EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

Could someone help an inexperienced user?  I downloaded these samples:

http://MusicBootCamp.com/exs24.shtml

I now see 2 items within this folder:  "Samplenet Strings" and
"Samplenet Strings. exs"  Do they BOTH go in the Sampler Instruments
folder?  Thanks for clearing this up for me.

Roland 


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

Roland,

Anything called a .exs is a sampler instrument file and MUST be in 
the Sampler Instruments folder. The actual samples can be in the EXS 
samples folder, or anywhere else you choose.

Regards - Colin

>Could someone help an inexperienced user?  I downloaded these samples:
>
>http://MusicBootCamp.com/exs24.shtml
>
>I now see 2 items within this folder:  "Samplenet Strings" and
>"Samplenet Strings. exs"  Do they BOTH go in the Sampler Instruments
>folder?  Thanks for clearing this up for me.

>> http://MusicBootCamp.com/exs24.shtml

Thanks for the instrument, mixes in well with the MK Strings of previous
postings.
Paul


-- 
horselesspaul.
paul crouch.
the musician not the loony evangelist.
basses played.

On 4/26/02 4:11 PM, "Colin Shapiro" <musos@...> wrote:

> Roland,
> 
> Anything called a .exs is a sampler instrument file and MUST be in
> the Sampler Instruments folder. The actual samples can be in the EXS
> samples folder, or anywhere else you choose.
> 
> Regards - Colin

This is certainly not true on the Mac. You can put the exs files anywhere,
inside a folder, then make an alias of the folder and put that in ³Sampler
Instruments² folder

HTH

Malcolm

-----------------
Malcolm Payne Music
NYC
http://www.malcolmpayne.com



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

>  > Anything called a .exs is a sampler instrument file and MUST be in
>>  the Sampler Instruments folder. The actual samples can be in the EXS
>  > samples folder, or anywhere else you choose.

Malcolm wrote:
>This is certainly not true on the Mac. You can put the exs files anywhere,
>inside a folder, then make an alias of the folder and put that in "Sampler
>Instruments" folder

Sorry, of course you're right. The main thing is that .exs files (or 
aliases pointing at them) must be in the Sampler Instruments folder 
for Logic to see them.

A nice feature to remember is that if you add instruments while Logic 
is open, just use <Refresh menu> for the EXS24 to "see" them.

Regards - Colin

> http://MusicBootCamp.com/exs24.shtml
> 
> I now see 2 items within this folder:  "Samplenet Strings" and
> "Samplenet Strings. exs"  Do they BOTH go in the Sampler Instruments
> folder?  Thanks for clearing this up for me.

They can, but only the .exs file has to be in the folder. The samples can be
anywhere. I happen to keep mine all in the instruments folder (next to the
.exs file, because they are easier to track and maintain when stored
together. But it's completely optional. -Jer

Colin Shapiro wrote:
> Sorry, of course you're right. The main thing is that .exs files (or
> aliases pointing at them) must be in the Sampler Instruments folder
> for Logic to see them.

I hope you all remember that there also is a way of creating "song-based"
instruments.
In your song folder, create a subfolder, call it "sampler instruments". Copy
some EXS patch into that directory (or create a new one) and it will now
show up in your instrument's list exclusively when the song is loaded.
This is very nice if you for example a) have some patches that you will
never need again but in that song (I very often sample some vocal parts of
the song in question) or b) want to alter one of your "generic" EXS
instruments (one simple example: you may need another snare in your
drumset).

Btw Jer, regarding that string patch:
After unzipping most of the wavefiles (apart from two) had some weird .bin
fileending ("XYZstring.wav.bin") so I renamed them and the EXS found them
fine... but, two wavefiles now just sound like fullblown digital noise (they
even are exactly that as they look so as well...) and the highest zone
caused some very weird artefacts. Would you happen to know the exact file
format of the source file? I don't think they are on www.samplelibrary.net
anymore as they have recently moved to www.ampfea.org and not yet restored
all their content.

