Out of tune

[dabbler]

I'm getting frustrated with out of tune samples in the winds. The random tuning knob is set at zero. Why are these instruments still blowing notes out of tune?

[Haydn]

Which instruments and which notes? This will help fix any issues for future updates.

Jim

[dabbler]

I'm not going to waste my time with that, but Tenor Sax 1 and Tenor Sax 4 are especially bad, Alto 2 has some bad ones. The tuba seems to be quite bad too. Ironically, the five trumpets seem really well in tune with each other, and that never happens in real life. :D

Play a long chromatic scale with trumpet 1, alto 1, alto 2, tenor 1, tenor 4 and tuba, and it sounds like a junior high school band!


R.

[Garritan]

See if your VAR control setting is adjusted to far. VAR introduces tuning variations and if it is set too high it will go out of tune. Also check the event list in your sequencer to make sure there's no cc#22 (or pitch wheel) data being introduced in the chage that would affect pitch.

Gary Garritan

[Jeannot Welter]

Each sample in JABB - and I mean each - has been tuned with precision and outmost care.
The only criticism I have heard occasionaly, is that the tuning is too tight.
That one, I might accept.


Jeannot Welter.

[dabbler]

See if your VAR control setting is adjusted to far. VAR introduces tuning variations and if it is set too high it will go out of tune. Also check the event list in your sequencer to make sure there's no cc#22 (or pitch wheel) data being introduced in the chage that would affect pitch.

Gary Garritan

tuning VAR is set to 0. There are no cc22's. Actually, the only cc's are modulation - CC1 for which there is a single event with a value of 127 at the start of the line. Here is a clip of trumpet 1 and tenor 1 playing the same line.

http://www.richiebee.ca/tuningtest.mp3

[Garritan]

tuning VAR is set to 0. There are no cc22's. Actually, the only cc's are modulation - CC1 for which there is a single event with a value of 127 at the start of the line. Here is a clip of trumpet 1 and tenor 1 playing the same line.

http://www.richiebee.ca/tuningtest.mp3Some instruments have loose tuning. There are four different tenor saxes to choose from and there is a choice between tight and loose tuned instruments. I'll ask Tom to address this further.

Gary Garritan

[Tom Hopkins]

Gary just brought this thread to my attention. You can blame me. I purposely(!) kept a few instruments with loose tuning. Why? Because I got considerably more natural-sounding results (quickly,) while I was preparing the initial demos, when the tuning was not perfectly tightened for certain primary instruments. The next update (which will probably coincide with the release of the K2 player) will tighten the tuning of those instruments because scripting will then be able to step in and contribute the essential intonational discrepancies based on logical conditions. Only these select few instruments in the library were not carefully tuned (actually, they were carefully left loosely tuned) and I chose the particular instruments as I worked with the demos. They were always meant to be an interim step prior to the advent of scripting. I found that it was a time saver in most situations instead of my needing to go in and manually de-tune each note as needed. Granted, such settings are not situational but I still found that they significantly sped up the demo process and yielded more natural results. Scripting opens the door to better control of the necessary tuning disparities so it will be advantageous to have a neutral starting point from which the scripts can work. The time-saving (for me anyway) tuning inaccuracies of the present select instruments will no longer be helpful at that time. Until then, I would suggest choosing from the instruments that are tightly tuned if you have difficulties with the loose tuning and/or you'd rather not apply counteractive pitchbend when desired.

Tom

P.S. If this had been my own personal library, rather than a commercial product, I would have left all instruments in the library loosely tuned until scripting became available. As it is, while creating the big band demos I had to draw in a considerable amount of "de-tuning" data for each of the tightly-tuned instruments. Only when steps like this were taken did things begin to come to life. Scripting should eventually remove much of this drudgery. At least that's the plan.

[Tangram]

Which instruments has a loose tuning?

/Mats

[dabbler]

I thought that was the whole point of the VAR control.

Either way, making the primary instrument (eg, Tenor 1) with the loose tuning seems a bit weird to me. If it was tenor 3, it might make more sense.

Tenor 1 has a fantastic sound in my opinion - better than the others for most of the stuff I do. It's really spoilt by this loose tuning.

Thanks for the clarification though. Glad I wasn't going mad!

Rich

[sergiobklyn]

The next update (which will probably coincide with the release of the K2 player)

Any idea when that will be?

[BarrieB]

I thought that was the whole point of the VAR control.

Either way, making the primary instrument (eg, Tenor 1) with the loose tuning seems a bit weird to me. If it was tenor 3, it might make more sense.

Tenor 1 has a fantastic sound in my opinion - better than the others for most of the stuff I do. It's really spoilt by this loose tuning.

Thanks for the clarification though. Glad I wasn't going mad!

Rich

Dunno about anyone else here, but I've spent all my life trying to make synthetic and sampled instruments sound real, and that means, amongst other things, subtle detuning amongst instruments and sections. I ALWAYS use Var 1 at at least 10% and that vastly improves the sound for me, and people seem to like my use of JABB. I've certainly never come across an orchestra or swing band or whatever that played in mathematical tune, and I don't want to!

regards


Barrie

[dabbler]

Dunno about anyone else here, but I've spent all my life trying to make synthetic and sampled instruments sound real, and that means, amongst other things, subtle detuning amongst instruments and sections. I ALWAYS use Var 1 at at least 10% and that vastly improves the sound for me, and people seem to like my use of JABB. I've certainly never come across an orchestra or swing band or whatever that played in mathematical tune, and I don't want to!

regards


Barrie

But surely you'd rather be in charge of it, than have it forced on you. It's way easier to put the instruments out of tune using pitch bend and VAR than it is to put them in tune!

