My free SFZ piano libraries

Pete14

jdg78 Just vouching that these libraries are no joke - they are seriously good.

🤔

MacMacMac

I agree. I said in another thread that these are the best amateur pianos I've ever tried.

So ... yay for sampling!
What say ye, sage Pete14?

Pete14

MacMacMac What say ye, sage Pete14?

I ask, is “Sofia” a chick?

Before ye jumpeth on me, keep in thy mind that it was Sir Mac who conjured up Pete by asking ‘what say ye, Pete XIV?’

I simply asketh thy questions, that’s all!

vagfilm

MacMacMac I agree. I said in another thread that these are the best amateur pianos I've ever tried. So ... yay for sampling!

Most importantly, let's not forget that this entirely blind prank was able to fool even the most stubborns of PTQ haters... Kudos...

Jokes aside, this is a clear case of IP piracy, and I don't think that Sofia should be expelled, but I am not sure if these threads shouldn't be removed from PC once all the laughs are done and dusted.

MacMacMac

I want to add that I've tried these using the "sforzando" player by "Plogue Art et Technologie".
I'm not fond of this host. The Effects don't work at all.
Is there a better host for sfz libraries?

QuasiUnaFantasia

MacMacMac Remember to increase "Send" in the top of the window. If it's stuck at 0%, nothing will change.

HZPiano

MacMacMac Effects don't work at all.

Indeed, give the Send dial some percentage > 0.

This determines how much of the signal (sound) is sent through the effects department, the remaining percentage stays dry a.k.a. unaltered.

What you eventually hear is a mix of the dry sound and the effects-altered sound.

Cheers and happy experimenting,

MacMacMac

Pete14 it was Sir Mac who conjured up Pete by asking ‘what say ye, Pete XIV?’

Ahhh ... but I was asking for your comment concerning the superb SAMPLING ... and I was not expecting you to hit on the lovely Sofia. How dare you!

Pete14

☺️

Joannchr

Sofia_MZ Very good job with excellent miking. My preferred ones are the Fazioli as it is particularly well recorded and the softness of the Bechstein which is well captured.

comments :

top notch for an non pro/ non commercial sampling
Very good playability. I use my own scripts in Logic Pro to adjust the velocity and it plays well
I wish half pedalling, re-pedalling, sustenato and soft pedals were supported

Bugs :

While playing arpeggios with various attacks and velocities with the Bechstein , which I usually do when I want to test the playability of VST , I noticed some notes occasionally were missed and that seemed strange . I then loaded the Fazioli and it presented the same symptom , in the same upper register.

I then had a look at your sfz files , as I was perplex , given my keyboard is faultless to see if there was a glitch which I found :

There is a mistake in all C7-C8 samples mappings instruction for the 4 notes sampled, in each instrument as you have specified a lovel =101 and a hivel =100. Given this condition cannot be matched , the player drops the note when played.

So any note between C7 and C8 ( with C4 being the standard middle C) played with a velocity between 101 and 110 will be silent .

It affects all instruments without noise and noise versions. The fix is easy and takes 5 mn. Just replaces 100 by 110

Hope it helps

Sofia_MZ

Joannchr Thank you so very much for the pointer. I amended the .sfz files and uploaded the new tar.gzs.

I'm glad you liked the pianos and that the libraries work well in Logic Pro since I haven't tested them on that particular software.

Del Vento Si anch'io sono italiana.

I'm a free software advocate and Linux buff. These libraries were created with Devuan and open source tools (Audacity, Sox, LSP plugins, and so forth). Devuan's stability and versatility made my work so much easier.

I love Liquidsfz for its simplicity. I'm aware other users prefer the ease of graphical interfaces, but I'm a minimalist of sort and find editing text files rather convenient.

It's neat that my libraries can be tested on other platforms though, so that more music lovers can enjoy them if they so wish.

Ciao.

