[fluid-dev] Re: [Swami-devel] Re: [Linuxsampler-devel] Is there any progress???

[Josh Green]

On Tue, 2003-03-18 at 01:12, Steve Harris wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 18, 2003 at 12:49:30AM -0800, Josh Green wrote:
> > I now feel it appropriate to divulge in a more in depth description of
> > the architecture here, forgive me if it seems lengthy or overwhelming.
> > Although I am quite proud of this project, please try not to take my
> > enthusiasm as overly bragging :)
> 
> Thanks. That was helpful.
> 
> Givent that one of the main goals of linuxsampler was to have disk
> streamed sample playback, how much effort is required to add this, and
> would it fit with the currect architecture - I guess it would go into fluid?
> 
> - Steve
> 

I have suggested streamed sample playback on the FluidSynth list a few
times. It sounds like it is on the todo list for next major release (who
knows when that will be). The main reason I wanted it was for being able
to use the same audio device, without conflict, for doing things like
previewing samples off disk and the like. The current view of some of
the FluidSynth developers is that it isn't really necessary. I almost
tend to agree, since memory is quite cheap these days and when someone
talks about several gig patch files, I think they are usually referring
to a collection of many instruments rather than a single instrument (how
long does one want those samples to be, holding a key down for more than
a minute would seem absurd ~10mb CD quality audio). Okay, I'm sure there
are those grand piano patches with every single key sampled..
At any rate, I'm sure it probably wouldn't be that hard to add this type
of support. I'm no expert on FluidSynth internals though. It would fit
in fine with the Swami architecture though, as the wavetable object is
fairly abstract in how a wavetable device handles itself.

>From what I currently know of FluidSynth goals, it currently falls short
of the linuxsampler goal of multi patch format support. FluidSynth is
likely to remain SoundFont based, but its sfloader API that I use to
interface Swami's instruments to it is generic enough to allow any
format to be synthesized (within the constraints of SoundFont
synthesis). Of note is that DLS2 would seem to fit fairly well into the
SoundFont model (seems to be a rip off in some respects), although I do
think that DLS2 is much more extendable than SoundFont 2. Things like
self compiling code and that kind of stuff (that was being discussed
previously), may also be out of the scope of what is planned (CCing
FluidSynth list so they can correct me if I'm wrong). I do feel that
FluidSynth is quite an excellent synthesizer though, and is fairly
complete in its support of SoundFont 2. The modulator support is
something of great beauty :) The FluidSynth developers have done a nice
job of making it more optimized as well, although I'm sure there is
always room for more. Cheers.
        Josh