238     Gigasampler format was (in our opinion) the most popular
239     and "best" sampler format in regards of quality and power,
240     especially for the synthesis of natural instruments like pianos,
241     brass and bowed instruments. But we already made good advance in
242     implementing this format, so we are optimistic to start with
243     adding other formats soon. Beside that we also planned to
244     design our own, sophisticated sampler format to introduce a more
245     powerful and more flexible sampler format compared to
246     any sampler format currently available in the world. Be encouraged
247     to share your ideas about such a new format with us!
248     </p>
249    
250     <h2>The Editor</h2>
251     <p class="default">
252     <u><b>gigedit</b></u> allows you to edit and create instruments
253     for the Gigasampler format, which can be used with LinuxSampler
254     as well as with Tascam's Gigastudio. Following our line of
255     modularity we also made the instrument editors independent
256     applications. Because let's face it: every sampler format is
257     different, so in our opinion it is better to honor the specific
258     features of one format with its own instrument editor application
259     instead of trying to fiddle everything into one single bloated
260     application. So gigedit is our first editor, dedicated to the .gig
261     format:<br>
262 schoenebeck 1404 <br>
263 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3.png"><img src="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3_preview.jpg"></a>
264     <br>
265     You can use gigedit as stand-alone application or in conjunction
266     with LinuxSampler. For the latter case gigedit installs a plugin
267     into the sampler engine, so the engine (and with it the frontends)
268     knows that gigedit actually exists and can handle the .gig format.
269     So even though we decoupled the sampler's components into
270 schoenebeck 1624 independent applications, they all work seamlessly together.
271     <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/gigedit/quickstart/gigedit_quickstart.html#live_editing">
272     Just press the "Edit" button
273     </a> on a channel strip of a frontend and
274 schoenebeck 1610 gigedit will automatically popup on the screen and you're
275     immediately ready to edit your selected instrument, making all your
276     modifications audible in realtime. Even when editing huge
277     instruments of 1GB or more, tweak the instrument with gigedit and
278     immediately hear it while playing on the keyboard at the same time.
279     And the good thing: even with new sampler formats we're going to
280     add soon (and with it new editors), you don't have to remember
281     which instrument you loaded uses which format. Simply click on
282     "Edit" in a frontend and the sampler engine will choose the right
283     instrument editor application for the respective instrument for
284     you.
285 senoner 542 </p>
286    
287 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Technical Interface</h2>
288     <p class="default">
289     As the components of the sampler are independent applications,
290     there must be a way to let the applications communicate with each
291     other. For this LinuxSampler provides a native C++
292     <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface">API</a>
293     as well as a network interface using an ASCII based protocol which
294     we call "<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html" title="LinuxSampler Control Protocol">LSCP</a>"
295     for controlling the sampler engine and managing sampler sessions.
296 schoenebeck 1624 Our frontends support that network interface, which also allows to
297 schoenebeck 1610 control the sampler engine with the GUI frontend(s) remotely from
298     another computer, probably even running a completely different
299 schoenebeck 1624 Operating System. And compared to other remote control solutions,
300     the frontend won't feel sluggish, as the frontend is running on
301     your local machine.<br>
302     <br>
303     You can also configure your computer to automatically start the
304     sampler engine and loading your prefered sampler session without
305     any frontend, simply by using a <i>LSCP session file</i>. How do
306     you get such a "LSCP session file"? Both frontends write LSCP
307     session files for you when you request them to save your current
308     sampler session. And as those LSCP session files are ordinary
309     human readable text files, you can adjust them with any text
310     editor if you want.
311 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
312    
313 schoenebeck 1624 <h2>The Compatibility</h2>
314     <p class="default">
315     LinuxSampler is available for the most popular operating
316     systems and already supports a variety of audio and MIDI driver
317     systems on each OS. It does not require any special dedicated
318     device drivers from the sound card manufacturers, so you can
319     also use it with cheap consumer cards. Due to its clean design
320     the sampler can be ported to other operating systems and
321     extended for further driver systems with a minimum of effort.
322     So we're prepared for the future!
323     </p>
324    
325 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Community</h2>
326     <p class="default">
327 schoenebeck 1770 You need a helping hand? You certainly get the answers on your
328     personal questions on our
329 schoenebeck 1856 <a href="http://bb.linuxsampler.org/">web forum</a>.<br>
330 schoenebeck 1770 <br>
331 schoenebeck 1610 All applications are under active development. However we all work
332     on this project for fun in our spare time. There are still so many
333     things to do and our hands are limited. So don't hesitate on
334     participating to the project! You don't necessarily need to be a
335     skilled programmer to help the project. Testing the applications,
336     <a href="http://bugs.linuxsampler.org.">reporting bugs</a>, writing
337     documentation, providing artwork, themes for frontends, etc. helps
338     us and all users a lot! Simply subscribe to our
339     <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxsampler-devel">
340 schoenebeck 1770 developers mailing list
341 schoenebeck 1610 </a> and we'll of course take you by the hand in case you want to
342     participate with active source code development. Don't be afraid!
343     You have your own ideas and concepts for making the sampler better?
344     Great, share them with us!<br>
345     <br>
346     </p>
347    
348 senoner 542 </div>
349     </td></tr></table>
350    
351     </div>
352    
353     </body>
354     </html>

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