Schubert OP.42 Sonata demo (one of the best sampled piano)

[Olivier]

Schubert OP.42 Sonata demo (one of the best sampled piano)

Hi,

I'm tired of Piano's midi.

here the demo :

Wet :

http://www.audiolivepro.com/demos/wet-galaxy-Stein-Schubert-OFRAPPIER.mp3



And Dry (Piano without effect)

http://www.audiolivepro.com/demos/dry-galaxy-Stein-Schubert-OFRAPPIER.mp3


played without midi - i play directly in live with Mp9000 keyboard and recorded
with the directwire in realtime with a waveterminal 192 X

Version used : Olivier Frappier /XAVIER Bidault V3.183 of the Galaxy

Regards,

Olivier

[Frederick]

Fabulous! Bravo!

Olivier, your work on tweaking the performance of this piano is truly incredible. Keep up the good work.

[miraclez]

Sorry to be a showstopper but I hear some very disturbing things in this demo.
First, you play a lot of staccato notes (in the beginning and trough the whole piace) and they seem to have no release at all, no dampers, no ambience, just an artificial stop. This artificial release is very unreal.
Then there is some very noticable and disturbing noise (in the beginning and around half a minute) does it come from low velocity samples?
Finally the lack of resonance when the sustain pedal is used in the Galaxy makes it very dead to me. There is no extra resonance from the resonating strings when you play legatpo with the pedal down. Are there no sustain pedal samples used?

[Olivier]

Sorry to be a showstopper but I hear some very disturbing things in this demo.
First, you play a lot of staccato notes (in the beginning and trough the whole piace) and they seem to have no release at all, no dampers, no ambience, just an artificial stop. This artificial release is very unreal.


Hi,

i search your posts in this forum to understand your opinion. But i can't find any.

It doesn't sound artificial to me. Yes, a little more than a real Steinway D (Lol)

:)

Olivier

[fisheye]

I'm right there with you, miraclez. I've never heard such a release on a real piano. It is totally unnatural and, more important, really ugly. Fortunately, the reverb effect in the wet demo makes it less audible.

And I'm no stranger in these kinds of remarks...

Panning is also absurd, but I had mentioned that in an earlier thread already.

[fozzy]

I'm right there with you, miraclez. I've never heard such a release on a real piano. It is totally unnatural and, more important, really ugly. Fortunately, the reverb effect in the wet demo makes it less audible.

And I'm no stranger in these kinds of remarks...

Panning is also absurd, but I had mentioned that in an earlier thread already.

The wet does sound much better. But, yes, there still is something "un-natural" about it, almost sort of synth-ish to it I suppose, that I can't quite put my finger on.

[Olivier]

Hi,

I've a real grand Piano and i have a good piano Europa tuner for my Schimmel. i've played several good tuned Steinway D and the release is clean / fast and the action mechanism very fast .

And i've never heard such serious sound in a sampled Steinway piano.


And important : this piano is dry and you can't hear unreal ambience or out of tunes unisson (not the case of most sampled piano where the higher velocity are out of tunes)

In the upcoming version, we have changed the releases and i've programmed the non struck strings with a real effect. Samples created with the reverse string noise of the Galaxy samples. (the 88 strings)

When you play sample down in a sampled piano is totally unreal why ?

Because whren you play a single note, you are right. But when you play several keys in the same times with samples down you haven't the real harmonics of the real piano. Because harmonics depend on a million of conbinations. It's depend of what kind of chord you play.

Example in a real piano when you play "C E G" in the same times it doesn't produce the addition (C+E+G) of individual harmonics. It's more complicated. And it's the case of using pedal down samples in the same time and it's totally wrong and unreal. And a lot of sampled piano have wrong release samples with a lot of noise (Why adding bad samples ?)

In a real piano :When you press pedal down without playing keys, you hear already all the strings non played (but it's not the pedal noise). In the next version i've created this real effect in real time with real pedal behaviour. And when you press pedal down within keeping a sample up sample you have already played the harmonics of samples down comes like a real piano.

So, it's more real to reproduce all 88 non played strings when the pedal is down.

And i've never hear such serious sound in a sampled piano

And it's useless to reproduce pedal action noise because great piano tuner search to cancel this noise in the Grand concert Piano like a Steinway D.

In the past i've played sampled piano with pedal down samples and the amount of resonance was totally unreal with a lot of a errors in layers.

Demos of this version soon

I don't work for Bestservice. it's just my pleasure to make a piano better and work with Xavier.

i don't win money for those updates or Galaxy promotion.

