You are here

An interesting comparison between Qsampler and Fantasia

rncbc's picture

nice to know that people still dig up LinuxSampler after all these (15+?) years:)

anyway, yes, JSampler (Fantasia is a skin or style if you prefer) is quite top-notch in terms of eye-candy and some UX features that still get some (deserved) applause from users anytime.

QSampler, on the other hand, might not have that kind of sh*tty skeuomorphic looks whatever:) its primary goal is, as ever was, meant to talk to LS server as a client in the most straight-forward GUI fashion. QS also deals with LS on its plugin forms (dunno if JS does that as well, at least as in a seamless way, due to its dated, stalled development status).

But still, re. complaints from cfirwin3 on the video above, seems to be about failing to re-arrange the order of sampler channels strips; which is kinda false: you can move the strips anywhere you like as long you set Channels > Auto Arrange to off; another one is about QS not showing SF2 instrument preset names, which is also false. Maybe he needs to refresh the LS stack to the latest, which are LinuxSampler >= 2.1.1, libgig >= 4.2.0, liblscp6 >= 0.6.0 and QSampler >= 0.5.6 ;)

hth.
cheers

Very cool. I'm guessing he's going to be very happy to learn this. Thank you for the info.

Hey there!
I'm cfirwin3. This is what I have found. All of my backend components are up to date and I am using the Qsampler latest appimage. This appimage doesn't show sf2 preset names... but my install of v0.4.2 does. Neither version gives options either click drag, tab, or numerical entry dialogue to move channel graphically with the auto arrange disabled or enabled. Likewise the F5 function doesn't seem to have an effect. I notice that my installations don't appear to have upper tabs for each channel like the the website screenshots do.

Any help would be appreciated. I would much rather use Qsampler as it is in development.

Thanks!

rncbc's picture

hi cfirwin3

maybe the AppImage is outdated wrt. libgig version, which is probably the case: the AppImage is built on ubuntu 16.04 xenial virtual machine for broader ABI compability; however it includes the system libs that are present and unfortunately that might well be an ancient libgig that lacks SF2 support (nb. it is libgig that provides access to SF2 names in Qsampler).

otoh. what is your current distro?

seeya

Thanks for that! I think I need to look at my libgig version. Any insight on where the most current repository would be for that?
I am on Lubuntu 10.04lts (I usually stick with the latest lts versions and I upgrade late... after the big bugs are addressed).

I am hoping to put up more YouTube content on the rncbc software projects as they can be used for orchestral composition and film scoring. I am finding that I prefer to go the old-school route with the plugins mapped through jack... leaving Qtractor to just be the great sequencer that it is. I would love to get Qsampler functioning fully.

I am on 18.04lts (don't know why I typed 10 there).

rncbc's picture

then you can take advantage to my own Launchpad PPA's:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rncbc/bionic
sudo apt-get update

and then upgrade to the latest and greatest from git master (nightly UTC updates), directly from thy horse's mouth:

sudo apt-get install qsampler liblscp6 libgig9

besides all other qstuff (including qtractor of course).

cheers && good luck!

Do you know if the kxstudio repos conflict with your Launchpad PPA? I am finding that your PPA is added, but the only versions that show as the latest in synaptic after apt-get update are the KXstudio repo versions (which are behind). I've never seen a repository supersede another like that before.

rncbc's picture

yes. there most probably are conflicts with the *old* kxstudio repos!

1. you should move to the newer ones anyway, but first remove/purge the old ones (not the packages though, only the apt sources).
2. then install the new kxstudio ones--please follow the instructions in https://kx.studio/Repositories ...
3. remove/uninstall any of the qstuff there still remaing...
4. update and install new qstuff at will :)

hth.
byee

ps. disclaimer: no debian/ubuntu expert here, so please forgive me anything ;)

rncbc's picture

re. re-arrange the order of sampler channels strips; which is kinda false: you can move the strips anywhere you like as long you set Channels > Auto Arrange to off;

oops

as a matter of fact this is not true anymore, sorry to tell. my bad :( it was indeed only a few/lot of years ago, maybe in some arcane and ancient qt3/qt4 era, but not anymore, sorry: you cannot even drag+move the channel strips in qsampler and they always follow and keep in vertical order as created at the linuxsampler server engine--sorry again to mislead you in a wild-goose chase.

also though, there are no plans to make it any other way, sorry again. :(

cheers

Hi rncbc, do you have any thoughts about LinuxSampler's licensing issue? I know that Carla's developer dropped LinuxSampler and replaced it with SFZero because of it.

rncbc's picture

of course I have

or, better said, I had one like all the people that were there in first weeks and months after its birth and inception (linuxsampler project): the most ridiculous of all that is this: the infamous LS license, which is suupposed to be written as GPLv2 with an additional clause that makes it void in the first place, has been refuted by all LS devs. but yet the original concept creator/author (Benno) is M.I.A. almost a decade now and (the mighty) ethos of ours say that (we) cannot correct the LS license to plain GPLv2+ as it should have been from day-one or to any other else for that matter.

sorry, we just can't, at least without Benno's explicit consent, which is nowhere to be heard nor found to date.

now, you as an individual personal user may well get the LS source code and use it to your own purposes--there is not a single hindrance for you to do just that: it is open-source still! though, you'll probably run into the void, grey or otherwise foggy legal area if you ever distribute the LS program in anyway, source or binary.

may you now understand why no free-software packager are ever to distribute LS (the server-side software) to the masses ?

hope you grok the (long and old) mess ;)

cheers

Interesting, and insightful, I didn't know its creator has disappeared. Did all attempts to contact him fail?

rncbc's picture

let's put this way: in the early times "he" was the one that put in there the "infamous" clause...
guess what? no one noticed that back then...
i am not sure but probably only when Debian raised the red-flag and refused to distribute LS, "he" couldn't care less for the outcry and then suddenly "his" voice was never to be heard again. :(

ok. or better said, not ok! you could say that anyone may fork and go wild with it!--but wait, hold there your horses!--it's NOT GPL remember? so, any fork is as dang "illegal" as any kind of distribution to the masses :S

byee && cheers

Do you mean Benno Senoner? LS website has his email address. It it no longer valid?

rncbc's picture

even if it's still valid you'll probably wait eons for a reply, assuming there will be one, ever :)

but don't let my NSHO stop you from posing your worries in the proper web forum...
IIRC. there was once a poll, many years ago, about asking whether people were willing to donate to remove the so called "infamous commercial exception"...
as a matter of fact, surprise, surprise: the democratic majority voted they don't care!
so much for the status quo ;)

byee

Um, what if he passed away?

If voting fails, then the conscious minority has to take over in an uncompromising manner. C:

Add new comment