# SIPS problems with K4



## Big Bob (Feb 16, 2011)

Hi Guys,

My workload seems to finally be easing up so I'm going to begin playing catchup with all the wonderful new K4 and KSP stuff.

If I remember correctly, there were some problems with SIPS (or at least with SIPS 2) running under K4 and I think someone had zeroed in on the cause being related to the new sample-start offset machinery added with K4. 

I think I will now have some time to look into this but since my memory may be a bit hazy and/or new discoveries may have been made, if you are familiar with this issue could you please post about it and/or post the links to prior discussions. I'll do a forum search but I could easily miss something so anything you can post about this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob


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## Big Bob (Feb 18, 2011)

I started investigating the SIPS/K4 situation which appears to be related to the newly activated play_note offset feature in K4 (see this thread):

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19934

I think I may now be able to update the SIPS code to correct this situation but it will take a bit of effort and, considering the 'underwhelming' response to this thread, it's possible that no one cares about this issue anymore :lol: 

So, I think I'll just put this project aside and continue with the more-fun stuff :roll: like coming back up to speed with all the other nifty new K4/KSP stuff I've been missing out on.

Rejoice,

Bob


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## reddognoyz (Feb 18, 2011)

I am a lowly composer and can't even begin to pretend to understand the magic behind the sips scripting, I can only say that for my work, which is a lot of small virtual woodwind arrangements,(I score cartoons), SIPS has been a miracle for me and has revitalized some older but still wonderful sounding sampled instruments. I fervently hope that SIPS will continue to work as K4 moves forward

my 2¢

-Stuart


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## Big Bob (Feb 18, 2011)

Thanks for the kind words Stuart.

As far as I know SIPS will run under K4 but there are some potential problems related to DFD mode, especially with SIPS 2. But, if you are running in Sampler mode you shouldn't have any problems.

However, some time ago, several users were running into a problem using (I think) SIPS 2's new DFD offset mode with K4. I was attempting to get them to repost about it (now that I have a little time to look into it), but so far, no one has stepped forth to refresh my memory with the details. So maybe they have found a work around or have just lost interest? Or, maybe they're so busy that they haven't seen this thread yet. So, perhaps in time, someone will chime in.

Meanwhile Rejoice.

Bob


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## Big Bob (Feb 18, 2011)

blakerobinson @ Fri Feb 18 said:


> Hi Bob! I believe they were talking about the new 'start mod' parameter in the wave editor in Kontakt 4. To play a note offset with play_note you need to increase this value so that it's greater or equal to the point you wish to start from.
> 
> You can change a single zone and then use the 'copy current start-mod settings' to copy those settings to every zone in the instrument.



Hi Blake,

Yes, I also presumed that was the situation, see my discussion in this thread:

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19934 

However, I wanted to know things like what mode they were operating SIPS in, was it for example SIPS 2 operating in the special K2 DFD mode, etc. I wanted to hunt down the situation where SIPS may have used a play_note with a non-zero offset that will no longer be appropriate since K4 no longer ignores non-zero offset values in DFD mode as did K2 and K3.

Bob


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## rJames (Feb 18, 2011)

FWIW, I found that any patch that had multiple samples for one note, as in cc1 mod between soft and loud samples, could not play through the legato transition but rather played the release sample choking the next note.

Seemed like sips could not play both release and the legato transition to the next note. I don't think I am being clear but can't think of a better way to describe.

Any keyswitch with only one sample streaming at a time works fine in k4

I was using sips 1.5...never went to v2.

It may be a moot point since k3.5ò Ž   ëÖJ Ž   ëÙÑ Ž   ëÙÛ Ž   ëßr Ž   ëßˆ Ž   ëã¨ Ž   ëä  Ž   ëæ? Ž   ëæ¬ Ž   ëçÚ Ž   ëçô Ž   ëèó Ž   ëéP Ž   ëîÏ Ž   ëï@ Ž   ëï¬ Ž


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## Big Bob (Feb 19, 2011)

> Seemed like sips could not play both release and the legato transition to the next note. I don't think I am being clear but can't think of a better way to describe.



Hi Ron,

This sounds like a rather odd situation that's probably not related to the problems connected with the K3 to K4 transition. I hate to try to revisit SIPS 1.5 because my brain will be far too full of cobwebs :lol: So, if it isn't too important to you, I think I'll pass on this one. However, if it should become more important generally, I will need a lot more information and some kind of demo instrument that I can 'play with'.



> Count me in, Big Bob! I'm very enthusiastic about getting SIPS 2.0.5 happy with Kontakt 4.
> 
> Mr A



Please describe in detail under what conditions you are experiencing problems with SIPS 2.05 under K4.

As far as I can see so far, the situation seems to boil down to this.

1. Prior to K4, all versions of Kontakt would ignore the play_note offset parameter when running in DFD mode.

2. When I added a special DFD mode to SIPS 2.05, the intention was to use the SAS to choose a different set of sample groups for playing 'inside notes' of legato phrases. This allowed users to have a 'fixed' sample-start offset to improve the legato synthesis when using Kontakt's DFD mode.

3. However, since K2/K3 ignored the play_note offset parameter (in Kontakt's DFD mode) , it didn't matter what value of offset I used and it was convenient to have the offset be a non-zero value when operating SIPS 2 in its DFD mode.

4. With K4 now responding to the play_note offset parameter, this former don't-care situation will be problematic for someone who has created an instrument with a dual set of groups (where the 2nd set has the S.Start flag set farther into the sample).

