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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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112    
113 persson 2033 <div id="mainwindow"><div class="lsbackground"><img name="LinuxSampler" src="gfx/lsbackground.jpg" alt="LinuxSampler"></div>
114 senoner 542
115     <h1><span class="hidden">The LinuxSampler Project</span></h1>
116    
117     <table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0><tr><th colspan=2 align=left>
118     <img name="h1about" src="gfx/h1about.png" alt="About"><span class="hidden">about</span></th></tr>
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175 senoner 542 </td><td valign=top width="100%">
176     <div id="contents">
177    
178 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Project</h2>
179 senoner 542 <p class="default">
180 schoenebeck 1613 The LinuxSampler project was founded with the
181 schoenebeck 1770 goal to produce a free, streaming capable open source pure
182     software audio sampler with professional grade features,
183     comparable to both hardware and commercial Windows/Mac software
184     samplers and to introduce new features not yet available by any
185     other sampler in the world.
186 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
187    
188     <h2>The Engine</h2>
189     <p class="default">
190     <u><b>LinuxSampler</b></u> was designed very modular, especially
191     (and in contrast to other samplers) it was decoupled from any user
192     interface. LinuxSampler itself usually runs as own process in the
193     background of the computer and usually does not show up anything on
194     the screen, or at most it can be launched to show status
195     informations and debug messages in a console window:<br>
196 senoner 542 <br>
197 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console.png">
198     <img src="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console_preview.png">
199     </a><br>
200 senoner 542 <br>
201 schoenebeck 1610 That means LinuxSampler itself is the "engine" of the sampler, it
202     is the software component which performs all the heavy and time
203     critical computational tasks of handling MIDI events, calculating
204     the audio data and sending the final audio data to your sound
205     card(s). We call LinuxSampler the <i>sampler backend</i>.
206     </p>
207    
208     <h2>The Face(s)</h2>
209     <p class="default">
210     Obviously you need some way to control the sampler. That's where a
211     2nd application comes into game, which we call a
212     <i>sampler frontend</i> application. A frontend is (usually) a
213     graphical application, visible on the screen, providing the user
214     a set of e.g. menus, buttons, sliders, dials, etc. to allow the
215     user to control the sampler in a convenient way. It merely sends
216     the user requests to the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) and in turn
217     shows the engine's status informations on the screen. A frontend
218     does not perform any signal processing tasks, so you can see it as
219     a "face" of the sampler.<br>
220 senoner 542 <br>
221 schoenebeck 1610 For luxury we already provide you two different frontends / "faces"
222     for LinuxSampler:
223     </p>
224     <ul>
225     <li>
226     <u><b>QSampler</b></u> is a light-weight frontend written in
227     C++, using straightforward native graphical controls of the
228     underlying operating system. That way the appearance of
229     QSampler on the screen is very fast and it only consumes very
230     little resources. Due to its utilization of the operating
231     system's common GUI controls, it looks slightly different on
232     every operating system (also dependent of the user's selected
233     theme on his OS):<br>
234     <br>
235     <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win.jpg">
236     <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win_preview.jpg">
237     </a>&nbsp;
238 schoenebeck 1612 <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu.png">
239 schoenebeck 1610 <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu_preview.png">
240     </a><br>
241     <br>
242 schoenebeck 1624 Note however, QSampler does not fully support all features of
243     the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) yet. Most notably the
244     engine's instruments database feature is not yet covered by
245     QSampler. But if you don't need that particular feature,
246     you're certainly fine with QSampler as well.<br>
247     <br>
248 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
249    
250     <li>
251     <u><b>JSampler</b></u> is a full-fledged frontend for
252     LinuxSampler, written in Java and currently comes in two
253     flavors: <b>JSampler "Classic"</b> offers straightforward GUI
254     controls whereas <b>JSampler "Fantasia"</b> provides a modern
255     skin based user interface:<br>
256     <br>
257     <a href="screenshots/fantasia.png"><img src="screenshots/fantasia-preview.png"></a>
258     <br>
259     JSampler supports all features currently available in the
260 schoenebeck 1624 sampler engine (LinuxSampler). Also note that even though
261     JSampler is written in Java and slightly more hungry
262     regarding resources (compared to QSampler), this usually
263     does not have any impact on the audio rendering performance
264     of the sampler, since the engine runs completely independently
265     and with much higher CPU priority than the frontend(s).<br>
266 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
267     </ul>
268     <p class="default">
269     It's completely up to you which frontend to use. You could even use
270     both parallel at the same time for the same sampler engine
271 schoenebeck 1624 instance, really! ;-) You're concerned that your sampler frontend
272     might waste precious resources of your computer? No problem, just
273     setup the sampler session for your needs and then quit the
274     frontend application. The sampler engine doesn't care! It continues
275     to do its job. You need to change something? Start the frontend
276     again (or another frontend) and you see what you expect to see: the
277     current setup and state of the running sampler engine.
