Hey guys,
Does anyone have any tips with TX16wx use and all the files it creates when you save your patches? There's individual files of matrices, programs, performances - I use all these features with all my patches and I'm swimming in .tx*** files!
Any recommendations?
BTW I really like the "monolith" file format that Kontakt has that saves the samples, patch and all needed resources in one big file! Very tidy!
How do you deal with file bloat?
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- KVRAF
- 2400 posts since 27 May, 2005 from Stockholm
"Bloat" means large, voluptuous, fat. That would typically be the word you use with regards to a monolithic (and thusly generating large files) format. The word you are looking for is perhaps "abundance".
Not to be an ass about it, but can you manually unpack and read the kontakt monolith format and its contained data? If not, I'd say it is not much to aspire to. The point of individual files on disk is to be able to a.) read everything using standard tools, and b.) re-use each program/matrix/sample/whatever across multiple projects without duplicating said data in many redundant monoliths.
As for organisation, I'd suggest looking at organising things into folders according to some system. First steps towards a reusable library.
Not to be an ass about it, but can you manually unpack and read the kontakt monolith format and its contained data? If not, I'd say it is not much to aspire to. The point of individual files on disk is to be able to a.) read everything using standard tools, and b.) re-use each program/matrix/sample/whatever across multiple projects without duplicating said data in many redundant monoliths.
As for organisation, I'd suggest looking at organising things into folders according to some system. First steps towards a reusable library.
TX16Wx Software Sampler:
http://www.tx16wx.com/
http://www.tx16wx.com/
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1121 posts since 6 Mar, 2004
Thanks for the answer!
I guess I'm just approaching this thing from a practical perspective: I've converted very, very many kontakt instrument / sample libraries to TX16, which has lead to browsing - finding, selecting and loading the correct instrument - a bit of a hassle. Instead of looking at a folder with one file per one instrument (a kontakt monolith file that contains everything including samples), I have maybe 30 files (mostly matrices) + a sample folder.
((( Most instrument patches that I convert manually from kontakt are sufficiently complex to basically allow no re-use of matrices, so with a lot of orchestral instruments in particular, I just end up with a bit of a mess that I need to sort thru. )))
Anyway, I just wanted to ask if people had some kind of smart workarounds or something. I think I'll have to end up creating more folder layers to keep things organized, as you said, and maybe use the hidden attribute to take matrix files out of view.
Love TX16wx btw - I've spent literally hundreds of hours converting my old kontakt stuff to TX - I love its true "it-just-works" essence and reliability, and unlike Kontakt there's clearly no bloat code-wise. Which is why it's my number one sampler now. I make game music professionally for A-AA games and maybe since 1 year ago Kontakt just isn't reliable enough any more on any platform in a professional setting where you need 50+ instances, and where work simply needs to get done or you're fried & fired.
So thanks for TX16wx!
I guess I'm just approaching this thing from a practical perspective: I've converted very, very many kontakt instrument / sample libraries to TX16, which has lead to browsing - finding, selecting and loading the correct instrument - a bit of a hassle. Instead of looking at a folder with one file per one instrument (a kontakt monolith file that contains everything including samples), I have maybe 30 files (mostly matrices) + a sample folder.
((( Most instrument patches that I convert manually from kontakt are sufficiently complex to basically allow no re-use of matrices, so with a lot of orchestral instruments in particular, I just end up with a bit of a mess that I need to sort thru. )))
Anyway, I just wanted to ask if people had some kind of smart workarounds or something. I think I'll have to end up creating more folder layers to keep things organized, as you said, and maybe use the hidden attribute to take matrix files out of view.
Love TX16wx btw - I've spent literally hundreds of hours converting my old kontakt stuff to TX - I love its true "it-just-works" essence and reliability, and unlike Kontakt there's clearly no bloat code-wise. Which is why it's my number one sampler now. I make game music professionally for A-AA games and maybe since 1 year ago Kontakt just isn't reliable enough any more on any platform in a professional setting where you need 50+ instances, and where work simply needs to get done or you're fried & fired.
So thanks for TX16wx!
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- KVRAF
- 4822 posts since 25 Jan, 2014 from The End of The World as We Knowit
I think there are two approaches: sample management software like AudioFinder that has metadata and batch renaming; or folder trees based on how your memory works. I use the former approach for raw and in-process field recordings, and the latter for usable samples. To recall samples in a big folder tree, my personal mental organisation of category/ subcategory names is everything. For example I think of stone percussion as a sub of nature percussion, which is a sub of percussion, a sub of instruments. I regularly review categories to find forgotten samples, ask myself why I forgot it, to improve the tree names. I could do it all in AudioFinder but I like remembering. Hope that helps.
H E L P
Y O U R
F L O W
Y O U R
F L O W
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- KVRAF
- 2400 posts since 27 May, 2005 from Stockholm
Liero,
Fair enough, I get where you are coming from. And of course, there is nothing inherently proprietary about a monolithic format, _but_ it has secondary drawbacks beyond the purely aesthetic, mostly when it comes to disk streaming. I.e. basically a monolithic format is read-only, since assuming we stream from within the single file, replacing said file is non-transparent visa-vi file system (whereas replacing individual files can be done transparently). I.e. even for TX16Wx3 (which has somewhat enhanced file IO support), it would be an intrusive feature.
And I personally very much prefer the folder organisation approach. Using sample folders coupled with type/category organisation of the actual program/matrix etc files should generate a fairly easily navigated structure.
Fair enough, I get where you are coming from. And of course, there is nothing inherently proprietary about a monolithic format, _but_ it has secondary drawbacks beyond the purely aesthetic, mostly when it comes to disk streaming. I.e. basically a monolithic format is read-only, since assuming we stream from within the single file, replacing said file is non-transparent visa-vi file system (whereas replacing individual files can be done transparently). I.e. even for TX16Wx3 (which has somewhat enhanced file IO support), it would be an intrusive feature.
And I personally very much prefer the folder organisation approach. Using sample folders coupled with type/category organisation of the actual program/matrix etc files should generate a fairly easily navigated structure.
TX16Wx Software Sampler:
http://www.tx16wx.com/
http://www.tx16wx.com/
