How I can use my own Samples in Guru Sampler ?

Hi Boerni,

Importing your own samples IS possible, but it's not a user-friendly process yet. See https://pluginguru.net/unify/manual/doku.php?id=sampler-import for all the details.

Hi Shane, ok .... but ... I‘m not a masochist 😆 I wait until the PRO Version is out 😉 

It's not too bad if you have one-shot samples.  The difficulty comes if you want to loop it.  You will need extra tools to figure out loop points.  It is a very raw experience (not user-friendly as Shane mentioned).

It is really fun to bring in your own samples.  I started sampling my old Korg.  I didn't get too far, though, before I had more important music work to get done.

A great sampler can get rather complicated very quickly:

Multi-sampled velocity (or other controller) layered one-shots also get tricky, when wanting to cross-fade between layers.

Cross-fades across loop-points are an awesome feature, also not readily found in less expensive samplers.

And then there are various implementations of auto-sampling - a really big time saver for creating more complex sample sets.

But feature rich also means complicated - at least judging by how complicated HALion 6 is. Kontakt doesn't even bother with sample creation - and it's the 500 lbs Gorilla, that everyone is trying to compete with and that has now numerous highly capable developers who crank out libraries.

So Shane has a lot to consider, if/when getting into sample creation - including what enough people will pay for.

As an experiment, some time ago, I tested how a workflow between HALion 6 for sampling (since it's a rather feature rich sample creation environment, and has reasonably good implementations of the above features) and the Unify Sampler for playback might work. It actually can be made into a reasonable workflow with a bit of Lua scripting in HALion to extract and generate the required parameters from HALion and some WAV file embedded data into the Unify Sampler dialect of sfz. -- However, conversion seemed a small part of the battle compared with feature differences.

Converting non-encrypted Kontakt libraries is more cumbersome, but possible, too. 

Side note: I found SFZ not very satisfying as a meta-data format for samplers. I've bumped into too many dialects and extensions not always easily recognized just by the data set. SFZ seems a case study in the perils of attempted standardization without an overwhelmingly accepted owner of the standard - whether it be a leading developer or a standards body. Or a standards body bullied by a powerful company. 😀 

And like in any standards discussion, the question arises very quickly, what's part of the standard, and what's considered a non-standard extension? And then the boundary tends to change over time (see the evolution of HTML and CSS), making life harder for everyone.

While dabbling in converting between sampler meta-data formats, it felt worse debugging code when converting between formats that use the same keywords, but those identical keywords are used in a different context context from each other. It's extra mental gymnastics compared to having entirely different terminology between environments.

Has anyone tried Disco DSP Bliss for Unify sample creation?  How much conversion is needed?

https://www.discodsp.com/bliss/

@tony10000 

Speaking of samplers - I downloaded free version of TX16WX, that seems to be highly regarded in sampling community. 

https://www.tx16wx.com/

Posted by: @robert-p

@tony10000 

Speaking of samplers - I downloaded free version of TX16WX, that seems to be highly regarded in sampling community. 

https://www.tx16wx.com/

 TX16W.jpg

Yeah, I have played with that one.  Bliss interests me because it can sample and map VSTis easily.

Posted by: @robert-p

@tony10000 

Speaking of samplers - I downloaded free version of TX16WX, that seems to be highly regarded in sampling community. 

https://www.tx16wx.com/

 TX16W.jpg

Yeah, I have played with that one.  Bliss interests me because it can sample and map VSTis easily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jdt3K6gLYs

German developer Björn Bojahr offers an excellent set of FREE sample-related tools including Bjoern's Sample Mapper, which he has recently revised to be able to create SFZ sample-maps tailored for Unify. This required some changes to Unify itself, which will appear in Unify v1.8, which I hope to have out before the end of February 2022).

Björn also provides Endless WAV for looping WAV samples.

@getdunne That is awesome news!

@getdunne 

I’ve experimented with Bjoern’s Sample Mapper with the latest Unify beta (116). Unfortunately the output from his program doesn’t work with Unify. The output from his program has some minor naming issues, sample name doesn’t have Samples/ in front to them in the sfz-file and the sample folder isn’t named correctly (should be Samples). Is this things that should be fixed in Unify 1.8 and isn’t in the beta or is it other issues?

Other than that I can really recommend his suite of programs for sample manipulation. The mentioned problems above is easily fixed afterwards with a texteditor to male it work so it is not a big issue.

@thsve

All the issues you mentioned with Bjoern's Sample Mapper will be addressed by:

1. Changes in Unify v1.8, due to ship later today, and
2. Setting Bjoern's Sample Mapper's SFZ-export settings to "Unify compatible" mode.

All the Sampler-related changes in Unify 1.8 are already present in the beta version you have.

@getdunne 

So the changes are not included in beta 116? I’ve set the Sampler Mapper to Unify compatibel.

@thsve

All changes should be in Beta 216. Please attach an SFZ file (you'll have to zip it first) here, so I can see what the problem is.

Really strange, when I tried now it works.

This is the generated sfz file:

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// sfz Definition File with Unify / PlugInGuru.com compatibility
// Version 2
// created by Bjoerns Sample Mapper v0.6.82  -   http://www.bjoernbojahr.de/ 
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


default_path=Tmp sample Samples\

 //Group 01

 pitch_keycenter=36 hikey=39 lokey=0 sample=SMPL_001_C1.wav
 pitch_keycenter=40 hikey=43 lokey=40 sample=SMPL_002_E1.wav
 pitch_keycenter=44 hikey=47 lokey=44 sample=SMPL_003_G#1.wav

Earlier the only way to get it  to work, I had to remove the control section, adding Samples before the sample name and rename the sample folder to Samples.