I have Kontakt (with the latest upgrade). If I load up an instrument and retune the sample, either using a wave editor or the tuning facility in Kontakt itself, can I save the instrument without causing problems when using JABB in the JABB Kontakt player either stand alone or VSTi? If so, what would be the recommended process for minimizing the chances of corrupt or unusable instruments? If using Kontakt would work, I have Sound Forge with which I can manually retune samples.

[BarrieB]

I'm interested in why you want them rock solid in mathematical tune? There's no human player who can do that consistently. If you want a sax that has been closely corrected, then as Tom says use a different instrument - Tom says some of them are in perfect intonation. But again, I'm struggling to imagine the project that requires them to be tuned like synths..

Hope this doen't sound like a put-down, I'm genuinely interested.

regards

Barrie

[Tom Hopkins]

It's way easier to put the instruments out of tune using pitch bend and VAR than it is to put them in tune!I beg to differ. It is the same amount of effort, just the converse - especially if one uses an inline tuning meter, placed as an insert on the instrument channel, as an aid. I always do this on each horn track to give me accurate information at any given moment. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if some people saw it as easier to tune than to de-tune simply because tuning is a matter of centering the pitch to a reference whereas de-tuning, for the most effective results, requires more trial and error.


I have Kontakt (with the latest upgrade). If I load up an instrument and retune the sample, either using a wave editor or the tuning facility in Kontakt itself, can I save the instrument without causing problems when using JABB in the JABB Kontakt player either stand alone or VSTi?You can edit the tuning in Kontakt 1.5 but you cannot load samples into a wave editor like Sound Forge. All sample data is encoded in a monolithic file structure for security. Instead, sample tuning can be accomplished at the zone level in Kontakt. Keep in mind that only Kontakt version 1.5 can be used to do the editing if you wish to use the changes in the JABB player. K2 is a newer version and is not, of course, compatible with the K1.5 player presently being used by JABB. Any editing done in K2 will only be compatible for playback in K2.


If so, what would be the recommended process for minimizing the chances of corrupt or unusable instruments?If K1.5 is used for editing there is little concern about corruption and if you don't overwrite the original files you will avoid any risk, whatsoever.

Tom

[Tom Hopkins]

Any idea when that will be?Nope. This is largely on NI's schedule, not ours. Once they are ready we will have many things to do on our end - then it will be released.

Tom

[Tom Hopkins]

. . . making the primary instrument (eg, Tenor 1) with the loose tuning seems a bit weird to me. If it was tenor 3, it might make more sense.

Tenor 1 has a fantastic sound in my opinion - better than the others for most of the stuff I do. It's really spoilt by this loose tuning.Tenor 1 is also my favorite of the tenors and that is precisely why I chose it to have the more natural tuning - because it was the one I used most often in exposed situations. As to the "spoilage," that strikes me as a hyperbolic comment. Not only have I found the present tuning consistently valuable but only on two occasions, so far, have I needed to tune a particular note more tightly in a demo (using pitchbend data.) Both instances involved unison lines with other instruments. The adjustment was quick and easy. Had I been using a very tightly tuned sax I would have had to apply additional de-tuning to many of the notes throughout the part - which would have been considerably more time-consuming. But, never mind, all of this is soon to be academic anyway with the changeover to the K2 player.

Tom

[Tom Hopkins]

Which instruments has a loose tuning?

/MatsDabbler has already named them.

Tom

[dabbler]

I'm interested in why you want them rock solid in mathematical tune? There's no human player who can do that consistently. If you want a sax that has been closely corrected, then as Tom says use a different instrument - Tom says some of them are in perfect intonation. But again, I'm struggling to imagine the project that requires them to be tuned like synths..

Hope this doen't sound like a put-down, I'm genuinely interested.

regards

Barrie


1. If I do an arrangement, I want to know that what I write sounds wrong because its badly orchestrated, not because it's badly played. That surely has to be a massive reason for people using JABB with software like Sibelius or Finale. If it sounds wrong right now, I have to think, is it badly orchestrated or is it just out of tune...

2. As I said before, I want control over it. Certain tuning variations add an organic quality (to me, particularly in saxophones), others add excitement (to me, particularly in trumpets). But I want to put it there and if I want a phrase to be perfectly in tune, I shouldn't have to go through hoops to do it.

I can't believe people don't think this way.... more in response to Tom's post.

R.

[dabbler]

I beg to differ. It is the same amount of effort, just the converse -


That is obsurd! To put it in tune, you require a tuner and/or a good ear with a reliable source along with extremely careful use of the pitch bend wheel. To put it out of tune, you just have to make gentle, tiny uses of the pitch bend wheel or draw in events. To make them really human, they won't be the same for every note. You can make random wiggles within a small range and make it sound convincing.

I can't think of any of my friends who get hired because they play out of tune.

R.

[Robert Rothman]

What's the big deal about tuning? Haven't you guys ever heard the expression "close enough for jazz"?

(Just kidding)

Rob Rothman

[Tom Hopkins]

Dabbler,

Well, there you have it (surprise!) - a difference of opinion. I now know yours, you know mine, and that's where it ends - until the K2 step is taken. This is definitely a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" subject. Believe it or not, the number one complaint we have received is that the tuning of the library is too tight, and (without taking lots of extra steps with the controllers) things can sound artificial. Oh well. Comes with the territory. I have no more to add on this because the subject is going to be, as I've stated, short-lived; and any further banter runs the risk of just turning into a shouting match. That I won't allow to happen - not on this forum. Case closed.

Tom