Regards,
Sascha

Firstly, thanks for posting these on your website. I thought I'd take a
lookt at them too. After opening with Winzip 7, I too get lots of files with
*.wav.bin which won't play in the Windows Media Player (as a test).

-----Original Message-----
From: Sascha Franck [mailto:saschafranck@...]
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 11:18 PM
To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [exs] EXS24 Strings


Colin Shapiro wrote:
> Sorry, of course you're right. The main thing is that .exs files (or
> aliases pointing at them) must be in the Sampler Instruments folder
> for Logic to see them.

I hope you all remember that there also is a way of creating "song-based"
instruments.
In your song folder, create a subfolder, call it "sampler instruments". Copy
some EXS patch into that directory (or create a new one) and it will now
show up in your instrument's list exclusively when the song is loaded.
This is very nice if you for example a) have some patches that you will
never need again but in that song (I very often sample some vocal parts of
the song in question) or b) want to alter one of your "generic" EXS
instruments (one simple example: you may need another snare in your
drumset).

Btw Jer, regarding that string patch:
After unzipping most of the wavefiles (apart from two) had some weird .bin
fileending ("XYZstring.wav.bin") so I renamed them and the EXS found them
fine... but, two wavefiles now just sound like fullblown digital noise (they
even are exactly that as they look so as well...) and the highest zone
caused some very weird artefacts. Would you happen to know the exact file
format of the source file? I don't think they are on www.samplelibrary.net
anymore as they have recently moved to www.ampfea.org and not yet restored
all their content.

Regards,
Sascha





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To all those expressing thanks, you are quite welcome. I've held off on
posting this instrument until I could get the action close to where I wanted
on attack and velocity. Even thought this is not a super-duper
ultra-multi-sampled instrument, it sure has been a work horse for me and
many of my friends seem to really enjoy it. Glad you like it too.

> Firstly, thanks for posting these on your website. I thought I'd take a
> lookt at them too. After opening with Winzip 7, I too get lots of files with
> *.wav.bin which won't play in the Windows Media Player (as a test).

This doesn't make any sense. The samples are straight-up WAV files, just as
I downloaded them from SampleNet. I never renamed the files. I suggest you
download Stuffit Expander (a drag and drop utility for Windows or Mac) at
http://www.stuffit.com. Let me know how that goes. -Jer

He's right.  I tried it, too.  There are a bunch of files that end in
*.wav.bin.  When I try to use these files all I get is a droning, raunchy
sound.  Aren't bin files Mac files?

- Joe

-----Original Message-----
From: help@... [mailto:help@...]
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 7:54 PM
To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [exs] EXS24 Strings


To all those expressing thanks, you are quite welcome. I've held off on
posting this instrument until I could get the action close to where I wanted
on attack and velocity. Even thought this is not a super-duper
ultra-multi-sampled instrument, it sure has been a work horse for me and
many of my friends seem to really enjoy it. Glad you like it too.

> Firstly, thanks for posting these on your website. I thought I'd take a
> lookt at them too. After opening with Winzip 7, I too get lots of files
with
> *.wav.bin which won't play in the Windows Media Player (as a test).

This doesn't make any sense. The samples are straight-up WAV files, just as
I downloaded them from SampleNet. I never renamed the files. I suggest you
download Stuffit Expander (a drag and drop utility for Windows or Mac) at
http://www.stuffit.com. Let me know how that goes. -Jer





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This might be a byte-swapping issue. I haven't dealt w/ this in years, 
as most modern audio software handles this stuff, but the Intel and 
Motorola families of processors deal with binary data in opposite 
MSB/LSB orders. "Raunchy" is pretty much how I'd describe a soundfile 
played back with the wrong byte-order. Alternately, "bin" files are 
compressed data, if I remember correctly, and need to be run through 
Stuffit. If they still say ".bin" at the end, that's definitely a 
problem. I'm guessing that since they at least play, there's some sort 
of header intact, and it's probably the byte-swapping thing.

