Garritan CFX vs. Kontakt-based instruments

MacMacMac · 2022-12-20T05:11:05+00:00

I bought the Garritan CFX some years ago, but I set it aside because I preferred the Steinway sound of my Vintage D and Grandeur. But with all the CFX talk around here I decided to revisit it. I'm glad I did. The responsiveness is superb. I'm finding that I can do things with it that I'm not able with any of the Kontakt-based instruments. For several years I've been thinking that these old hands were in decline and that such was the cause of my limitations. But apparently not. I'm able to do all manner of things on the Garritan properly and easily. I guess there's something "wrong" with the Kontakt engine. I don't know what. But there it is. I now must look for a non-Kontakt Steinway. (But it's too late to expect assistance from Santa.)

jdg78

Joannchr I wish Garritan was still in the business of producing other VSTs'.

Me too. It’s rather amazing to me that no one else has managed to match it for overall playability in all the years since it was released. Whoever programmed it for them should be in the VST hall of fame.

n-player

Joannchr When you have a moment, please screen shot your Garritan CFX settings windows and post them here as a few images. I think others might enjoy leveraging your efforts and experience. Thank you.

Joannchr

n-player Here you go . I have included all sections in the standard Aria interface:

Additional comments regarding parameters : For best performance , I used Max engine = 1.5 GB and small pre- caching. Allocating more memory, causes occasional cracks. With these parameters it runs perfectly ; I use 44100 Khz & 128 Buffer size as I found the latency too good but less realistic, I think the 10ms including all components is the closest value to an acoustic. Also I don't add any additional reverb as I love the natural Abbey Road reverb which is quite stunning , you can adjust it with the Ambient Cursor in the advanced screen .

Also I use linear curve, as it is the best curve I found using a VPC1 for this particular VST. I have to use different curves when I use Noire Pianoteq or Ivory but with Garritan this works best. Obviously it depends on your keyboard .

Joannchr

Joannchr edit : I use 128 as buffer size as if I set it up at 64 it becomes too responsive because to latency being too low and unrealistic

n-player

Thank you @"Joannchr"! I'll give them a spin.

vagfilm

@Joannchr @dore_m @CyberGene
One weird idea that crossed my mind: if the pedalling of the Garritan CFX is that good, it may be interesting to replace the samples in the CFX folders with the samples of @dore_m pianos... Dore' pianos "Garritan edition" for all us Garritan piano owners.
Reverse enginnering of the folder structure is somehow simple because all the CFX samples are individual WAV files (although desguised with a ".data" suffix), and the different perspectives are stored in separate folders. I have not checked in depth but seems that each perspective contains 6 subfolders (pedal-up, pedal-down, two similar for una corda, and another two for releases); each subfolder contains 20 sub-subfolders (velocity layers, probably) and each layer contains 49 samples (so, seems that not all keys are sampled).
The naming convention is really strange and seemingly random, but once the structure is understood and copied, it is not impossible to create a python script that renames all @dore_m samples to the Garritan structure.

Is this something to consider?

QuasiUnaFantasia

vagfilm all the CFX samples are individual WAV files (although desguised with a ".data" suffix

That is really cheeky of Garritan, but it is also very interesting. I will definitely take a look at thoses disguised wav's.

dore_m

vagfilm One weird idea that crossed my mind: if the pedalling of the Garritan CFX is that good, it may be interesting to replace the samples in the CFX folders with the samples of @dore_m pianos.

It wouldn't work well because I doubt I've recorded the exact notes that garritan uses. I'd have to use the DAW to resample from kontakt every wav file that is required. And if they recorded every note, then that would be a large undertaking.

If I recall correctly, the Garritan script is far more complicated than my SFZ scripts, yet I think the fundamental idea is the same with the pedaling. If you take a look at the thread I recently responded to, there is a decay curve shape and re-routing of the pedal CC. Garritan probably does the same, but possibly with a much more well tuned curve that matches their recording (?). Just guessing.

https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/130-another-half-pedaling-thread/14

vagfilm

Well... I should have studied this better because I looked at the installer files (I had removed Garritan CFX from my laptop). It turns out that after reinstalling CFX, the installed files are very different 😬... The ".data" files in the installation folder (that play when the file suffix is changed to ".wav") are processed during installation into ".audio" files that do not play at all.

A poster in a makemusic forum states:
"Garritan Samples are stored in a RAW data format. You can view them with a RAW sample editor (I.E. Audacity), but they ARE slightly encrypted. What happens is, samples are coded with various errors that get fixed in real time by the ARIA player if the library is properly registered. It can be simple things like fixing the proper root-pitch, or correcting the left and right phasing in a stereo sample, or even some irregular artifacts and such."

So, it is simply not possible to substitute the CFX samples with another set of samples and use the CFX script. It would be interesting, but this is a dead end. My bad.

dore_m

From the little that I know about Garritan, it doesn't look like a fun scripting job. Some of the concepts are interesting to me, I think they use "dummy" CC (continuous controllers) like variables, since real variables are not supported in SFZ. And then the data is organized in written arrays and not with equations (AFAIK). Scripting and testing seems like a nightmare. Maybe they developed some internal graphical tools to aid in design revisions.

Joannchr

vagfilm Well, the idea was quite creative though.

HZPiano

Joannchr vagfilm Well, the idea was quite creative though.

+1!

QuasiUnaFantasia

Of course, if we put in Dore's samples, and record the output from Garritan, then we could in principle reverse engineer the changes done by Garritan, because we know what the correct output should be (Dore's original samples).

However, that could become a very arduous undertaking, if the changes implemented are complicated (I'm probably not volunteering for the job 😄).

CyberGene

Or maybe I should be more persuasive in inviting Jeff Hurchala here 🙂 He’s the guy who programmed that script.

HZPiano

QuasiUnaFantasia (I'm probably not volunteering for the job 😄).

Me neither!

🤯

Cheers and happy nerding,

Joannchr

n-player I forgot to mention that I also tested an approach which is quite popular in the plugin space , which is the bx_subfilter plugin. This is very popular because of the very high quality of the plugin to start with, because virtually it has no perceptible added latency , so it can used live and last but not least because it is free. It works remarkably well with Garritan CFX and you can eliminate unwanted bass frequencies with the high pass filter ( called " tight punch" ) while increasing or decreasing the level of sub you want to obtain with the 'low end' knob. There is a resonance adjustment as well ( best position I found was 'high' , 'extreme' being too much) . Really great with the classic default samples of Garritan. ( I use it within Logic Pro X and the aria player VST)

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