EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

The White Grand gets a great review in SOS, glad we just released it in
EXS24 format.!
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may04/articles/sampleshop.htm?
 
Worra
SampleTekk

Per Larsson [mailto:per@...] 
>The White Grand gets a great review in SOS, ..

Hi, did you only record to get it "bold" and "assertive"? Or are there
more mic-ing positions used that render a more mellow, introvert,
ambient sound, usable for classical pieces? 
It seems you did a great job in getting the dynamics right. I would be
interested in a Black Grand ;-) I need it for film scoring amongst
others. 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.
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... 

Cheers,

Herbert Boland  
(who will never turn his back on his trusty Yamaha p80)

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

>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...

Nick Batzdorf [mailto:recording@...] :
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, Maybe I should elaborate. I tried two or three of the well known
libraries, I have Gigapiano, some Akai piano stuff and Garritan Personal
Orchestra which has a Steinway 280 (?) thrown in, too. I own a Steinway
myself and I love this thing, even when it is permanent out of tune. For
this reason I like to have a very accurate sampled piano. 
What I discovered in a lot of the libraries, which has put me off, is
this. You hear the same samples over and over again! If there is
something ill-programmed dynamic-wise or the transients are a little
pronounced the ear can distinguish the separate recordings. For this
reason I said: maybe they should cut down on the number of samples and
concentrate on the samples left that they fit in extremely well (no
sudden jumps in timbre or perceived dynamic). But of course I know this
is contradictory to the wish to add nuance, especially in the upper mid
range (around and above C3) and middle dynamics (mp - F).
Apart from that, some sampled piano's show a larger dynamic range than
the real thing. If I press a piano key very soft, there is still a
reasonable sound. Not on some sampled piano's, there you have a sort of
whispering sound! 
Why do sampled instruments sound artificial in general? The ear
subconsciously detects that something is wrong when individual notes
sound 100% identical, which is impossible in nature. Unfortunately this
still is the case (although to a lesser extent) with a lot of layering
and samples per note, or 24 bits 192 kHz recordings. Maybe they should
invent a mechanism that alters the attack/transients randomly on every
note.

Herbert Boland
herbert@...
www.zepmusic.com

> Why do sampled instruments sound artificial in general? The ear
> subconsciously detects that something is wrong when individual notes
> sound 100% identical, which is impossible in nature. Unfortunately this
> still is the case (although to a lesser extent) with a lot of layering
> and samples per note, or 24 bits 192 kHz recordings. Maybe they should
> invent a mechanism that alters the attack/transients randomly on every
> note.
> 
> Herbert Boland
> herbert@z...
> www.zepmusic.com

Hi,
Pluggo's plug-in pack has (at least had) something called "Randomizer", which affects 
random user-limited data to other plug-ins' parameters (chosen by the user).
I've found it to be useful for sampling instruments in general, as there is alot of 
randomness in real instrumental playing ; in general I think too much attention is 
given in sample packages to the quality of the samples themselves, and not enough 
to the simulation of the playing of the instrument - which is what makes it sound 
realistic (and interesting for that matter) - as everyone knows, you can have really 
crappy sounding music with excellent samples.
Anyway the Pluggo pack is well worth the money.
Rob

Hi Herbert,

At 10:32 AM +0200 4/21/04, Herbert Boland wrote:

>I should elaborate. I tried two or three of the well known
>libraries, I have Gigapiano, some Akai piano stuff and Garritan Personal
>Orchestra which has a Steinway 280 (?) thrown in, too.

Have you tried East - West Ultimate Piano Collection? Works 
reasonably well for me (used with my Akai machines, so not sure if it 
translates well to EXS). Also, I had played piano for quarter century 
before I switched to electronic music, and I have totally given up 
the idea of playing, say, Chopin on a sampler, even with the best of 
the best sample library, cause it will never sound as good as the 
real thing no matter how much RAM or how many velocity layers or 
whatever else it may use, so I only use it when it's just an addition 
to my electronic textures and the quality is not that critical. Just 
my $0.02.

Best,

Andy

robgehrke [mailto:robgehrke@...] 
>in general I think too much attention is 
>given in sample packages to the quality of 
>the samples themselves, and not enough 
>to the simulation of the playing of the instrument 
>- which is what makes it sound realistic 
>(and interesting for that matter) 

Exactly my point! Thanks for rephrasing that message. 

