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6     <title>LinuxSampler For Windows</title>
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11 schoenebeck 1593 <h2><center>LinuxSampler for Windows &nbsp; <img src="gfx/logos/windows.png"> &nbsp; HOWTO by Benno Senoner&nbsp;</center></h2>
12 senoner 1575 <br>
13 schoenebeck 1596 <center>December&nbsp;18th,&nbsp;2007</center><br>
14 schoenebeck 1593 <div style="background-color: #F4F4FF; margin: 1em 3em 1em 3em; padding: 1em 1em 1em 2.2em;">
15     <a href="#intro">1.&nbsp; Introduction</a><br>
16     <a href="#requirements">2.&nbsp; Requirements</a><br>
17     3.&nbsp; Installation ...<br>
18     <a href="#install_w_inet">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3.a&nbsp; with Internet Connection</a><br>
19     <a href="#install_wo_inet">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3.b&nbsp; without Internet</a><br>
20     <a href="#using">4.&nbsp; Using the Applications</a><br>
21     <a href="#setup_midi">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.1&nbsp; Setting up MIDI Input</a><br>
22     <a href="#setup_audio">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.2&nbsp; Setting up Audio Output</a><br>
23     <a href="#load_samples">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.3&nbsp; Loading Samples</a><br>
24     <a href="#save_session">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.4&nbsp; Saving a Sampler Session</a><br>
25 senoner 1720 <a href="#sequencer_routing">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.5&nbsp; Routing LinuxSampler Outs Into Sequencer</a><br>
26 schoenebeck 1593 <a href="#houston">5.&nbsp; Installation Troubleshooting</a><br>
27     <a href="#docs">6.&nbsp; Detailed Documentation</a><br>
28     <a href="#bugs">7.&nbsp; Bugs, Problems and Feature Requests</a><br>
29     <a href="#contact">8.&nbsp; Contact</a><br>
30     </div>
31    
32     <a name="intro"></a>
33     <h3>1.&nbsp; Introduction</h3>
34     The LinuxSampler development team is happy to announce that
35     LinuxSampler, the most advanced free, open source sampler finally runs on
36     MS Windows too. More information will be added here soon, so check back frequently.<br>
37 senoner 1575 <br>
38 schoenebeck 1593 For now the sampler supports the Windows Multimedia Extensions System (MME)
39     for MIDI input and ASIO for audio out. This means it currently runs only
40     as a standalone application. A VST interface will follow soon, along with
41     a network module to run multiple sampler slaves distributed on Windows or
42     Linux machines (Linux provides better performance) all controlled from a
43     Windows box i.e. running the VST sequencer.<br>
44 senoner 1575 <br>
45     LinuxSampler is implemented as a client/server application. This means
46 schoenebeck 1593 the sampling engine (the server / backend) runs
47     independently from the GUI (the client / frontend). Sampling engine and
48     client can be run on the same box or on different machines too, connected
49     over the network.<br>
50 senoner 1575 <br>
51     The MS Windows version provides all the features of the Linux version
52 schoenebeck 1593 (except of the instruments DB feature yet) since it is built from the
53 senoner 1575 same source code base. This means when new features will come out the
54 schoenebeck 1593 Windows version will usually provide the same feature set as the Linux
55     version. This was made possible by the very modular design of both
56     low level, operating system functions and flexible audio / MIDI driver
57 senoner 1575 system.<br>
58     <br>
59     The Windows version comes as a self extracting .exe file which will
60 schoenebeck 1593 install all the necessary modules to run both the server ( linuxsampler.exe )
61     and the GUI client. It installs 2 GUI clients:
62     <ul>
63     <li>One is <b>QSampler</b>, a light-weight frontend based on the
64     cross-platform Qt4 GUI toolkit with native OS GUI widgets</li>
65     <li>Another is <b>JSampler "Fantasia"</b>, a Java based GUI client called,
66     providing a modern skin-based user interface</li>
67     </ul>
68     At the moment JSampler is more advanced than QSampler as it implements all
69     the functionality present in the LinuxSampler engine. Due to the Java
70     virtual machine however it occupies a bit more RAM than the
71     QSsampler GUI (around 30MB or so) and takes a bit longer for startup,
72     but on a 1GB+ RAM box the difference should be negligible.
