SynthJacker: Auto Sampler app

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  • but just sampling external synths, for now it doesn't support any of iOS standards (AUv3, IAA, AB) for internal sampling ... it even doesn't support virtual midi ports so you can really send midi just to external HW synths ..

  • Seems I read somewhere that, while this is for hardware synths only now, the dev was considering making it compatible with iOS instruments. Or was I dreaming? This is similar to what the “Merge Rack to Instrument” function in Caustic does.

  • Yes I realised after posting this (was confirmed on the AB forum) it only works with external hardware. Shame.

  • @anickt said:
    Seems I read somewhere that, while this is for hardware synths only now, the dev was considering making it compatible with iOS instruments. Or was I dreaming? This is similar to what the “Merge Rack to Instrument” function in Caustic does.

    Mayhaps NS2 can one day get some such direct to Obsidian thingy?

  • edited February 2019

    Mayhaps NS2 can one day get some such direct to Obsidian thingy?

    Another one from my personal top 3 "dream features" in NS :-) AU -> Obsidian autosampler.. How amazing that would be ? Off the all scales of amazingness ..

  • @dendy said:

    Mayhaps NS2 can one day get some such direct to Obsidian thingy?

    Another one from my personal top 3 "dream features" in NS :-) AU -> Obsidian autosampler.. How amazing that would be ? Off the all scales of amazingness ..

    O man!

  • @T4H said:

    @dendy said:

    Mayhaps NS2 can one day get some such direct to Obsidian thingy?

    Another one from my personal top 3 "dream features" in NS :-) AU -> Obsidian autosampler.. How amazing that would be ? Off the all scales of amazingness ..

    O man!

    Since we are here...

    My Top 3!

    -AUfx automation
    -audio tracks / track freezing
    -whatever anyone else wants

  • @Audiogus said:

    @T4H said:

    @dendy said:

    Mayhaps NS2 can one day get some such direct to Obsidian thingy?

    Another one from my personal top 3 "dream features" in NS :-) AU -> Obsidian autosampler.. How amazing that would be ? Off the all scales of amazingness ..

    O man!

    Since we are here...

    My Top 3!

    -AUfx automation
    -audio tracks / track freezing
    -whatever anyone else wants

    Put playable note repeat in there and I’m with you 💯

  • I thought I recognized a Finnish accent in that video. Cool! 🇫🇮

  • Still top on my list is a OP-1-style tape section.

    That’s the only additional feature I really care about. Audio tracks are already coming down the pipeline. Yeah, that’s it for me.

  • @dendy said:

    Mayhaps NS2 can one day get some such direct to Obsidian thingy?

    Another one from my personal top 3 "dream features" in NS :-) AU -> Obsidian autosampler.. How amazing that would be ? Off the all scales of amazingness ..

    I didn’t think of this before, but now I must have it.

  • Wow. For four bucks, that's pretty frigging sweet. Has anyone tried physical MIDI loop back to get 'virtual' instruments recorded? IConnect4Audio among others should be to handle it.

    Anyone reached out to him about making it Obsidian friendly? Thinking 1) option to make the file names work for auto import and 2) option to save the different velocity versions to separate folders for quicker auto import across OBS OSC layers.

    Hell, he should just inspect Obsidian's preset file format and charge another few bucks for an "Obsidian Export" IAP. The IAP would do whatever it needs to do behind the scenes to create an Obsidian patch ready to be opened via Files.app.

  • WWS

    What Will Said

  • I think that's a pretty nice little app, even if it does only work with external HW. I once sampled the solid bass preset from my old DX-27 and it took an absolute age. This would have really helped. Being able to record from internal apps would be way better though. Anyway yes. WWS. :)

  • edited February 2019

    developer of this app mentioned at AB forums that he wants to add AU hosting into app !! That would be game changer...

  • He knows there’s interest for sure

  • I think it would make sense to add Audiobus, then the app could sample any synth, IAA or AU.

  • @dendy said:
    developer of this app mentioned at AB forums that he wants to add AU hosting into app !! That would be game changer...

    May as well just have an export to Obsidian option eh? i mean that text looks pretty parsable.

  • Hello, SynthJacker developer here - thanks for the interest and suggestions. I wanted to pop by to tell you what I'm working on and get more of your input.

    After some back and forth I think I'm close to getting the AUv3 support into beta testing. I can tell you, it feels pretty great to capture an Audio Unit playing like an external synth. Turns out it was a lot harder to do!

    I also played with the sample import of Obsidian, and I think it is just a matter of sample naming, so it should be easy to add an option for file naming. That has been on my mind already earlier, so it may end up in a small update before the big AUv3 splash...

    I did take a look at the Obsidian patch format -- it's XML, but most of the .obs file is really about the envelopes, so I'm not sure if I want to start including a default .obs file and slipping the sample names in, it doesn't seem worth it, especially when the file format may well change as NS2 develops.

    So what I thought of doing in that department is adding the option to generate sample files with Obsidian automap compatible names, and spreading the velocity layers into separate folders, as suggested by @dendy. Of course, if there are more than three velocities being sampled, you will have to pick those you want, or initially carefully select the three velocities you want.

    I don't know if this is much added value to NS2 users, since it can already host AUs, but if you'd rather work with Obsidian, then why not. Or what do you think? Of course, the option to autosample external synths is still there. You can also treat IAA synth apps on another iOS device, or VST/AU plug-ins on the Mac, as "external synths", once the right connections are in place.

  • @coniferprod said:
    Hello, SynthJacker developer here - thanks for the interest and suggestions. I wanted to pop by to tell you what I'm working on and get more of your input.

    After some back and forth I think I'm close to getting the AUv3 support into beta testing. I can tell you, it feels pretty great to capture an Audio Unit playing like an external synth. Turns out it was a lot harder to do!