On Friday, April 26, 2002, at 08:02 PM, Joe Roderick wrote:

> He's right.  I tried it, too.  There are a bunch of files that end in
> *.wav.bin.  When I try to use these files all I get is a droning, 
> raunchy
> sound.  Aren't bin files Mac files?
>
> - Joe
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: help@... [mailto:help@...]
> Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 7:54 PM
> To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [exs] EXS24 Strings
>
>
> To all those expressing thanks, you are quite welcome. I've held off on
> posting this instrument until I could get the action close to where I 
> wanted
> on attack and velocity. Even thought this is not a super-duper
> ultra-multi-sampled instrument, it sure has been a work horse for me and
> many of my friends seem to really enjoy it. Glad you like it too.
>
>> Firstly, thanks for posting these on your website. I thought I'd take a
>> lookt at them too. After opening with Winzip 7, I too get lots of files
> with
>> *.wav.bin which won't play in the Windows Media Player (as a test).
>
> This doesn't make any sense. The samples are straight-up WAV files, 
> just as
> I downloaded them from SampleNet. I never renamed the files. I suggest 
> you
> download Stuffit Expander (a drag and drop utility for Windows or Mac) 
> at
> http://www.stuffit.com. Let me know how that goes. -Jer
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> exs-users-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to 
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> exs-users-unsubscribe@egroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to 
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

At 08:02 PM 26/04/02 -0700, you wrote:
>He's right.  I tried it, too.  There are a bunch of files that end in
>*.wav.bin.  When I try to use these files all I get is a droning, raunchy
>sound.  Aren't bin files Mac files?

.bin is often used for binaries.

I used CK Rename -- a handy little batch renaming utility you can get from
the link below -- to change the suffix of all these files to .wav and the
instrument is working OK here. I suspect this is just a glitch in the
Mac/Stuffit to PC/PKZIP translation.

Thanks for the instrument Jer.

http://www.musicsucks.com/CKSoft/CKRename/

> He's right.  I tried it, too.  There are a bunch of files that end in
> *.wav.bin.  When I try to use these files all I get is a droning, raunchy
> sound.  Aren't bin files Mac files?

BIN files for Mac are equivalent to ZIP files. So what you are saying it
pretty weird. Please download Stuffit Expander and tell me if the same thing
happens.

I'd also like to know if there are PC users that have been successful in
using this instrument, if any. If I thought there was something I could do
to help out those in need, I would make the changes. But I'm staring at real
WAV files in my sample folder, so it does not compute! -Jer

> This might be a byte-swapping issue. I haven't dealt w/ this in years,
> as most modern audio software handles this stuff, but the Intel and
> Motorola families of processors deal with binary data in opposite
> MSB/LSB orders. "Raunchy" is pretty much how I'd describe a soundfile
> played back with the wrong byte-order. Alternately, "bin" files are
> compressed data, if I remember correctly, and need to be run through
> Stuffit. If they still say ".bin" at the end, that's definitely a
> problem. I'm guessing that since they at least play, there's some sort
> of header intact, and it's probably the byte-swapping thing.

Right you are, but the expanded files should definitely not be .bin files. I
used DropZip on Mac (a Stuffit utility) to compress these files to ZIP. I've
never had problems like this in the past, but that's why I recommend using
Stuffit Expander for PC to open these files. -Jer

At 11:32 PM 26/04/02 -0500, you wrote:

>Right you are, but the expanded files should definitely not be .bin files. I
>used DropZip on Mac (a Stuffit utility) to compress these files to ZIP. I've
>never had problems like this in the past, but that's why I recommend using
>Stuffit Expander for PC to open these files. -Jer

I tested the Strings instrument last night and it was sounding fine on all
parts of the keyboard. This was after initially decompressing the files as .bin

Now today I was just getting noise. How bizarre! Perhaps I did not save the
instrument file and the working version was not retained.

