EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

Hi,

I recently upgraded my whole computer rig and got 200 Gb of space for my
sounds.

I converted quite all of my personal libraries and commercial ones to EXS24
format with CDXtract for Mac.

To simplify the mamagement of all this stuff I organized it in folders
subdived by genre (drums, loops, bass...) and put into the folders the
samples AND the .exs files.

I made a link to the folder (creatively named EXS!!!) in my Sampler
instruments folder and here's what happen:

1) I there are more than 3 empty folders (with no exs) before getting to the
EXS folder in the tree structure the instruments don't appear in EXS's Menu.
This especially happened with AKAI disks:

example:

EXS
        DRUMS
                COOL DRUMS
                        PARTITION A
                                    COOL KIT 1
                                             cool bds.exs and audio files

Only fix is to move the folders inside the partition folders and the delete
the partition folders... annoying!

2) Emagic should use a Dbase form for organizing the EXSs: with so many
instrumens everytime I load Logic (and in a session can happen to quit logic
to use another program...) it takes forever to scan all of the
instruments... I don't know if this slow down is generated by the LINK or by
the way many instruments (thousands of them). There should be a function to
scan for new instruments only when I need it (like it happens in a certain
wai in Gigastudio)...

Anyone experiencing the same things?

thanks,

Simone Coen

Absolutely the same situtation and this is very-very-very annonying!!!
Does it even when saving a new instrument...:((

Emagic should definately do something about it!!!!

Bacizone

>2) Emagic should use a Dbase form for organizing the EXSs: with so many
>instrumens everytime I load Logic (and in a session can happen to quit logic
>to use another program...) it takes forever to scan all of the
>instruments... I don't know if this slow down is generated by the LINK or by
>the way many instruments (thousands of them). There should be a function to
>scan for new instruments only when I need it (like it happens in a certain
>wai in Gigastudio)...
>
>Anyone experiencing the same things?
>
>thanks,
>
>Simone Coen

How do you set up such a song?
Nick

> From: "uswitalski@..." <uswitalski@...>
> Reply-To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 12:56:22 +0100
> To: <exs-users@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [exs] EXS24 scanning for instruments
> 
> agree 100%!
> 
> for now after moving things run a song at night where the exs loads every
> program after another, after your loadtimes and scanrutine will be much
> faster.
> 
> ulf.
> 
>> Absolutely the same situtation and this is very-very-very annonying!!!
>> Does it even when saving a new instrument...:((
>> 
>> Emagic should definately do something about it!!!!
>> 
>> Bacizone
>> 
>>> 2) Emagic should use a Dbase form for organizing the EXSs: with so many
>>> instrumens everytime I load Logic (and in a session can happen to quit logic
>>> to use another program...) it takes forever to scan all of the
>>> instruments... I don't know if this slow down is generated by the LINK or by
>>> the way many instruments (thousands of them). There should be a function to
>>> scan for new instruments only when I need it (like it happens in a certain
>>> wai in Gigastudio)...
>>> 
>>> Anyone experiencing the same things?
>>> 
>>> thanks,
>>> 
>>> Simone Coen
> 
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agree 100%!

for now after moving things run a song at night where the exs loads every
program after another, after your loadtimes and scanrutine will be much
faster.

ulf.

> Absolutely the same situtation and this is very-very-very annonying!!!
> Does it even when saving a new instrument...:((
> 
> Emagic should definately do something about it!!!!
> 
> Bacizone
> 
>> 2) Emagic should use a Dbase form for organizing the EXSs: with so many
>> instrumens everytime I load Logic (and in a session can happen to quit logic
>> to use another program...) it takes forever to scan all of the
>> instruments... I don't know if this slow down is generated by the LINK or by
>> the way many instruments (thousands of them). There should be a function to
>> scan for new instruments only when I need it (like it happens in a certain
>> wai in Gigastudio)...
>> 
>> Anyone experiencing the same things?
>> 
>> thanks,
>> 
>> Simone Coen

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hi nick

> How do you set up such a song?
> Nick

>> - Got to the EXS instrument editor, under "Edit > Preferences" setup a
>> command for "next patch", say "PrgChange 01".
>> - Create a sequence containing that very command.
>> - Set a cycle around that sequence.
>> - Go have a day at the beach or so, this will take a while now. When you'll
>> be back all your patches should load fast.


ulf.