Sofia

Del Vento

Sofia_MZ Someone recommended this forum to me and suggested some of you guys might be interested in checking out my free SFZ piano libraries at

Ciao e benvenuta (I assume from the spelling of your name and the mention of Italy on your website that you are originally from there as I am).

Unfortunately at the moment I can't test your libraries (don't have a working suitable controller -- but I likely do have a grand). I was wondering if you would like to comment more about your experience using Devuan and Liquidsfz (I assume you run it in Linux), since there aren't many other Linux people on this forum (or in any other music forums, FWIW)

Grazie!

EB5AGV

Sofia_MZ could you provide just the modified files, so we don't need to download again the sound files?. It may save some bandwidth 😉

Thanks a lot for your work on this, my preliminary tests have been very good 👍🏻

dore_m

@Sofia_MZ and @Del Vento are a Linux match.... I'm a fan of both, but I'm sure they both know that too.

amc252

dore_m Italians?

Sofia_MZ

dore_m Dear Dore, I took a closer look at your libraries. They are very advanced, quite amazing. And you even sampled an M&H, such a classy piano.

Sofia_MZ

EB5AGV Sure, I'll upload them on Sourceforge so that you can download them from the page of each piano (although the same .sfz file would work for any of them).

MacMacMac I think the wrong note problem was corrected in the latest tar.gz. Perhaps it would be simpler if you download the Steinway tar.gz again. Sorry about the inconvenience.

MacMacMac

I've edited the .sfz files to fix the problem outlined by Joannchr. (Nice find! Keen eye!)

To fix the wrong note problem with the Steinway, I simply copied the file F#6-100.wav to F#6-90.wav. Now the "wrong note" problem is "right note, but wrong velocity". Better, but not perfect. Could you kindly post the correct F#6-90.wav file? I'm not keen to download a multi-gigabyte tar/zip just for that one file.

Is this wrong note problem present in the other pianos? (Lazy me hasn't yet checked.)

Lastly … and once again … nice work! And please don't take all this criticism as negative. Rather … this is just like a peer review of deliverables.

HansV

Just made an account on Pianoclack to say I love the Bechstein!

Sofia_MZ

HansV Mhmm…. what about my other children?

jdg78

@Joannchr and @Sofia_MZ many thanks for identifying and fixing this bug so efficiently - great teamwork!

@Sofia_MZ I realize these are still in beta stage, but when you do get around to visiting them again, wondering if there any plans to add some more advanced capabilities, like soft pedal (either real or simuated), repedaling, sympathetic resonance, etc?

These are some of the most commonly requested features for more advanced players, and tend to separate the very top-tier piano VSTs from the competition.

Of course, as a non-technical person I have no idea how feasible this all is, but I think if your instruments had some or all of these capabilities, they could be true giant-killers.

Sofia_MZ

jdg78 I’m not a samplist (not even a would be samplist). I created these libraries as a birthday present for my father. I even cajoled a teacher into giving me extra credits for them. As far as I’m concerned, they basically fulfilled their reasons to be.

However…

I still have lots of raw material from my recordings, so, why not? Sometime in the future (Xmass holidays are not too far away), I might release an enhanced 2.0 version of some of these instruments.

Therefore…

I’d welcome some feedback from those who tried (and perhaps liked) my pianos, to help me set my priorities according to the needs of an actual user base.

I’d like to know which improvements you’d like to see in the next version and why.

If you wish, tell me a bit about the music you play and why such features would be significant for you.

Also, let me know which of my pianos you liked best.

Please avoid whimsical request like 88 keys in 60 velocity layers, 4^th pedal, 2 round robins, and 3 mike perspectives. 🤣

I most likely won’t have time to dig into coding or implementing advanced functions that require tinkering with the sound waves.

Let’s be realistic and focus on well-chosen refinements that would benefit most of the users.

Also, let me know if you’d be willing to test these new patches on platforms and software other than Linux and Linuxsampler/Liquidsfz.

Cheers.

Sofia