Any ideas for expanding/improving Dimension Pro acoustic Instruments
At the moment I mainly use acoustic-type instruments from Dim Pro, however as I'm sure many know they are fairly basic and lack the features that more high-end dedicated instrument libraries have e.g.;
- lots of velocity layers
- different articulations
- round robins
Please note I am not complaining here - I don't expect Dim Pro to match today's dedicated libraries and I think it is pretty good for what it aims to provide (basic sample-based sounds, kind of the next step up from a GM soundset). Also I know it has been around quite a few years now, however it does support sfz so allows a lot of customisation (don't know if it supports all sfz commands, if not there are free sfz players that do).
I have played around with some of Dim Pro's customisability eg the envelope window as well as built in EQ and effects, but I am sure I have not gone much past scratching the surface of its full capabilities.
I am thinking of trying to improve some of the acoustic instruments I use by using the existing tools in Dim Pro & Sonar. For example I play classical guitar, so I l know the physical instrument's capabilities quite well, so taking that as an example I would base my edits on the existing Martin Nylon instrument in Dim Pro - the sort of things I am experimenting with are;
- articulations - by using the amplitude Env Gen in Dim Pro I find I can create versions of the original which give a reasonable stab at hammer-on/pull-off by removing a bit of the attack, or palm-muted by using c 50% amplitude & reducing sustain. I can set these as different elements in addition to the original in Dim Pro, set it to be multi-timbral, and dynamically edit the track channel (1-4) in PRV to choose a different articulation (a bit like a key-switch except channel-based).
- tonal articulations - I would like to have sul pont & sul tasto variations available (& all in-between if possible) , after some experimenting I can get a pretty good version of these by using V-Vocal to adjust the formant of the original samples - negative for sul tasto, positive for sul pont. My idea now is to create 2 extra versions of each original sample (1 for each extreme of SP/ST) and find a way to use these dynamically in Dim Pro. I could load them in Dim Pro as 2 extra elements in addition to the original element, and maybe use the vector matrix or midi CCs to vary between them somehow, but that conflicts with using elements for ChSw articulations above, so maybe better to edit the sfz to make them true keyswitch alternatives
- round robins - could do some basic sfz edits to create random alternatives based on remapping/transposing up & down a semitone or 2 for each sample - sounds should be different enough to avoid the machine-gun effect, and the random aspect might make the lack of velocity layers less of an issue by introducing some more variations.
- velocity layers - I haven't thought of any way to address these yet, maybe by layering some extra noise into the existing samples somehow (eg square wave for higher velocities?). I need to keep experimenting on this one.
These are just a few ideas which I am in the process of trying, I just wonder if anyone else has gone down these paths before and if anyone has any other suggestions to try to create variations (EQ is an obvious one I guess, I have used that before to create Violins 1 & 2 variations in string sections - actually I used different Pro Channel presets on the tracks to do this).
Of course I know I could just buy Ilya Efimov Nylon or similar, but I figure its more fun & interesting & cheaper to make the most of what I already have (including using Sonar's audio editing tolls on the original samples to create new ones where that helps).
I am sure this kind of thing could work, and also apply to other instruments, so I am very interested to hear what others think.
A similar approach can be found in Garritan Personal Orchestra (not the pocket one in DP), which uses extended and advanced SFZ commands to create various articulations and make the most of a small sample set.
Cheers,
LBK
P.S.
As an aside I have noticed that there seem to be 2 samples for each note in the multisamples/Guitars/Martin Nylon folder (e.g there is a Nylon2_med_B2_01.flac and a Nylon2_med_B2_02.flac, similar for the other notes. The _02 samples are used in only two instruments (
Martin Nylon II.sfz and
Martin Nylon alrernation.sfz (sic)) but neither of these show up in my Dim Pro Instrument list (they never have, & I have refreshed it many times)- maybe some errors in the sfz are stopping them loading. The _02 samples are definitely different, I tested & they don't null. I guess the alternation one is a simple seq round robin, similar to the alto sax variation instrument. Does anyone have these in their Dim Pro instrument list?