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.)

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.

RIP

Thanks, I posted some of these thoughts there.

Of course if there is a direct OSC interface that would be ideal, however I think PTQ could already achieve at last what you have done and perhaps more. This is the reason for pointing the thread to you.

Why could Pianoteq do more?

Pianoteq has a binaural mic placement in which you can decide head size and position in space
Recently its developer introduced a JSON interface with which you can programmatically change any setting that normally would be point-and-click.
= 2. + 1. Or in other words make the head tracker trigger the mic placement. It'd work immediately. The only possible problem being if there is any click or interruption of sound when the mic placement is triggered
Somebody tested such possible problem by using a fader to change the mic placement, and it worked well, so it appears Pianoteq developers don't need to do anything

As such, a small script between the head tracker and the JSON Pianoteq interface could be all that is needed, without anything additional.

dore_m

I just opened up the PTQ demo to see the binaural placement, and yes, I can see that the controls are there, but not standard roll/pitch/yaw. The standard controls are yaw (head rotation left/right), head position (front to back), and head position (side along keyboard). That means you could realistically move your head toward the piano and from side to side, and turn your head. My implementation is roll/pitch/yaw, which are rotations from a single point - turn head left/right, look up/down, and turn your head sideways (one ear closer to ground).

There are arguable pros/cons for both implementations, And certainly using the PTQ binaural rendering engine would be better and more direct, but connecting the OSC or headtracking software has always been the biggest challenge to me, and really is beyond my coding capabilities….

n-player

Over the years, there were some threads on Pianoteq head tracking. A few "insiders" noted that real-time head-tracking would require a serious rethink of the software.

https://gitlab.com/hberntsen/pianoteq-head-tracking

Mta88

I wanted to personally thank you for releasing this software. And for free to top it off. Where I live we have little to no access to grand pianos, mustless a Fazioli.

Just played your software Fazioli for the first time. I loved it. You made my day.

Instantly thought of the words from the the book "the Name of the Wind" and how the main character described his instrument. I'll find the quote and post it but it was beautiful.

Keep up the good work. Piano is an experience that we should all be so lucky to have access to and you my friend is making this a reality

Cheers.

Mta88

Here is the quote describing his Lute that was very dear to him:

"It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”

That's how A lot of folks feel about their piano.

Maybe one day I'd be lucky enough to have the resources, time,space and energy to immortalise my 88 year old Danemann upright and post it up for everyone to enjoy.

And the Kayserburg UH132 Royal Grand as well.

Cheers.

Thanks for this

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