Ubuntu Manpage: gig2stereo - Converts Gigasampler (.gig) files from mono pairs to true stereo.

NAME

       gig2stereo - Converts Gigasampler (.gig) files from mono pairs to true stereo.

SYNOPSIS

       gig2stereo [ OPTIONS ] FILE_OR_DIR1 [ FILE_OR_DIR2 ... ]

DESCRIPTION

Takes a list of Gigasampler (.gig) files and / or directories as argument(s) and converts the individual
Gigasampler files from two separate mono sample pairs to true stereo interleaved format. Given
directories are scanned for .gig files. The Gigasampler files are directly modified, not copied. Since
at this point the Gigasampler format only defines mono and stereo samples, this program currently also
assumes all samples in the .gig files provided to be either mono or stereo.

Background: The Gigasampler/GigaStudio format allows one to create stereo instruments in two ways: either
by referencing true stereo (interleaved) samples in the instruments, or by referencing a pair of (two)
mono samples. Unfortunately LinuxSampler does not support the latter at the moment, thus if a gig
instrument uses mono sample pairs, you will still hear it in mono. This tool was created to circumvent
this issue by allowing to convert gig files to using real stereo (interlaved) samples instead. And even
if LinuxSampler would add support for mono sample pairs, it would be less efficient than using real
stereo samples, both concerning disk streaming as well as DSP processing after streaming input.

After conversion, you will find all newly created true stereo samples in separate new sample group(s),
which will be postfixed with " STEREO" in their group names. So you should easily be able to distinguish
the newly created true stereo samples (i.e. when editing the .gig file with gigedit(1) ) from old
samples. Also, if the original (now replaced) mono samples were postfixed with a channel indicator in
their sample names (i.e. "Spiccato D3 -L"), the new stereo samples will have a similar sample name, but
without such an audio channel indicator at the end of their names. Thus in the mentioned example, the
newly created stereo sample would be named "Spiccato D3" instead.

OPTIONS

FILE_OR_DIR1
Gigasampler (.gig) filename or directory

FILE_OR_DIR2
Gigasampler (.gig) filename or directory

--force-replace
Force replacing any found old mono sample reference by the new true stereo samples. By default
certain references of the old mono samples are not replaced by new true stereo samples, usually
because the respective old mono reference is been used in an instrument context that seems to be
entirely a mono use case, not stereo, and thus replacing the mono sample reference by stereo ones
might not be intended for the respective instrument. Because there might indeed be instruments in
the same .gig file which are designed as explicit mono variant (i.e. to allow the musician to save
resources while playing, or for live mix-down reasons, which are usually mono on live venues). By
using --force-replace all those old mono sample references in question will also be replaced by
the new stereo sample references.

--incompatible
Also match incompatible mono samples as pairs. By default, when searching for potential mono
samples that could be combined to true stereo samples, some sanity checks are performed. Thus if
two mono samples have completely different characterstics (i.e. different fine tune setting,
different loop types) then they are by default considered to be incompatible and will not be
merged to a true stereo sample to avoid undesired audible errors in the modified file. Under
certain circumstances you might want to circumvent this sanity check, for instance when you think
that few cents fine tuning difference in the mono samples are no reason for you to not merge them
into a stereo sample. In this case you can use this option to force the conversion. However
certain fundamental incompatibilities are still not ignored, even if you use --incompatible, for
example if the two mono samples have different bit depth, sample rate or loop start and loop end
points, in such cases those mono samples will still not be merged to stereo samples, because the
actual result of the merge under that condition will certainly not be desired.

--keep
Keep old mono samples. By default old converted mono samples, if they are not referenced by any
instrument anymore, will automatically be deleted after conversion. By using this argument it will
preserve all of the old mono samples.

-r Recurse through subdirectories.

-v Print version and exit.

--verbose [LEVEL]
Be verbose and print additional information while converting. The additional numeric argument is
optional, it allows one to define the verbosity level (1 .. 2, default: 1).

BUGS

       Check and report bugs at http://bugs.linuxsampler.org

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