nuked-SC55 and Kontakt samples

Software
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Hi there!

I’m new here, haven’t built a Zynthian yet, but I find it highly interesting. As I’m new, I don’t know too much about all of this. I see synth engines for this and that, effects and so on. My question would be if it would be possible to integrate projects like nuked-SC55 which allows for synths like the JV-880 to be replicated fully.
I’m also interested in loading Kontakt samples (.nki). That would round things out for me by putting everything in a nice box.

Talking about boxes: Has anyone put a Zynthian in a 19" rack case? I’d be interested in that, too.

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172770578738579791546963543534561920×1440 197 KB

Here’s one…

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Hi @JD001!

Be welcome to this adventurous ship, of many synth enthusiasts and a few very skilled music technology wizards. :slight_smile:

Kontakt is a proprietary sampler with a commercial sample format, that unfortunately does not exist natively in any Linux world, unless you somehow wrap one of its VST implementations compiled for Win/Intel or Mac/Intel/ARM in a container app like Wine.

Zynthian does not support VST integration for the time being, either because VST wrappers entail a significant added CPU load (overhead), not recommendable in a Raspberry hardware platform, or since the Zynthian OS architecture, as a synthesiser and FX host, is strongly based on the structures of the LV2 plugin format of the Linux environment.

Besides, Kontakt would require a tight protocol of licensing and updates, which by its own nature conflicts with the Open Source philosophy of the Zynthian-Linux Debian Bookworm project.

So, the short answer is: no, no nki integration in Z, at least for the moment and AFAIK.

Cheers!

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There’s a tool called ConvertWithMoss which can convert unencrypted Kontakt sample libraries to other formats like SFZ which Zynthian does support though.

Nuked-SC55 would be nice but I don’t know if the licence would allow it. (old MAME non-commercial licence)

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Well I wasn’t asking about Kontakt directly, just for a way to play the samples. I don’t know if there is a free/open source app that can open .nki and play them. That would be nice. If not, I’ll probably build a rack PC running Windows, some VST host and so on.

Emulating old hardware synths would be nice too, wouldn’t it? Wasn’t there even a project emulating DSPs to run firmware from synths like Nordlead etc? Could that be integrated?

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If there is an open source / open licenced product that will run on ARM64 (specifically on a Raspberry Pi with 64-bit Linux based OS) and there is sufficient benefit to zynthian then it could be integrated. It requires the requester to do some investigation to check compatibility. Zynthian devs are too busy to search for extra work!!!

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Hi @JD001 :slight_smile:

The English (mostly, I believe) coders collective currently in touch with the Zynthian community and devs only works, as you probably already know, on low-level software replicas of various synthesiser implementations of the Motorola DSP56300 chip, taking advantage of faster modern CPUs to perform through blocks of code the functions of slower dedicated audio DSPs of past days.

I see that emulations of the Sound Canvas and JV-880 Roland modules are supported by the interesting project you have brought to our attention (thanks for that!), based on a hardware platform comprised of the Roland PCM chip, the Hitachi H8/532 MCU and the Mitsubishi M37450M2 MCU.
Unfortunately, is currently distributed only for Windows/Intel as an EXE stand-alone, plus a presumably plugin version in .dll. If you could persuade the coders upstream to compile it properly for ARM aarch64 processors in LV2 format, with all the required dependencies and extensions to run in Oram, I am sure that the Zynthian devs would consider it more than gladly for integration in the system.

Cheers!

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Yes, Nord Lead, Access Virus and synths like that. Great stuff.

Actually, they have that JV-880 emulation running on a Pi Zero 2, and the emulator could run other Roland ROMs as well.

I myself don’t know enough to convince anyone of anything in these matters :slight_smile: I hoped to inspire more knowledgeable people to take matters into their hands…

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There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for adding more engines to zynthian but it already has so many. We don’t want to provide quantity over quality. I would like to see the less good engines demoted and focus shone on the better ones. I’m not convinced that emulating old synths is always as beneficial as promoting newer ones which quite often build on those inspirations and improve them. MiMi-D is a good example of a synth that plays homage to some classic design but is focused on providing features that current users want.

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For emulations of old synths it may be better to wait until they’re available in LV2 format before adding them. Otoh, particularly good engines could be worth adding even if they only available standalone.

I’m not going to argue about which ones fit which category though :smiley:

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Well, emulation of old hardware synths down to the level where the original ROMs/firmware is needed is beneficial, because of two reasons. The first would be that they are known to be good classics. We‘re not talking about 150$ Casio learners keyboards, right? :slight_smile: And the second would be that original patches/samples could be loaded. I thnk that would be nice and a great point of attraction for (ex-)users of those classic synths.

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But ROM emulators also have significant disadvantages.

They do nothing without a ROM which means we have engines that appear to not work which can increase support through issue reporting.

ROMs are invariably not available to most users. Licencing can restrict the access, availability and distribution of ROMs which may result in the inability to provide them in the image or for download and very few users being able to add them manually.

I love the work that people are doing to emulate old equipment but there are multiple facets to consider.