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> >> - Got to the EXS instrument editor, under "Edit > Preferences" setup a
> >> command for "next patch", say "PrgChange 01".
> >> - Create a sequence containing that very command.
> >> - Set a cycle around that sequence.
> >> - Go have a day at the beach or so, this will take a while now. When
you'll
> >> be back all your patches should load fast.

For me, this kind of worked, but often when searching for samples or loading
samples while Logic was playing the cycle, I'd get an audio overload error
and Logic would stop. So I'd wake up the next morning only to find Logic had
stopped three instruments into the 2000 or so I'd wanted to process.

A better way for me was to assign a function key to "Next EXS Instrument",
and simply hold it down. This way, the EXS just starts loading each
instrument sequenctially in turn, without the complexities of trying to keep
playing during tons of disk access.

To keep this going while you go to bed, stick something heavy on the key, or
use sellotape or blutack to hold the key down. There's few problems a decent
wodge of blutack can't solve..! :-)

Ben Hall
www.benhall.co.uk

thanks all in advance for indulging me in moment of sarcasm:

>To keep this going while you go to bed, stick something heavy on the key, or
>use sellotape or blutack to hold the key down.

wow, this exs24 truly is "professional" software! Definitely ready for the
big leagues...

Seriously though, I am also considering converting my _entire_ library to
exs24, and these file management/instrument scanning issues strike me as a
real problem.

Cheers! 
Darcy






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

>> To keep this going while you go to bed, stick something heavy on the key, or
>> use sellotape or blutack to hold the key down.

> wow, this exs24 truly is "professional" software! Definitely ready for the
> big leagues...

> Seriously though, I am also considering converting my _entire_ library to
> exs24, and these file management/instrument scanning issues strike me as a
> real problem.

having done that, _ they ARE and far from professional. but i suspect an
update of this just arround the corner. and i rather "blame" the media for
_not_ professional testing than the company that is trying to sell.


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Thoughts from the mind of Ben Hall, 13-11-2002:

>  > >> - Got to the EXS instrument editor, under "Edit > Preferences" setup a
>>  >> command for "next patch", say "PrgChange 01".
>>  >> - Create a sequence containing that very command.
>>  >> - Set a cycle around that sequence.
>>  >> - Go have a day at the beach or so, this will take a while now. When
>you'll
>>  >> be back all your patches should load fast.
>
>For me, this kind of worked, but often when searching for samples or loading
>samples while Logic was playing the cycle, I'd get an audio overload error
>and Logic would stop. So I'd wake up the next morning only to find Logic had
>stopped three instruments into the 2000 or so I'd wanted to process.
>
>A better way for me was to assign a function key to "Next EXS Instrument",
>and simply hold it down. This way, the EXS just starts loading each
>instrument sequenctially in turn, without the complexities of trying to keep
>playing during tons of disk access.

I'm sorry but to me this sounds exactly identical to the proposed 
"cycle" solution.  The point obviously is to have *only* the "next 
instrument" command in the cycle, and not have the exs play any 
"real" midi stuff at the same time.  I used this trick a couple of 
times in the past and it works like a charm.  No overloads or 
whatever.  The only problem that might occur is if you have multiple 
samples with the same name, and the exs asks which one you want to 
use -- then you'll be stuck with a dialog somewhere midway during 
processing.

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

Hendrik Jan Veenstra wrote:
 >The only problem that might occur is if you have multiple
> samples with the same name, and the exs asks which one you want to
> use -- then you'll be stuck with a dialog somewhere midway during
> processing.

For what it's worth: The EXS does not only look for the sample name but also
for some file info (such as size). So, it will only ask you about which
sample to use if they are indeed 100% identical.
One can obviously benefit from that. If you get yourself some file checker
searching for clones (such as the free Clonespy on PC), you could simply
delete all "true" doubles (same filename, same filesize and info). After
that the EXS won't ask you anymore because there simply are no doubled
samples.
Of course there's some potential for problems though... assuming you have
your EXS samples on some of your "regular" audio partitions, you may also
have copies of the samples in, say, songbased EXS folders (you may want to
destructively edit them or prepare things for a backup).
That's why it would be a really good idea to keep all "generic" EXS samples
on a partition of their own - which is what I will set up the next days. I
may even get myself some extra HDD for samples only - that way even rather
huge patches using the EXS VSM functionality shouldn't affect general audio
performance anymore as well.