It's the first time i've got a sampled piano like this. The first serious sound i heard. And galaxy don't need lowpass filters to hide noise in samples.
(not the case of the others Pianos - but the Barstdown Bosendorfer is serious
too - no lowpass filters)

The panning is the panning of a player perspective. i've the same pannin when i play with my real Schimmel. And you can easly change the panning by adding in Stereo the Center rack. (LOL) it take few seconds

(The Steinway B of Olivier Truan was my favorite - the others disapointed me - and now with the Galaxy my life as changed)

Just listen classical SteinwayD recording (Europa recording)

Regards,

Olivier

[fisheye]

Hi Olivier,

The release I'm talking about is the ambience inside the piano; the sound resonates in the soundboard of the piano, eventhough the strings have been stopped by the dampers. I personally don't want room ambience, but I would like the 'piano ambience'.

About the pedal noice (the rumble).
In Hammond organs there is a clicksound in the keys. The designers didn't like it and would have liked it to get it out, but they couldn't do it. Nowadays, organist want this sound in their hammonds and their clones, it has become an important characteristic of the classic hammonds.
Same with grands. The designers consider it annoying, pianists like it. That is, some of them. I think the classical pianists don't want it, but a lot of jazz pianists do like it. I have some recordings where the rumble is audible and I think it adds to the character of those recordings.
Besides that, the sound can accompany the change in the sound of the unsustained to sustained state, which is usefull in the current digital versions, making a not-that-realistic change; it marks the change more clearly and more naturally and jazz pianists can use that to make the pedal a stronger sound effect, which they can use for their musical expression: it is a tool.

[fisheye]

Forgot to mention that for me, it would be best to have control over the pedal noice: when pressed soft it should be barely audible, when pressed hard it should be audible. This way it really becomes a useful tool.

And I would also very much like the string-sound caused by the pedal you're trying to get into the sampled version. That would be great.
I love the sound the triangle shaped dampers make in a Yamaha grand.

[JohnGrant]

Schubert OP.42 Sonata demo (one of the best sampled piano)

Hi,

I'm tired of Piano's midi.

here the demo :

Wet :

http://www.audiolivepro.com/demos/wet-galaxy-Stein-Schubert-OFRAPPIER.mp3



And Dry (Piano without effect)

http://www.audiolivepro.com/demos/dry-galaxy-Stein-Schubert-OFRAPPIER.mp3


played without midi - i play directly in live with Mp9000 keyboard and recorded
with the directwire in realtime with a waveterminal 192 X

Version used : Olivier Frappier /XAVIER Bidault V3.183 of the Galaxy

Regards,

Olivier

Perhaps I've become too easy to please, but this sample sounds very, very good to my ears. And the live playing is very good too. I'm more or less trying to compare the sound to various recordings of live (real) Steinways, and this particular sample has the advantage (over others) of being very physically present, not at all weak, if I can express it that way. That I assume is a function of the type of mics used and their exact placement, probably very close to the strings. There's a trade-off, since the sound can also sound just a little artificial, which I think is what the comments above may be about. At the same time, a more distant recording of the piano seems to produce a more ambient (ie natural) sound, but also a weaker, almost watered down sound.

The verb added is quite good. What verb and verb adjustment (room, etc), precisely, did you use Olivier?

JG

[Olivier]

Hi John,

(see the private message)

V3.188 fast ready and improve staccato :

a first quick demo :

http://www.audiolivepro.com/demos/Schubert-V1.888.mp3

i play more staccato just to show you the new featur in patch V3.188

i will make another demo soon.

Regards,

Olivier

[fozzy]

Hi Olivier,

First, I appreciate and understand perfectly well what you're trying to express.

Like you I have keen love of good pianos. Steinway, in general, isn't my particular cuppa tea. Among "real" pianos a M&H, Grotian, and Fazioli are, imo, much more preferable as performing instruments. But, alas, there's no accounting for taste. ;)

You've done a nice enough job with this library. Like others, I tend to prefer dry samples. Unfortunately, it's the dry demo which suggests this is not the piano library for me. It may be somebody else's meat, but not mine. Many of the "effects" you outline sound exceptionally exaggerated -giving rise to what another poster has described as "ugly" (starting around 42 sec or so it starts to sounds fake or at least similar to some digital pianos I've played; there is nasty pockmark at about 1:17 -dunno if that's the mp3 or the lib itself. Exaggerated from about 1:40 to the 2min mark and wierdly so around 3min). Still with further good efforts on your part, this may be worth exploring further down the road. But, as I have neither the time nor inclination to fuss with editing a library, I will take a pass for now.