To something like this:

//Group 01

pitch_keycenter=36 hikey=39 lokey=0 sample=Samples/SMPL_001_C1.wav
pitch_keycenter=40 hikey=43 lokey=40 sample=Samples/SMPL_002_E1.wav
pitch_keycenter=44 hikey=47 lokey=44 sample=Samples/SMPL_003_G#1.wav

I was pretty sure I ran beta 116, but I am probably senile 🤔. 

@thsve

The <control> section (actually just the default_path part) was the last thing I added to Unify. If you were experimenting with earlier betas, you would have had to remove it, but not now.

@getdunne (or anyone who knows answer)

Is there a way to tweak the volumes of individual samples relative to each other in GuruSampler?  Notice the last sample below has a volume tag that Bjorn mapper put into it.  The range can be -50 to 50.  But GuruSampler doesn't seem to respond to it.

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// sfz Definition File with Unify / PlugInGuru.com compatibility
// Version 2
// created by Bjoerns Sample Mapper v0.6.82 - http://www.bjoernbojahr.de/
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<group> //Group 01

<region> pitch_keycenter=48 hikey=48 lokey=48 end=423360 loop_end=423360 sample=XO-Beat 2022-03-13_215229 100bpm Average Sounds.wav
<region> pitch_keycenter=49 hikey=49 lokey=49 end=211680 loop_end=211680 sample=XO-Beat 2022-03-13_215302 100bpm Crunchy Break.wav
<region> pitch_keycenter=50 hikey=50 lokey=50 end=211680 loop_end=211680 sample=XO-Beat 2022-03-13_215322 100bpm Ready Steady.wav
<region> pitch_keycenter=51 hikey=51 lokey=51 end=244716 loop_end=244716 sample=XO-Beat 2022-03-14_092439 173bpm Pressure Drop.wav
<region> pitch_keycenter=36 hikey=36 lokey=36 end=244160 loop_end=244160 sample=Six Eight.wav
<region> pitch_keycenter=37 hikey=37 lokey=37 end=162830 loop_end=162830 sample=XO-Beat 2022-03-14_134835 65bpm Slow Ballad HiHat.wav
<region> pitch_keycenter=38 hikey=38 lokey=38 volume=50 end=162830 loop_end=162830 sample=XO-Beat 2022-03-14_134922 65bpm Slow Ballad Ride.wav

Posted by: @craigr68

Is there a way to tweak the volumes of individual samples relative to each other in GuruSampler?

Unfortunately not at the moment. We recommend "normalizing" all samples to 0 dB level, but if you still need to adjust relative levels, the only way to do it is in the samples themselves.

I just wanted to say that the combination of these 3 worked really well for my purposes. 

XLN XO - great for rendering audio drum loops (also does midi clips really well), over 8000 samples with great sound quality

Bjorn's Sample Mapper - Granted I was using this in a very basic way - no crossfades etc. - just one sample per key.  Loop points seemed good although not immediately obvious how you set them.  

GuruSampler - imported the sfz file great with the 1.8 changes (The little lightning updater was convenient as I added samples)

@boerni, @ssquared, @nico, @tony10000, @robert-p, @thsve, @craigr68

Please note I have moved this entire post to a new forum specifically for the "own samples" issue.

Thank you all for your contributions. Please continue to post in this new forum, and check the link above for my introductory post, where I suggest ways to separate the discussion into separate topics and link files instead of attaching them.

@getdunne

Trying to create a one shot sample with no loop points and creating the SFZ from scratch.

This is what I came up with using the docs but can't get any sound.  Any ideas?

---

<group> lokey=0 hikey=72 pitch_keycenter=36
<region> end=350846 lovel=0 hivel=127 tune=0 Sample=samples/RezBass.wav

Is the RezBass.wav file in a folder called samples which is sibling to (in the same parent folder as) the SFZ file? If not, that's your problem.

Do you have any spaces at the end of the <region> line, after ".wav"? If so, delete them and retry.

Are you striking a key with a MIDI note number between 0 (C-2) and 72 (C4)? I would recommend setting hikey=127 (or just deleting the lokey/hikey tags entirely) before attempting to restrict key range.

Note you can delete "end=350846 lovel=0 hivel=127 tune=0", as those tags are effectively just the defaults.

Also, in recent versions of Unify, you can forget the <group> tag entirely, and just put those tags onto the <region> line.

@getdunne

OK, I changed the file to this:

---

<region> pitch_keycenter=36 Sample=RezBass/RezBass.wav

---

It shows up fine in Unify but does not produce any sound.  

The folder is RezBass and both the SFZ and the WAV file are in that folder.

Not sure what is going on...

Posted by: @tony10000

@getdunne

OK, I changed the file to this:

---

<region> pitch_keycenter=36 Sample=RezBass/RezBass.wav

---

It shows up fine in Unify but does not produce any sound.  

The folder is RezBass and both the SFZ and the WAV file are in that folder.

Not sure what is going on...

What's going on is what I have bolded above. What follows "sample=" is the path to the WAV file, relative to the folder containing the SFZ file (or, if you provide a "default_path=" entry, relative to that).

In your case, Guru Sampler is looking inside your RezBass folder for a (non-existent) sub-folder which is also called RezBass, which contains the WAV file.

Change it to <region> pitch_keycenter=36 sample=RezBass.wav and all will be well.

@getdunne 

Okay, changed it to: <region> pitch_keycenter=36 Sample=RezBass.wav

Shows up.  Still no sound.

Posted by: @tony10000

@getdunne 

Okay, changed it to: <region> pitch_keycenter=36 Sample=RezBass.wav

Shows up.  Still no sound.

Change "Sample=" to "sample=". Guru Sampler's SFZ implementation is case-sensitive.

BINGO!  That fixed it.  Thanks for your help!