For what it's worth #2: You folks shouldn't confuse the EXS instrument
scanning on a Logic bootup with the sample search that is happening in case
the EXS needs to update its file references because some files were moved.
These are two completely different things (at least on PC, but I'm sure it's
the same on Macs).
I wouldn't happen to know why scanning instruments at bootup would take so
long, but then, I am on PC and it really seems to affect Mac users a whole
lot more. At least over here scanning is relatively fast (well, I have
*only* around 5000 instruments) but I've heard about similarily bad results
from other Mac users, more or less directly compared to PCs.
Anyways, over here the EXS/Logic bootup scanning is just some process to
"make sure" the files are there, it's defenitely not updating the file
references for each patch during that process.

Regards,
Sascha

Thoughts from the mind of Sascha Franck, 14-11-2002:

>For what it's worth #2: You folks shouldn't confuse the EXS instrument
>scanning on a Logic bootup with the sample search that is happening in case
>the EXS needs to update its file references because some files were moved.

Oh, yes, you're right.  I thought the thread was about the latter, 
but I now realise it's actually about the former.

>I wouldn't happen to know why scanning instruments at bootup would take so
>long, but then, I am on PC and it really seems to affect Mac users a whole
>lot more.

No problem over here (Mac).

>Anyways, over here the EXS/Logic bootup scanning is just some process to
>"make sure" the files are there, it's defenitely not updating the file
>references for each patch during that process.

Same here.

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

"Hendrik Jan Veenstra" <h@...> wrote:

> I'm sorry but to me this sounds exactly identical to the proposed
> "cycle" solution.

Yes it is. Only in my case, without occasional playback errors that stop
Logic and thus stop the exs updating.

> The point obviously is to have *only* the "next
> instrument" command in the cycle, and not have the exs play any
> "real" midi stuff at the same time.

Sure. For me, if Logic is playing and the exs is searching for samples or
loading big samples, Logic's playback gets delayed as the disk interrupts
slow down playback, so Logic complains of lost sync or a sample rate change
or something (I forget offhand). Logic is rock solid otherwise, and I can
get a pretty good performance on my p3-600...

> No overloads or whatever.

Cool. I'm just saying for *me*, the cycle way doesn't work as well, so I
posted this for anyone else who *may* have experienced a similar problem.

> The only problem that might occur is if you have multiple
> samples with the same name, and the exs asks which one you want to
> use -- then you'll be stuck with a dialog somewhere midway during
> processing.

Yep.

Ben Hall
www.benhall.co.uk

If you are on the Win platform you can use the freeware ExsManager utility
to update/reorganize your Exs instruments/samples at will.

www.arcanoise.com/ExsManager/index.htm

Andrea

Hi all,

One thing that I would like implemented is a preference for exs-24 where it 
will scan first.  You specify a folder or a group of folders where exs-24 will 
scan for the samples first.  It should look in those folders and their 
respective sub-folders in order to find the samples.  

Right now, if I have a sample that's maybe been moved after conversion, exs-24 
scans a bunch of folders where there are no samples whatsoever before finally 
finding the one it needs.  

I also like the idea of a database like Gigastudio where it only gets updated 
when you tell it to.

Best regards,
Fernstudio

Thoughts from the mind of Ben Hall, 14-11-2002:

>  > No overloads or whatever.
>
>Cool. I'm just saying for *me*, the cycle way doesn't work as well, so I
>posted this for anyone else who *may* have experienced a similar problem.

Okay, okay, I get your point... :-)

I do remember though that when using the cycle-load trick, Logic 
would complain after I _stopped_ the sequencer -- and give me 
something like "audio/midi sync error" or "DIO overload" or whatever.
That's curious, since it seems as if you get this message while 
cycling, and I get it only afterwards (which is lucky for me since it 
doesn't interrupt the cycle).

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html

Thoughts from the mind of Fernstudio, 14-11-2002:

>One thing that I would like implemented is a preference for exs-24 where it
>will scan first.  You specify a folder or a group of folders where exs-24 will
>scan for the samples first.  It should look in those folders and their
>respective sub-folders in order to find the samples. 

Yes, agreed.  Even better (imo) would be a preference which let you 
choose between "search everywhere" and "search only the current song 
folder and these 4 or 5 specific folders".
Esp. with HDs being the size they are nowadays, and people routinely 
having more than one HD, searching a single sample in thousands and 
thousands of files can take quite a while.
And I might want to store a copy of some samples someplace else -- 
maybe to test if they sound better normalized or not.  As it is, the 
EXS will start complaining about samples having the same name/size, 
which is utterly confusing.  Having it search just a few specific 
user-defined folders would take care of all that sort of rubbish.

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html