Re: [iiwusynth-devel] FluidSynth roadmap

[Antoine Schmitt]

:::::::::6/11/02::::0:37 -0800::::Josh Green:::::::::
> - New FluidSynth name. Should the API be changed to reflect this? This
> is obviously going to completely blow up backwards compatibility.

That would be a good moment to make a stable release.

> - iiwusynth parameter querying (looks like gain and chorus have been
> done, reverb querying is needed).

Indeed. And I even think that chorus is not fully done.

> - Improved sfloader sample data handling

- I think that the sfloader API is really heavy, especially knowing 
that only one sfloader exists : the default one. Is it really 
necessary ?
- As part of the Xtra development, I wrote new functions for 
sample/instrument/preset creation (on the fly, in RAM, from samples 
loaded from files or from Director media). I was waiting for some 
stable moment to include it in CVS. On the other hand, I guess that 
they are not very generic, as they create one instrument_zone per 
sample (with envelope and loop management), but dont give access to 
preset_zone management, not talking about access to zone generators. 
I think that a rethink of this API to allow for dynamic creation of a 
sf structure would be really powerful.
- About sample, it seems that the stereo is not implemented at all 
(or am I mistaking). The SF specs defines stereo handling (two 
instrument_zones with linked samples). It would be interesting to add 
it.

> - Compare synthesis to other SoundFont devices (SB Live!, SB AWE 32/64)
> and perhaps try to more closely match them (or provide compatibility
> modes)

On one of our project, we have found significant differences between 
hardware synthesis and FluidSynth synthesis : lower sound volume, 
many clicks on some presets, etc.. (using complex SoundFont presets 
inside Vienna, on Windows). We are investigating more on this and 
will keep you informed. Anyone else has seen this ?

Some other topics I'd like to submit to your sagacity:
- have FluidSynth automatically take advantage of hardware devices if available
- architecture FluidSynth so that the output stream(s) may be 
inputted into some other APIs, like DirectSound3D, or some équivalent 
3D sound spatialization engine).
- Chorus is somewhat of low quality, or at least sounds strange and broken
- various small features, not yet implemented:
-- AllSoundsOff
-- Filtering
-- Ability to set the number of channels at startup
-- Manage other sampling frequency than 44100
-- reloadsoundfont
-- stereo samples
- rationalize the usage of the list_t structure. This structure is 
half public, which is not good.
- Various bugs
-- unloading a soundfont while one of its samples is used (in a 
voice) crashes (unreferenced pointer)
--  pan span is twice too large (it actually pans from 32 to 96, 
instead of 0 to 127


Having used iiwu for some time now, as part of the Xtra development, 
I must say that I find it really well designed and implemented. Also, 
I think that leveraging on the SoundFont API which is becoming a 
standard is really a good position to be : it gives access to all 
those complex SoundFonts banks created everywhere. I am using it 
fully as the basis of one project (http://www.infiniteCD.org/) and am 
actively proselytising it on other projects :-)

The only thing that is quite complex I think, and which is not caused 
by iiwu but by the opensource process, is that it is very difficult 
to rely on a stable version, as it changes all the time with bug 
fixes and new features. So for the production of a client of iiwu, 
one has to have the full development environment available, CVS, as 
well as all the other free software libraries (portaudio, MidiShare, 
now linsndfile for the Xtra...) + update regularely and recompile 
everything. I dont know how things are done usually with OpenSource 
software (I come more from the industry - NeXT, etc..), and I know 
that all this is done gracefully by all of us, but I think that it 
would be good to have stable releases from time to time, fully built 
and available in binary format, with documentation.

Enough for today :-)



++ as