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2     <html>
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5 senoner 542 <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="index.css">
6     <title>The Linux Sampler Project</title>
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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>
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145 senoner 542 </td><td valign=top width="100%">
146     <div id="contents">
147    
148 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Project</h2>
149 senoner 542 <p class="default">
150 schoenebeck 1613 The LinuxSampler project was founded with the
151 schoenebeck 1770 goal to produce a free, streaming capable open source pure
152     software audio sampler with professional grade features,
153     comparable to both hardware and commercial Windows/Mac software
154     samplers and to introduce new features not yet available by any
155     other sampler in the world.
156 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
157    
158     <h2>The Engine</h2>
159     <p class="default">
160     <u><b>LinuxSampler</b></u> was designed very modular, especially
161     (and in contrast to other samplers) it was decoupled from any user
162     interface. LinuxSampler itself usually runs as own process in the
163     background of the computer and usually does not show up anything on
164     the screen, or at most it can be launched to show status
165     informations and debug messages in a console window:<br>
166 senoner 542 <br>
167 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console.png">
168     <img src="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console_preview.png">
169     </a><br>
170 senoner 542 <br>
171 schoenebeck 1610 That means LinuxSampler itself is the "engine" of the sampler, it
172     is the software component which performs all the heavy and time
173     critical computational tasks of handling MIDI events, calculating
174     the audio data and sending the final audio data to your sound
175     card(s). We call LinuxSampler the <i>sampler backend</i>.
176     </p>
177    
178     <h2>The Face(s)</h2>
179     <p class="default">
180     Obviously you need some way to control the sampler. That's where a
181     2nd application comes into game, which we call a
182     <i>sampler frontend</i> application. A frontend is (usually) a
183     graphical application, visible on the screen, providing the user
184     a set of e.g. menus, buttons, sliders, dials, etc. to allow the
185     user to control the sampler in a convenient way. It merely sends
186     the user requests to the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) and in turn
187     shows the engine's status informations on the screen. A frontend
188     does not perform any signal processing tasks, so you can see it as
189     a "face" of the sampler.<br>
190 senoner 542 <br>
191 schoenebeck 1610 For luxury we already provide you two different frontends / "faces"
192     for LinuxSampler:
193     </p>
194     <ul>
195     <li>
196     <u><b>QSampler</b></u> is a light-weight frontend written in
197     C++, using straightforward native graphical controls of the
198     underlying operating system. That way the appearance of
199     QSampler on the screen is very fast and it only consumes very
200     little resources. Due to its utilization of the operating
201     system's common GUI controls, it looks slightly different on
202     every operating system (also dependent of the user's selected
203     theme on his OS):<br>
204     <br>
205     <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win.jpg">
206     <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win_preview.jpg">
207     </a>&nbsp;
208 schoenebeck 1612 <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu.png">
209 schoenebeck 1610 <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu_preview.png">
210     </a><br>
211     <br>
212 schoenebeck 1624 Note however, QSampler does not fully support all features of
213     the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) yet. Most notably the
214     engine's instruments database feature is not yet covered by
215     QSampler. But if you don't need that particular feature,
216     you're certainly fine with QSampler as well.<br>
217     <br>
218 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
219    
220     <li>
221     <u><b>JSampler</b></u> is a full-fledged frontend for
222     LinuxSampler, written in Java and currently comes in two
223     flavors: <b>JSampler "Classic"</b> offers straightforward GUI
224     controls whereas <b>JSampler "Fantasia"</b> provides a modern
225     skin based user interface:<br>
226     <br>
227     <a href="screenshots/fantasia.png"><img src="screenshots/fantasia-preview.png"></a>
228     <br>
229     JSampler supports all features currently available in the
230 schoenebeck 1624 sampler engine (LinuxSampler). Also note that even though
231     JSampler is written in Java and slightly more hungry
232     regarding resources (compared to QSampler), this usually
233     does not have any impact on the audio rendering performance
234     of the sampler, since the engine runs completely independently
235     and with much higher CPU priority than the frontend(s).<br>
236 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
237     </ul>
238     <p class="default">
239     It's completely up to you which frontend to use. You could even use
240     both parallel at the same time for the same sampler engine
241 schoenebeck 1624 instance, really! ;-) You're concerned that your sampler frontend
242     might waste precious resources of your computer? No problem, just
243     setup the sampler session for your needs and then quit the
244     frontend application. The sampler engine doesn't care! It continues
245     to do its job. You need to change something? Start the frontend
246     again (or another frontend) and you see what you expect to see: the
247     current setup and state of the running sampler engine.
248 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
249    
250     <h2>The Format</h2>
251     <p class="default">
252     It is planned to support all common sampler formats in
253     LinuxSampler, but at the moment we chose to concentrate on the
254     Gigasampler format, because when we started this project, the
255     Gigasampler format was (in our opinion) the most popular
256     and "best" sampler format in regards of quality and power,
257     especially for the synthesis of natural instruments like pianos,
258     brass and bowed instruments. But we already made good advance in
259     implementing this format, so we are optimistic to start with
260     adding other formats soon. Beside that we also planned to
261     design our own, sophisticated sampler format to introduce a more
262     powerful and more flexible sampler format compared to
263     any sampler format currently available in the world. Be encouraged
264     to share your ideas about such a new format with us!
