The Experience - Fazioli F308

Merry Christmas 'Clackers!

I just crawled over the finish line in publishing my latest piano sample library. Download below. The released version will take some time to make its way through the Pianobook review process and be published, so I decided to provide a semi-private link for the users here to try for the holidays. The thing I like about PianoClack is that I feel the community here is smaller and more tightly knit. Maybe its because I didn't follow the PW forums as closely, but it feel safer to me here.

Special thanks to the members here who helped me beta test and give feedback. Let me know if you have questions, and I've posted information below about the library itself. I skipped all the stuff about what an F308 is. I think people here already know.

Note: Since this is a pre-release, if you find later that the link below doesn't work, just go to the pianobook website and download the released version.

Technical Stuff:

* Audience and Player Perspectives using 10 microphones

* Kontakt and SFZ versions

* Ambisonic VR routing

* 5 Velocity Layers

* Half Pedaling

I've updated the Experience series with multiple microphone angles and a new ambisonic/virtual reality workflow. There are two microphone groups:

The first is the Audience Perspective, which are a pair of hand built U87 clones placed over the soundboard and a pair of C214's placed XY about a meter away. Mix and reverb to taste.

The second is the Player Perspective, with my new ambisonic array of 3 XY pairs. These can be enjoyed in two ways: the first is to simply mix the 3 XY pairs. But the real virtual reality experience can be had if you place the 6 microphone perspectives with ambisonic plugins and control the soundspace using head tracking. I'll provide a video on how to do this. Note that the player perspective is provided totally dry without any reverb. This is because dry samples are needed before ambisonic processing - reverb changes as you move your head, so you need the dry signal.

The microphone angles are organized differently depending on platform. For Kontakt, which supports 6 channel output, there are the Audience and Player files. For SFZ, which don't support 6 channel output, there are four files. The first is a stereo mix of all three pairs. The final three files are separate stereo instruments that can be mixed using the IEM plugin suite, which can help make a VR experience.

(Note: I made this video for the users on Pianobook, who are all music producers. They will probably not use the ambisonic functions, so I highlighted them to show what it is. I purposely spent less time showing off the Audience perspective for this reason - its a free library after all.)

Hi Dore,

Thanks for all your work on this project. It is a nice Christmas gift 🤗

I encourage anyone to give it a try, it is a wonderful instrument 👍🏻

What a nice Christmas surprise! Thanks...

dore_m I just crawled over the finish line in publishing my latest piano sample library

Hello,

You must have been working so hard on all of this, well done and congratulations!

I can only say that I admire and acknowledge your perseverance in seeing your projects through all the way to actual results.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!

HZ

I saw your videos last night Dore. That is an epic project; outside the VI engineering, you must have spent a lot of time finding optimal free software for the tracking audio.

How do you feel the performance of the head tracker software vs. hardware?

I will install and give this a go today!

Hi NP- Actually the eye tracking using the FacePoseApp works really well, but the downside is you have to position the camera in a good place. I was surprised at how responsive it is.

The rest is really up to calibration. I can see my calibration is not ideal, but you can optimize for your own situation using the video that's on my channel. let me know if you have any questions or headaches setting it up.

Hoping to sample another piano within a few weeks if COVID doesn't prevent me.

Incidentally, @CyberGene made some remarks awhile ago about how bright Fazioli's sound, and I agree. So in the Kontakt version, you might notice (hidden in the settings) a bypassed EQ. If you enable it, it will cut out some of the higher frequencies below middle C so the lower range isn't so bright.

Its released on Pianobook now. I may remove the former link now to save some Google Drive space….

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/the-experience-fazioli-f308/

dore_m Hi

Any chance of a Decent Sampler version? Reason… so it can be used on an iPad

I considered making a DS version but settled on sfz for crosscompatibility (for the most part). I don't think DS can handle half pedaling.

With that said, I bet someone will port it. People are welcome to, but realize that ported versions are not official versions and the playability may be different.

Is there any way to enable sympathetic resonance?

That question also makes me wondering if there is any open-source/free VST sample plugin with sympathetic resonance support that would allow to make use of these samples. Kinda strange that there is nothing related on pianobook. One might think that would be of some importance.

Sympathetic resonance isn't supported I think for multiple reasons. I'm taking educated guesses here, but recording those separately increases the sampling time significantly, or audio software tricks are too complicated to isolate it. Also, applying it properly to the base samples may not be simple either.

The how to's on piano book and on the YouTube channels contain alot of detailed info about how to use kontakt to transition velocities and I had to figure them out myself for sfz. I'd say most free libraries don't go to this extent using all of those tricks. Adding sympathetic resonance is yet another step. I might look into it for the future but given that I'm sampling opp (other people's pianos) my time with them is very short and I need to optimize setup performance and takedown. It might not be feasible for me.

Irmin so it can be used on an iPad

In case anyone is interested, Soundfonts 4u made a soundfont version of one of the pairs of audience mics. I think soundfonts are more compatible with ipad. It doesn't have quite the number of features as the Kontakt or SFZ libraries, but the basic sound and playability is similar.

https://sites.google.com/site/soundfonts4u/

I finally managed to review this plugin too. i think it's awesome - more details in my review video 🙂

I have added it to my comparison.

Thanks to both!

Someone wrote a companion app to get the headtracking/VR part working with a webcam. There are different ways of doing this, but this guy made an app that is hopefully easier to set up - I think it requires python.

Guess I'm not the only crazy one.

OK, am I being sensitive when I say that I'm insulted by having a two-finger pianist feature my Fazioli Library? Seriously?

dore_m Welcome to the big times. That's actually awesome.

I'm just frustrated that after months of work, with feedback and help from other 'Clackers, that it was featured with what is basically Chopsticks. I can respect that the guy might not have pianist skills, but wow - I'm going to attach a midi file next time. I'm going to have to watch Gamma1734's review again to calm down. Tchaikovsky Concerto vs Chopsticks….

dore_m OK, am I being sensitive when I say that I'm insulted by having a two-finger pianist feature my Fazioli Library? Seriously?

Don't fight it; just roll with it.

Adopt a marketing program around "Listen to how good it sounds with just two fingers. Imagine what you can do with ten fingers!"