The problem with the "noise" wavs is that Logic thinks they are mono and
they are in fact stereo PCM. I resaved them as Windows PCM using Cool Edit
(which is smart enough to open them if you choose stereo 16 bit 44.100 PCM
Intel byte order). I had to trim some glitches off the ends of the files
after this process  -- which I assume were some other kind of data (file
header?) mistakenly recognized as audio.

I have a version of the exs file with all these corrections which I could
offer to Jer if this will help other PC people to get this thing running.

Regards,
Murray

Ok, as allready said, when unzipping the original instrument, apart from two
files ("String_Samplenet_C3.wav and String_Samplenet_String.wav") all the
others showed up as "xyz.wav.bin" - regardless whether I used WinZip or
Stuffit Expander. Now, after following this thread, I just dragged the .bin
files onto Stuffit again and indeed, it not only changed the file extensions
but also the sizes, so something else must've been happened... which I can
confirm because now the instrument in sounding just fine when I load it into
the EXS.
So, PC users: Only renaming the fileending doesn't seem to do the job (as
said, even the filesizes changed after converting those .bin files again).

Ah well, I guess that's just another thing happening when dealing with all
the various file extension things/alterations when dealing with Mac-PC
conversions.
I would really like to know how such things could be avoided as it was the
cause of several troubles for me during the last years.
Apparently transferring PC files to Macs is no problem because a) PC files
use file extensions anyways (which IMO is good) and Macs are capable of
reading almost all PC filetypes too (which is good too, of course).
Problems allways happened to me the other way round.

There seems to be quite some confusion with file endings, and not even
companies such as Emagic seem to know how to deal properly with them. Best
example: The EXS factory CD(s). On those you'll find some samples without
any fileendings. The EXS will just find (and use) them fine, but they are
useless in any other context as there's no way to get any file information
from them under Windows, so you can't just rename them.
And of course there's also some problems with file formats themselves. Quite
some Mac users (not only PT dudes) seem to prefer SD2 as their audio
format - which I can somewhat understand as it contains useful information
such as timestamping. There's no equivalent on PCs so you have to convert
these files, and finding out what they are is a major pain in the ass as you
have to enter the correct file properties (bit rate, bit depth, mono/stereo,
etc) into some boxes when importing them into file converter tools such as
Awave or SoundForge. Once you're done and the result is wrong you need to
start all the thing again. And even if you try like all possible variations
there's still a good chance that things won't work anyways.

Would be nice if some of the folks being more experienced with such file
conversions could post like a guideline containing the most basic
information such as:
- What file format should Mac users post (convert to) to make sure a PC will
read them instantly. Especially important when dealing with SD2 files. These
defenitely give headaches on PCs.
- Vice Versa. For example, I allready know that Mac users can actually
decompress files compressed with WinRar, using the latest Stuffit. Is that
true for all of you Mac folks? WinRar does an amazingly great job in
lossless wavefile compression (50% ar not unusual), so it would be my
preffered tool of choice.
- Which file extensions should a Mac user enable to have files readable
instantly on PC (readable and recognized that is).
- Which file extensions should a PC user avoid (I don't know any important
ones so far as Macs seem to be quite flexible).
- Which CD formats are 100% cross platform? I have a tool called TransMac,
but I don't like using it. In the past I had numerous problems transferring
files from a Mac studio to my home and I'd really like to have some
guideline about what to use/avoid. Long filenames (up to 32 characterss that
is) don't seem to be a problem per se - but I had problems with those
anyways, even if I didn't exceed 32 characters. Truncated audiofilenames
certainly are the worst thing ever to deal with, once you're having a song
with hundreds of audiofiles.