John,

I don't think your "too easy"... Don't know that there's any one definitive, at least for me, approach to recording piano (I like various recordings and each is pretty different. Is there a particular recording you find exemplarary?). I think I've pretty much, and happily so, resigned myself to purchasing many different piano sample libraries --at least this year with the upcoming Black Grand, ArtVista S&S B, PMI's two new libs, and Milan's close samples high on the list. I am pretty excited about what lies ahead with Giga 3 and piano libraries. The best is yet to come I think. If you do pick up the Galaxy, I'll look forward to your posting some demos and an evaluation of it.

Fozzy

[Frederick]

Perhaps I've become too easy to please, but this sample sounds very, very good to my ears.

Agreed - when it comes to the new generation of piano samples, they're all beginning to sound much better and more realistic - including also any peculiar overtones and frequency imbalances that are inherent to the actual instrument being sampled. Some of the "imperfections" make up the character of the piano - its really up to the composer/engineer to determine whether the type of piano can fit in the mix of the genre they are working in and for their particular style of playing.

I really like Galaxy. For me it fits in the mix with VSL quite well. I think Olivier Frappier & Xavier Bidault have done some really good work improving it in their V3.183. Piano samples cater to a hard audience and hopefully once the tweaks are complete their final version can be an official update for Best Service.

[Olivier]

Hi,

thanks !

One final version is fast ready.

About reverberation :
(from www.galaxy.be)
The Hall is free of flutter and resonance effects. The very natural reverberation can be varied from 1.6 to 2.6 seconds by moving large curtains, which allows excellent reverberation characteristics for all genres from chamber music up to large orchestral recordings, or from solo-instruments merged with a beautiful natural reverb to big live drumsounds."
--

_And in the Galaxy i hear only the soundboard vibration and the piano sound.
That's why i will use this piano for live performance and the kind of position of my SRM-450 Mackie active speakers with give the room ambience that i want.

I don't want a piano + a room (with false flutter and resonance effects)
--
"
The Hall acoustics were designed by a team of Professor Gerrit Vermeir of the Leuven University and Mr. Eric Desart of Gerber Belgium. Thousands of measurements, calculations and comparisons with famous concert halls specifications lead to the final characteristics of the Galaxy Hall. The ceiling has been covered with diffusing panels, spreading the sound in a natural manner. These panels, in combination with carefully designed absorption panels on the walls, provide a unique balance between maximum reverberation and optimum intelligibility.

"
"

The background noise level in the hall is so low that microphone noise becomes the most important noise factor. This results in a dynamic range in excess of 110 dB, perfect for 24 bit recording (with Airco on!!) "
Regards,

Olivier

[JohnGrant]

Hi,

thanks !

One final version is fast ready.

About reverberation :
(from www.galaxy.be)
The Hall is free of flutter and resonance effects. The very natural reverberation can be varied from 1.6 to 2.6 seconds by moving large curtains, which allows excellent reverberation characteristics for all genres from chamber music up to large orchestral recordings, or from solo-instruments merged with a beautiful natural reverb to big live drumsounds."
--

_And in the Galaxy i hear only the soundboard vibration and the piano sound.
That's why i will use this piano for live performance and the kind of position of my SRM-450 Mackie active speakers with give the room ambience that i want.

I don't want a piano + a room (with false flutter and resonance effects)
--
"
The Hall acoustics were designed by a team of Professor Gerrit Vermeir of the Leuven University and Mr. Eric Desart of Gerber Belgium. Thousands of measurements, calculations and comparisons with famous concert halls specifications lead to the final characteristics of the Galaxy Hall. The ceiling has been covered with diffusing panels, spreading the sound in a natural manner. These panels, in combination with carefully designed absorption panels on the walls, provide a unique balance between maximum reverberation and optimum intelligibility.

"
"

The background noise level in the hall is so low that microphone noise becomes the most important noise factor. This results in a dynamic range in excess of 110 dB, perfect for 24 bit recording (with Airco on!!) "
Regards,

Olivier

So, just to clarify, Olivier, does the Galaxy come with various Hall or reverb settings?

JG

[Olivier]

Hi,

No reverb settings at all. But any IR reverb work like a charm with this piano.

it's only a dry piano.

:)

Regards,

Olivier