piano soft synths

[brindabella]

Jul 10, 2009, 6:43pm, aldicicco wrote:Siempre Cubana, si?You're not related to Teofilio are you?Hold onto that passion Brindabella, it's geniune. AlP.S. I'll drop out now. Hate to interrupt a good debate, or whatever this is...Ha Ha!I dont either anymore, Al....

[flyingtadpole]

Jul 8, 2009, 7:41pm, jude3 wrote:Jul 8, 2009, 7:10pm, brindabella wrote:I dont agree with that, I think you put your own personal touch and it carries on to the sampler, otherwise we would all sound like robots. I use midi to correct mistakes, wrong notes, etc. and then add reverb, eq, whatever, but the rest is me. We could both play the same song with the same controller and sampler and it will sound different!!In terms of expression, I do think we sound more like robots on a VI piano.I would be interested in doing that test. I don't think we would sound much different playing the exact same thing.But on a real grand piano...........yes.I shouldn't weigh in again but....OK...Expression on piano: you have only four (very occasionally five) things to work with. Velocity, your phrasing, una corda, sustain and very occasionally the sostenuto (middle) pedal. Of those, velocity and phrasing are the basis of what people see as expression. The weighted keys are vital for me to give the tactile feedback that allows me to control the velocity more than would be possible just by the ears. Phrasing I can control whether keys are weighted or not.The robotic aspects of a VI scould be arising from the poverty of the sample. The velocity and phrasing should absolutely not be robotic. If it is, fire the pianist and hire someone who can play the instrument instead. And I surely prefer my cheapie but weighted Medeli plus Garritan's Steinway to an awful lot of "good" acoustic pianos I have played, many of which have the tactile response of 88 blocks of cheese and a sound like a disappointed bathtub.Tim

[jude3]

If there is only four or five velocity levels which most VI have, how could that not be mechanical?I could see where a weighted key would help someone control those five levels better.

[jude3]

Jul 10, 2009, 4:30pm, brindabella wrote:Well, I guess if it is on a CD you´ll have to upload it somewhere. Do you have a taxi page? And then post a link to the piece.Would love to hear that "mechanical" piano!I have it on my desk topIf there is no way to post it here I could send it to you on email.Sorry. I would love for you to hear my mechanical piano too.

[matto]

Jul 11, 2009, 7:02am, jude3 wrote:If there is only four or five velocity levels which most VI have, how could that not be mechanical?Most of the "state of the art" VI's have 10 velocity layers or more. I haven't used anything with less than that in about 5 years...I would agree it would be hard to get a realistic performance from something with 4 layers, there's just not enough dynamic shading available.

[jude3]

Jul 11, 2009, 9:01am, matto wrote:Jul 11, 2009, 7:02am, jude3 wrote:If there is only four or five velocity levels which most VI have, how could that not be mechanical?Most of the "state of the art" VI's have 10 velocity layers or more. I haven't used anything with less than that in about 5 years...I would agree it would be hard to get a realistic performance from something with 4 layers, there's just not enough dynamic shading available.So you think 10 layers is the ticket?

[mojobone]

Jul 10, 2009, 3:59pm, jude3 wrote:Jul 9, 2009, 5:48pm, brindabella wrote:Nah! Really?? YEs. If I knew how to post a song I could play you one off my CD that is all MIDI, even the piano.How do you do that?It helps if you can convert the CD's WAV file to an MP3; if you have iTunes or Windows Media Player or something like them (Musicmatch Jukebox, Songbird, WinAmp, RealPlayer, etc) you can use that to convert the file. (you could also use your DAW software or a standalone MP3 encoder, liken the free LAME encoder, there are many available for free download) Then it's a matter of finding a host on the web; there are hosts that handle any sort of file, like Box.net, and those that specialize in music such as MySpace, BroadJam, SoundClick and many others. (I use SoundClick, MySpace and SoundCloud) After conversion, (you don't necessarily need to convert with SoundCloud) you simply upload the file from your hard drive to their server, which can be a little different for each service, but they all have FAQs and instructions for getting started. Once your music's on the web, you can post a link to it on any web site or messageboard, like this:http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7703395

[mazz]

