My free SFZ piano libraries

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!

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!

☺️

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 :

1. top notch for an non pro/ non commercial sampling
2. Very good playability. I use my own scripts in Logic Pro to adjust the velocity and it plays well
3. 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 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!

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.

RIP 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

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

dore_m Italians?

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 👍🏻

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.

Jose 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.

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.

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

HansV Mhmm…. what about my other children?

@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.

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

Sofia_MZ I'll rank some of the normal wishlist items in terms of difficulty of implementation in SFZ (IMHO):

Half Pedaling - just copy from my SFZ scripts - easy peazy

Pedal noise - you literally could record any piano's pedal noise and add it - if you're ok with diverging away from the original instruments.

Reverbs and other effects - Doable to add "ambience", but no GUI controls to turn up/down/on/off

Soft Pedal - either need to re-record, or use a volume/EQ filter (and ADSR controls?) to simulate. The former is a lot of work, and I don't think the latter is realistic sounding. Still having it may be better than not.

Damper pedal resonance - either need to re-record, or use fancy <effects> tricks that I'm not sure even work.

Mixing controls - impossible with multiplatform SFZ files, unless you use MIDI cc controller mapping to physical controls. Not worth it because it requires too much user setup - to map physical controls to MIDI cc's

Sympathetic Resonance - technically possible, since Garritan did it - but probably using the ARIA extensions, which are not available to any player other than Plogue/Sforzando. Difficulty level - extremely high.

Repedaling - should be possible because Garritan did it - but not sure if you need the special ARIA extensions or not. Difficulty unknown.

Sofia_MZ 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.

Well for a first-time amateur pursuing a personal side project, you've managed to do an absolutely extraordinary job. You should be quite proud of your accomplishment.

Sofia_MZ 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.

Speaking for myself, my number one request would be a soft/una corda pedal, even if it's only simulated. I play mostly classical music and rely on this feature quite a lot. Very few virtual pianos have real recorded una corda samples, and if you haven't already sampled them, it's probably not realistic to go back and capture now. But in the absence of the real thing, I always prefer to have a simulated version than none at all. It could just be a slight reduction in volume and (if possible) a subtle timbre shift (slightly softer).

After that, half-pedaling would probably be my second priority. Repedaling is nice, but I personally don't find it absolutely essential. And I don't really care about extraneous mechanical sounds like pedal and key noises (I always shut them off if I can), but some people seem to find these important.

Sympathetic resonance is a huge plus if done well, and can really make things come alive, but I gather it's extremely hard to implement so I wouldn't expect you to attempt this unless you are really up for a challenge.

Anyway hope this is helpful.

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

Honestly, I find them all excellent in their own way, but here are my overall thoughts:

C. Bechstein: This is probably the most unique and special sounding one to me - it has a very gentle and sweet tone that is still very rich and full, with a wonderful atmosphere around it. It's also captured with a bit more resonance that the other models which I think works to its benefit.

Bluthner. This is my other favorite. I've always loved the tone of Bluthners and this is an exceptionally good one, still in excellent condition but with a slightly vintage feel. Also a very sweet-toned instrument with a good amount of character and individuality.

Fazioli This is an extremely clean, neutral and modern sounding piano, superbly captured. I don't normally like Faziolis, often finding them excessively clinical and hard sounding, but this one has a touch more warmth and feels much less severe in tone than ones I've encountered in the past. Not a whole lot of individual character compared to the others, but it provides a really nice, neutral palette to work with, and I can see myself playing on this a lot.

Bosendorfer Very faithful and accurate capture of the signature Bosendorfer Imperial sound, which has a very clear, consistent and sculpted tone. Nice powerful bass. Superbly sampled and feels great to play on.

Steinway This is probably the one I'm least drawn to personally, if only because I already have several excellent sounding Steinways. But this is still a very compelling instrument with a lovely rounded tone, slightly aged sounding but still in very good condition.

dore_m Thanks for the pro's perspective.

I'd need to take a look at your scripts, but half pedal seems doable.

I don't even want to think about scripting sympathetic resonance.

jdg78 Thanks for your articulate feedback. Yes, the needs of classical pianists are different. Are there many in this forum?

Indeed, except for the commercial VSTs, I don't know of any free piano that ships with una-corda pedal.

I did actually record damper and soft pedal samples, and still have them somewhere in the big mess of my leftover material. The soft pedal was a bit of an experiment, but the samples might be usable.

I'm flattered that you have a hard time choosing between my pianos.

I might be exaggerating it, not sure, but to me re-pedaling is an absolutely crucial feature that shouldn't depend on the music style or pianist level. I can't play a piano that doesn't support re-pedaling because it's just unnatural. I don't think it's hard to implement though? I guess you need to restart the sample from a different position based on the time elapsed between the key/pedal release and the repeated press. I guess that requires scripting and maybe not all sampler formats support scripting.