The Experience - Fazioli F308

dore_m · 2021-12-24T22:19:07+00:00

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.)

Irmin

dore_m Hi

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

dore_m

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.

MrGr

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.

dore_m

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.

dore_m

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/

Gamma1734

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

Frédéric L

I have added it to my comparison.

dore_m

Thanks to both!

dore_m

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.

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?

navindra

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

dore_m

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….

Ralphiano

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!"

RIP

dore_m 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.

That's the point with free stuff: they take a life of their own. Even more so with software, which may become used for things that you did not anticipate and you don't like (think of anything in the current geopolitical situation, and imagine some open source software written by us run by "the others").

Bottom line? It's bad, but it could have been worse. Does this make it better? 'Course not, but…

Ralphiano 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!"

:point_up: (grrr, that does not work)

dore_m

It's all good. Gamma1734's playing calmed me down.

Reminds me that the audience over there at Pianobook aren't all pianists, and probably mostly not. The libraries now can be sorted by piano, and playability rating. It's peculiar because the Fazioli library is ranked 10th, and it's probably the most playable (by a pianist) out of all of them, IMHO. I think non-pianists are confusing playability with textural inspiration, maybe because they aren't able to control such an instrument. Or am I just being indignant?

QuasiUnaFantasia

dore_m Remember the american saying: There's no such thing as bad advertising. Who knows, the next thing may be that Stu Harrison does a 20-minute video on it. 🙂

vagfilm

Yes, you are over sensitive by 50% because the "reviewer" was clearly using 3 fingers and not 2 as you claim! Your comment was insulting to him 😀

n-player

@dore_m As you may know, I spearheaded the Piano VI database at PianoWorld. There isn't much public user data on piano VI user types & use cases but I would guess the lion's share are NOT piano players. I would venture to guess well over 95% are not proficient piano players.

So don't get too frustrated with a positive review.

RIP

@dore_m @porco_rosso @navindra you may be interested in looking at the thread below, which is related with this one I am responding to. In short, for tl;dr; people: somebody found a way to let Pianoteq do what you have done with head tracking. I plan to test it, one of these days….

If any of you does too, please report back what you find.

https://forum.modartt.com/viewtopic.php?pid=983508#p983508

dore_m

@RIP you can point them to my Fazioli and Yamaha S6 libraries, where there are links to the various eye/headtracking softwares that can be used. The common protocol is OSC (Open sound control), which is more flexible than MIDI and can be used with the free tools that I showed in one or two of the videos.

Pianoteq could also be used within a DAW with the OSC head tracking tools as I have done, but the result would not be as good as my libraries, in which the mics are placed in specific directions relative to the player and piano. However, Pianoteq could indeed be more effective if the developers directly opened up their rendering engine to the OSC control, which would be more direct than my "virtual speaker placement" method which converts source microphones into binaural using HRTF (Head related transfer functions) - a simulation of a binaural microphone setup - primarily the Neumann Binaural head.

Anyway, I'm not a part of that forum, and don't plan to contribute. You can forward my thoughts if you like.