Jul 11, 2009, 3:51pm, jude3 wrote:Jul 11, 2009, 9:01am, matto wrote:Most of the "state of the art" VI's have 10 velocity layers or more. I haven't used anything with less than that in about 5 years...I would agree it would be hard to get a realistic performance from something with 4 layers, there's just not enough dynamic shading available.So you think 10 layers is the ticket?The East West Pianos, according to their website, have 10 to 18 layers per note. The Sampletekk is at least that.There's a company called PianoTeq that is doing physical modelling of pianos instead of sampling. Ultimately I think that will be the future, at least for pianos since you would get theoretically infinite layers, just like a real instrument. At this point, I think the modeled pianos don't sound as good in isolation as the samples but I think the modeling software will improve and those instruments will be competitive with the sample libraries. The advantage of the modeled stuff is that it is small in it's usage of memory and disk space since no samples are used. But for now, the sampled stuff is the best bet for a VI.I'm just starting to try the East West pianos and so far so good. I usually have to find the right monitoring levels and mix, which seems to be more critical for me than the actual keyboard I'm playing. Piano players are used to having to adapt their playing to different instruments and so having a consistent setup is like a gift. We all have horror stories of having to play gigs on terrible, beat up, out of tune pianos. Not fun! I was playing at a place in SF one night accompanying my wife and I played a low note and got this horrible metallic sound. Several adjacent low notes had the same effect. I looked in to the piano (a small grand) and one of the low strings had broken and was laying across several other strings. I grabbed the string and draped it out of the piano since it was still connected on one end, and finished the song!! The piano was a piece of crap to begin with and this just added to the strategy of remembering which notes to avoid and which ones didn't work at all. Guitar players have it easy playing the same axe every night!! Cheers,Mazz

[mewman]

When it comes to VI's verses acoustic pianos, I think your recent experience says it all, Mazz. I've done gigs on pianos that were so out of tune, unregulated, and in disrepair (no sustain pedal, missing notes...always important ones..). that they were hardly worth playing at all. I've also been in studios with horrible uprights or out of tune pianos and ultimately would prefer an electric that was in tune to the poor excuses for pianos that were presented. Ultimately, I think that mechanical playing comes from the player, not the sample. True, there are outdated samples that sound cheesy, but there is also a plethora of good sounding samples available that, if tweaked properly, sound pretty good, IMHO. I've signed deals using the Yamaha sample that comes with Logic, and am still inspired by the perfectly in tune sound. I also find the Steinway that comes with EWQLSO Gold a gorgeous instrument. Maybe one day I'll even have a powerful enough computer to run the EW grands! Then there is Ivory, the Italian Grand, and a half dozen other perfectly good sounding instruments..... It's a great time to be recording pianos with out the expense of owning or maintaining the real thing! Mewman

[mazz]

I was talking about this very issue with someone "offline" and this was my reply to them regarding getting a good sound from a piano VI. This is my experience:As far as recording goes, I find it's important to first get your listening setup the way you like it in regards to the dynamic range of the VI piano. If you need a FFFF then you need to set the speakers or headphones so they give that to you comfortably so you're not afraid to dig in. And then you can adjust your dynamics in your playing accordingly. We don't have that problem with an acoustic piano because of a lot of factors, where we sit, the room, and so forth. Most of these VI pianos are recorded close mic'd so they're going to be brighter sounding anyway (The East West Pianos have 3 mic positions now). If you want the sound of the piano in a room, then you need to set the reverb and EQ up ahead of time as it will influence your playing.Spend time getting the piano to feel right for the piece that you are playing. The time spent up front will pay off when you are mixing and mastering. You can always change things then, but do whatever it takes to get a great performance and you'll have much less tweaking to do.That's why I mentioned that it's often more important to get my monitoring right when I'm playing a piano part because it influences my touch, my timing, everything. I'm a pretty hard player, too many years playing jazz with loud drummers, so I usually turn the speakers down and bang away. Otherwise I end up playing timidly.As pianists, we're used to a big machine vibrating the air all around us, it's a 360 degree experience playing a nice grand piano. Now we have someone sticking mics 6 inches from the strings, where no one in their right mind would stick their head, and then we try to make that sound good coming through 2 speakers in front of us or even headphones. The physical experience of playing a fine instrument is what I'm trying to recreate through my speakers and in the mix as I play so I can play it like I would if it were a "real" instrument. Again, start with the performance and whatever it takes, EQ, Reverb, Scotch , to get that visceral experience so you play your best. There will be less "fix it in the mix", IMO.HTH,Mazz