73    
74     <a name="requirements"></a>
75     <h3>2.&nbsp; Requirements</h3>
76     <ul>
77 schoenebeck 1595 <li>Intel Pentium4 or recent AMD processor (use
78     <a href="#old_cpu_workaround">this workaround for older processors</a>)
79 schoenebeck 1593 <li>Windows 2000, ME, XP or Vista</li>
80     <li><a href="http://www.gtk.org/">GTK+</a> (<a href="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gladewin32/gtk-2.10.11-win32-1.exe?modtime=1175123376&big_mirror=0">version 2.10.11</a>)</li>
81     <li><a href="http://www.gtkmm.org/">gtkmm</a> (<a href="http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/gtkmm/2.10/gtkmm-win32-runtime-2.10.11-1.exe">version 2.10.11</a>)</li>
82     <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_(Sun)">Java Runtime Environment</a> (<a href="http://www.java.com/getjava/">version 6</a>)</a></li>
83     <li>sound card with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Stream_Input/Output">ASIO</a> driver</li>
84     </ul>
85     <a name="asio_tip"></a>
86     <b>Tip:</b> For consumer audio cards which do not come with their own ASIO
87     drivers you can install <a href="http://www.asio4all.com/">ASIO4ALL</a> to be
88     able to use LinuxSampler with your soundcard.
89     We recommend to use version 2.7, perhaps on Vista 2.8beta1 works better but
90     we did not perform tests on Vista so we cannot tell it. Please let us know
91     about your results so we can share them here!
92    
93     <a name="install_w_inet"></a>
94     <h3>3.a&nbsp; Installation with Internet Connection</h3>
95     Simply download the latest version of the LinuxSampler Windows installer
96     from the <a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/downloads.html">LinuxSampler
97     Download Page</a>, execute the installer and follow the instructions. It will
98     automatically detect if the required software components are already installed.
99     If not, it will download them from the internet and install them on your
100     computer.
101    
102     <a name="install_wo_inet"></a>
103     <h3>3.b&nbsp; Installation without Internet</h3>
104     First download the required components with a machine which has connection to
105     the internet:
106     <ul>
107     <li><a href="http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gladewin32/gtk-2.10.11-win32-1.exe?modtime=1175123376&big_mirror=0">gtk+ 2.10.11</a></li>
108     <li><a href="http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/binaries/win32/gtkmm/2.10/gtkmm-win32-runtime-2.10.11-1.exe">gtkmm 2.10.11</a></li>
109     <li><a href="http://www.java.com/getjava/">Java Runtime Environment 6</a></li>
110     <li>and of course the latest <a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/downloads.html">
111     LinuxSampler Windows installer</a></li>
112     </ul>
113     Transfer the downloaded files to the computer where you want to install
114     LinuxSampler and install them in the following order:
115     <ol>
116     <li>gtk-2.10.11-win32-1.exe</li>
117     <li>gtkmm-win32-runtime-2.10.11-1.exe</li>
118     <li>jre-6u2-windows-i586-p.exe</li>
119     <li>linuxsampler_20071207_setup.exe</li>
120     </ol>
121     The order is important, since the components depend on each other and would
122     otherwise try to download the missing component from the internet.
123    
124     <a name="using"></a>
125     <h3>4.&nbsp; Using the Applications</h3>
126     Now that we installed everything, let's get wet and start the applications:
127     <ol>
128     <li>First start the LinuxSampler backend: Click on <i>"Start" ->
129     "LinuxSampler" -> "LinuxSampler 0.5.1 (backend)"</i>. A black console
130     window should immediately popup. It does what you think it does:
131     nothing ... yet ... because this is "just" the raw sampler, without a
132     user interface.</li>
133     <li>Now start a "frontend" application to actually control the previously
134     started sampler. For beginners and / or unpatient people, we recommend
135     you to use JSampler: Click on <i>"Start" -> "LinuxSampler" ->
136     "JSampler 'Fantasia' 0.8a (frontend)"</i>. This usually takes about
137     20 seconds or so until the application finally appears on the
138     screens.</li>
139     </ol>
140     </div>
141    
142     <a name="setup_midi"></a>
143     <h3>4.1&nbsp; Setting up MIDI Input</h3>
144     Once the GUI opens, click on the left round button in the MIDI devices
145     tab.
