Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    Are you talking about the digidesign software?  All I *know* about it
    is that it takes forever to load big samples via MIDI.  But it's also
    an easy way of xfering samples between machines A and B. 

    Oh yeah - an ST version will be available shortly, and list is around
    $495.

-b

    You mean to say that you can load a sample from any sampler and
    then upload it to another one of a different brand name???  WOW
    that would be very nice.
    
    Nick

    There was a short blurb on this product in the latest MIX Mag
    Bookshelf.. I remember it's a generic 12bit sample modifier,
    uses the Sample Dump Std to send the farkled samples via MIDI to
    all kinds of samplers.
    
    karl

    I own an older copy of Sound Designer for the Mirage. I bought it from a
    guy who beta tests a lot of Digidesign's Mac software. Evidently, the
    sample file format on the Mac has always been the same for all of the
    different Sound Designer versions. Uploaded and downloaded samples get
    converted to and from this common format. It has 16-bit samples, I
    think. Thus, you could always move samples from one sampler to another,
    but you had to own both versions of Sound Designer. The new product just
    incorporates support for all of the different samplers into it. I
    understand that they threw out the extra machine-specific stuff, though,
    like all of the front-panel displays for the Mirage.
    
    By the way, anyone want to buy my copy of Sound Designer for a really
    good price? I got rid of my Mirage last year.
    
    -Mark

    
    note 4 is correct; with Universal, you won't need different software
    packages for each sampler. (You will have to repatch to load to
    another sampler). They also eliminated the Karplus-Strong "plucked
    algorithm" that nobody used anyway. The front panel stuff was nice,
    but you could live without it. 
    
    I have Sound Designer for the Akai S900 and couldn't live without
    it.
    
    I understand the price is actually LOWER for the Universal version!

    re .1
    
    Sound Designer can communicate with some samplers that have RS-422
    (like my Emax) at 17 times the midi rate.  That makes it quite
    tolerable to dump a big sound onto the MAC.
    
    Yes, the price is less than for the specifically tailored versions;
    I think they feel they're taking out the front-panel functionality.
    
    Dean W.
    

So, a couple of questions.

The S550 doesn't support MIDI sample dump standard as I understand.
How does it work with this program?

I am interested in taking S550 samples into this program and then to my
TX16W (which does support MIDI sample dump)  (listeneing db?:-)

Dave Orin, you have this program, care to expand on how it is done
(or not done :-)

Chad

Chad,

>The S550 doesn't support MIDI sample dump standard as I understand.
>How does it work with this program?

That is correct. The S550 uses SYSEX commands to communicate and pass
the sample information to USD. A new sample dump standard utility will be
forthcoming for the CD ROM. 

Universal Sound Designer has drivers for each machine, and takes care of
converting the wavesample data to the correct format. The newest version
is 1.5 and supports more machines. Each sampler has its own little quirks.
The EPS, for instance, requires that you turn SYSEX on, and leave the
OS disk in the drive. The OS loads an overlay the first time you transfer
a wavesample (during the handshake between USD and EPS). The EPS and/or
Sound Designer occasionally get confused if you transfer wavesamples to
multiple instruments, or do not assign the wavesamples to the keyboard
periodically and correctly. Also, it is not a good idea to move the mouses
around; touch any buttons on the front panels of the instruments; or press any
keys on the keyboards or computer involved during the transfer.

I've had the EPS OS crash and lost all data. Apparently, the interrupt
generated by moving the mouse or pressing a key can cause the MIDI data
to get lost or corrupted while the microprocessor is handling these
interrupts. Since there is no elaborate protocol for
retries and recoveries (just a checksum) if a byte gets lost, the MIDI
drivers get lost and crash. They assume that it will always work, and do
not have memory hogging error recovery routines. Frequent saves of
instruments, patches, and wavesamples to disk is highly recommended. ;^)

 The S550 requires that you turn SYSEX on, and if you are going to transfer
wavesamples _to_ the S550, you must have already sampled "silence" for enough
time into the tone memory slot to hold the wavesample data. There are strange
memory allocation tricks going on in the S550. Transferring wavesamples _from_
the S550 does not require any special tricks except turning on SYSEX in MIDI
mode.

You may also want to check out Alchemy by Blank Software for a comparison.

dave

Anybody in the southern NH eastern MA region using either Digidesign 
Sound Designer sample editor, Steinbergs Avalon sample editor, or any other 
sample editor on Atari ST?  If you are and would maybe like to give a small
demo of it on Tuesday the 27th at an Atari Meeting in Acton please send me 
mail (NORGE::CHAD).  There will be an Atari there and if you don't mind working
with the Yamaha sampler TX16W that will be there too.  Please note, this is Jeff 
Lomickas Atari meeting, not mine, and I haven't asked him yet but I don't think
he'd mind if we had a sample edit demo.  This month's theme is MIDI on the ST.
Please send Email if interested in doing such a demo.  I'll then arrange it with
Jeff.

Chad