Hello
Some “.gig” files contain multiple “instruments”, how do I select from them?
Another question I have is about lscp files, can Zynthian work with them?
Thanks!
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Currently this is not supported. GIG and SFZ files must be “mono” instruments.
In the other hand, SF2 files can contain any number of instruments
BTW, if you send me some of this GIG multi-instrument file, i could add support for them.
Thanks!
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What would be the best platform to send? Wetransfer?
I ask because they are quite big.
Wetransfer is perfectly OK for me.
Regards,
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I sent you the Wetransfer link in the private chat.
I sent a .zip file containing the .gig file and the PDF describing its optional presets.
I chose this file because it is the smallest I have to make it easier to send.
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Hi @Jeremias !
I took a little break in my deep-development tasks to implement multi-instrument support for GIG files. It’s available in the testing branch.
If you already have a SD-card with the testing branch, please, update, test it and send feedback.
If not, you can download the latest testing SD-image from here:
https://os.zynthian.org/test/2023-11-02-zynthianos-testing-2311.zip
After first boot, don’t forget to update to get the latest improvements, that include the multi-instrument support for GIG.
Enjoy!
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Hello @jofemodo
I am very grateful for the attention you gave to this request! Your attitude is a big difference in a project of this size!!
Today I’m going to order a new SD-Card to install the test image, I believe it will be here at home by Friday so I can start testing.
I find this news quite exciting as there is still a vast universe of giga libraries available with sounds that are even superior to the sounds available on synthesizers and workstations from major manufacturers, see the fantastic and famous string libraries in Giga format.
Tanks!!!
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Please, could you point us to these libraries? Are these libraries free for including in our images, or to have a download+install button from the webconf tool?
Thanks!
Hello @jofemodo
The Giga libraries I mentioned are commercial, I bought some in DVD format from a friend who has a studio (very well preserved with covers and manuals), others I bought from shopvst.com.
But there are also free Giga libraries like “Maestro Concert Grand v2” and Warren Trachtman’s Steinway-C
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Hello @jofemodo
I couldn’t handle the anxiety and ended up testing it on my production SD-Card 
First observation, the back button in the GUI is really cool, it gives the impression of a better finish.
Apparently I found problems:
- The sustain pedal stopped working after running the update. Does not work on Linuxsampler or any other sound engine. I tested on Dexed, Fluidsynth and Pianoteq, following the MIDI Log I see that the Zynthian is receiving the CC64 correctly.
- The UI crashes when trying to read my Giga Grand Pianos directory, I believe the blame is due to the large number of libraries I have on the SD. When you run the Upright Pianos directory (where I only have 3 .gig files) it works OK. But in Grand Pianos he keeps processing it and never finishes it. As a workaround I created several directories and divided my Giga piano libraries into them, but this was also unsuccessful. I believe that when generating the “.ins” file there may be a problem in some libraries and instead of the software continuing, it stays in a loop trying to generate the “.ins” file.
- I believe that perhaps the problem is that the routine that identifies the instruments within the GIGA files should not be executed “on the fly” by ZynUI. Perhaps it should be executed by Webconf only when the GIGA file is uploaded and installed, this way we would guarantee that the file inspection is done only once. It would also be important that when the import routine is executed, it displays the results on the screen or, in case of failure, displays possible errors on the screen, giving the option of importing the file without carrying out the identification of the internal instruments.
I just fixed this issue. Please, update and test.
Regarding the GIG instruments, it takes quite a bit to parse and generate and i’m not tested with a lot of them, but it worked with the GIGs i tried.
Could you test from command line using with this command:
gigdump --instrument-names “big_soundfont.gig”
This would give us an idea.
Thanks
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Hello @jofemodo
After updating, the system displays this error on the screen. Webconf is also unavailable. The only access I have to Zynthian now is through SSH.
Through SSH I tried several reboots and service restarts but nothing was effective.
Try updating again, please
Regards
Hello @jofemodo
After the update, ZynUI went up correctly.
I found out where the problem is with my gig files. The problem is with the special characters. Some pianos like the “Malmsö” have the special character “ö” in the names of the internal timbres and this causes the process of creating “.ins” files to freeze. I opened all my piano files in Gigedit and corrected the names of all the tones. Then I set up just 1 directory again with all my 21 .gig of Grand Pianos and deleted all the “.ins” files. Zynthian took just 5 minutes to correctly generate the files and display the names in the list.
It is perfect!!!
In January I intend to buy a library with orchestral timbres and this resource will be very interesting.
Thank you very much, I hope to see this improvement soon in the stable firmware.
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Hello @jofemodo
I want to give new feedback regarding this improvement.
Some Giga libraries come with very long file names, lots of characters, and that’s why we can’t read the preset name within the menu. I got around this by changing the file names, in the example in the screenshot below we originally have “Malmsjo-Acoustic-Grand” which takes up a lot of space:
I changed his name to Old-Malmsjo and that solved it for me as shown in the screenshot.
However, it would be cool if this screen behaved similar to what happens with SF2 files, where the presets are shown after selecting the .sf2 file. But that’s just a suggestion. As it is, it’s already excellent for me!
Thanks again.
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HI @Jeremias !
I agree, but it’s not so easy. The current bank/preset system is two-level and it should be extended for allowing n-levels of banks, or at less 2. It’s something i would like to do, but probably not in the next weeks, so you have to wait a little bit.
Thanks for the feedback!
Could we impose some form of zynthian related structure rather than just provide all the unpredictable edge cases of a completely ordinary file structure . . ?
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Currently we have 2 levels, banks and presets, and this is OK for almost all engines except FluidSynth (SF2) and LinuxSampler GIG files. For these 2 soundfont formats, it’s very common to have multi-instrument soundfonts, so having a second “bank” level would be very convenient, so you can organize your soundfont files in banks, having a second bank level with sounfont files and, after selecting the soundfont file, the instrument list in the “preset” level.
I don’t think having N-levels would be interesting, at less not from my POV, but who am i to decide it’s not useful? It’s for that i suggested implementing N-levels, so users with huge libraries could organize soundfonts without limits.
The best,