The simple way to correct this problem would be to not use SIPS 2's DFD mode with K4. You can simply use all the other sample offset options that you would in Kontakt's Sampler mode instead and they will now work in Kontakt's DFD mode as well provided that you set S.Mod (for each sample zone) to S.Start + 2*SR (where SR is the sampling rate).

However, if you have already created instruments where you have setup dual groups so you could use SIPS 2's special DFD mode, then I will have to modify the SIPS coding to insure that no non-zero play_note offsets are used in this mode.

The foregoing explains why I am asking in what way you are using SIPS 2. In most cases, you should be able to solve the problem by setting S.Mod as indicated above.

When I get some time I'll try to summarize this better but I was hoping to first hear some more detailed input from SIPS 2 users to be sure there isn't some other K4 problem I'm not aware of.

Rejoice,

Bob


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## kotori (Feb 19, 2011)

blakerobinson @ Sat Feb 19 said:


> You can change a single zone and then use the 'copy current start-mod settings' to copy those settings to every zone in the instrument.



In case I haven't missed something this is a relatively new feature in Kontakt and probably very useful for people using legato scripts. I noticed it a couple of weeks ago. In the past one had to manually adjust S.MOD for every single zone - something that most people would find too tedious. Now it can be done in seconds for a whole sample set.

I just wanted to highlight this in case more people find it useful since it's so easy to skim through this thread without realizing the importance of this.


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## Big Bob (Feb 19, 2011)

> I just wanted to highlight this in case more people find it useful since it's so easy to skim through this thread without realizing the importance of this.



Glad you pointed this out Nils. I perked up quite a bit myself when I read what Blake posted :o but I thought most of you probably knew about this and that I was just still behind the times in my game of 'catchup' :lol: 

And, I've taken a quick look at the SIPS 2 coding and it looks like nothing needs to be done with it to accomodate K4 after all. It seems that the code is already arranged so that if you set SIPS in its DFD mode, the play_note offset is always set to zero.

Therefore, SIPS 2 users that are experiencing problems with K4 can probably fix them by appropriately setting S.Mod. 

If you were using SIPS 2 in some offset mode other than DFD and you were using it with an instrument running with Kontakt's DFD mode, with K2 or K3 you just were not getting the complete legato effect because the 'inside samples' were not offset (as they would be when running in Kontakt's Sampler mode). But with K4, the play_note offset parameter is no longer ignored and you can get anything from inside samples not triggering at all to identical behaviour with Kontakt's Sampler mode (depending on how your zones are set up).

The maximum knob-set offset for SIPS 2 is 2 seconds so the play_note offset requested by SIPS can go as high as 2.4 seconds in the Knob + Rand mode. In the Auto modes the 'requested' offset can be higher if you play a series of very lengthy notes. You should determine the maximum offset you will be requiring and then multiply that by the sampling rate you are using to express this offset in samples (rather than in time units). 

For example, if you are using the Knob + Rand offset mode (and you want to be able to set the knob to its maximum of 2 secs) and, if your sampling rate is 44.1KHz, then your required maximum offset is 2.4 x 44.1K = 105,840 samples. Now, for each sample zone, you need to set S.Mod to at least 105,840 *plus any non-zero value that you may have set S.Start to*. This addition of the S.Start value is required because of the way NI seems to have implemented the play_note offset function (which needs to 'reach' from the physical beginning of the sample rather than from the S.Start point). Once your zones are thus setup properly, SIPS legato performance with K4 should be the same in DFD mode as it is in Sampler mode.

Rejoice,

Bob


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## Mike Greene (Feb 19, 2011)

Big Bob @ Sat Feb 19 said:


> I thought most of you probably knew about this and that I was just still behind the times in my game of 'catchup' :lol:


Trust me, Bob, you're never going to be far behind the times. Heck, until I read your other thread, I had no idea you could now do sample offsets in DFD mode! Not that I'm the king of KSP scripting or anything, but I know there are lots of guys like me (non experts, but still actively doing this) who are reading (and re-reading) all this with great interest.

It's great having you back, by the way. 8)


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## Tobie (Feb 19, 2011)

Hi Big Bob - just gonna repost my initial findings with the Kontakt Legato problem from when I posted before...


IN DFD mode, legato will not work if the sample start is not at the very begining of the sample. I use EWQL Orchestra - some patches were working others would'nt and I noticed that the notes that would not work are the ones where the sample start is not at the begining (thats the sample start in the wav editor page for each individual wav). Go to the sample edit and drag the start line to the front for each sample and hey presto they work correctly!!! 

Anyway hope it helps


T


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## Big Bob (Feb 19, 2011)

Thanks Tobie,

I think the explanation for this problem is buried in the details of my last post in this thread:

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19934 

But essentially it boils down to this, if S.Mod is set to less than S.Start minus S.Mod, 'inside notes' of legato phrases will not be sounded at all if you are using any SIPS 2 offset mode other than DFD and are running K4 in DFD mode.

So, you can fix the problem by moving S.Start back to zero or better yet by setting S.Mod as I indicated in this thread a few posts back.

ie set S.Mod to S.Start + the max offset you want SIPS to generate. If you do that, SIPS and K4 should be happy with K4 running in either Sampler or DFD mode with any of SIPS 2's offset modes.

Please let me know if this still isn't clear.



> It's great having you back, by the way.



Hey Mike, I'm glad to be 'back in the saddle again', I only hope I can get up to speed soon so I can start understanding all the stuff you guys are posting about; most of it has been going over my head :lol: 

God Bless,

Bob


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