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What is Vsampler?

Vsampler is a software sample player and synthesizer made by Maz Sound Tools, Inc. of Germany which allows you to play Virtual Instruments and Soundfont Sample Libraries from any DXi, VSTi, or ReWire capable sequencer running on the Windows platform.

It is reasonably priced, yet has professional features such as sample-accurate timing, flexible output routing, hard-disk streaming, and built-in effects. Since it can act as a plug-in, it can be integrated into many popular DAW sequencers where it gives immediate access to the thousands of sound libraries currently available.

Its principle strength lies in its ability to import and use almost every popular format of Sample Library in existence today. In addition to its own native .vs3 format, it can import libraries in many other formats:

• AKAI
• GigaStudio2 (it does not seem to import GigaStudio3 files correctly).
• HALion
• Kompakt
• Reason
• Wav Audio
• REX
• E-mu
• and quite a few more!

Opening Vsampler in your sequencer:

Vsampler will run as a stand-alone sample player, or as a sample-accurate DXi or VSTi plug-in. It also supports the ReWire protocol created by Propellerhead - so basically it will work in almost any professional sequencer.

Refer to your sequencer manual for instructions on how to set up a plug-in with your particular software as this is done in different ways. The end result, is that you need to do 3 things:

• create a MIDI track to control Vsampler,
• create an Audio track to hear the Vsampler sounds,
• and open an instance of the Vsampler application itself.

In Sonar, the two tracks look like this:

The Vsampler window:

When you first open the Vsampler application, it will usually open to its default window shown below:

Vsampler view:

Unless you are actually designing sounds, it is best to select the "Compact" view shown below. (This can be selected from the menu under "View/Compact View".)

Loading the Sounds:

Along the top of Vsampler, there is a button labelled "Import" - click on it to see the import screen where you can import sounds into the sampler using the line of buttons with format labels along the centre of the screen. (These buttons show you all the sampler formats that can be imported and used.)

Loading the Sounds 2:

To load a Jayzen Soundfont, click on the "SF2" button and browse to the folder where you have stored your Soundfont. After clicking OK, you will see the Sample Instrument loaded into the "Import Grid." In our example, the free "Whistle" Soundfont has been loaded.

Final load:

When you click on the "Import" button, Vsampler loads the currently highlighted Instrument in the Import Grid into the Next Free Pool slot (or according to how you have set the menu above the grid). A window may pop up asking where to save the samples - this is usually in the Vsampler Folder - which is fine, just say OK to continue (Vsampler is making a copy of the samples). At this point, you now have the sounds loaded into Vsampler...

Setting up the sequencer's Audio track:

Now that Vsampler has been loaded with a Sample Instrument (JP Whistle, in this case), the final step is to set up the sequencer's MIDI and Audio tracks so we can control Vsampler and hear its output.

The Audio track needs to have its Input come from Vsampler, so that the sounds produced by the samples can be heard, controlled, and processed in this track.

If you look at the Audio track below (top track), you will see the "input" has been set to "Vsampler3 DXi2 Synth MasterMix" which is the mixed output from Vsampler.

The "output" can be set to your sound card output, which is, (hopefully) attached to your mixer, amp, and speakers. The final step is to configure the MIDI track which controls Vsampler.

Setting up the MIDI track:

• The MIDI track's input port setting (In) tells the sequencer where to look for its MIDI input (External Keyboard, MIDI controller, etc. attached to a MIDI port on the computer). Setting it to "MIDI Omni" will accept any and all MIDI input, no matter where it comes from. This is usually the best option.

• The MIDI track's output port setting (Out) tells the sequencer where to send the MIDI data that is coming in from its "input," or from the MIDI track data itself. It needs to be set to Vsampler.

• The MIDI track's channel setting (Ch) tells the sequencer which channel to use. There are 16 to choose from, set it to 1. (Vsampler can play a different sounds from each of its 16 tracks.)

• The bank (Bnk) and patch (Pch) settings are what finally assign the actual Soundfont patch to this track so that the MIDI data sent from it will play it.

• If you look at back at page 6, you can see that JP Whistle was loaded into Patch # 1, of Bank # 1. So set the MIDI track's bank = 1, and then in most sequencers, when you open up the patch window, you will see a list of all the patches available in that bank. You should be able to see that the "JP Whistle" patch is sitting in patch # 1. Select it to make it active.

The final track settings are shown below:

Conclusion/Summary:

That's it, you're done!

Playing a key on your external keyboard will now send MIDI note data to the MIDI port, which is then echoed by the sequencer's MIDI track out through Channel 1, to Vsampler's Channel 1, and cause Vsampler to play the "JP Whistle" Soundfont patch. The actual audio samples from the patch will then be routed out through Vsampler's main audio mix output, into the sequencer's audio track, then through the audio track to your sound card - allowing you to hear what you are playing in real time.

See how simple it all is ;-)

At this point, if you record your notes on the MIDI track, you will hear your exact performance play back when you replay the track. (Your MIDI notes are triggering Vsampler to replay the samples.) Alternatively, you can record the actual audio coming from the audio track itself and produce an audio file for use in other projects, or for further processing, etc.

The possibilities are endless...

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We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful.

If you have further questions and/or comments, please contact us.

Regards,

Jayzen Sound

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General overview of Virtual Instruments

Links to other websites with information on Soundfonts