146     At this point a window will open where you can create a new MIDI device.
147     Press Create. The window will close and the MIDI device will be created.
148     (MIDI Device 0 MME).
149     Now click on the right arrow which points downwards.
150     You can see that a MIDI device with a single Port (Port 0) was created.
151 senoner 1575 Under Windows MME LinuxSampler always creates MIDI devices which are
152 schoenebeck 1593 connected to a single MME port.
153 senoner 1575 To select the MIDI input port you must click on the field located on
154 schoenebeck 1593 the left of PORT.
155 senoner 1575 A combobox pops-up where you can select the Windows MIDI port.<br>
156     <br>
157     You can create an arbitrary number of MIDI input devices by repeating
158 schoenebeck 1593 the procedure above.
159     Each MIDI input device is connected to a single Windows MME MIDI port.
160 senoner 1575 This means LinuxSampler has no limitation in terms of number of MIDI
161 schoenebeck 1593 ports.
162     Each MIDI device can be routed to arbitrary sampler channels.
163    
164     <a name="setup_audio"></a>
165     <h3>4.2&nbsp; Setting up Audio Output</h3>
166     LinuxSampler currently only supports the ASIO driver model for audio output
167     on Windows. ASIO drivers ensure reliable low-latency operation and are
168     virtually available for any soundcard (see <a href="#asio_tip">
169     ASIO requirements tip</a>).<br>
170 senoner 1575 <br>
171 schoenebeck 1593 Click on the left round button in the Audio Devices tab.
172     At this point a window will open where you can create a new MIDI device.
173     When creating the Audio device you can set several parameters:
174     <ul>
175     <li><b>CARD</b> : The name of the soundcard, in case you have multiple cards
176     installed. It will show the default value (first card found).</li>
177     <li><b>CHANNELS</b> : Number of audio output channels, can range from 1 to
178     maximum number of channels your soundcard supports. We recommend to
179     leave the default value which is the maximum number of channels your
180     soundcard supports.</li>
181     <li><b>FRAGMENTSIZE</b> : ASIO buffer size in samples. The card's default
182     value is shown. If you experience clicks and pops during audio
183     playback then initialize the audio output device with bigger values.
184     (better if it's always a power of 2:&nbsp; e.g. 256, 512, 1024)</li>
185     <li><b>SAMPLERATE</b> : Sets the samplerate. The default value is shown.<br>
186     </ul>
187     Now Press "Create". The window will close and the Audio device will be
188     created: "AUDIO DEVICE 0 (ASIO)" appears.
189    
190     <a name="load_samples"></a>
191     <h3>4.3&nbsp; Loading Samples</h3>
192     In the middle of the screen below the volume slider, you see the sampler
193     channel strip pane. press on the round button located on the left.
194     This will create a new sampler channel. Click on "Load Instrument".
195     This opens a dialog which allows you to select an instrument to be
196     loaded in the sampler channel
197    
198     (for information on how to use "orchestras" <a
199 senoner 1592 href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/jsampler/manual/html/jsampler.html#USING_ORCHESTRAS">click
200 schoenebeck 1593 here</a>, but note: orchestras, a.k.a "instruments database" is not yet supported in this
201     first Windows version of LinuxSampler, but will certainly be on the next Windows release).
202    
203 senoner 1575 On the row&nbsp; "Select instrument from file" click on the orange icon
204 schoenebeck 1593 located on the right side. This opens a file dialog which allows you to
205     select a sample to be loaded
206     (currently only the GIG format is supported).
