Puremagnetik And .exs Format?

[planetm]

I’ve searched the forum for “exs” and got no hits, so I assume this has not been answered elsewhere, sorry if I’ve missed something.

Since puremagnetik started offering their samples in .xrni format I began subscribing to them. This month I see they have dropped .xrni in favour of .exs. They state “You can open the included .exs files in Renoise, Structure, Halion, Kontakt, Mach 5,
Logic and more.”.

I’m running Renoise 2.8b7 64bit in ubuntu. When I browse to the folder containing the .exs files they are not displayed in the disk browser and are not recognised.

Is this a feature soon to be added to renoise or have I missed something obvious?

Thanks in advance

[mxb]

@planetm

I’ve searched the forum for “exs” and got no hits, so I assume this has not been answered elsewhere, sorry if I’ve missed something.

Since puremagnetik started offering their samples in .xrni format I began subscribing to them. This month I see they have dropped .xrni in favour of .exs. They state “You can open the included .exs files in Renoise, Structure, Halion, Kontakt, Mach 5,
Logic and more.”.

I’m running Renoise 2.8b7 64bit in ubuntu. When I browse to the folder containing the .exs files they are not displayed in the disk browser and are not recognised.

Is this a feature soon to be added to renoise or have I missed something obvious?

Thanks in advance

You need to install an add-on tool I wrote - Additional file format import support

Shame they are not supplying natively though as you will loose some data on importing (envelopes etc.).

[planetm]

@mxb

You need to install an add-on tool I wrote - Additional file format import support

Shame they are not supplying natively though as you will loose some data on importing (envelopes etc.).

Thanks for the response, i’d not used your tool before so thanks for that too

Lack of native support is disappointing, I’m going to mail them about it and will cancel my subs if they are not going to continue the native support.

[fladd]

Haven’t they just introduced xrni support a couple of month ago? And now they are dropping it again already?

[planetm]

@fladd

Haven’t they just introduced xrni support a couple of month ago? And now they are dropping it again already?

Yes

I mailed them, here is their response:

Thanks for your email. For the time being we have decided to limit development for Renoise’s XRNI format to provide instead our “EXS Universal” format. As a Renoise user, the process for importing instruments is just as straightforward plus there are some advantages:

• You have direct access to the original .wav files for use in any other audio host
• There are no longer duplicate samples among presets as the exs files reference the same sample content
• The sample content has all of the loop and keymapping metadata already programmed (so you can import individual samples instead of the entire instrument)

I understand that the lack of of some parameter importing can be a problem. We are working with the File Format Tool developer to make the import process as seamless as possible. In the end, it is fairly straightforward to tweak the files individually as (based on our research) we see that most Renoise users are not hesitant to get into the guts of the instruments. If you are concerned about futureproof(ness) then it shouldn’t be a problem as Renoise will natively save any instanced instruments from your session in XRNI format.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments as we are curious to hear your feedback about this switch.

The two issues for me remain that this format is only supported by a third-party tool in renoise (which I thank the developer mxb for), therefore nobody can necessarily guarantee .EXS support in future renoise releases. Secondly, that we lose envelopes when importing the .EXS. It is true that I can add my own envelope and save the exs instrument back out as a .xrni, but this is part of what I’m paying somebody else to do.

I’m guessing that there has not been that much support for the .xrni format, and that is the reason for the change. If, like me, you’re disappointed by the change then write to them, they are “curious to hear your feedback”

[kazakore]

@planetm

Secondly, that we lose envelopes when importing the .EXS. It is true that I can add my own envelope and save the exs instrument back out as a .xrni, but this is part of what I’m paying somebody else to do.

I don’t know the exs standard but until Renoise supports envelopes per sample, rather than only one per instrument (on or off per sample) as is currently possible importing envelopes is always going to be an issue!

[rileylynx (FluffyLynx)]

The PureMagnetix .exs files still have some major problems. Using the import tool I have to tell it where the samples are located every time I want to load a new one.

Looks like that might be puremagnetix’s fault too. Opening the .exs files in a text editor it’s mostly unredable, but there’s strings like “dr_floyd:Users:Higgins:Desktop:EXS Universals:GuitarMachine_EXS_Universal:GuitarMachine Samples” Which looks like a Windows 7 folder structure on someone elses’s computer, probably the PureMagnetix employee who created it. Surely that path should be relative to the .exs folder location? Seems to me that these files are just “broken”

Mxb’s conversion tool is awesome, it’s been a great help to me in the past, but PureMagnetix is dead wrong if they think it’s up to the task for the files they’ve released.

Only reasion I’m not immediately canceling my PureMagnetix subscription is the latest sound pack was one I really like but if PureMagnetix don’t improve things by the next pack I will.