Tascam GigaStudio 3

Seven years is a very long time in the technology business. Back in 1997, a revolutionary product called GigaSampler changed the way musicians thought about samplers. Up to that point, standalone samplers with limited memory and tiny LED screens had walked the earth as giants. GigaSampler was different. A software application that piggybacked onto a PC operating system, it was the first sampler to feature streaming audio. Instead of loading an entire sound file into memory, GS loaded the attack of a sample into RAM and streamed the remainder from a hard drive. The result? Longer, more realistic sounds, like the grand piano from Nemesys (which engineered and marketed GS), became the rage.

Via the DSP Station, users can add effects and plug-ins vis Inserts or Aux busses. The software also allows both NFX and VST plug-ins.

Eventually there came the lawsuits, and when the courts determined that streaming was not the intellectual property of Nemesys, other soft samplers utilized the thinking behind GigaSampler. But GS had been branded as the innovator, and it continued to thrive as the platform of choice for many musicians. When Tascam acquired GS in 2001, there were rumors that the company planned on releasing a hardware version of the product. Instead, Tascam released version 2.2 of the software at that time. A significant product overhaul, GigaStudio 3 is the subject of this review.

Ironically, the failure of one of the basic notions propagated by GS enthusiasts — salespeople in particular — helped usher in the age of networked, multi-computer studios. We are just now reaching the point where GS can run in conjunction with a software digital audio workstation on a single computer. Most prior attempts at this were highly problematic. Rather than give up on the idea of streaming technology, however, composers — including Mac owners who had been loathe to consider the PC — began integrating into their studios one or more computers dedicated to GigaSampler.

As we will see, GS3, beginning with its ability to play back 24-bit samples, represents a major advance in the development of this application. But its new feature set also raises some pointed questions. What exactly is GS3, and how will it fit most logically into your studio?

For starters, there are three versions of the product. I reviewed Orchestra (MSRP $599), the full-blown application. Also available are Ensemble ($369) and Solo ($199). As you would expect, these last two offer attenuated feature sets. A fourth version, GigaStudio (LE), is also available. A comparison of all four can be found at Tascam's tascamgiga.com link, along with an easy-to-follow demo that covers GS3's main features.

Installing GS3 is simple. The only glitch I discovered occurred during online registration. I filled out all of the mandatory fields but left blank several that were optional. ACCESS DENIED! Well, that's not exactly what the next screen said, but I was told that the registration could not be completed. Eventually I determined that I had been asked to fill out the non-essential data, and when I did, the registration process completed successfully.

In the interest of saving space, I'll skip over the remainder of the installation steps. Suffice it to say that GS3 will recognize your sound card (provided that its drivers are compatible with the app, which most are these days). I have a Hammerfall 9652 installed on my 2.4GHz machine. This card has MIDI connections, and the communication between GS3 and my Macintosh G4, running Digital Performer 4.0, was instantaneous.

GS3 has many elements, which makes screen management that much more critical — particularly if you're running the application on a single 15in. monitor. Fortunately, easy toggling has always been a positive aspect of GS. For example, it's easy to browse through your hard drives using the QuickSearch function. When you've loaded all the samples you require, you simply remove the drives and all associated files from view. One of the nice new features, QuickAudition, is also one the simplest. In the past, you had to load a sound onto a MIDI channel, which was fine if you knew what you were looking for, but a pain in the neck if you didn't. QuickAudition lets you listen to a sample before loading it into memory.

As in previous iterations, the MIDI Mixer occupies most of the main screen's real estate. GS3 gives you the possibility of up to eight MIDI ports, with access to a total of 128 MIDI channels (8×16 channels per port). Although I've never loaded more than 16 channels of MIDI instruments (one port) into my PC, larger systems can accommodate more of them.

Onscreen keyboards are available in several GS3 views, including the MIDI Mixer. You can, of course, access the sounds you load via your main keyboard controller. But there will also be times, particularly when you're using all of the new GS3 editing and sound manipulation features, when it's easier to use an onscreen keyboard in conjunction with a mouse.

Each MIDI mixer channel has Mute, Solo, QuickEdit, and FX buttons. The first two functions are obvious, and the FX button lights up when you've loaded an instrument with an embedded effect like GigaPulse (more on this a little later). Pressing the FX button allows you access to the controls of the embedded effect. But what is QuickEdit?

GigaStudio 3 includes GigaPiano II, an upgrade to GP1 that includes Perspective, which allows control of mic placement on the virtual piano''s soundboard.

A new feature set that truly rocks, QuickEdit puts a host of sound-shaping tools into your hands on a per-channel basis, including three envelope generators, Filter, and LFO sections. With high-quality libraries now the norm, you might reasonably ask whether filtering is a necessary component of a modern sampler these days. The answer is yes. Even with the best samples, there will be times when you want to shape the sound. A piccolo playing a forte line in its upper register, for example, might sound overly bright or even harsh. Rolling off some of the top end will help it sit better in a mix. Sound designers in particular will take advantage of the Filter section. It's easy to create variations on a sound, save them individually, and save them within a performance file. The only drawback to QuickEdit is that GS3 currently offers no Undo function, but Tascam says that this limitation will be eliminated in a soon-to-come upgrade.

Stack Mode is another no-brainer that's now included in GigaStudio. In earlier versions, if you wanted two or more sounds to play the same part, you had to load them onto separate MIDI channels and copy your performance onto multiple channels in your sequencer. Stack Mode lets you load different sounds into a single MIDI channel while preserving the integrity of each one. You can pan sounds, process them independently, and still have them respond to MIDI data being received from a single source. At this time you can't name Stacked Instruments, but Tascam says that this limitation will also be lifted in the near future.

