Studio Instruments

bump

I just did some testing with HomeStudio7xl and Studio Instruments Piano.  My input was a keyboard synth.

What I observed was that it was velocity sensitive but you had to get way down on the velocity before you noticed any reduction in sound.  And then when you have high velocity the quality of the sound changes.

So SI-Piano is velocity sensitive.  I don't see a way to change how it interprets velocity (linear, exponential, whatever).

The easiest way to really figure out what it is doing is to input midi notes (like lots of the same quarter notes) and then edit the velocity of the notes to go thru various ranges of velocity.

--Larry

Thanks Jon and Larry. 

I was kind of liking the sound of the elec piano (rhodesy sound)  (I forget if it's the S1 or not). 
Anyway, at this point, I find them un-usable. Too bad. Just another half baked recipe.
Maybe Cakewalk should look into getting a new oven.

Tim,
The electric pianos are the only thing I've really used. "SubtleChorus" has worked for me in the past.
ModBod has bemoaned the fact that SI has never lived up to its potential.
I whined early on about the bass sounds.
Shame really...

T

Jonbouy


Never used 'em.

The only reason for me to say that is in order to re-bump the thread of course.

I haven't either.  I generally stay away from those types of instruments/plugins.  I call them "French Fries."  They come as side orders, sometimes we eat them, but they're mostly oil and fat lol.


That doesn't mean that some find good use with them, I'm sure some do.  But they tend not to be top-of-line stuff and with all the amazing options and products available today (some free) there are just better alternatives imho.

ba_midi

Jonbouy


Never used 'em.

The only reason for me to say that is in order to re-bump the thread of course.

I haven't either.  I generally stay away from those types of instruments/plugins.  I call them "French Fries."  They come as side orders, sometimes we eat them, but they're mostly oil and fat lol.


That doesn't mean that some find good use with them, I'm sure some do.  But they tend not to be top-of-line stuff and with all the amazing options and products available today (some free) there are just better alternatives imho.

I'm not even sure it came with 8.5, I obviously didn't install it if it did...

I just used the bass with some added distortion and the Wurly on a blues song.  It actually beat Dim Pro for this project.  Nice and handy but not a real show stopper.

Rimshot

I've always set the velocity curves in my MIDI-keyboard. I didn't even know you can do in the soft synth :o/

Bapu
Na
Just the draft before you get it!
Rim

Bapu is smokin' on the bass!  How could it be any other way? 


Rim

You can look at the sfz files with Notepad and see which ones have velocity layers and which ones don't. I've never used the Studio Instruments except for some cursory experiments, so I opened a few sfz's to have a look.

Velocity layers in sfz files are defined by lovel and hivel keywords, so I used grep (a DOS command line search utility) to quickly identify which sfz files in the bass folder contained them, and found only one: Velocity Picked.sfz. None of the others appeared to have velocity layers. Many, however, do have round-robin multisamples.

The drum kits, OTOH, typically had as many as a dozen velocity layers per instrument. I found no round-robin alternate samples, though, so I expect fast drum phrases are likely to machine-gun.

In the string sections, all but one library had either one or two layers.

In the piano library, only the Rhodes had more than two layers. It has 3.

So it would appear [caveat: I am no expert on sfz files] that timidi is correct: Studio Instruments do have very limited velocity layers (with the exception of drums).

I love the immediate simplicity of studio instruments,and use them all the time,except for the electric piano/keys[GSI's Organized much more fun]

If you want velocity et al,N.I. have Komplete 8 Elements for 59 bucks that has way more complexity,but for simple realistic sounds I think S. I. is quite OK,especially S.I. Bass Guitar which I do use a lot,but hey....... 

Layers may be more "authentic" for sampling "real" instruments, but they are not needed for velocity response. FYI the sfz format has a lot of parameters for velocity, e.g. filter and amplitude levels and envelopes, pitch envelope and a few other arcane things. See http://www.cakewalk.com/D...e/article.aspx?aid=108 ......[] I haven't tried SI, so I am not saying it does (or doesn't) have many velocity sensitive patches.

bobguitkillerleft


I love the immediate simplicity of studio instruments,and use them all the time,except for the electric piano/keys[GSI's Organized much more fun]

If you want velocity et al,N.I. have Komplete 8 Elements for 59 bucks that has way more complexity,but for simple realistic sounds I think S. I. is quite OK,especially S.I. Bass Guitar which I do use a lot,but hey....... 