Herbert Boland
herbert@...
www.zepmusic.com

Andy Hardwake [mailto:digitalmechanics@...] 
>Also, I had played piano for quarter century 
>before I switched to electronic music, and I have totally given up 
>the idea of playing, say, Chopin on a sampler, even with the best of 
>the best sample library, cause it will never sound as good as the 
>real thing no matter how much RAM or how many velocity layers or 
>whatever else it may use, 

I still have hope :-) but I think the solution will be brought by some
plug, like Virtual Guitarist, clever programming with synthesis and
samples, some randomizing, all in one black box. They need to
incorporate things like half sustain/damper techniques (a la Bartok),
una corda and sostenuto pedal.  Then we may start to think about playing
the proper piano repertoire.

Herbert Boland
herbert@...
www.zepmusic.com

Have you ever tried to record a real piano or a grand. In many cases they can sound artificial too, which they of course aren´t. It has a lot to do with how you perceive the sound of a piano when played acoustically, pretty much like drums. The room has a lot to do with this and therefore also ambiance mikes. Because most pianos are sampled pretty close-miked this is something that you will have to add yourself either by reverb or by sending the sampled piano thru some speakers in a decent room and re-record the part with microphones. I once heard a piece of music that was recorded on a real piano, then the piano was sampled with mayby 4-5 layers and the part was recorded again this time with midi and nobody was able to tell which was which. I´m sure this is also the case with a lot of the 2GB pianos around you just have to add environment and early reflections yourself.

Henrik Krogh
henrikkrogh@...

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Andy Hardwake 
  To: exs-users@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 1:14 PM
  Subject: Re: [EXS] Sampled piano's in general - Was: White Grand gets reviewed in SOS


  Hi Herbert,

  At 10:32 AM +0200 4/21/04, Herbert Boland wrote:

  >I should elaborate. I tried two or three of the well known
  >libraries, I have Gigapiano, some Akai piano stuff and Garritan Personal
  >Orchestra which has a Steinway 280 (?) thrown in, too.

  Have you tried East - West Ultimate Piano Collection? Works 
  reasonably well for me (used with my Akai machines, so not sure if it 
  translates well to EXS). Also, I had played piano for quarter century 
  before I switched to electronic music, and I have totally given up 
  the idea of playing, say, Chopin on a sampler, even with the best of 
  the best sample library, cause it will never sound as good as the 
  real thing no matter how much RAM or how many velocity layers or 
  whatever else it may use, so I only use it when it's just an addition 
  to my electronic textures and the quality is not that critical. Just 
  my $0.02.

  Best,

  Andy


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>At 1:49 PM +0200 4/21/04, Herbert Boland wrote:

>They need to
>incorporate things like half sustain/damper techniques (a la Bartok),
una corda and sostenuto pedal.

And then *all* keyboard and sample library manufacturers must support 
this feature in (at least) one of their products. My Korg virtual 
piano has 2 controllers on a damper pedal (half and full way) and 
none of the other equipment/software/libraries I know support the 
feature. Same about the sostenuto switch on my Akai machine. OTOH, 
the same Korg virtual piano does *not* support release velocity, a 
major bummer for people like myself who are used to controlling their 
performance with all these techniques. I guess some standards must be 
developed in MIDI before all of this can work as expected.

Best,

Andy
--

Andy Hardwake [mailto:digitalmechanics@...] :
> My Korg virtual piano has 2 controllers on a damper pedal 
(half and full way) and 

Sorry, a little OT, but which instrument are you referring to?



Herbert Boland
herbert@...
www.zepmusic.com

Hi Henrik,

At 1:50 PM +0200 4/21/04, HKC wrote:

I once heard a piece of music that was recorded on a real piano, then 
the piano was sampled with mayby 4-5 layers and the part was recorded 
again this time with midi and nobody was able to tell which was which.

That's very interesting. Does that recording still exist? I'd really 
love to hear it myself if possible.

Best,

Andy
--

At 2:28 PM +0200 4/21/04, Herbert Boland wrote:
>
>Sorry, a little OT, but which instrument are you referring to?

Just about all of their weighted keys: korg SG-ProX, Korg 
SP-200/300/whatever with their DS-1H (the letter H indicates the 
feature is there) pedal, check their site.

Best,

Andy
--

When it comes to pianos, I'm not even halfway someone who knows anything,
but IMHO there's one very critical thing that you will perhaps never get out
of a sampled piano library.
The whole piano itself will resonate, no matter which piano it is, no matter
which note you will play. Of course, these resonating things (be it the
metal frame or the wood) might get recorded along with the samples as well,
but obviously that's not the same. It might work for one note, but just
imagine what would happen if you'd play a bunch of notes - on a real piano
the resonating sounds won't exactly add to each other, they would eventually
(no, most likely) influence each other, due to their overtone structures and
the way the frame, wood and so on would react to this.
The whole thing must even become worse as soon as the sustain pedal is used.
Obviously, a whole lot more strings (maybe even all) will ring along in one
way or the other.
IMO you can't recreate such things with samples too well - but they might be
a pretty much important part of piano sounds in general.

