Back in the 80's people were using the Synclavier for audio on video productions. I know they were serious beasts, but I doubt they would have kept all that data in RAM. The latter Fairlights were probably similar. Anyone have any first hand experience of them? Maybe they're the prior-art people are looking for? May be the Mellotron was implementing read-ahead too!
--- > >Halion does use the smae technology BUT steinberg have shown that they have > >been using an equivalent algorithm before the patent have actually been > >granted to Nemesys. "Where?" will you ask? Well, in cubase of course! Every > >audio sequencer I know of have to do read ahead of audio data if they want > >to be useable! > > We have a document about keeping beginnings of the audio segments > in memory for instant play in such multitrack application. > So, if that was all what was needed, we are in safe. > > But sure I would like to get more information about how Steinberg > avoided patent royalties --- just in case the situation is not that > simple! > > We should search for old manuals of jingle players. Two years ago > I checked plenty of Amiga software if there was anything, but no. > A friend wrote and installed one such jingle player using the trick > to an ice-hockey hall at 1993 (or so). Such jingle players are > not sampling synths, but they could provide docs on the trick > and on if a loops were used (one shot sampling synth is not good). > > Also, two years ago we found out that a person worked on such > disk sampler. I remember we ended up to the situation that they > never published details of this unique installation. > > In any case, preload in multitrack editor is totally different > from a disk sampler. Perhaps Steinberg had something else too. > > > Best regards, > > Juhana > >
