EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

Has ANYONE experienced this.   Certain sample files (and ALWAYS seems to be 
the GIGA ones) get lost in logic.   It finds the NAME and loads the NAME of the 
sample but cant find the SAMPLE.   Im getting tired of having to REINSTAL 
those files.   Whats going on with it. Redmatikas manager cant seem to help 
either.

-tery Michael Huud
www.Music4TheMovies.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Huud@... wrote: 
>
> Has ANYONE experienced this.   Certain sample files (and ALWAYS seems to be 
> the GIGA ones) get lost in logic.   It finds the NAME and loads the NAME of
> the 
> sample but cant find the SAMPLE.   Im getting tired of having to REINSTAL 
> those files.   Whats going on with it. Redmatikas manager cant seem to help 
> either.


One problem of this nature happens when the file names are more than 31
characters long. This is fine in Windows but in the EXS24 (either platform)  it
is a problem - probably due to the Mac origins of Emagic code. If you have a
set of files 

Slingerland_Kick_Drum_external_mic_ remote_velocity_1.wav
Slingerland_Kick_Drum_external_mic_ remote_velocity_2.wav
etc

These long names will be truncated down to something like
Slingerland_Kick_Drum_ext~.wav

And I mean ALL of them -- the entire set -- will get the same name and the
files being extracted will overwrite each other since they all have the same
name.

CDXtract preserves the long names but makes an instrument which the EXS24
cannot deal with since the long names are still just that --  too long. You can
fix this by manually editing the sample names and the zones if it is only for a
few samples but for anything large forget it. You need the developer to come up
with a better naming scheme or better yet for Emagic to join the 21st century.

Regards,
Murray

At 02:23 PM 4/9/04 +1000, you wrote:

> > Has ANYONE experienced this.   Certain sample files (and ALWAYS seems 
> to be
> > the GIGA ones) get lost in logic.   It finds the NAME and loads the NAME of
> > the
> > sample but cant find the SAMPLE.   Im getting tired of having to REINSTAL
> > those files.   Whats going on with it. Redmatikas manager cant seem to 
> help
> > either.
>
>One problem of this nature happens when the file names are more than 31
>characters long. This is fine in Windows but in the EXS24 (either 
>platform)  it
>is a problem - probably due to the Mac origins of Emagic code. If you have a
>And I mean ALL of them -- the entire set -- will get the same name and the
>files being extracted will overwrite each other since they all have the same
>name.

Right. Seemingly the EXS code assumes the full name is OK and writes it 
into the .exs file, whereas the file name gets truncated in the OS and the 
.exs file can't link up to it.

Giga sample names - which are what the file names are derived from - can be 
up to about 64 characters long. They can contain illegal file characters 
(on the Mac only the colon and some other ASCii characters are illegal), 
and early files are common for corruption.

Only Giga has this issue, since no other format has the name length issue. 
SoundFonts are limited to 20 characters, everything else is less than that, 
and other formats use .wav files anyway.

This is OS9, BTW. Emagic could fix this, but they have no incentive as they 
are in OSX land with Apple and would want you to use OSX rather than OS9.

Also, this problem can also exist for other reasons - a Giga sample name 
that has illegal characters in it, and also if the path is too long - 256 
or so characters is it (same with WIndows). Or, the files came from a CD in 
ISO9660 format, not Joliet, and your computer does not have a Joliet 
extension on it, thus it reads file names like this - brasst~1.wav - like that.

Now that I've answered your questions too much info...

>CDXtract preserves the long names but makes an instrument which the EXS24
>cannot deal with since the long names are still just that --  too long. 
>You can
>fix this by manually editing the sample names and the zones if it is only 
>for a
>few samples but for anything large forget it. You need the developer to 
>come up
>with a better naming scheme or better yet for Emagic to join the 21st century.

Translator deals with this accurately, actually. It's actually quite easy - 
just limit the file name to 31 characters, make sure theres no illegal 
characters, enforce unique names, and maintain a list so the .exs file gets 
the right references. That's why there's third party programs - Emagic 
should be busy make Logic better. =)

CDxtract I believe does this as well, it makes loadable files.

Translator Windows actually really goes to town on this - there's a big 
dialog that comes up optionally and shows which sample names exceed the Mac 
OS9 limit, and allow you to build the list yourself (including search and 
replace and a verification feature). This is handy when you've got name 
information where the Root Keys, or other valuable info, are what would be 
truncated. The feature really belongs on the Mac, but we haven't gotten it 
there yet.

Garth Hjelte
Sampler User

Garth wrote: 
>
> Translator deals with this accurately, actually. It's actually quite easy - 
> just limit the file name to 31 characters, make sure theres no illegal 
> characters, enforce unique names, and maintain a list so the .exs file gets 
> the right references. That's why there's third party programs - Emagic 
> should be busy make Logic better. =)
>
> CDxtract I believe does this as well, it makes loadable files.


I had direct experience of this problem a couple of months ago with the
recently released Natural Studio V7 drum kit. The original gig file version ( a
later version fixed this by shortening the file names) gave rise to this
problem with EXS24 conversion. 

Logic's own gig converter truncated the file names and created a set of
non-unique references. CDXtract did not truncate the names - it preserved the
full file names. However, the EXS24 instrument CDXtract generated could not
load the files with long names ( approx 40 characters). So both failed -
perhaps Bernard Chavonet will address this in an update of CDXtract. 

I'm glad to hear Translator addresses this. Unfortunately I don't own it.

Regards,
Murray

From: "Murray McDowall" <murraymc@...>

> Logic's own gig converter truncated the file names and created a set of
> non-unique references. CDXtract did not truncate the names - it preserved
the
> full file names. However, the EXS24 instrument CDXtract generated could
not
> load the files with long names ( approx 40 characters). So both failed -
> perhaps Bernard Chavonet will address this in an update of CDXtract.
>
> I'm glad to hear Translator addresses this. Unfortunately I don't own it.


I normally never step in to talk about software we sell, but....
..ExsManager OSX is able to relink instruments to such samples (with long
filenames), and convert them in a compatible way for exs24 (31 chars).
In this process, samples will *not* be renamed.

Best Regards
Andrea at Redmatica