Korg Forums

[Rob Sherratt]

The Steinway Piano Project

Something that I found helpful when working on a new multi-layer 88 note Steinway piano sound for the Pa2x/ Pa800 was to have a plan that showed me exactly which sample was assigned to which key, the note frequencies, the octave numbers etc. This plan might be helpful to other forum members as well. Here is the picture so you know what I'm talking about. The bright yellow notes are the ones that have exact samples, then each of those samples is stretched by a semitone each way, with the exception of the B0 samples which have to stretch down by 2 semitones. Three new multisamples, Steinwaypp, Steinwaymf and Steinwayff are being constructed as you can see from the plan.



If you would like a copy of the .xls spreadsheet please send me an EMAIL (not a PM) by clicking on the EMAIL button below.

The Steinway piano project is something I wanted to do for a long time, and Reuben (John) pointed me in the direction of the University of Iowa Electronic Recording Studios, who have published 264 high quality stereo .aiff samples of their Steinway Grand Piano, each one up to 10 Mbytes in size. I wrote to the University and the department head Mr Lawrence Fritts has given consent to use these samples to make a Steinway Piano free give away to all Korg Forum members. Here is the copyright release statement he sent me in email on 12th Feb 2008:

[mrkorg]

Fantastic, very good. I thought Korg can only use 1 layer (at least this is what Nikola told me).
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KORG PA2XPRO

[Sharp]

[BasariStudios]

Rob, i want a 2.6GB Piano...i am already using one of 1.6GB Piano.
...in Kontakt...
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http://www.basaristudios.com
Cubase 8.5 Pro. Windows 7 X64. ASUS SaberTooth X99. Intel I7 5820K. ASUS GTX 960 Strix OC 2GB. 4x8 GB G.SKILL.
2 850 PRO 256GB SSDs. 1 850 EVO 1TB SSD. Acustica: Nebula Server 3 Ultimate, Murano, Magenta 3, Navy, Titanium.

[Rob Sherratt]

Funny enough, Nikola and I had been discussing it on another thread. You can create velocity triggered multilayers which cross fade between different sample sets. I think it's done as follows:

a) First pair of osscillators will handle the stereo SteinwayPP multisample
b) Second pair will handle the stereo SteinwayMF multisample
c) Third pair will handle the stereo SteinwayFF multisample.

Then I will set up the velocity trigger parameters something like this

a) range 2-40, max gain output = 80
b) range 41-80, max gain output = 110
c) range 81-127, max gain output = 127

Now comes the clever bit that Nikola told me about, we use another two pairs of oscillators to do cross fading as follows:

d) same multisamples as (a) range 41-80, max gain = minus 80
e) same multisamples as (b) range 81-127, max gain = minus 110

If I understood Nikola correctly that means that the PP samples will play at a velocity of 41 with an output gain of 80, and will taper down to an output gain of 0 with an input velocity of 80. Hence they will be layered with the MF samples. And a similar case for the MF and FF samples. At any one time there will be four OSCs running so this will be a little heavy on polyphony.

And the remaining OSCs will be used for sustain and pedal RX noises like the Grand Piano RX which I will use as a template.

If anyone has done this before, please let me know if my approach is correct? It may save me a lot of time!!

Best regards,
Rob

[Rob Sherratt]

[a.schemkes]

Wow are you crazy Rob? Is there no way that we can use the new 128Mb sample that's available for the M3????

[Rob Sherratt]

[Sharp]

[BasariStudios]

I agree with James too and especially cuting that size down to only 64MB
i dont know...its a little bit scary.
_________________
http://www.basaristudios.com
Cubase 8.5 Pro. Windows 7 X64. ASUS SaberTooth X99. Intel I7 5820K. ASUS GTX 960 Strix OC 2GB. 4x8 GB G.SKILL.
2 850 PRO 256GB SSDs. 1 850 EVO 1TB SSD. Acustica: Nebula Server 3 Ultimate, Murano, Magenta 3, Navy, Titanium.

[Lee]

Very interesting...I just this week started work on a 64MB Piano. I am using Kurzweil samples I have. They are triple strike (3 samples per note). The Kurzweil Triple strike piano is superb. What I don't know yet is how good it will be on the PA2 using these sampe conveted.

I may make a mess of it..but I'm determined to give it a best go!
If the results are good at all I can post a demo...but since these samples are sold (licenced) to me I can not share the sound with anyone else.

BUT, I can share what I learn.

Rob, Sharp...thanks for all the heads up (hints) ...very timely!

OH, question for Sharp...you mentioned usng the ROM samples...How would we get a better (different) sound than Rob has already done with his Piano RX MOD using ROM sound?

Lee

[Rob Sherratt]

Hi Nedim and Sharp,

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate the time you are taking to help me. What you say about unwanted chous/ flanger affect if I try to mix samples in a cross fade makes sense because I will not be able to get the sounds in phase alignment. So, I will abandon the cross fade OSC steps (d) and (e). It will increase polyphony anyway.

Question 1: Can you elaborate on using filters to blur the velocity triggered change from pp multisamples to mf, and from mf multisamples to ff? I know how to use filters for high/ low and band pass and I'm aware of the uses of filter resonance affects. But I cannot see how they will help in this specific case. Can you help me understand?

Question 2: I will be looping the tail portion of the samples and then using the Sustain-Release part of the ADSR envelope to shape the sustain and release portions. I believe that Attack should be a vertical line and Decay will be a horizontal line because I want the natural Attack and Decay of the samples to remain unaltered. Do you agree?

Question 3: There is a natural chorusing amplitude modulation in the samples, especially the bass notes, and I want the complex natural chorus in the samples to repeat when the notes are sustained. Here is a picture of the tail portion of one of the B0 samples, the highlighted region repeats naturally and it is that which I propose to loop when I load it into the Pa2x. Do you agree?



Question 4: I am working at the PC right now, normalising the ff samples all to 100% and the mf samples all to 75% and the pp samples all to 50%, and I can make other adjustments after they've been loaded onto the Pa2x. I was concerened not to raise the noise floor disproportionately by attempting to normalise the pp samples to 100% for example. Do these relative levels for the three sample sets seem reasonable to you?

Best regards,
Rob

[Sharp]

[Sharp]

[mrkorg]

Sharp,

What is the advantage of using more than 1 layer?

Does anyone know how many layers used in Grand Piano RX?

Lee,

3 samples per note is incredible. How do you assign 3 samples to one note?
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KORG PA2XPRO