Earlier versions of GS included the DSP Station, but the advancement of this function is significant. When you click the DSP Station icon on the Menu bar, a new view, which resembles a traditional mixer, appears. (By the way, the color scheme of GS3, which features a cobalt blue background instead of the rather sickly green tone of the past, is much more pleasing to the eye.) Clicking on the arrow on the righthand side of a stereo pair explodes the DSP Station into view.

Very good, you say, but what exactly is the DSP Station? As in earlier versions, the DSP Station is a portion of GS where you can add effects via Inserts or Aux busses, but now the software lets you access any VST plug-ins that you might own in addition to the NFX plug-ins that ship with GS3. I loaded up a gorgeous cello section from the Vienna Symphony Library and dropped Steinberg's Warp plug-in as an insert. Warp does a good job of emulating an old fuzz tone box, and after eq'ing the cellos (four bands of equalization per DSP Station channel are a new feature), I was able to get a very fat and convincing Clapton-esque guitar sound going. The Dynamics portion of the DSP Station is also quite good — a compressor always comes in handy!

Speaking of the VSL, Tascam has reached an agreement with the makers of this primo collection of samples that lets the company integrate most of the former's Performance Tool functionality into GS3. Round-robin, for example, can help you create realistic orchestral performances whenever you're using a library that includes multiple attacks — staccato and legato, for example, for each note. Using round-robin you can choose the order of these attacks so that they match your MIDI performance. Time consuming, yes, but you may well find the results worth the effort.

Many sound developers — including Sonic Implants, whose products are stellar — are pouncing on the new features available in GS3, says Al Joelson, SI's director of sales and marketing. “There was no hesitation in Sonic Implants' decision to program native versions of our Symphonic Series Libraries for GigaStudio 3,” Joelsen says. “We are embracing many of the new facets that GS3 has to offer in our libraries. The realism of round-robin programming, iMidi articulation control, and the environmental flexibility afforded by GigaPulse allows Sonic Implants to create sample libraries that bring new levels of flexibility, power, and beauty to composers and performers.”

In addition to the garden-variety effects that were included in earlier versions of GS (reverb, chorus, delay), GS3 includes Tascam's highly publicized new convolution, GigaPulse Pro reverb. Available as an Orchestra plug-in, GigaPulse will play back only on instruments that have it built in if you're using Ensemble or Solo. Convolution is a technique that lets you sample an environment (the Grand Canyon, let's say) and apply its unique characteristics to any other sound. Impossible? Not at all. A brief, clearly defined signal — a gunshot, perhaps — is used. This impulse is then edited out of the picture, leaving nothing but the space itself.

Standalone convolution reverbs, including those built by Sony and Yamaha, cost many thousands of dollars. A lot of horsepower is required, and as a result plug-in convolution reverbs, like the highly acclaimed AltiVerb, have essentially demanded a dedicated computer to operate effectively. Some sacrifices were clearly in order if GigaPulse were to do its thing inside GS3, especially since the app was designed to run alongside a software DAW on a single computer via ReWire. The most obvious of the limitations is the 3-second maximum tail on all reverbs. (Tascam says the tail time will be extended in an upcoming update.) To simulate longer reverb, GigaPulse analyzes the tail of the impulse and replicates it with an algorithm. GigaPulse has some excellent presets. Depending on the strength of your computer's CPU, you may get a lot of mileage out of it. And GigaPulse has full surround implementation, so you can trickify the ear in some fun ways.

GigaPiano II is also included in GS3. Although the original piano was highly heralded, I found its attack harsh and cold. True, capturing the great black and white remains the Holy Grail of sampling, and GigaPiano II is an improvement over the original, but there are other pianos that are more appealing to me. (Steinberg's The Grand, for one, which some people find too muted, but I like a lot.) In fairness, the GS3 manual points out that my CPU falls below the acceptable threshold (2.8GHz) for playback of the full version, and so I worked with GigaPiano II Lite. Maybe that's a factor. Either way, Tascam has built some great features into the piano, including something called Perspective, that lets you (in essence) alter the placement of the microphones on the soundboard. Very cool!

One of the least-used features of GigaStudio has always been the Instrument Editor, and I have a feeling that this trend will continue with GS3. The editor, while extremely powerful, can be a bit unwelcoming, and the trend today is for library builders to put all the expressive tools you'll need at your fingertips. Gone are the days when flute samples came in different dynamics, and it was up to the user to create a multi-sampled, velocity-sensitive instrument. Still, adventurous sound designers in particular will want to check out the Editor.

At the end of the day, what is GS3, and how will it be put to use most effectively in your studio? Many processing and mixing features you'd expect to find in a DAW are now included in GS3. But if you'll be porting your tracks out to a hardware or software mixer where they can be processed alongside your non-GS3 tracks, do you really need all of these capabilities? Something tells me that the Tascam engineering department might be planning on turning GS3 into a full-blown DAW with MIDI sequencing. In fact, many people wondered if this version of the software would indeed break out in this fashion.

These days, recording and mixing has become more of an a la carte affair, with each composer and sound designer developing a toolset that suits his or her manner of working. Whether you want to take advantage of all of the sound-shaping tools GS3 has to offer, or simply use the app as a straight-ahead sampler and output all of the audio to another platform to mix, there is no question that GS3 is a major advancement on a product that was already at the top of its class.