EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

From: "Herbert Boland" <yahoo@...>

>A lot of the larger libraries are rather unconvincing due to
>problems in the dynamic range (pp, p and mp playing) and timbre,
>especially in mid frequencies, where the human ear is very unforgiving.

I agree that the mids, particularly the upper mids, are where sampled 
pianos are easy to identify. They all have a thin, brittle sound that 
gives them away. The Post B\ufffdsendorfer Grandioso has less of that than 
any other piano I've tried (and I certainly haven't tried very many 
of them, including the White Grand, so take me with a whole block of 
salt), but it still has a little.

But - if we're even describing the same thing - I'm not 100% 
convinced that the problem has to do with either dynamics or timbre. 
It's very hard to nail down, but there's something else going on. I'm 
not sure if it's the attack, missing sympathetic resonances, or what, 
but it's very obvious. And I'm convinced that it's not an obvious 
recording issue, like the mic being too close or something silly like 
that.

>And do we really need 16 velocities per note in the lows and highs, I'm
>asking in a pseudo rhetoric way? The less samples, the less problems...

I don't know which direction your rhetoric is leading, but I think 
it's the opposite: the fewer samples, the more problems. Piano is 
such a complicated instrument that the more nuance you can 
capture/program in, the closer you're going to get to the effect of a 
real piano - regardless of which range you're talking about.

-- 

Nick Batzdorf
818/905-9101, cell 590-9101, fax 905-5434