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Yes, of course people need to be reminded that they have to supply ROMs/firmwares themselves, because they can‘t be included. I don‘t see this as problematic for a DIY project where you have to fiddle around anyway. It would be a nice option IMO, needing disclaimers, yes, but nice anyway. People thinking it‘s too much trouble just can keep away from them, right?

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Speaking of ROM emulators integration in the Zynthian OS, I have noticed that lately - after a surge of activity in the forum about ten days go, by virtue of collaboration between our main coders and @dsp56300 – the subject has fallen silent.

If my understanding is correct (which may also not be true) @riban, as one of the leading coders and maintainers of the Zynthian project, has understandable reasons for a certain reluctance to include DSP/ROM emulations in the OS: potential increase in support queries, legal inability to provide firmware of the original hardware, advice on usage criteria for preserving performance stability of the system.

As an advocate of the Access Virus emulators integration, both in the related Discord channel and this forum, I honestly believe that not taking full advantage of the recent interest and contribution from the Usual Suspects, an advanced programming team with a technical expertise comparable with the Zynthian Labs, would be a bit of a missed opportunity for this platform. This is not to diminish the impressive solo endeavour of @ricard, in developing a bespoke synthesiser plugin for Zynthian: they are simply different things, and I don’t think that one overshades the other.

In my understanding, being a long-time keyboard guy and hardware synths owner, there seems to be little in the software instruments area, commercial or open-source/freeware, that stands on-par with the DSP56300 emulators, in terms of raw sonic quality. For a good reason: almost nobody, especially in the field of unpaid plugins, can afford the staff and R&D time allotment required to develop sophisticated and highly optimised algorithms, like that implemented in the late 90’s and early 2000s on DSP chips, by major actors of digital hardware synths.

Since my heart has warmed with time to this amazing project, initiated by @jofemodo, I wish to highlight that new potential Zynthian users might prefer other DIY synth solutions or OS-based platforms, that will or can already integrate ROM emulators.

I think that presenting a disclaimer about autonomous firmware sourcing would be legally and technically straightforward (unless our coders have found further legal advice of a different rationale), and that DSP emus could be discreetly included, for the moment, as optional engines in a separate category, not enabled by default. Zynthian users might employ them with the required computing load awareness, as they already do with other CPU-heavy processors and plugins.

Just my earnest opinion, which I hope will not annoy anyone nor hurt anybody’s feelings. :slight_smile:

Cheers to all @Zynthianers!

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No problems from my jaundiced standpoint.

We live in a technical area more aligned with the moral vagueries of the music business rather than ,say, banking. So our legal morals are largely a matter for ourselves, but from a community standpoint it’s wise to adopt a corporate feel, based, frequently, on genuine real world experiences from various industries. The moderators would be doing the community a disservice if they didn’t acknowledge the issues.

There are so many things we can do, and outside of salary the only motivation that drives a branch is the desires of the person at the qwerty keyboard trying to optimise the performance at the MIDI keyboard. So simply be the change. Enthusiasm breeds interest in other so continue to suggest. I would point to the intricacies of the MiMi’d thread where the lv2 handling of data is resolving issues of interconnection which I suspect would be considerably more involved in the world of ROM emulation, but that’s not to say it shouldn’t be attempted and borne in mind, and we all end up drinking our rook soup with all the enthusiasm we can muster . . .

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We are very happily engaging with the DSP Devs but, both they and us have many other commitments. Although some, like @Aethermind are very keen on this integration, it has a much lower priority than other issues. There are no paid developers so we depend on community donations of effort. This is invariably influenced by the Dev’s prefered development items.

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We tend to mug him on zynth club.
This Monday in fact . . . .

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Good to know @riban :+1:

All the best :rainbow:

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I suggest not to worry too much just because there is none of us visiting this forum for a few days :slight_smile: We certainly didn’t buy two Z kits just to let them catch dust.

However, as @riban said, there are other commitments too. And this applies to both the DSP project and other stuff.

Xenia needs to get out of beta, for this the wave editor has to be finished. Nodal Red needs to get out of alpha. Feature requests/bug reports have to be reviewed in various hosts on various platforms, etc etc. There is plenty of maintenance stuff to do and these have higher priority than coming up with new things. Admitted, new stuff is much more fun :slight_smile: But fixing bugs and polishing the existing synths is of higher importance.

Also, all team members are humans :slight_smile: They might have a family, a day job and whatnot that might prevent them from working on the project continuously.

With regards to how the integration will look like, it is correct that none of our plugins make any sound without a firmware image of the synth that is to be emulated. To what extent the Z user interface is extended to make this setup process easier than manual file copying is completely up to the Z team. If we can help out there we are certainly open to it, but if that is even an option has to be decided first and that is not on us obviously.
We really like the platform and are open to help to provide an integration as smooth as possible, but we also understand if the team doesn’t want to integrate it due to the firmware topic.

Anyway, with regards to the subject I think this is a bit OT

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Thank you for the update @dsp56300 :slight_smile:

I certainly appreciate how the programming venture of your team, like for the Z labs members, has to find its place aside higher coding priorities of the respective projects, day jobs and other natural commitmens of life (partners, family, and so on).

Also, as I acknowledged, it is entirely to the Zynth devs to decide whether and how the DSP56300 emus integration will officially happen.

Keep up with the clever work on Xenia and Nodal!

All best regards