[specimen] Specimen vs fluidsynth

[Ken Restivo]

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On Wed, Jul 04, 2007 at 07:14:38PM +0100, Jamie Bullock wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am looking for an open source sampler for a project I am working on. A
> couple of questions:
> 
> 1) What are the relative merits of specimen vs fluidsynth? I know
> fluidsynth isn't a sampler as such, but it has sampler-like
> functionality.

fluidsynth is a soundfont player. The advantage is, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of soundfonts out there for you to use. Some of them are even good. Soundfonts are also cross-platform and can be shared with people on all kinds of computing platforms, whereas Specimen's format is specific to Specimen only.

Soundfonts also have layers, whereas specimen does not at this time.

I find the GUI on Swami (the soundfont editor for Linux) to be frustrating and buggy. Specimen seems simpler and a lot more solid to me. But then, it doesn't have as much functionality either.

I make soundfonts of anything I think that I'll use a lot, and won't change much once I create it, such as an instrument. If I'm doing one-off stuff, sound effects, etc, I tend to use specimen for that.

I'm currently using Specimen live, mostly for sound effects. It entertains some band members, and annoys the hell out of others.

- -ken
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