I once needed almost one complete day to convert a production (only ONE
song!) being done on a Mac to PC. First I had to readout the CD with
TransMac (which was no biggie, but still could've been easier), then I had
to find out which options to check in SoundForge to convert those SD2 things
(and I even don't have SF, so I had to do it on a friends PC) which was
taking up some hours again. And after all that the files where either
truncated or *something* else had been changed in their filenames after that
conversion, so the LSO in question wasn't able to find them and I had to
point Logic manually to each file - which again wasn't working flawlessly as
for whatever reason files such as "Audio01.wav" have been existing in
multiple variations such as "Audio01~01.wav" and "Audio01~02.wav" (don't
remember the exact syntax), so I had to go through quite some trial and
error ("Oh, that's not the bass" => quit song, reload...), was a major pain,
I was almost about to quit that project.

Would be really nice if someone had like a comprehensive list for such
things. A website of course would be fine too.

Oh, almost forgot that: Thanks Jer for the string patch! Seems usable so far
(now that it's working).

Cheers,
Sascha

HI,ALL.

I downloaded the file and unzipped it with Stuffit Expander.
As Sascha said, there're two wavefiles and the others are ".bin" files.
If drop these files into EXS folder, they make only digital noize.

BUT, these ".bin" files are UNZIPPED AGAIN, they became ".wav.wav" files.
And RENAME them to ".wav", they sound perfectly! By this way, PC-users
also use this wonderful strings.(I'm PC-users too.)

I'm not good at English. So this may have some error or not be
readable, please forgive me.

And thank you for the beautiful strings, Jer.

> I have a version of the exs file with all these corrections which I could
> offer to Jer if this will help other PC people to get this thing running.

OK, then it may be a Mac-to-PC issue. By all means e-mail me the file and
I'll post it online. Thanks -Jer

I am really sorry about all the problems. I'm also very ticked off at the
Stuffit folks. I realized, after all the PC users' bitter toil, that there
is a preference in DropZip that compresses the internal items as .bin files
by default. This is absolutely absurd because the only reason a Mac user
would use DropZip is to share files with PC users. But sure enough, they
found a way to f__k it up (can you tell I'm a little upset?). I really feel
bad for the 56k modem users out there, because this means you have to
download the file again. However, I have tested the expansion and saw no
decompression of .bin sub-files. Everyone should be straight at this point.

Let me know if there are any further problems with this. Geez... Jer

The URL again is http://MusicBootCamp.com/exs24.shtml

What drama... life.

Awesome, Kota.  That's the answer!  Thanks.  And thanks for the original
email Jer!!  :)

- Joe

-----Original Message-----
From: Kota [mailto:kotakota@...]
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 11:41 PM
To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re[2]: [exs] EXS24 Strings


HI,ALL.

I downloaded the file and unzipped it with Stuffit Expander.
As Sascha said, there're two wavefiles and the others are ".bin" files.
If drop these files into EXS folder, they make only digital noize.

BUT, these ".bin" files are UNZIPPED AGAIN, they became ".wav.wav" files.
And RENAME them to ".wav", they sound perfectly! By this way, PC-users
also use this wonderful strings.(I'm PC-users too.)

I'm not good at English. So this may have some error or not be
readable, please forgive me.

And thank you for the beautiful strings, Jer.



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Would the PC Users out there let me know if this is working now? Thanks.
-Jer

> I am really sorry about all the problems. I'm also very ticked off at the
> Stuffit folks. I realized, after all the PC users' bitter toil, that there
> is a preference in DropZip that compresses the internal items as .bin files
> by default. This is absolutely absurd because the only reason a Mac user
> would use DropZip is to share files with PC users. But sure enough, they
> found a way to f__k it up (can you tell I'm a little upset?). I really feel
> bad for the 56k modem users out there, because this means you have to
> download the file again. However, I have tested the expansion and saw no
> decompression of .bin sub-files. Everyone should be straight at this point.
> 
> Let me know if there are any further problems with this. Geez... Jer
> 
> The URL again is http://MusicBootCamp.com/exs24.shtml
> 
> What drama... life.

Sascha Franck wrote:
> Would be nice if some of the folks being more experienced with such
> file conversions could post like a guideline containing the most 
> basic information
(snip)

Sascha,

Here's my thoughts on Mac->PC file transfers...


