General
LinuxSampler is a work in progress. The goal is to produce a free, open source pure software audio sampler
with professional grade features, comparable to both hardware and commercial Windows/Mac software samplers
and to introduce new features not yet available by any other sampler in the world.
LinuxSampler was designed as a sampler backend, decoupled from any user interface. It provides a network interface
using an ASCII based protocol called LSCP
for controlling the sampler and managing sampler sessions. But don't be afraid, with QSampler we
already have a convenient GUI frontend (based on the cross-platform GUI library Qt) for LinuxSampler and due to the
decoupled design you can even control the sampler with the GUI frontend from another computer, probably even running
another OS like Windows or OS X. Beside our own custom network control layer we planned to add existing ones as well
(e.g. OSC). With the planned SMP and cluster support
LinuxSampler might become a very interesting tool for high-end studios and concerts in future.
It is planned to support all common sampler formats in LinuxSampler, but at the moment we chose to concentrate on the
Gigasampler format, because we think it's currently the best sampler format in regards of quality and power, especially
for the synthesis of natural instruments like pianos, brass and bowed instruments. But we already made good advance in
implementing this format, so we are optimistic to start with adding other formats soon. Beside that we also planned to
design our own, sophisticated sampler format to introduce a more powerful and more flexible sampler format compared to
any sampler format currently available in the world. Be encouraged to share your ideas about such a new format with us!
Anyway, there are so many things to do and our hands are limited. So don't hesitate on participating to the project!