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2     <html>
3     <head>
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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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111     <body>
112    
113     <div id="mainwindow"><img name="LinuxSampler" src="gfx/lsbackground.jpg" alt="LinuxSampler">
114    
115     <h1><span class="hidden">The LinuxSampler Project</span></h1>
116    
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118     <img name="h1about" src="gfx/h1about.png" alt="About"><span class="hidden">about</span></th></tr>
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168 senoner 1973
169 senoner 542 </td><td valign=top width="100%">
170     <div id="contents">
171    
172 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Project</h2>
173 senoner 542 <p class="default">
174 schoenebeck 1613 The LinuxSampler project was founded with the
175 schoenebeck 1770 goal to produce a free, streaming capable open source pure
176     software audio sampler with professional grade features,
177     comparable to both hardware and commercial Windows/Mac software
178     samplers and to introduce new features not yet available by any
179     other sampler in the world.
180 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
181    
182     <h2>The Engine</h2>
183     <p class="default">
184     <u><b>LinuxSampler</b></u> was designed very modular, especially
185     (and in contrast to other samplers) it was decoupled from any user
186     interface. LinuxSampler itself usually runs as own process in the
187     background of the computer and usually does not show up anything on
188     the screen, or at most it can be launched to show status
189     informations and debug messages in a console window:<br>
190 senoner 542 <br>
191 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console.png">
192     <img src="screenshots/ls_0_5_1_console_preview.png">
193     </a><br>
194 senoner 542 <br>
195 schoenebeck 1610 That means LinuxSampler itself is the "engine" of the sampler, it
196     is the software component which performs all the heavy and time
197     critical computational tasks of handling MIDI events, calculating
198     the audio data and sending the final audio data to your sound
199     card(s). We call LinuxSampler the <i>sampler backend</i>.
200     </p>
201    
202     <h2>The Face(s)</h2>
203     <p class="default">
204     Obviously you need some way to control the sampler. That's where a
205     2nd application comes into game, which we call a
206     <i>sampler frontend</i> application. A frontend is (usually) a
207     graphical application, visible on the screen, providing the user
208     a set of e.g. menus, buttons, sliders, dials, etc. to allow the
209     user to control the sampler in a convenient way. It merely sends
210     the user requests to the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) and in turn
211     shows the engine's status informations on the screen. A frontend
212     does not perform any signal processing tasks, so you can see it as
213     a "face" of the sampler.<br>
214 senoner 542 <br>
215 schoenebeck 1610 For luxury we already provide you two different frontends / "faces"
216     for LinuxSampler:
217     </p>
218     <ul>
219     <li>
220     <u><b>QSampler</b></u> is a light-weight frontend written in
221     C++, using straightforward native graphical controls of the
222     underlying operating system. That way the appearance of
223     QSampler on the screen is very fast and it only consumes very
224     little resources. Due to its utilization of the operating
225     system's common GUI controls, it looks slightly different on
226     every operating system (also dependent of the user's selected
227     theme on his OS):<br>
228     <br>
229     <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win.jpg">
230     <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_win_preview.jpg">
231     </a>&nbsp;
232 schoenebeck 1612 <a href="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu.png">
233 schoenebeck 1610 <img src="screenshots/qs_0_2_1_ubuntu_preview.png">
234     </a><br>
235     <br>
236 schoenebeck 1624 Note however, QSampler does not fully support all features of
237     the sampler engine (LinuxSampler) yet. Most notably the
238     engine's instruments database feature is not yet covered by
239     QSampler. But if you don't need that particular feature,
240     you're certainly fine with QSampler as well.<br>
241     <br>
242 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
243    
244     <li>
245     <u><b>JSampler</b></u> is a full-fledged frontend for
246     LinuxSampler, written in Java and currently comes in two
247     flavors: <b>JSampler "Classic"</b> offers straightforward GUI
248     controls whereas <b>JSampler "Fantasia"</b> provides a modern
249     skin based user interface:<br>
250     <br>
251     <a href="screenshots/fantasia.png"><img src="screenshots/fantasia-preview.png"></a>
252     <br>
253     JSampler supports all features currently available in the
254 schoenebeck 1624 sampler engine (LinuxSampler). Also note that even though
255     JSampler is written in Java and slightly more hungry
256     regarding resources (compared to QSampler), this usually
257     does not have any impact on the audio rendering performance
258     of the sampler, since the engine runs completely independently
259     and with much higher CPU priority than the frontend(s).<br>
260 schoenebeck 1610 </li>
261     </ul>
262     <p class="default">
263     It's completely up to you which frontend to use. You could even use
264     both parallel at the same time for the same sampler engine
265 schoenebeck 1624 instance, really! ;-) You're concerned that your sampler frontend
266     might waste precious resources of your computer? No problem, just
267     setup the sampler session for your needs and then quit the
268     frontend application. The sampler engine doesn't care! It continues
269     to do its job. You need to change something? Start the frontend
270     again (or another frontend) and you see what you expect to see: the
271     current setup and state of the running sampler engine.
272 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
273    
274     <h2>The Format</h2>
275     <p class="default">
276     It is planned to support all common sampler formats in
277     LinuxSampler, but at the moment we chose to concentrate on the
278     Gigasampler format, because when we started this project, the
279     Gigasampler format was (in our opinion) the most popular
280     and "best" sampler format in regards of quality and power,
281     especially for the synthesis of natural instruments like pianos,
282     brass and bowed instruments. But we already made good advance in
283     implementing this format, so we are optimistic to start with
284     adding other formats soon. Beside that we also planned to
285     design our own, sophisticated sampler format to introduce a more
286     powerful and more flexible sampler format compared to
287     any sampler format currently available in the world. Be encouraged
288     to share your ideas about such a new format with us!
