All In the tests

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After 20 years of editing hi-quality sample libraries, EastWest has taken the plunge and released its own sample player, simply named Play. At the Winter NAMM 2008 the editor unveiled several products which will be using this new instrument. Let’s start by reviewing three that are already available, Fab Four (FF), Gypsy and Voices Of Passion (VOP).

In the world of sound libraries, quantity and quality have quickly led from floppy disk storage to DVD’s. There’s such a race for GBs that some libraries are now sold already installed on hard disks...

It also means that the end user as well as the editor are now facing two imperatives: the RAM/streaming handling and the mass of existing sampling formats, practically equal to the different number of existing samplers whether hardware or software. Fortunately, some format converters allow you to import samples and programs from various sources into your favorite sampler, even if you sometimes lose programming subtleties specific to certain formats.

In order to offer autonomous solutions, some editors have chosen to use a player under license (EastWest, Zero-G, Best Service with N.I.’s Kompakt, Spectrasonics, Motu with UVI, etc.). Most of them have now designed their own player, firstly to avoid unpredictable compatibility issues, secondly to benefit from financial and technological freedom.

The reading issues are very different. Either you choose to read from the hard disk (streaming), necessitating a fast reading protocol and ideally dedicated ports and disks, or you choose to read samples from RAM, then you are confronted to the 32-bit OS limit, that is to say 4 GB maximum (2 to the power of 32). Certain programs allow to you use a combination of both solutions. However, if you’d like to exceed the current limit, you need to use 64-bit calculation (2 to the power of 64, theoretically 17 billion GB...).

EastWest has released its own solution, Play, a 64-bit (32-bit compatible) sample player.