Jake Johnson
09-20-2007, 02:21 PM
I stumbled on the way to kill the mechanical noise that was making the CVPiano unusuable for some people. (Those of you who know the GigaEditor interface or GVI already know this, but for me, this solution took some time to find.) The result, for me, after raising the volume of the lowest velocity samples, is a great sounding close-perspective piano. Getting rid of the release sound should also improve polyphony, since it cuts out one of the samples you play each time you strike a note.
There are actually two thumpish samples. One is a release sample and the other is a hammer-strike sample that is most audible if you raise the volume of the lowest velocity layer. The following steps will let you get rid of both or either or just reduce the volume of either.
(You may not have heard the thumps at all--if you keep the default settings, the Special velocity curve obscures the sound, since the curve is so deeply concave. However, if you choose another curve to make the soft strikes louder, the thump becomes more noticable. If you adjust the volumes of the three velocity layers, particularly the soft layer, the thumps can become so intrusive as to make the piano unusable.)
1. Once the intrument loads, click on the Edit tab.
2. Be sure that you are not editing individual regions. Near the bottom, the drop boxes just above the keyboard should read: Midi (black on silver, not black on green), Relative, All Regions, All Splits.
3. The Release thump is a separate sample indicated by the leftmost horizontal dirty yellow or bright yellow bar above and to the left of the keyboard. (Below the bars for the velocity layers.) To the left of this bar you will see the text RelTrig on a dropdown box button, incidating that this sample is triggered when you release the keys. Click on this LEFTMOST bar so it turns bright yellow.
4. Click to the left on RelTrig and assign the control to something you won't use on a pianol such as Breathcontroller. (If you only want to reduce the volume of the release thump instead of killing it entirely, you must instead follow the same procedure you would use to raise the volume of a single velocity layer: Choose Stereo Pairs and Individual Regions from the dropdown boxes above the keyboard, select all of the keys, click on the dirty yellow horizontal bar for the release sample and then reduce its volume by just turning down the volume knob.)
5. Play a note or two to hear that the release thump is gone.
6. Click on the next bar to the right. This is the hammer-strike sample You may only hear it for the lowest velocities. If you have raised the volume of the lowest velocities from their default to closer to 0, you will hear it easily: just press a key softly. Watch the bars above to be sure that are hitting inside the softest vel layer. You will hear only the sound of the sample without any note playing.
I like this apparent hammer strike, but you may not. You can reduce its volume slightly or if you hate it, just turn its volume down so low that it is inaudible. (I haven't found a simple way to just kill it.) Remember that you can't just turn the volume knob to reduce the sound of this sample. Doing that will reduce will reduce the volume of all of the samples. To reduce just its volume, treat it as a velocity layer: Follow the steps listed at the end of 4 above. Before you reduce the volume by turning the Volume knob, see the note below.
The note below: Because this hammer-strike is a layer of samples, you can do anything to it that you can do to other samples: Once you've chosen Stereo Pairs and Individual Regions, selected all of the regions or just the ones you want, you can click on the Filter tab, for example, and apply a low pass filter to the hammer samples, using the envelope and everything else. The turbo filter is good here, too. So the complications of working with this sample have a compensation--you can make the hammer sound the way you want on any region of the keyboard to change the sound of the piano--a low pass filter may in some cases be better than reducing its volume. A high pass filter can slightly brighten the tone of the hammer sounds, if you want a harder hammer on some ranges.
7. Click on the horizontal bar to the left, the release sample bar, to be able to hear notes again.
8. Finally, be sure to change the editing settings back to All Regions and All Splits, so future changes you make will be applied universally.
Caveats:
These edits must be made for each intrument.
If you've made extensive edits of the pianos, you may have to go in and change the settings for each of the two thumps for each layer. If you've changed the volume level for the layers, for example, which can give you good results, the volume of any one layer in proportion to the volume for the hammer sample may not be what you want. Check the settings for both the release sample and the hammer sample.
There are actually two thumpish samples. One is a release sample and the other is a hammer-strike sample that is most audible if you raise the volume of the lowest velocity layer. The following steps will let you get rid of both or either or just reduce the volume of either.
(You may not have heard the thumps at all--if you keep the default settings, the Special velocity curve obscures the sound, since the curve is so deeply concave. However, if you choose another curve to make the soft strikes louder, the thump becomes more noticable. If you adjust the volumes of the three velocity layers, particularly the soft layer, the thumps can become so intrusive as to make the piano unusable.)
1. Once the intrument loads, click on the Edit tab.
2. Be sure that you are not editing individual regions. Near the bottom, the drop boxes just above the keyboard should read: Midi (black on silver, not black on green), Relative, All Regions, All Splits.
3. The Release thump is a separate sample indicated by the leftmost horizontal dirty yellow or bright yellow bar above and to the left of the keyboard. (Below the bars for the velocity layers.) To the left of this bar you will see the text RelTrig on a dropdown box button, incidating that this sample is triggered when you release the keys. Click on this LEFTMOST bar so it turns bright yellow.
4. Click to the left on RelTrig and assign the control to something you won't use on a pianol such as Breathcontroller. (If you only want to reduce the volume of the release thump instead of killing it entirely, you must instead follow the same procedure you would use to raise the volume of a single velocity layer: Choose Stereo Pairs and Individual Regions from the dropdown boxes above the keyboard, select all of the keys, click on the dirty yellow horizontal bar for the release sample and then reduce its volume by just turning down the volume knob.)
5. Play a note or two to hear that the release thump is gone.
6. Click on the next bar to the right. This is the hammer-strike sample You may only hear it for the lowest velocities. If you have raised the volume of the lowest velocities from their default to closer to 0, you will hear it easily: just press a key softly. Watch the bars above to be sure that are hitting inside the softest vel layer. You will hear only the sound of the sample without any note playing.
I like this apparent hammer strike, but you may not. You can reduce its volume slightly or if you hate it, just turn its volume down so low that it is inaudible. (I haven't found a simple way to just kill it.) Remember that you can't just turn the volume knob to reduce the sound of this sample. Doing that will reduce will reduce the volume of all of the samples. To reduce just its volume, treat it as a velocity layer: Follow the steps listed at the end of 4 above. Before you reduce the volume by turning the Volume knob, see the note below.
The note below: Because this hammer-strike is a layer of samples, you can do anything to it that you can do to other samples: Once you've chosen Stereo Pairs and Individual Regions, selected all of the regions or just the ones you want, you can click on the Filter tab, for example, and apply a low pass filter to the hammer samples, using the envelope and everything else. The turbo filter is good here, too. So the complications of working with this sample have a compensation--you can make the hammer sound the way you want on any region of the keyboard to change the sound of the piano--a low pass filter may in some cases be better than reducing its volume. A high pass filter can slightly brighten the tone of the hammer sounds, if you want a harder hammer on some ranges.
7. Click on the horizontal bar to the left, the release sample bar, to be able to hear notes again.
8. Finally, be sure to change the editing settings back to All Regions and All Splits, so future changes you make will be applied universally.
Caveats:
These edits must be made for each intrument.
If you've made extensive edits of the pianos, you may have to go in and change the settings for each of the two thumps for each layer. If you've changed the volume level for the layers, for example, which can give you good results, the volume of any one layer in proportion to the volume for the hammer sample may not be what you want. Check the settings for both the release sample and the hammer sample.