Tascam GigaStudio to SampleTank Translation

Giga Files and Instruments have several properties which make them a little more difficult to translate into other formats.

Large Size
Although not all .gig files are large, some are. Although SampleTank can handle any size, it does so into memory, and that may not be the optimum way to handle large files. Giga files can be this large because Giga's main feature is streaming from disk, thus most libraries that are created throw looping by the wayside and simply make their Instrument large.

Translator can deal with this by truncating proportionally each sample in a Giga file, in order for it to fit in a smaller space. (This number can be changed in Options-Sample Sample Mapping.) If a loop carries over in a truncated space, the loop is turned off. Translator has a sophisticated algorithm that truncates the samples, preserving the smaller ones and placing the truncation burden on the larger ones. The algorithm also looks ahead and if any "dimensions" will be ignored, it simply deletes the samples and relieves some of the burden that way.

The A-B-C-D Parameter
Giga has the under-used "A-B-C-D" parameter - this is a function where

Typically this is a modulation parameter where parameters A through D are incrementing figures between 0 and 127.

Giga is not the only format that has this - again, Ensoniq had it in 1988, and Emu and Roland use them also.

SampleTank doesn't have this feature. This parameter is simply ignored; it's not the optimum solution, but it's the only one, since generally you don't want to ignore the sample reference.

Compression
Some Giga libraries are compressed. Translator completely supports the decompression of these waves, so this is not an issue in Translator.

Otherwise, Giga is a pretty normal format.

Since the SampleTank Instrument structure is limited as far as layers of sound go (really only one keymap, not counting discrete Velocity Splits), Translator may create more than one .sth/.sti/stw combination to recreate the sound. For example, if the Giga Instrument "BRASS" requires three keymaps, then 9 files total will be created: BRASS 1.sth/.sti/.stw, BRASS 2.sth/.sti/.stw, and BRASS 3.sth/.sti/.stw.You will need to laod these seperately into SampleTank and access each instance with the same MIDI Channel number.