    I also played with the sample import of Obsidian, and I think it is just a matter of sample naming, so it should be easy to add an option for file naming. That has been on my mind already earlier, so it may end up in a small update before the big AUv3 splash...

    I did take a look at the Obsidian patch format -- it's XML, but most of the .obs file is really about the envelopes, so I'm not sure if I want to start including a default .obs file and slipping the sample names in, it doesn't seem worth it, especially when the file format may well change as NS2 develops.

    So what I thought of doing in that department is adding the option to generate sample files with Obsidian automap compatible names, and spreading the velocity layers into separate folders, as suggested by @dendy. Of course, if there are more than three velocities being sampled, you will have to pick those you want, or initially carefully select the three velocities you want.

    I don't know if this is much added value to NS2 users, since it can already host AUs, but if you'd rather work with Obsidian, then why not. Or what do you think? Of course, the option to autosample external synths is still there. You can also treat IAA synth apps on another iOS device, or VST/AU plug-ins on the Mac, as "external synths", once the right connections are in place.

    Would be well worth it for me. The major reason is that 3rd party AU’s are often extreme CPU hogs versus the highly efficient Obsidian. Bring it on! B)

  • @coniferprod thanks for dropping by! A couple of thoughts regarding your post:

    1) For Obsidian I think all we need is the right naming and folder structure, nothing more. After that NS2 can take care of the rest, so the option to have 3 folders (one for each velocity layer) with the files named correctly would be absolutely fine.

    2) In terms of AU support, that's really cool, but I think what would be even better would be to implement Audiobus support into Synthjacker (I believe that's actually easier than implementing AUv3), because then we would have to option to sample just about every iOS synth since Audiobus can host AU and IAA. Is that something you might consider? As NS2 users the ability to sample older IAA synths is actually much more useful than just being able to sample AUv3 synths.

  • @coniferprod
    welcome here :-) looks like you're planning great things, looking forward to updates :+1: Everything was said above, folders/proper names zipped export for obsidian would be awesome !

  • Regarding Audiobus: it is great, and I did some preliminary work with Audiobus support, but decided to go for AUv3 first. I realise that the critical mass is maybe not quite yet there with AUv3, but it is the "official" Apple technology, and more and more synth makers are taking that route. It does not rule out Audiobus support in the future, however. Also, I didn't really to come a complete understanding about how I would go about driving a chain of Audiobus-compatible synths and effects and capturing the output, mostly because I got confused about who is controlling the transport... but that may resolve itself when I get to properly think about it.

    Now as for making the output of SynthJacker more Obsidian-compatible, I have a plan that involves setting the sample naming options just so, and that will hopefully also make importing to other apps easier. One specific thing, though: do you think it would be a good thing to actually zip the sample files? The NS2 manual says: "If NanoStudio receives a zip file it will automatically open it, extract its contents and place the files in the correct places based upon their type. Any file types it does not recognise will be ignored." How would that apply with providing multisamples for Obsidian? Just zip them up and be done?

  • @coniferprod I don't think it's necessary to zip the files, just names and folder is fine. Then we can import the folder into NS2 using the Files app and point Obsidian to the relevant folder and it will automap everything.

  • @coniferprod said:
    Regarding Audiobus: it is great, and I did some preliminary work with Audiobus support, but decided to go for AUv3 first. I realise that the critical mass is maybe not quite yet there with AUv3, but it is the "official" Apple technology, and more and more synth makers are taking that route. It does not rule out Audiobus support in the future, however. Also, I didn't really to come a complete understanding about how I would go about driving a chain of Audiobus-compatible synths and effects and capturing the output, mostly because I got confused about who is controlling the transport... but that may resolve itself when I get to properly think about it.

    Now as for making the output of SynthJacker more Obsidian-compatible, I have a plan that involves setting the sample naming options just so, and that will hopefully also make importing to other apps easier. One specific thing, though: do you think it would be a good thing to actually zip the sample files? The NS2 manual says: "If NanoStudio receives a zip file it will automatically open it, extract its contents and place the files in the correct places based upon their type. Any file types it does not recognise will be ignored." How would that apply with providing multisamples for Obsidian? Just zip them up and be done?

    As long as all related folders are in a master folder so everything remains tidy. Once the Obsidian preset is created the original samples can all be deleted so deleting one folder is more fun than deleting a bunch.

  • Thanks for your comments, I'll get to work then!

  • @coniferprod said:
    Thanks for your comments, I'll get to work then!

    You just made a sale!

  • edited March 2019

    @coniferprod

    How would that apply with providing multisamples for Obsidian? Just zip them up and be done?

    yeah, includinng 3 subfolders for layers - that is bwst solution... If NS2 receives zip, it unzips it (includimg all subdirectories) into Inbox/{zip filename}/ folder - from there you can load it to Obsidian or move to other folder

    if theee are not multiple. elocity layers but just simgle one, simply zip together files without any directories... as i said, NS creates root folder based on zip file name and unpacks all zip content to this folder

  • Just wanted to inform you that SynthJacker v0.2.3 is now on the App Store. Here is the blurb:

    • New, comprehensive note and sample naming and export options in Settings; provides compatibility for importing and automapping samples in various apps like Nanostudio 2 (Obsidian) and VirSyn AudioLayer
    • Option to name MIDI note 60 (middle C) according to Roland (C4) or Yamaha (C3) convention
    • Small fixes and corrections

    You'll find all these new options in Settings. For a smooth import to Obsidian, select:
    Note Name = Name
    Sample Name Format = Patch-Note
    Folder Structure = By velocity

    Select three velocities for the sequence – one for each sample oscillator in Obsidian – and off you go. You'll end up with samples grouped into subfolders by velocity values inside the main output folder. Hope this helps!

  • great update, thanks :+1:

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