Man1 - gig2stereo.1

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

gig2stereo [ OPTIONS ] FILE_OR_DIR1 [ FILE_OR_DIR2 … ]

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.

* 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).

gig2mono(1), gigextract(1), gigdump(1), gigmerge(1)

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

Application and manual page written by Christian Schoenebeck <cuse@users.sf.net>