NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

       gig2stereo [ OPTIONS ] FILE_OR_DIR1 [ FILE_OR_DIR2 ... ]

DESCRIPTION

       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.

OPTIONS

        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).

SEE ALSO

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

BUGS

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

Author

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