289     </p>
290    
291     <h2>The Editor</h2>
292     <p class="default">
293     <u><b>gigedit</b></u> allows you to edit and create instruments
294     for the Gigasampler format, which can be used with LinuxSampler
295     as well as with Tascam's Gigastudio. Following our line of
296     modularity we also made the instrument editors independent
297     applications. Because let's face it: every sampler format is
298     different, so in our opinion it is better to honor the specific
299     features of one format with its own instrument editor application
300     instead of trying to fiddle everything into one single bloated
301     application. So gigedit is our first editor, dedicated to the .gig
302     format:<br>
303 schoenebeck 1404 <br>
304 schoenebeck 1610 <a href="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3.png"><img src="screenshots/gigedit_0_0_3_preview.jpg"></a>
305     <br>
306     You can use gigedit as stand-alone application or in conjunction
307     with LinuxSampler. For the latter case gigedit installs a plugin
308     into the sampler engine, so the engine (and with it the frontends)
309     knows that gigedit actually exists and can handle the .gig format.
310     So even though we decoupled the sampler's components into
311 schoenebeck 1624 independent applications, they all work seamlessly together.
312     <a href="http://download.linuxsampler.org/doc/gigedit/quickstart/gigedit_quickstart.html#live_editing">
313     Just press the "Edit" button
314     </a> on a channel strip of a frontend and
315 schoenebeck 1610 gigedit will automatically popup on the screen and you're
316     immediately ready to edit your selected instrument, making all your
317     modifications audible in realtime. Even when editing huge
318     instruments of 1GB or more, tweak the instrument with gigedit and
319     immediately hear it while playing on the keyboard at the same time.
320     And the good thing: even with new sampler formats we're going to
321     add soon (and with it new editors), you don't have to remember
322     which instrument you loaded uses which format. Simply click on
323     "Edit" in a frontend and the sampler engine will choose the right
324     instrument editor application for the respective instrument for
325     you.
326 senoner 542 </p>
327    
328 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Technical Interface</h2>
329     <p class="default">
330     As the components of the sampler are independent applications,
331     there must be a way to let the applications communicate with each
332     other. For this LinuxSampler provides a native C++
333     <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface">API</a>
334     as well as a network interface using an ASCII based protocol which
335     we call "<a href="http://www.linuxsampler.org/api/draft-linuxsampler-protocol.html" title="LinuxSampler Control Protocol">LSCP</a>"
336     for controlling the sampler engine and managing sampler sessions.
337 schoenebeck 1624 Our frontends support that network interface, which also allows to
338 schoenebeck 1610 control the sampler engine with the GUI frontend(s) remotely from
339     another computer, probably even running a completely different
340 schoenebeck 1624 Operating System. And compared to other remote control solutions,
341     the frontend won't feel sluggish, as the frontend is running on
342     your local machine.<br>
343     <br>
344     You can also configure your computer to automatically start the
345     sampler engine and loading your prefered sampler session without
346     any frontend, simply by using a <i>LSCP session file</i>. How do
347     you get such a "LSCP session file"? Both frontends write LSCP
348     session files for you when you request them to save your current
349     sampler session. And as those LSCP session files are ordinary
350     human readable text files, you can adjust them with any text
351     editor if you want.
352 schoenebeck 1610 </p>
353    
354 schoenebeck 1624 <h2>The Compatibility</h2>
355     <p class="default">
356     LinuxSampler is available for the most popular operating
357     systems and already supports a variety of audio and MIDI driver
358     systems on each OS. It does not require any special dedicated
359     device drivers from the sound card manufacturers, so you can
360     also use it with cheap consumer cards. Due to its clean design
361     the sampler can be ported to other operating systems and
362     extended for further driver systems with a minimum of effort.
363     So we're prepared for the future!
364     </p>
365    
366 schoenebeck 1610 <h2>The Community</h2>
367     <p class="default">
368 schoenebeck 1770 You need a helping hand? You certainly get the answers on your
369     personal questions on our
370 schoenebeck 1856 <a href="http://bb.linuxsampler.org/">web forum</a>.<br>
371 schoenebeck 1770 <br>
372 schoenebeck 1610 All applications are under active development. However we all work
373     on this project for fun in our spare time. There are still so many
374     things to do and our hands are limited. So don't hesitate on
375     participating to the project! You don't necessarily need to be a
376     skilled programmer to help the project. Testing the applications,
377     <a href="http://bugs.linuxsampler.org.">reporting bugs</a>, writing
378     documentation, providing artwork, themes for frontends, etc. helps
379     us and all users a lot! Simply subscribe to our
380     <a href="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxsampler-devel">
381 schoenebeck 1770 developers mailing list
382 schoenebeck 1610 </a> and we'll of course take you by the hand in case you want to
383     participate with active source code development. Don't be afraid!
384     You have your own ideas and concepts for making the sampler better?
385     Great, share them with us!<br>
386     <br>
387     </p>
388    
389 senoner 542 </div>
390     </td></tr></table>
391    
392     </div>
393    
394     </body>
395     </html>

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