I don't remember whom it was, but when people were trying to get a real
"boomy" guitar sound, they tried placing their amp pretty close to a grand
with the sustain pedal pressed, just to have all those notes ringing along -
now, try this with a sampled piano ;o)
Of course I'm not 100% serious on this, but if you think about it, this is a
pretty much important part of a piano sound as well.

Anyways, for my needs the (free) PSP piano verb does a nice job in adding at
least a bit of the occasional odd overtone. But well, I don't own any
expensive piano library either, so this might not be a real option for the
true piano afficionados among you.

Regards,
Sascha

At 05:43 AM 4/21/04 -0700, you wrote:
>At 2:28 PM +0200 4/21/04, Herbert Boland wrote:
> >
> >Sorry, a little OT, but which instrument are you referring to?
>
>Just about all of their weighted keys: korg SG-ProX, Korg
>SP-200/300/whatever with their DS-1H (the letter H indicates the
>feature is there) pedal, check their site.

The SG-ProX and variants were always the best in their time, along with the 
classic Kurzweil piano. I have a real nice sample in Ensoniq format of it.

Garth Hjelte
Sampler User

This is true for just about *any* string instrument. Is there anyone 
from VSL out there on this list? I'm really curious to know how you 
guys at VSL deal with this issue. Do you see any solution/workaround? 
Thanks in advance for any comments and I hope I'm not asking for any 
of your trade secrets.

Best,

Andy

>At 3:10 PM +0200 4/21/04, Sascha Franck wrote:

>there's one very critical thing that you will perhaps never get out
>of a sampled piano library.
>The whole piano itself will resonate, no matter which piano it is, no matter
>which note you will play. Of course, these resonating things (be it the
>metal frame or the wood) might get recorded along with the samples as well,
>but obviously that's not the same. It might work for one note, but just
>imagine what would happen if you'd play a bunch of notes - on a real piano
>the resonating sounds won't exactly add to each other, they would eventually
>(no, most likely) influence each other, due to their overtone structures and
>the way the frame, wood and so on would react to this.
>The whole thing must even become worse as soon as the sustain pedal is used.
>Obviously, a whole lot more strings (maybe even all) will ring along in one
>way or the other.
>IMO you can't recreate such things with samples too well - but they might be
>a pretty much important part of piano sounds in general.
>
>I don't remember whom it was, but when people were trying to get a real
>"boomy" guitar sound, they tried placing their amp pretty close to a grand
>with the sustain pedal pressed, just to have all those notes ringing along -
>now, try this with a sampled piano ;o)
>Of course I'm not 100% serious on this, but if you think about it, this is a
pretty much important part of a piano sound as well.
--

No sampled piano sounds like a real piano, just because no monitor can
reproduce the sound of the real instrument.
It is the same with all complex instruments like guitars, strings and so on.

The real question is : do you consider a sampled instrument as if it was the
real instrument, or another instrument, with its sound, and creative spirit.

Most sampled sounds are made by engineer that are trying to be the closest
to the real instrument.
Most instruments are played by musicians that want to get inspired.

Who cares about having a real steinway in a computer? If you are a
professionnal musician, you can made your demo on a sampled instrument and
then rent the real one for the final stage. It is by far the best solution!

Sampling should be considered as a new way to create interesting new
material, instead of that we all have the phantasm to get the real
instrument. Most of the time the name of the real instrument is just used as
a marketing value to sell more.

Nikko
http://www.gigfiles.com
http://www.dadev.com



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sascha Franck" <S.Franck@...>
To: <exs-users@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 3:10 PM
Subject: Re: [EXS] Sampled piano's in general - Was: White Grand gets
reviewed in SOS


> When it comes to pianos, I'm not even halfway someone who knows anything,
> but IMHO there's one very critical thing that you will perhaps never get
out
> of a sampled piano library.
> The whole piano itself will resonate, no matter which piano it is, no
matter
> which note you will play. Of course, these resonating things (be it the
> metal frame or the wood) might get recorded along with the samples as
well,
> but obviously that's not the same. It might work for one note, but just
> imagine what would happen if you'd play a bunch of notes - on a real piano
> the resonating sounds won't exactly add to each other, they would
eventually
> (no, most likely) influence each other, due to their overtone structures
and
> the way the frame, wood and so on would react to this.
> The whole thing must even become worse as soon as the sustain pedal is
used.
> Obviously, a whole lot more strings (maybe even all) will ring along in
one
> way or the other.
> IMO you can't recreate such things with samples too well - but they might
be
> a pretty much important part of piano sounds in general.
>
> I don't remember whom it was, but when people were trying to get a real
> "boomy" guitar sound, they tried placing their amp pretty close to a grand
> with the sustain pedal pressed, just to have all those notes ringing
along -
> now, try this with a sampled piano ;o)
> Of course I'm not 100% serious on this, but if you think about it, this is
a
> pretty much important part of a piano sound as well.
>
> Anyways, for my needs the (free) PSP piano verb does a nice job in adding
at

