Should sounds be part of a closed format that may not last? What happens if the format and platform that once were trusted by musicians and sound designers ceased to be? That’s the hard lesson learned by users of a popular sampling “standard” – but for once, the news is good.

GigaSampler has been a huge part of the sampling landscape since its introduction a decade ago, and users have massive investments in Giga sound libraries. As I noted over the summer, however, Tascam ceased development on the aging Giga platform, leaving users without an important tool – and some powerful technologies without a home.

Today, news has leaked out that Garritan, developer of some popular sample libraries and (with Plogue) the sophisticated, cross-platform ARIA Engine, has purchased all of the technology assets related to Giga from Tascam (TEAC). That includes GigaStudio, Gigasampler, GVI, Gigapulse, and everything that goes with it.

This is huge news for compatibility, interoperability, and the future evolution of sampling. I spoke with Garritan chief Gary Garritan himself to chat about some of the possibilities.

The most obvious potential benefit is native file compatibility with Giga sample libraries, so that that sound content isn’t stranded in an abandoned, closed format. Gary says native file reading and writing is high on the priority list – which should also be a big coup, I think, for his ARIA platform.

There are some technologies worth saving in Giga, too, though, not just the sample format. Some of the jewels in Giga include the DEF high-quality filtering algorithms, spectral morphing, and convolution capabilities.

“There’s a treasure trove of great technology and we want to make it available to as many musicians as possible,” says Garritan. “We just have our work cut out for us.”

The process of assimilating Giga’s technology is likely to take time, Garritan says:

In case you missed it in comments, amidst the news of a major pro sampling product being discontinued, reader Darren Landrum is interested in offering a free/GPL open source framework for samplers:

The LinuxSampler project offers GigaSampler 3 compatibility for Linux and Windows, so it’s already an open alternative for dealing with your orphaned Giga sampler files. (Naturally, you could also look to a number of Giga-compatibility samplers on the market.)

But the open source community has long been under fire — often rightly so — for simply copying proprietary software rather than doing something new and innovative. I enjoy "new and powerful," so that sounds like a great idea, and that’s what Darren is proposing. He writes:

What I want to do is build a code framework (not to be confused with a library) that will contain classes for handling streaming sample playback, resampling, and all that fun stuff, as well as directed graph building for DSP. From here, the framework can be used to build monolithic applications for sampling and synthesis, as well as a Reaktor-like application, if we do it right.

Yes, it would be better to split things out into libraries, but that takes a lot more work, and I’m tired of things not happening. The sooner we can get some code working, the better.

I should also mention that there are existing open source libraries we can and will leverage, like libsndfile, libsamplerate, libfftw3, and the Rubber Band library, so we won’t be starting completely from scratch.

What do you do if Tascam lets you down, and you’re a sound house dependent on their GigaStudio/GigSampler player? For major soundware development house SONiVOX, the answer was: make your own software.

Somerville, Mass-based SONiVOX has announced “announced the existence” of an in-house software development team. Read: the team has been there already, but they haven’t wanted to talk about it until news broke that Tascam’s GigaStudio was going away.

SONiVOX says they have developed “a universally compatible player technology that focus on intelligent MIDI performance, intuitive interfaces, and the highest sonic fidelity.” It will support not only SONiVOX’s own products, but third party-products, as well. SONiVOX points out their experience working with clients like Motorola, Analog Devices, and Google, on sound software.

The press release apparently went out on Friday, but I missed it. Now, with it clear that Giga is dead, the news makes more sense. Peter Alexander at Film Music Magazine, who also broke the GigaStudio discontinuation story, correctly read the signs as early as Monday. He has a long, excellent opinion piece on that site that laments Tascam’s failure to develop their own, long-promised player. He wrote then:

“SONiVOX, an American company substantively smaller than either Tascam or their publicly traded parent, TEAC, has beaten the Giant to market by creating their own dual platform player for both PC and Mac with product ready for shipping by late July early August.”

Memo: To Sample and Software Developers [Film Music Magazine]

Nor is SONiVOX alone. They join EastWest and Spectrasonics, as Peter observes, along with Garritan, whose Steinway-authorized piano instrument runs on the in-house ARIA Player. And that’s to say nothing of developers like Native Instruments, Cakewalk, Steinberg, MOTU, and Apple, all of whom might be considered soundware developers themselves, running on their own virtual instrument products.

Of course, this also illustrates just how tough the market is for any sampler, even one from a company the size of TEAC. In fact, it seems to be the independent companies who are most willing to keep fighting in that climate.

What remains to be seen is how well SONiVOX can support third parties. If they can do so affordably and effectively, you could see serious migration to their sound platform.

SONiVOX’s own virtual instruments, the first for the platform, are scheduled for release at the end of the month:

http://www.sonivoxmi.com/