278 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
279    
280     <h2>The Format</h2>
281     <p class="default">
282     It is planned to support all common sampler formats in
283     LinuxSampler, but at the moment we chose to concentrate on the
284     Gigasampler format, because when we started this project, the
285     Gigasampler format was (in our opinion) the most popular
286     and "best" sampler format in regards of quality and power,
287     especially for the synthesis of natural instruments like pianos,
288     brass and bowed instruments. But we already made good advance in
289     implementing this format, so we are optimistic to start with
290     adding other formats soon. Beside that we also planned to
291     design our own, sophisticated sampler format to introduce a more
292     powerful and more flexible sampler format compared to
293     any sampler format currently available in the world. Be encouraged
294     to share your ideas about such a new format with us!
295     </p>
296    
297     <h2>The Editor</h2>
298     <p class="default">
299     <u><b>gigedit</b></u> allows you to edit and create instruments
300     for the Gigasampler format, which can be used with LinuxSampler
301     as well as with Tascam's Gigastudio. Following our line of
302     modularity we also made the instrument editors independent
303     applications. Because let's face it: every sampler format is
304     different, so in our opinion it is better to honor the specific
305     features of one format with its own instrument editor application
306     instead of trying to fiddle everything into one single bloated
307     application. So gigedit is our first editor, dedicated to the .gig
308     format:<br>
309 schoenebeck 1404 <br>
310 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3.png"><img src="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3_preview.jpg"></a>
311     <br>
312     You can use gigedit as stand-alone application or in conjunction
313     with LinuxSampler. For the latter case gigedit installs a plugin
314     into the sampler engine, so the engine (and with it the frontends)
315     knows that gigedit actually exists and can handle the .gig format.
316     So even though we decoupled the sampler's components into
317 schoenebeck 1624 independent applications, they all work seamlessly together.
318     <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/gigedit/quickstart/gigedit_quickstart.html#live_editing">
319     Just press the "Edit" button
320     </a> on a channel strip of a frontend and
321 schoenebeck 1610 gigedit will automatically popup on the screen and you're
322     immediately ready to edit your selected instrument, making all your
323     modifications audible in realtime. Even when editing huge
324     instruments of 1GB or more, tweak the instrument with gigedit and
325     immediately hear it while playing on the keyboard at the same time.
326     And the good thing: even with new sampler formats we're going to
327     add soon (and with it new editors), you don't have to remember
328     which instrument you loaded uses which format. Simply click on
329     "Edit" in a frontend and the sampler engine will choose the right
330     instrument editor application for the respective instrument for
331     you.
332 senoner 542 </p>
333    
334 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Technical Interface</h2>
335     <p class="default">
336     As the components of the sampler are independent applications,
337     there must be a way to let the applications communicate with each
338     other. For this LinuxSampler provides a native C++
339     <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface">API</a>
340     as well as a network interface using an ASCII based protocol which
341     we call "<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html" title="LinuxSampler Control Protocol">LSCP</a>"
342     for controlling the sampler engine and managing sampler sessions.
343 schoenebeck 1624 Our frontends support that network interface, which also allows to
344 schoenebeck 1610 control the sampler engine with the GUI frontend(s) remotely from
345     another computer, probably even running a completely different
346 schoenebeck 1624 Operating System. And compared to other remote control solutions,
347     the frontend won't feel sluggish, as the frontend is running on
348     your local machine.<br>
349     <br>
350     You can also configure your computer to automatically start the
351     sampler engine and loading your prefered sampler session without
352     any frontend, simply by using a <i>LSCP session file</i>. How do
353     you get such a "LSCP session file"? Both frontends write LSCP
354     session files for you when you request them to save your current
355     sampler session. And as those LSCP session files are ordinary
356     human readable text files, you can adjust them with any text
357     editor if you want.
358 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
359    
360 schoenebeck 1624 <h2>The Compatibility</h2>
361     <p class="default">
362     LinuxSampler is available for the most popular operating
363     systems and already supports a variety of audio and MIDI driver
364     systems on each OS. It does not require any special dedicated
365     device drivers from the sound card manufacturers, so you can
366     also use it with cheap consumer cards. Due to its clean design
367     the sampler can be ported to other operating systems and
368     extended for further driver systems with a minimum of effort.
369     So we're prepared for the future!
370     </p>
371    
372 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Community</h2>
373     <p class="default">
374 schoenebeck 1770 You need a helping hand? You certainly get the answers on your
375     personal questions on our
376 schoenebeck 1856 <a href="http://bb.linuxsampler.org/">web forum</a>.<br>
377 schoenebeck 1770 <br>
378 schoenebeck 1610 All applications are under active development. However we all work
379     on this project for fun in our spare time. There are still so many
380     things to do and our hands are limited. So don't hesitate on
381     participating to the project! You don't necessarily need to be a
382     skilled programmer to help the project. Testing the applications,
383     <a href="http://bugs.linuxsampler.org.">reporting bugs</a>, writing
384     documentation, providing artwork, themes for frontends, etc. helps
385     us and all users a lot! Simply subscribe to our
386     <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxsampler-devel">
387 schoenebeck 1770 developers mailing list
388 schoenebeck 1610 </a> and we'll of course take you by the hand in case you want to
389     participate with active source code development. Don't be afraid!
390     You have your own ideas and concepts for making the sampler better?
391     Great, share them with us!<br>
392     <br>
393     </p>
394    
395 senoner 542 </div>
396     </td></tr></table>
397    
398     </div>
399    
400     </body>
401     </html>

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