> least a bit of the occasional odd overtone. But well, I don't own any
> expensive piano library either, so this might not be a real option for the
> true piano afficionados among you.
>
> Regards,
> Sascha
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
>                           EXS* Users Group
> - To UNSUBSCRIBE: email exs-users-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> - EXS/Logic FAQ: http://logicfaq.omega-art.com/
> - Free legal samples: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exs-users/links/
> - To contact list admins, email exs-users-owner@yahoogroups.com
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

Herbert Bolandf wrote:

>
> Why do sampled instruments sound artificial in general? The ear
> subconsciously detects that something is wrong when individual notes
> sound 100% identical, which is impossible in nature. Unfortunately this
> still is the case (although to a lesser extent) with a lot of layering
> and samples per note, or 24 bits 192 kHz recordings. Maybe they should
> invent a mechanism that alters the attack/transients randomly on every
> note.


This is a limitation of the velocity switching model which EXS24 and its
competitors employ.

Take a look at Drumkit From Hell Superior - just released by Toontrack of
Sweden. It has 35 GB of samples on 9 DVDs and its own very sophisticated sample
engine. To get around this repetition of attacks problem it works like this:
for a give drum hit (eg stick on snare): rather than a simple velocity switched
set of 16 or 32 samples  it divides the velocity range into three parts -- 
Soft, Gradient and Hard. 

A whole set of say 10 samples are recorded for each of these groups. When you
play in the soft range - say a press roll and you have dozens of low velocity
hits in rapid succession , there is a randomising function which ensures that
the same sample is never repeated twice in succession and over the course of
the roll the set of ten soft samples will be cycled through at random. Same
with the hard hits. With a smart enough engine and enough samples and disk
space the repeated sample problem can be banished.

I think you still end up with the problem that 30 hits in a row on a ringing
ride cymbal is not quite the same as 30 ride samples overlapping each other.
This is related to some degree to the summing of piano resonances that has been
spoken about in this thread.

I suspect that the evolution of samplers has a long way to go yet.

Regards,
Murray

>No sampled piano sounds like a real piano, just because no monitor can
>reproduce the sound of the real instrument.
>It is the same with all complex instruments like guitars, strings and so
>on.

Interesting thoughts! 
First of all, let me state the following: A real instrument is one
thing, a sampled is something else.
You can never, in a sampled instrument, fully emulate all the nuances
and timbre that you have in a real instrument.
Does this always make a real instrument a better choice than the sampled
version? I would say no.
Recording projects today are always on a more or less tight budget.
Sure, there are some that have more time and money to spend then others,
but I would say that in 99% of all recording projects your on both a
tight budget and have limited time before your product should be ready.
If you take the case of a piano, sometimes it’s a better choice to use a
good sampled piano then a real one since you doesn’t need to bring in a
tuner for the whole set since a sampled version doesn’t go out of tune,
and you don’t need to use valuable studio time to mike up the piano.
Also, not all studios has a good grand piano standing around.
You just load it and off you go! Instead of 3-4 hours you’re down to 10
minutes.
If we are talking about strings and brass, the cost and time gets even
bigger.
With the quality of today’s sampled instrument you can make a pretty
impressing mock-up of the real thing, at the fraction of the cost that
you would get if using the real stuff. Granted, it all depends on the
type of music you record how close to the real thing you get.
 
Worra
www.sampletekk.com

Murray McDowall [mailto:murraymc@...] :
>Take a look at Drumkit From Hell Superior - just 
>released by Toontrack of Sweden. It has 35 GB of 
>samples on 9 DVDs and its own very sophisticated 
>sample engine. To get around this repetition 
>of attacks problem it works like this: 
>for a give drum hit (eg stick on snare): 
>rather than a simple velocity switched set 
>of 16 or 32 samples  it divides the 
>velocity range into three parts -- Soft, 
>Gradient and Hard. A whole set of say 10 samples 
>are recorded for each of these groups. 

Imagine the amount of (streaming) data you would need to follow this
approach for a sampled piano... I guess someone will come up with a
sophisticated softsampler built for piano. Michiel Post already packaged
his Bösendorfer in Kontakt, although his reasons may be different.

Herbert Boland
herbert@...
www.zepmusic.com