207     Select the sample to be loaded and then click on "Open".
208     At this point the fields Instrument file shows the filename.
209 senoner 1575 You can click on the Instrument index and select the specific
210 schoenebeck 1593 instrument contained in the instrument file. Now press "OK".<br>
211 senoner 1575 <br>
212 schoenebeck 1593 While it loads you see: "Loading" .. "90%" .. "100%" <br>
213     <br>
214     Once loaded, you see the Instrument's name: i.e.&nbsp;"FreePiano"<br>
215     <br>
216 senoner 1575 On the left side of the sampler channel click on the arrow below
217 schoenebeck 1593 "Options".
218 senoner 1575 This pane permits to set MIDI input device, port and channel and oudio
219 schoenebeck 1593 output channel.
220     Notice that under Windows MME the Port value is always 0.
221     So the only values you can change is "MIDI device" (normally 0 if you
222     created only a single
223     MIDI input device) and the MIDI channel (from 1 to 16).
224    
225     <a name="save_session"></a>
226     <h3>4.4&nbsp; Saving a Sampler Session</h3>
227     Click on the 3rd icon from the left on the row where you see the round
228     icon with the LinuxSampler "S"-shape logo.
229     Now select the directory where you want to save the file to (extension
230     .lscp = <i>Linux Sampler Control Protocol</i>).
231     Enter the name and press save (add .lscp at end of file otherwise you
232     will not see it in the file-open dialog later, when you want to load it again).<br>
233 senoner 1575 <br>
234     Next time you can load a sampler session by clicking on the second icon
235 schoenebeck 1593 from the left, then select a .lscp file in the file dialog and press "Open".
236 senoner 1575 This will automatically set up the MIDI devices and audio devices,
237 schoenebeck 1593 create the sampler channels and load all the samples that were previously
238     loaded by you in the saved sampler session.
239    
240 senoner 1720 <a name="sequencer_routing"></a>
241     <h3>4.5&nbsp; Routing LinuxSampler Outs Into Sequencer</h3>
242     LinuxSampler currently lacks a VST interface so the only way to route LinuxSampler's outs into a sequencer
243     are either by using physical cables or internal routing via ASIO. Some audio cards offer this feature.
244     <br>
245     The <a href="http://www.reaper.fm">Reaper</A> sequencer allows ASIO routing by implementing a virtual
246     ASIO based driver independently from the soundcard type (ReaRoute). Basically in LinuxSampler you select the ReaRoute as ASIO output driver which
247     appear as input ports in Reaper. Coupled with the MIDI controllable FX sends in LinuxSampler you can use
248     Reaper's FX egine to add reverb, chorus etc to LinuxSampler instruments, fully MIDI controllable, similar to
249     other MIDI based modules.
250     <br>
251     Our forum user moonskin (thanks Graham!) has described the steps needed to perform in order to set up the routing.
252     <a href="http://bb.linuxsampler.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=111&sid=d745353791f6cb1ef46946af4168aada&start=10#p944">
253     See here</a>
254    
255    
256 schoenebeck 1593 <a name="houston"></a>
257     <h3>5.&nbsp; Installation Troubleshooting</h3>
258 schoenebeck 1595 <ul>
259     <li>
260     <div style="background-color: #FFF2F2;">
261     <u>Problem:</u> The LinuxSampler backend application
262     (<i>linuxsampler.exe</i>) fails to start with an error message that
263     claims that a DLL file is missing (e.g. <i>libatkmm-1.6-1.dll</i>)
264     </div>
265     <div style="background-color: #F2FFF2;">
266     <u>Reason / Solution:</u>
267     It could happen that due to previous installations of Gtk+ and gtkmm
268     DLLs even after deinstallation leave some stale keys in the windows
269     registry which could fool the installer into believing that the needed
270     DLLs are already installed therefore skipping its installation which
271     will cause the sampler not being able to start due to the missing
272     DLLs. We recommend in this case to install gtk+ and gtkmm manually as
273     described above in "<a href="#install_wo_inet">Installation without
274     Internet</a>". Just install those mentioned Gtk+ and gtkmm versions
275     and then LinuxSampler should work correctly.
