So far, all Samplemodeling™ Virtual Instruments have been developed on the Kontakt™ platform produced by Native Instruments. The Trumpet and Trombone, as well as the new French Horn and Tuba, exploit the Harmonic Alignment Technology, developed by Giorgio Tommasini, for real time building of articulations.
The Sax Brothers use an alternative approach, the Synchronous Wave Triggering developed by Stefano Lucato. This latter technique is less suited to the Kontakt engine, due to some technical limitations, including jitter and fixed interpolation.
That's why Stefano, working with Lele Parravicini, Luigi Felici and in collaboration with Samplemodeling (Peter Siedlaczek and Giorgio Tommasini), elected to develop an independent platform, built on the specifications of his technology. Development of the SWAM engine (Synchronous Wavelength Acoustic Modeling) required about two years of hard work. The first Virtual Instrument exploiting the new platform is Ms. Sax S., the Soprano Sax, now finally available for purchase and download from our website.
Thus, a new line of products, based on the SWAM engine, is expected to add to the "classic" Samplemodeling Instruments. This will undoubtedly speed up the development of new instruments, which has been requested by all our customers, wishing to have at hand an entire Samplemodeling orchestra.
Supported formats. All instruments developed on the new platform will be available only as plugins for PC (VST2.4 32/64 bit) and Mac (AU 32 or 64 bit, and VST2.4 32/64 bit).
System requirements. The realism and expressiveness provided by the SWAM engine is demanding in terms of CPU load. An up-to-date computer with at least 1,6 GHz Core2Duo CPU is therefore recommended. Less powerful systems may also prove satisfactory, but may require larger buffer sizes, involving higher latency. Supported OS are Windows XP, 7 or Vista for the PC, or OS 10.5, 10.6, 10.7 (Intel only) for the Mac.
Audio Interface (Sound Card). A good quality audio interface (USB, FireWire, PCI) with suitable low latency drivers (like ASIO for the PC) is required. Accepted buffer size are 128 -2048 samples (256-512 recommended). Excellent results will be obtained with any sample rate between 44.1 and 96 kHz.
MIDI devices. All instruments developed on the Swam engine, like our classic Kontakt-based instruments, create all the effects and articulations in real time, using a set of midi controllers. Although they can be used without any additional hardware (except the audio interface) by drawing the controller curves and inserting the notes directly in the host sequencer, best results, especially for real time playing, will be obtained using external MIDI devices.
Minimum requirements are:
a) A MIDI keyboard with at least 5 octaves, Modwheel & Pitchbend, connected to the computer via USB or an external MIDI interface, equipped with a set of physical continuous MIDI controllers (usually knobs or sliders) to control effects like overblow, subharmonic, growl, etc.
and...
an expression pedal, or a breath controller, mapped to CC11 or CC2, respectively, to control the dynamics, allowing continuous transition from pp to ff. Please note that the instruments will not work if neither CC is received. Although other physical midi controllers, assigned to either CC11 or CC2 might do, this is not recommended, mainly due to the shortage of suitable limbs. :-)
b) As an alternative to the MIDI keyboard, a Wind Controller like Yamaha WX5 or EWI (USB or 4000S) will provide excellent results.
Standalone use. Standalone mode on a PC requires a suitable VST host. We tested the free SaviHost by Hermann Seib, with excellent results. Other VST Hosts, albeit not necessarily free, can be found on http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php Mac users do not need a VST Host, since they may directly load any Swam plugin in the DAW GarageBand supplied with the OS.
Copy Protection and Activation. A simple, but effective, copy protection mechanism has been implemented in the SWAM platform. Each instrument needs to be activated using the License Key provided with the download link. Both a straightforward online activation, and an interactive email-based offline activation are provided.
License Policy. We provide two license keys. How to use them is a customer's choice. One can elect to install the instrument on two different systems, if both belong to him, and are not used simultaneously. Or, one can spare one license for future upgrades. Please note that operating system, or hard drive changes do not affect instrument activation. However, major hardware upgrades, or installation of the instrument on a new computer require a new activation. That's the main reason for providing two license keys. An additional, "rescue", license key may also be obtained upon request in exceptional cases, like hardware crashes. Sharing unused license keys is strictly forbidden. Please note that all license keys are personalized, and that your email address will be displayed on the instrument GUI.
