Only until a few years ago, the use of virtual instruments was an economic and less valuable alternative to the use, in the production phase, of real instruments. Today it is not only the preferred route of almost all the major manufacturers but, thanks to the extremely high performance processing capabilities of the new processors and the stability of drivers and operating systems, it has become a valid alternative (indeed often a qualitative choice) even in Live contexts. , where the problems of latency and the fear of system crashes prevented its spread in the professional field.
I Virtual Instruments are increasingly present in musicians' setups, which is why plugin development has become a business on which large international groups have firmly focused: Native instruments, IK Multimedia, East West, UVI, VSL, to mention the best known, they have created real operating environments where it is possible to install hundreds of libraries and stay constantly updated with new sounds or with increasingly faithful emulations of acoustic or electric instruments, vintage or with not too remote past. The market for libraries for Kontakt, for example, is particularly flourishing, which is why many third-party manufacturers are investing resources to develop increasingly strong skills in the creation of libraries for this widespread environment, fully exploiting the potential and flexibility offered by e -commerce.
So what do you need to not miss this new business opportunity?
We ask Francesco Sabati, composer and software developer who, after having gained various experiences in various recording studios and having deepened methods of audio acquisition and sampling, decided to combine computer knowledge with musical ones becoming producer e scripter at the 'Evolution Series and the startup Composers Tools.
A.campeglia: Hi Francesco, what are the main activities of a scripter?
F. Sabatini: In most conditions the scripter takes care not only of writing the source code but also of the Programming, that is, the preparation of the project from the point of view of functionality and design of a layout that is as user-friendly as possible.
AC: How do you organize your work?
FS: I like to prepare everything on illustrator, draw the patch through lines and text
that lead me to a defined flow chart. Only after I begin to write the code and if necessary I make changes, which most of the time are minimal compared to the original plan.
AC: What are the main difficulties?
FS: When you create a software intended for a creative purpose you have to treat it with great respect, as in one way or another you will affect the user's workflow. The most complex thing is to remain in the context of simplicity, but giving innovative ideas that are easy to integrate with the tools already available. An example can be a percussion patch with a midi player: this function allows you to get rhythm sections very quickly but often in Kontakt it is very limited in the manipulation of the grooves ... a creative solution that meets the user is to insert a drag & drop to allow him to export the desired fill on the fly, and edit it in his sequencer.
AC: What is your favorite working editor and why?
FS: I prefer Xcode, compared to the vast majority of my colleagues who use SubMlimetext. I prefer it for the way it manages the files, the project and the possibility of integrating other languages to create tools; often having everything in the same environment is comfortable. Nonetheless Sublime is a great editor that also includes a sdk for Kontakt, with many cool features. De gustobus.
AC: How important is the knowledge of music and audio related activities?
FS: It's fundamental: you can't innovate something if you don't understand it. Drawing inspiration from your own musical needs, and those of those around you, is the key to creating something useful. Understanding harmony, knowing the instruments and having notions of sound technique and physics are huge pluses for a scripter.
AC: What determines if one script is qualitatively more functional than another?
FS: The workload that weighs on the cpu must always be kept under control, and optimization is the key. I've seen scripts of a few lines do everything possible in Kontakt, others of 300.000 do nothing but burden the performance.
AC: Where is the world of Kontakt heading?
FS: The more we go on the more the framework proposed by Native instruments is innovating: the next step I hope is the insertion of an editor for the internal effects, in order to give everyone the possibility to program their own DSP.
AC: What do you think the Kontakt Framework is currently missing?
FS: Apart from dsp scripting? Well it is possible to improve, and a lot, the Guilding gui, which is still too limited in creating innovative interfaces, unlike other frameworks such as Juce, eg.
AC: How do you determine the pay, based on the commission or other parameters?
FS: It depends on the "size" of the customer: it must always be considered if there is the possibility of a share and therefore to earn from sales. For small assignments or interventions, the market price varies on average between 200 and 3000 euro.
AC: What do you think of distributors like VstBuzz or KontaktHub?
FS.: Excellent for those who want to relaunch a product or enrich their own mailing list, but the percentages they receive for their services go up to 45 % of the sale; Consequently, this type of distribution must always be carefully evaluated, as in the long term it greatly shortens the commercial life of a library.
AC: What were the experiences that most characterized your development process?
FS: Working is a different experience every day, but for sure my first “true-legate” project was the most formative. Understanding how the software had to make the samples pass required a careful analysis of how the instrumentalist adapts to the many situations that can arise during a performance.
AC: Big projects or quick jobs? What makes the most and what do they involve?
FS: Big jobs take a lot of time and usually you have to wait to see the economic returns, if we compare them to the amount of work done in advance, however in my opinion they are the ones to focus on, since they usually have a longer life long compared to hit and run, which at any moment could end up generating periods of "lean".
AC: Do you have something cooking?
FS: Yes, I have many products in the pipeline withEvolution Series and a brand in collaboration with them that I hope to launch soon. Composers Tools, on the other hand, will soon launch a collection of antique instruments, and is planning a community project to include external sound designers in their productions.
AC: How do you find a commission?
FS: If no one commissions me for anything, I become a client of myself, I create something to submit or sell in person. But if you need a commission this is the place You Control, the forum par excellence for those who use software instruments.
AC: What advice would you give to those who start or intend to start?
FS: Starting with understanding the framework before launching into the code, and studying the listeners, which is one of the callback most useful for most sequencer operations ↔ Kontakt. Above all, I would recommend not to lose objectivity: development is a working environment that allows many outlets, as well as giving great satisfaction when users are happy with what you have made available to them to create.
AC: What are the basic knowledge requirements to decide to undertake this activity?
FS: A good IT foundation is essential, I would recommend an approach to C or even al Basic, just to understand what it means to create a code. Understanding musical technologies is equally important, without it you risk not having the slightest knowledge of what the customer wants when he asks "Please, can you manage the routing in order to synthesize the effects chain with four or five buses? ”. Everything else is a plus, but I highly recommend studying an orchestration manual such as theEagle, which gives many insights into the possibilities of the instrumentalists and the limits of the instruments.
Stand by Tune