276     </div>
277     </li>
278     <li>
279     <div style="background-color: #FFF2F2;">
280     <u>Problem:</u> The LinuxSampler backend application
281     (<i>linuxsampler.exe</i>) fails to start with the error message
282     "<i>The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000001d). Click
283     on OK to terminate the application.</i>"
284     </div>
285     <div style="background-color: #F2FFF2;">
286     <u>Reason / Solution:</u><a name="old_cpu_workaround"></a>
287     This first Windows release of LinuxSampler requires at least an Intel
288     Pentium4 processor or a recent AMD processor. If you have an older
289     processor and get the error message from above, you can use the
290     following workaround for now:
291     <ol>
292     <li>Download and extract
293     <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/dev/win32_probs/ls686_20071207.zip">
294     these replacement binaries.
295     </a>
296     </li>
297     <li>Copy the 3 binaries manually in your LinuxSampler installation
298     directory (default installation directory:
299     "C:\Program Files\LinuxSampler"), that is overwrite the existing
300     binaries in the LS installation directory with the 3 ones from the
301     zip file.
302     </li>
303     </ol>
304     Use this workaround only if you got the mentioned error message,
305     because the replacement binaries will otherwise decrease runtime
306     efficiency! This is of course just a temporary workaround. We'll
307     address this issue with the next release of LinuxSampler (see also
308     <a href="https://bugs.linuxsampler.org/cgi-bin/show_bug.cgi?id=67">
309     bug report #67</a>).
310     </div>
311     </li>
312     </ul>
313 schoenebeck 1593
314     <a name="docs"></a>
315     <h3>6.&nbsp; Detailed Documentation</h3>
316     You find more detailed documentation about our software, i.e. about JSampler
317     or gigedit on our official <a href="http://linuxsampler.org/documentation.html">
318     LinuxSampler documentation site</a>.
319    
320     <a name="bugs"></a>
321     <h3>7.&nbsp; Bugs, Problems and Feature Requests</h3>
322 schoenebeck 1676 Our Forum is a good place to ask for help:<br>
323     <br>
324 schoenebeck 1856 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://bb.linuxsampler.org">https://bb.linuxsampler.org</a><br>
325 schoenebeck 1676 <br>
326     We have a dedicated forum section for
327     newbies and support.<br>
328     <br>
329 schoenebeck 1593 Since the Windows port of LinuxSampler is very young, there could be several
330     bugs which we hope to root out soon.
331     Please report them using our bug tracking system:<br>
332 senoner 1592 <br>
333 schoenebeck 1593 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://bugs.linuxsampler.org/">http://bugs.linuxsampler.org/</a><br>
334 senoner 1592 <br>
335 schoenebeck 1593 Some bugs and problems I discovered so far:
336     <ul>
337     <li>when adding a channel there noises could occur while playing on other
338     channels</li>
339     <li>if you overload the sampler (CPU overload or disk overload) it
340     produces noises</li>
341     <li>when editing an instrument using gigedit, after saving it, it could
342     happen that LinuxSampler does not accept commands from the GUI anymore.
343     if this happens close the GUI and the LinuxSampler console window and
344     restart both.</li>
345     </ul>
346    
347     <a name="contact"></a>
348     <h3>8.&nbsp; Contact</h3>
349     If you have questions or want to help us to improve the sampler,
350     subscribe to the <a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/developers.html">
351     LinuxSampler Developer's mailing list</a>. Alternatively, since I did most
352     of of the Windows porting, you can write me (Benno) directly about Windows
353     related issues. You can find my email address here:<br>
354 senoner 1592 <br>
355 schoenebeck 1593 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/developers.html">http://www.linuxsampler.org/developers.html</a>
356     <br><br>
357     That's it, enjoy!<br>
358 senoner 1592 <br>
359 schoenebeck 1593
360 senoner 1575 </body>
361     </html>

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