What is Virtual Sampler ?
What is a Sampler ?
A Sampler is a (hardware-) device that is able to record and playback sounds. A sampler digitalizes a sound and stores the binary representation (the sound data) of the sound in its internal or external memory. Such a binary representation of a sound is called a Sample. Once a sample is recorded, it can be played on different keys of the sampler's keyboard or via the sampler's MIDI interface (see "What is MIDI ?" below). All modern samplers also allow processing of the digitalized data (for example to add effects or to perform pitch shifts). Famous "real-world" samplers are for example produced by Akai and Emu. Professional samplers are very expensive and often have a limited memory to store samples.
Virtual Sampler is a "virtual" sampler. That means you need no expensive hardware (except your soundcard of course :-)) to work with it. Most units of a real sampler are emulated by software when using Virtual Sampler. Nethertheless Virtual Sampler also uses hardware acceleration whenever possible (for example effect processing on Terratec, Hoontech or Guillemot cards). Also sample memory is only limited by your harddisk memory. That means that you have the power of a real sampler at very low cost and with a great flexibility including software-updates or support for other soundcards. You can exchange your samples with other Virtual Sampler users and you have a powerful environment to access the features of your sampler.
What is MIDI ?
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an asynchronous serial interface that was designed to ease the use and take control over musical instruments and other musical devices (like effect processing units and tape recorders). MIDI consists of both a hardware interface and a transmission protocol including several messages that can be sent/reveived to/from MIDI enabled devices. Most modern sound-cards include a simple MIDI interface (often a MIDI IN and a MIDI OUT) and a piece of software (called a driver) to access the interface.
MIDI knows three ports (or jacks)
MIDI knows 16 channels that can be used to send or receive data. An instrument can use all of these 16 channels or only a few of them. For example, a synthesizer could be used to play voices on MIDI channels 1 thru 6 and the other 10 channels would be used by a sampler that is chained by the MIDI THRU port of the synthesizer. The synthesizer would ignore MIDI messages for channels 7-16 and the sampler would only accept MIDI messages for these channels.
The MIDI protocol consists of MIDI messages that are sent by a MIDI device (or a MIDI sequencer program) to another device (or a MIDI sequencer program). For example to play the voice on the middle C of the keyboard on MIDI channel 0 with a velocity of 64, the following message would be sent (in hexadecimal reading): 0x90 0x3C 0x40.
For proper operation of the MIDI protocol, the MIDI OUT/THRU port of one device must be linked to the MIDI IN port of another device. For example a sequencer program could send MIDI data to its MIDI OUT that is connected to a synthesizer's MIDI IN and the synthesizer's MIDI THRU could be connected to the MIDI IN of the sampler. Additionally the MIDI OUT of the synthesizer could be connected to the MIDI IN of the sequencer program to use the synthesizer's keyboard to record MIDI data with the sequencer.
How Virtual Sampler is working
Virtual Sampler virtualizes a real sampler. That means it has most of the features you expect from a hardware sampler at very low cost and with a minimum of effort.
Together with the Virtual Sampler application, a device driver called "Virtual Sampler Device" is delivered. This device
How Virtual Sampler stores data
Virtual Sampler stores sample data in so called "Presets" (also known as "Instruments"). Each preset can contain one or more sample (for multisamples). Each sample in a preset (also known as "Split") can be accessed individually and has several parameters that can be changed such as:
One or more Presets (Instruments) form a so called "Bank" in Virtual Sampler. You can have up to 32 banks in Virtual Sampler (numbered from 0 to 31) and each bank can contain up to 64 presets (numbered from 1 to 64). Banks can be easily managed with the Bank Viewer on the right side of the Virtual Sampler Main Window or from the "Presets" page.
Whenever possible, Virtual Sampler stores sample data into the onboard memory of the soundcard. Especially when using
all sample data is stored into soundcard memory, giving you the smallest possible latency and maximum flexibility. However, also the DirectSound interface uses soundcard memory for short samples. All other samples are stored in computer memory in that case. More soundcards will be supported shortly. When having the appropriate hardware, you also can mix hardware samples (splits) and DirectSound samples (splits). This allows you to use computer memory for very long samples (like pads) and soundcard memory for short and more accurate samples (like drums) regarding to timing and latency.
Note: Instruments or even splits that have equal data bytes in their sample data will only be stored once. That means if you have 2 or more Presets (instruments) or 2 or more splits (in the same or in another instrument) that access the same sample, this sample will only be stored once. This prevents from a waste of sample memory. The integrity of the samples is maintained by the sampler. If you modify a shared sample (for example by changing its sample rate), you will be asked to copy the sample or to perform the action on all shared samples for all instruments or splits that access this sample.