Today i have visited my sister. She have a very nice piano, not a known brand, but the sound. Is sweet and a little dark, you can play at PP with comfort. But, thinking in this post, i try the FF. mmm… really you cant get a FF, and is not bright. My home one, another vertical one, is hard to play PP, but the FF are nice and bright. I have thought sometimes to sample a nice piano, but i believe that is a work that needs a lot of time and planning to do right, and also found a very good Piano available to play with him.
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Thanks for the translator, Marce!
the “thanks” is a circle. I must thank bubba who gave me the link.
Right, Marce – that’s why folks pay $30K or more for a good piano. (Note that I only said “good”, not “great”.) To me, that’s one of the things that really separates the good pianos from, well, just pianos. Almost any piano can be used to play great music. Good ones can play anything.
And a funny thing: sometimes the greatest pianos aren’t very flexible – they’re either best for classical or pop or blues but not all three. I remember playing a truly fantastic 9’ Bosendorfer once, one with extra keys at the bottom end. It handled beautifully, as far as I could tell with my limited skill. But when I played some blues chords, they just fell flat on the floor. It was as though the piano was insulted. The truth was, though, that the chords came through so clearly, the dissonance that blues relies on just wasn’t obvious. I bet it would have been the perfect piano for playing Dvorjak, Stravinski, and modern composers. It would have been wasted on me!
Hi Jeff. I have downloaded this years a lot of free soundfonts, including Pianos. Beyond i like the Bobvjerg one, offenly i cant use it, because it dont suit with the rest of the instruments, or the music style. Happens what you are saying
Just out of curiosity, I did a similar velocities test with sfz (1.06 and 1.93, but the newer versions seem to go a bit funny using dfd and pseudo-stereo sf), Synthfont 0971, Audio Compositor 4.5 and SBLive with kX 3537. Soundfont for the test was NSkit7 with a couple of tweaks (remapped keys).
The SBLive/kX, Synthfont and Audio Compositor output was very similar, with realistic dynamics using a Yamaha Clavinova as the controller. Velocities between about 10 and 127, doing cymbal and snare rolls and regular, dynamic rhythms.
Both sfz VTSi’s seemed to have much smaller dynamics than the other synths, with lower velocities coming out louder, but the max velocities the same level as the other synths.
The output waveforms are very similar to Marce’s screenshots. The dynamics seems to be more realistic on the SBLive/Synthfont/Audio Compositor synths, at least using NSkit and the Clavinova, which has a fairly heavy weighted action. I’ll have to try with some pianos next.
Both sfz VTSi's seemed to have much smaller dynamics than the other synths, with lower velocities coming out louder, but the max velocities the same level as the other synths.
Hi Matt. The topic is very interesting to me. What you mention can be taken like a bug, or a feature. I prefer the output of the sblive/synthfont/audiocompositor etc. ones, because after you render the wav file you can easily add a compression plugin and you get the same that sfz. Also you can use a midi velocity compressor if you want reduce the dynamics. But, if you want the large range of dynamics, sfz lost a point.
Since you like made some experiments, another point that i have been experimenting a little and making some comparisons with the diffrent software synths is how they "read" the vibrato, modulation, pitch bend messages, etc. I have found that the software synths apply this kind of messages not very close to the hardware ones (aps, sblive, awe64, etc) In the week i will post something for one is interested. Well, see you!
Kinda big and a bit different than the pianos you prefer, but one I find works great for a wide variety of styles. I’m sure someone with the time could shrink it in size quite a bit. This was just another experiment with tools & process. It took me an afternoon to do, much of it while I was doing other things. It’s 8 velocity layers, and I didn’t do any fiddling at all with filters & such.
I was listening to the NS Piano and its pretty good. I dont know any other soundfont that utilizes the hammer action and pedal nuances like this.
Altho I was able to understand why Jeff wasnt too pleased about the “honkytonkish” to it…its very subtle but it almost sounds as tho it was an upright. I never played a model B steinway before but its sound pretty versatile for jazz and rock. Im not sure I would want to play concertos with this tho.
Are there other soundfounts with the hammer action and pedal effects.
Im starting to get into the soundfonts thing like Jeff. Heh
Hi Jeff. I have tryied the soundfont a little hurry up, but i can say that it have what you was asking from the beginning. Piano and Forte are two diffrent things, but they dont sound rude diffrent. Really a nice soundfont. I must try it in context, like the other pianos, when i do, i will post. Ah, and Thanks!