265     </p>
266    
267     <h2>The Editor</h2>
268     <p class="default">
269     <u><b>gigedit</b></u> allows you to edit and create instruments
270     for the Gigasampler format, which can be used with LinuxSampler
271     as well as with Tascam's Gigastudio. Following our line of
272     modularity we also made the instrument editors independent
273     applications. Because let's face it: every sampler format is
274     different, so in our opinion it is better to honor the specific
275     features of one format with its own instrument editor application
276     instead of trying to fiddle everything into one single bloated
277     application. So gigedit is our first editor, dedicated to the .gig
278     format:<br>
279 schoenebeck 1404 <br>
280 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3.png"><img src="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3_preview.jpg"></a>
281     <br>
282     You can use gigedit as stand-alone application or in conjunction
283     with LinuxSampler. For the latter case gigedit installs a plugin
284     into the sampler engine, so the engine (and with it the frontends)
285     knows that gigedit actually exists and can handle the .gig format.
286     So even though we decoupled the sampler's components into
287 schoenebeck 1624 independent applications, they all work seamlessly together.
288     <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/gigedit/quickstart/gigedit_quickstart.html#live_editing">
289     Just press the "Edit" button
290     </a> on a channel strip of a frontend and
291 schoenebeck 1610 gigedit will automatically popup on the screen and you're
292     immediately ready to edit your selected instrument, making all your
293     modifications audible in realtime. Even when editing huge
294     instruments of 1GB or more, tweak the instrument with gigedit and
295     immediately hear it while playing on the keyboard at the same time.
296     And the good thing: even with new sampler formats we're going to
297     add soon (and with it new editors), you don't have to remember
298     which instrument you loaded uses which format. Simply click on
299     "Edit" in a frontend and the sampler engine will choose the right
300     instrument editor application for the respective instrument for
301     you.
302 senoner 542 </p>
303    
304 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Technical Interface</h2>
305     <p class="default">
306     As the components of the sampler are independent applications,
307     there must be a way to let the applications communicate with each
308     other. For this LinuxSampler provides a native C++
309     <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface">API</a>
310     as well as a network interface using an ASCII based protocol which
311     we call "<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html" title="LinuxSampler Control Protocol">LSCP</a>"
312     for controlling the sampler engine and managing sampler sessions.
313 schoenebeck 1624 Our frontends support that network interface, which also allows to
314 schoenebeck 1610 control the sampler engine with the GUI frontend(s) remotely from
315     another computer, probably even running a completely different
316 schoenebeck 1624 Operating System. And compared to other remote control solutions,
317     the frontend won't feel sluggish, as the frontend is running on
318     your local machine.<br>
319     <br>
320     You can also configure your computer to automatically start the
321     sampler engine and loading your prefered sampler session without
322     any frontend, simply by using a <i>LSCP session file</i>. How do
323     you get such a "LSCP session file"? Both frontends write LSCP
324     session files for you when you request them to save your current
325     sampler session. And as those LSCP session files are ordinary
326     human readable text files, you can adjust them with any text
327     editor if you want.
328 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
329    
330 schoenebeck 1624 <h2>The Compatibility</h2>
331     <p class="default">
332     LinuxSampler is available for the most popular operating
333     systems and already supports a variety of audio and MIDI driver
334     systems on each OS. It does not require any special dedicated
335     device drivers from the sound card manufacturers, so you can
336     also use it with cheap consumer cards. Due to its clean design
337     the sampler can be ported to other operating systems and
338     extended for further driver systems with a minimum of effort.
339     So we're prepared for the future!
340     </p>
341    
342 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Community</h2>
343     <p class="default">
344 schoenebeck 1770 You need a helping hand? You certainly get the answers on your
345     personal questions on our
346 schoenebeck 1856 <a href="http://bb.linuxsampler.org/">web forum</a>.<br>
347 schoenebeck 1770 <br>
348 schoenebeck 1610 All applications are under active development. However we all work
349     on this project for fun in our spare time. There are still so many
350     things to do and our hands are limited. So don't hesitate on
351     participating to the project! You don't necessarily need to be a
352     skilled programmer to help the project. Testing the applications,
353     <a href="http://bugs.linuxsampler.org.">reporting bugs</a>, writing
354     documentation, providing artwork, themes for frontends, etc. helps
355     us and all users a lot! Simply subscribe to our
356     <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxsampler-devel">
357 schoenebeck 1770 developers mailing list
358 schoenebeck 1610 </a> and we'll of course take you by the hand in case you want to
359     participate with active source code development. Don't be afraid!
360     You have your own ideas and concepts for making the sampler better?
361     Great, share them with us!<br>
362     <br>
363     </p>
364    
365 senoner 542 </div>
366     </td></tr></table>
367    
368     </div>
369    
370     </body>
371     </html>

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