OK, here is a low-level technical problem for all you tech-heads. Since I'm not really sure if this is Translator's (the conversion software by Chickensys) or EXS-24's "fault", I'll just post it here anyway. I just bought the Pro Samples Classic Orchestra CD-ROM a couple of days ago. To my surprise, there was a really nasty click in the beginning of (almost) all samples that were looped. Even stranger was that I could not see this click in the sample editor - in fact, as I later found out, the click was indeed not in the samples themselves, but "added" by EXS-24. By moving the sample start forward exactly 32 samples, the click disappeared. It seemed that the sample editor and the numerical values in the instrument zones were off by 32 bytes. Before investigating this matter any futher, I converted a couple of my old Roland CD-ROM's into EXS-24 format with Translator. Surprise - the clicks were back again in looping sounds! This time not in the beginning of the sample, but instead in the end where the loop ends (and starts). Again, the clicks were "virtual", not in the sound data themselves. That was it - I decided to check what is going on. I was able to construct a non-clicking version of the clicking instruments by simply creating a new instrument and adding the samples, zones & groups to it. After a while I had two instruments with exactly the same filesize, and looking exactly the same in EXS-24's instrument editor - still, another one of them clicked, another one did not. After a lot of hex-editing, perl-ing and investigating the .exs instrument files, I found one byte that seems to cause all these clicks. An EXS-24 instrument file consists of chunks that always begin with the string "TBOS" (or sometimes "SOBT" ?). One chunk defines for example one zone, group or reference to a sound file. The beginning of a sound file reference chunk looks like this: 4 bytes - the ascii string "TBOS" or "SOBT" 64 bytes - the name of the wav or aif file, padded with zeros 1 byte - the mystery byte! So far I have seen at least 4 different values for this byte (in decimal) when examining different instruments: 0, 44, 88, and 112. With the latest conversions I made with Translator, it seemed to be always 112, which caused the click. I tried changing this to 44 in a couple of instruments, and that removed the click. However, with the Classic Orcestra sounds, the value was already 44, and 112 removed the click! At this point it was getting a little confusing, so I thought it might be a good idea to ask if anyone knows anything about this. Like I said, I don't know if there is a bug somewhere and where it is, but if someone from Emagic or Chickensys (you are probably reading this list too?) could tell me the function of this byte, I can do the rest (hopefully possible bugs will be fixed too..). I'm in the middle of a big project right now, and _really_ need these instruments ASAP, preferably with no clicks. :) Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen Lead Web Developer - www.madonion.com captain@...

Markus Kaarlonen wrote: > OK, here is a low-level technical problem for all you tech-heads. Since I'm > not really sure if this is Translator's (the conversion software by > Chickensys) or EXS-24's "fault", I'll just post it here anyway. <snip> Wow! I was just about to email ChickenSys about exactly this problem too! In this case, Translating from an old Roland CD to EXS on Mac, some samples end up with the buzz that you describe. Some do not! I haven't gone into nearly as much depth as you have (complete respect!), but I can certainly confirm having the same issue. I just hope that it gets solved quickly enough for you - it's not an issue for me yet. Good luck... -- The best of times to you all... Pants

From: "Markus Kaarlonen" <markus.kaarlonen@...> > OK, here is a low-level technical problem for all you tech-heads. Since I'm > not really sure if this is Translator's (the conversion software by > Chickensys) or EXS-24's "fault", I'll just post it here anyway. > > I just bought the Pro Samples Classic Orchestra CD-ROM a couple of days ago. > To my surprise, there was a really nasty click in the beginning of (almost) > all samples that were looped. Even stranger was that I could not see this > click in the sample editor - in fact, as I later found out, the click was > indeed not in the samples themselves, but "added" by EXS-24. By moving the > sample start forward exactly 32 samples, the click disappeared. It seemed > that the sample editor and the numerical values in the instrument zones were > off by 32 bytes. <snip> Hi Markus, It's been emntioned here several months back that there were some problems in using the Pro Samples CD-ROMs with the EXS-24. There were also problems with some of the looping as well as some problems with the tuning being altered pretty radically. I have several of the Pro Samples CDs here and if I remember, 'The World Instruments' CD was one of the ones that was mentioned as having problems. You're the first I've heard of looking into the details of it... Danny

Yes, Roland xfers do have a click, even when the loop is set to the same numbers in EXS as the original, but a few millisecond xfade will deal with it without any damage to the sound. Regards Brian

Brian Gascoigne <brian@...>wrote: Yes, Roland xfers do have a click, even when the loop is set to the same numbers in EXS as the original, but a few millisecond xfade will deal with it without any damage to the sound. Regards Brian i hope i'm posting right, i'm not really sure but i get those clicks with certain sample cd conversions........i solve the problem quickly by changing start frame for each exs zone to "1" rather than "0"......provided thats where it all begins, at 0 by default