Two approaches could be taken:

1. The lowest common denominator approach:

- MS-DOS-formatted disks
- MS-DOS 8.3 file naming conventions
- No illegal characters...   \/:*"?<>|   ...or spaces in file name
- No usual characters like ¡™£¢?œ<sum> (the characters you
get when you use the 
option or alt key modifier)
- Use .wav files (beware: I think there are some non-standard .wav
files out 
there).

Unfortunately, the result of of all this dumbing-down is an ugly, 
non-descriptive and confusing filename!


2. A more flexible approach:

- 32 character file name limit, including file extension
- Always use a file extension
- No illegal characters...   \/:*"?<>|   (spaces should be okay)
- Don't start file names with a period (eg: ".file.wav")
- No unusual characters like ?™£¢?œ<sum> (the characters you
get when you use 
the option or alt key modifier)
- Always use .wav files (unless agreed otherwise)
- Don't use Sound Designer II files (.sd2)
- Use .zip files for compression (unless agreed otherwise)
- When burning CDs on a Mac, create Mac/Joliet (Win9x) dual-formatted
CDRs 
(using Disk Burner, Toast, etc)
- When burning CDs on a PC, create a standard Joliet CD (Note: if the
PC user 
wanted to cover all bases, a utility like MacDrive could be installed
to allow 
the PC to mount a Mac-formatted disk - 
http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive/)
- On the Mac, install a freeware extension called "Joliet Volume
Access" to 
allow Joliet volumes to mount on the desktop. The latest version can
be found 
via Version Tracker - http://www.versiontracker.com/
- Unless agreed otherwise, send text notes as a plain text file
(.txt), not 
formatted text - eg: a Word .doc file
- Unless agreed otherwise, no floppies! :-)


Have I missed anything? 

Darrel

> Would the PC Users out there let me know if this is working now? Thanks.
> -Jer

>What the heck's going on people? Please tell me if your luck has improved.
I
>need to know if the PC users are able to get the strings correctly. It's
>important for me to know if this worked. -Jer


Ok, ok, here's the confirmation. Now it works!

Sorry for (especially my) qietness, but my main-problem is: I've got no
comparison to Mac-sounding, and to be honest, the loop points of these
samplenet-Strings sound cruel to me, so I didn't wanna take the risk for
reporting false. If the sound's grinding on Mac's too, the conversion was
quite successful... ;o) I don't want to bother you, the Vel->Filter is very
well done!!!!

Tim

> Would the PC Users out there let me know if this is working now? Thanks.
> -Jer

What the heck's going on people? Please tell me if your luck has improved. I
need to know if the PC users are able to get the strings correctly. It's
important for me to know if this worked. -Jer

> Ok, ok, here's the confirmation. Now it works!
> 
> Sorry for (especially my) qietness, but my main-problem is: I've got no
> comparison to Mac-sounding, and to be honest, the loop points of these
> samplenet-Strings sound cruel to me, so I didn't wanna take the risk for
> reporting false. If the sound's grinding on Mac's too, the conversion was
> quite successful... ;o) I don't want to bother you, the Vel->Filter is very
> well done!!!!
> 
> Tim

Thanks, and no problem. As I said, it is a simple (and yes, perhaps a little
crude), but the wave forms themselves are pretty erratic and difficult to
loop. Still, I have grown to like this patch a lot more than I originally
anticipated, and I often get asked where I got it when people hear it in
context of a mix. Tweak away if it yields better results. After all... it's
free (and copyright free). Yes there are many better strings for certain,
but not ones that can be passed around at will. Thanks for your response.
-Jer

Hi Jer'
Just re downloaded and works fine. (PC Win2k.)
Excelent,
Thank you,
Allan.

--- In exs-users@y..., <HELP@M...> wrote:
Would the PC Users out there let me know if this is working now? 
Thanks.
-Jer
What the heck's going on people? Please tell me if your luck has 
improved. I need to know if the PC users are able to get the strings 
correctly. It's important for me to know if this worked. -Jer