Trial versions pleaze please pretty pleeese, oh do say yes!

Especially for DimPro and the upcoming Rapture.

I use and love the free sfz sampler, but crashes when saving in Sonar spoil working with it. (note: CW support has been great and very patient with me, but they were simply unable to reproduce the effect. And it crashes on all 4 PCs I own!).

I realize CW is selling these with megalibraries and you need them to appreciate the sound, but I do Irish Folk and create my own samples. I want to test DimPro and/or Rapture in my setup to see whether the problem I have been having is solved.

Please can we get trial versions to test in our own environments?

Rene has always had trial versions of his synths which cut the sound every 10 secs or so. Something like this would be ideal, because absolutely every aspect can be tested, including saving (which is where I am having problems). Trial versions could even be made with release codes (I don't know how DimP and R are protected). Even that aspect could then be tested in situ!

If we want to hear what they sound like, we can still listen to the online demos.

Jazz; I do understand your interest. I have the SFZ+ and do my own acoustic sample sets. So's here's what I think. I have a full compliment of rgcaudio synths and Dimension Pro. Pro will be a step up from SFZ player in many areas. And the improved SFZ spec will allow more tweaking. You will not give it up once you have it ;)+) As for rapture, This gets tricky. I'm getting it but I love to mangle sound. Rapture was more tools to do this with. If you do straight ahead Irish acoustic music Rapture might not be your cup of tea. It does add 2 more elements but this one feature might not do the trick. But Rene knows acoustic sound sets and if he disagrees here he does know more precisely what Rapture can bring to a fully acoustic set.

Ya know I have no idea what a step gen would do to a acoustic sound but I do plan on finding out.

You write your own sample sets as I do. I'm heavy on articulations I could get no where else. So. I will assume you do SF2's or SFZ 's. Dimension Pro uses an expanded sfz spec, with new and improved opcodes to address even more complex sound sets. You could go to rgcaudio and download the sfz2 document, take a look. The sound is several steps up from the sfz and the new opcodes allow for some really fun stuff. I understand your frustration here. But I've been using Rene's synths for a while. I don't need demo's because these things are just that good. I'd invite you over to check them out but I don't think your in the neighborhood. For me it's not even a leep of faith anymore. These tools are simply fantastic. If you are pleased with the sfz then assume that Dimension Pro is more than twice that and then some.

go to rgcaudio and download the sfz2 document

H'm. I can only find the original sfzformat.htm document.

Where is the sfz2 document?

Wow! - Thanks for the reply, Rene!

My reasoning was, if Sonar has demos, why not other products. But OK, I understand.


H'm.
Dunno what to do now.

Decision 1: DimPro or Rapture?

Facts needed to decide:
a - Will they crash or not on my PCs?
b - Does Rapture have the feature set I need? (cheaper)

Decision 2: Buy now or wait?

Facts a and b not available, so I guess: wait?

Today I got my Sonar 5 upgrade. Perhaps with some luck the fault will not happen in S5.
But I got my answer to my initial question, so I'll drop the matter now.

I may start asking owners of Rap (when it comes out) what sfz-file error detection features it has, tho'.

Since SF2 does not crash? Why not load up your wave file to sf2 and save out for use in SFZ.

Convenience. The sfz file format is so flexible and absolutely brilliant in so many ways.

I only have the sfz+ on my system (no sfz format support).

Then have a look at the free sfz. You don't know what you are missing.

It is as simple and as complex as the problem you are facing, but no more. What I mean is, if you just want a drumkit, it is simple to set up. If, however, you are building a multilayer complex orchestra, it will do that, too. Naturally, it will be more complicated to do. But you are not faced with a monster like Kontakt2 when all you wanted to do is quickly make a latin percussion kit for a song.

And you can have textfiles which, in fact, are templates for different types of instrument and, with a normal text editor, do a search and replace and voila, from a jazz kit you now have a rock kit.

You can have all your individual wave files in a directory structure permanently on your hard drive. Each wave file only exists once. You create soundsets by calling individual sounds in the sfz text file. So suppose in the middle of composing you realize you need a second splash cymbal. Make a copy of your drum.sfz, add an entry with a path to splash2.wav and reload.

Now you notice the new splash is too loud. Now what? Change the mix in your DAW? No! Open the sfz in a text editor, tweak down the level and reload!

Try do that with SF2 players. Try do that with ANY sampler. I own two AKAIs. I would never dream of making any more than the most basic ot tweaks whilst the client is in the studio. Now I have no qualms, because even if I make a complete hash of it, I can always reload the original sfz file.

It is so indescribably brilliant. I don't want to use anything else. Such a shame it crashes.

Last night I installed my new S5 update. sfz crashes in that, too. In fact, if I load the supplied mini DimPro piano and run my mouse cursor up and down the sound strip in sfz, it crashes, too.

I will definitely wait for Rapture, then start bugging people here to find out if it does what I need. Then the question will just be, do I get DimPro or Rap? And will I get my money back if it crashes, too?

I would ask why a 10 mb wave file but you have your reasons ;)+)

Not individual 10MB wav files; the entire sound set comes to a total of 10MB.

Would cyclone work for this purpose?

For simple drumkits as I have been describing, probably. But that was just to explain the convenience of the sfz format. For soundsets that contain a complete performance fiddle, no. But that's not the point. I have lots of samplers. It is the convenience of sfz I crave.

I will say that my SFZ+ has never crashed my computer

Correct. As I pointed out, sfz never crashes on SF2 files. Only crashes with sfz soundsets with wav (or ogg) files.

Dimension Pro and Rapture have several differences, based on the kind of sound pallete they are aimed to create. The parameter ranges, matrix destination options and available parameters are different. Dimension Pro will play REX/RCy/RX2 files which Rapture won't. It also has the ability to drag and drop a midi file of the groove contents into the host, neither in Rapture. But for Electronica sounds, Rapture offers several new options.

If you're exclusively going to play sfz files, you can pick any. You need to decide which one is best for you in case you think you'll be using the synthesizer editor to create your sounds. If it's Electronica, it's Rapture. If it's anything else, it's Dimension Pro.


-René