Thanks Bob. i have Komplete. I just like the sound of the SI elec piano. especially the ease of chorus. Too bad it doesn't do what I want. (I'm not going to use the "V" word)

timidi

Jind

timidi


Thanks Bit.

Maybe I'm being unclear though. I think I may have a different grasp of what others mean by "velocity". 

When I say Velocity, I mean the ability to play soft to loud passages. You know, like it's supposed to be. Like playing a piano (a real piano). You play it with a delicate touch and the note sounds delicately or softer. You play a note hard and it's louder.

At this point I'm not really concerned about how many sample layers make up the sound. And, to me, the number of samples should really have nothing to do with velocity sensitivity. My JV1080 probably has one 10kbit sample for a patch's entire sound, but it plays a lot more realistically.

I just really find it hard to believe that in 2012, Cakewalk cannot seem to ever finish baking the friggin CAKE...... I might be jumping the gun with that remark as maybe I'm wrong or something's wrong with my controller. But, the controller does work pretty good with other synths. So, I'm really at a loss. 
Is it really as lame as it seems?

I think we all understand exactly what you are saying and Bit's response pretty much confirms it.  Velocity layers are very limited in Studio Instruments, sometimes no velocity layers other than a single layer, sometimes a few more, some have round robin samples so it will not play the same sample every time so the other sample may have a lower velocity (volume), but not enough to play soft to loud passages.  Only the drums seem to have more than 4 velocity levels.


 

Thanks jind. But, No, I don't think you do understand. But, that's fine.
"velocity layers" is not what I am talking about at all. "layers" have nothing to do with anything. 
Unless, you consider "A layer" as 1 of 127 possibilities. However, even then, it may or may not be velocity sensitive.

Hi Tim,
If I may be so bold, I think actually Jind does understand and maybe you don't?  I could be wrong and forgive me if I am, but I think you're not understanding what "velocity layers" means.
 
sampled instruments do not come with 128 different possibilities of velocity, or at least, I've never seen that many in any sampled instruments.  It would be a HUGE set of files just for one instrument (piano for example) to get that many different velocities from a sampled instrument because you have to sample each velocity for each note at least one time (and samplers usually sample each note more than once).
 
add that the to fact that humans can't really play 128 different velocities anyway, not accurately trying to reach each velocity.  in other words, if I tried to sample only the Middle C of a piano for 128 different velocities, I'd probably get groups of velocities (if they were "measured" as velocities) with a resolution of probably 10, maybe 5 velocities if I were really good.
 
so the samplers use velocity layers to create "levels" of velocities.  each layer is a range of velocities for the sampler to output a particular tone depending on the velocity you strike the key with.  for example, a lot of popular sampled pianos only have about 4 velocity layers.  I'm making the numbers up, but the principal is still the same - so for example velocities 1 thru 31 would be "layer 1", 32 thru 63 would be "layer 2", 64 thru 95 would be "layer 3" and 96 thru 127 would be "layer 4"
 
when you strike the keys at a velocity of 30, 27, 5, 12, 18, your output would all be layer 1
when you strike the keys at a velocity of 33, 60, 55, 48, 39, your output would all be layer 2
etc.
 
Ivory II that just came out last year has a large amount of velocity layers - 18, IIRC.  so with Ivory, your resolution is about 7 velocities per layer, which is extremely fine in regards to your dynamic output and very rare when compared to other sampled instruments.
 
I suspect that Studio Instruments has 2 or 3 velocity layers, maybe 4 at the most depending on the instrument or patch you're talking about, but I haven't done any research to verify that.  there could be some patches that have only 1 velocity layer.  all 128 velocities would output the same "volume" for any velocity input.  striking the key at a velocity of 1 would output the same sound as striking it at 127.
 
If you understood all of that before I typed it, I apologize, but it seemed to me that you didn't understand what "velocity layers" meant with regards to sampled instruments.
 
HTH.