Nord User Forum

[Johannes]

Dear all:

this topic is to discuss the ideas for a dedicated Nord User Sample Library, feature requests, and ongoing development.
So far, spookycookie has setup a github repository which might serve as a starting point and developers interested and agreeing on and knowledgeable about the software used are invited to contribute!
https://github.com/spookycookie27/NordPatches

See also the original thread initiated by Pablo where you can also express your support or pledge for this project!
nord-user-samples-nsmp-samples-f14/please-read-re-user-sample-library-t18593.html#p123555


Cheers
Johannes

PS Just one personal recommendation: avoid over-engineering.

[MvanD]

Hey Johannes,

1. In response to your post (on the other thread!) perhaps we can include a link back to their 'user profile 'in this forum (as a mean of giving credit to the patch author) rather than linking to the original 'post' in the form? Or we can do both?
   
2. Also I had a question about other patches (not sample=based) for Nord Lead. Electro, Stage etc in the other forum sections? I think we should include these also, maybe at a later date?
   
3. Other thoughts I had was that the library/resource should sit behind a login page, so you would need to create an account to get access to the library. Mainly because it wil stop bots from crawling the pages and potentially downloadig the files. Im expecting to host the samples in Cloud storage (Azrue Blob) and every time a file is accessed/downloaded, it will cost a small amount of money, but not alot!
   [First 50 terabyte (TB) / month £0.00074 per GB on 'cold'] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/pricing/details/storage/blobs/
   Estimated running costs for the site (if hosted in Azure cloud) would be £120 (GBP) a year for database and web app hosting, and £?? for data ingress charges from access to files/blobs. Advantages to cloud hosting are you only pay for what you need, but for a small site, its can be more expensive than traditional hosting. I will pay the costs initially out of my own pocket, but looking forward maybe each user could pay $1 a year for membership, or maybe crowd-fund the running costs of the resource. If its too expensive we can find a cheaper hosting alternative.
   
4. Who can Project-manage this? And who will get the data collected, and who can help testing while the site is under development?

[cgrafx]

I unfortunately don't have a lot of spare time at the moment, but would certainly be happy to help out with testing and initial data model suggestions if that will help.

As a possible alternative to building an entirely new user system it should be possible to leverage the Forum account info for login/credentials/etc.

[Schorsch]

Count me in for financial support, as the current sample library has saved my butt on countless occasions. Just tell me where to send the contribution and how much you're looking for (within reason!).

Thoughts on potential features (keeping in mind the comment about avoiding over-engineering)

- Searching on multiple keyword tags would be nice, e.g. "horn, trumpet, doots"

- A simple user "star" rating system (1-5) would help me in my searches.

- A quick-listen MP3 of course

- A comments section, as we have at present

- Clear acknowledgement of the sample creator/contributor (as mentioned before)

- Use the existing forum credentials for access (as mentioned before).

- Consider using the same hierarchical classification system that Nord uses for its sample library, if nothing else for consistency.

- And, of course, people who are willing to invest countless, thankless hours to bring everything up to snuff. That's going to be the hardest part I think.

[Johannes]

Hi,

very good suggestions and points, and happy to see lot of interest here!

About the 4 questions raised by spooky above:
1) I think should be easy to find a practical way there, all seem ok for me. Linking the original post would help in case a sample is used in particular patches or with other samples.
2) Agreed can be done for all instruments. Just samples are by far the biggest: But of course, would be good if it can easily be extended
Just to give you an idea, here the uploaded patch and sample numbers over 10 years(!):

Code: Select all

nsmp   1320
nspg   235
ns2p   850
nepg   9
nwp   25
nss   48
ns2s   23
nppg   0
ns2pb   46
np2pb   0
np2p   4
nl4s   29
nlas   87
nsmp3   59

3a) Hosting: I see these options, and for a project to be scalable makes sense. From my own experience the traffic and users have been virtually constant per month over the last 5+ years (around 150 GB traffic/month; storage is now at around 25GB), so a fixed solution at least for storage could also be OK, and would come for free if hosted on the NUF server. Maybe using the interface and modern software architecture you proposed. Or at least for starting point
3b) User access: granted will be challenging, but having same credentials would be nice, as raised by others.
4) Yeah that's a good question. Requires time and knowledge. I read several interested users here, but depends of course on software and language skills/preferences. For testing I think many me included would be happy to help in the development stage.
I can of course provide some of the data of this forum, but a big question is still the MP3 samples how and who to create them??

One general thought: I see two possible outcomes in the future
A) It will become a big User Nord Collection with several new uploads per week, its own simple platform, growing organically reacting to demands self organized and categorized with nice things like best patch of the month or whatnot, many things...
This would definitively require a new dynamic structure as outlined, require scalability etc.
B) Basically, a much improved and accessible collection of work contributed over the last ten years, hopefully encouraging users to contribute more but still being mostly linked to the discussions and requests and posts on this forum but with additional functionalities.

Either way have their pros and cons, and myself not yet sure what's best, but I think this hsould be clearly decided before spending significant amount of time on it.

Cheers
Johannes

[spookycookie]

All sounds good. But sharing credentials between these 2 systems will be very challenging. I expect this forum uses cookie based authentication, which wont be shared easily between different domains. But there may be workarounds.

Johannes I'll send you an email to discuss this.

[Schorsch]

With regards to MP3 creation there maybe NUF members who could create these - I would volunteer creating MP3s for samples with my NS2 and NS3 as time allows. We should just find a way to organize about who will pick which samples, should be manageable.

For credential management I think it would be affordable for each user to create an extra account for the library and maintain separate credentials for the forum and the library, up to everyone individually to keep the same for both or choose different ones. Therefore credential management between the two should be less a priority - just my 2 cents ...

[cgrafx]

All sounds good. But sharing credentials between these 2 systems will be very challenging. I expect this forum uses cookie based authentication, which wont be shared easily between different domains. But there may be workarounds.

Johannes I'll send you an email to discuss this.

Sharing credentials would not be done through cookies. The proper method is to make an API call to the user forum get user access. Users would need to log into both systems, but the account information would be maintained on the user forum.

[Spider]

Unfortunately I cannot contribute about the technical issues. I just wanted to back up cphollis suggestions about the needed features: I think what would really differentiate the new database from the present one, is a good "Search" function.
So I think it would be essential that in order to upload a sample, the user must provide not only an mp3 sample but also a category (Brass, Pad etc) and a brief description like "octave trumpet-sax section with vibrato". I think it can be done easily by simply setting those fields as "required" in the input form.
And if those fields will be searchable, it will greatly improve the usability of the database.

[spookycookie]

Unfortunately I cannot contribute about the technical issues. I just wanted to back up cphollis suggestions about the needed features: I think what would really differentiate the new database from the present one, is a good "Search" function.
So I think it would be essential that in order to upload a sample, the user must provide not only an mp3 sample but also a category (Brass, Pad etc) and a brief description like "octave trumpet-sax section with vibrato". I think it can be done easily by simply setting those fields as "required" in the input form.
And if those fields will be searchable, it will greatly improve the usability of the database.

Absolutely. I'll add a category and description for each patch. Is it safe to assume that there will only be one main category for each patch?