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>