and just to clarify a little further, you mentioned the JV1080, I don't know it specifically, but I suspect that it is not a true FULLY sampled instrument.  it may have a few samples that it uses to manipulate the note sounds, but I'm pretty certain it does not have all piano notes sampled at 128 velociites, and probably not even likely that it has 4 layers.

the JV's sound module might have one note per instrument or maybe as many as one sample per note to manipulate.  it would use those samples as the base sound and then use oscillators and filters to manipulate it to different levels of velocity and different pitches using the synth "brain" to create these sounds "on the fly" as you strike the keys.

so the JV might have 128 different velocities that it outputs.  but they're not individually sampled outputs.  they're digitally manipulated outputs based on the JV synth brain.

Thanks Beagle - glad I checked the post before I hit send as you have explained what I was typing as a response in a very clear manner.  If a sampled instrument only had one velocity layer (say an extremely hard key press), no matter how hard you pressed the key on your controller, it would play the same sample.  You may be able to go into Piano Roll and edit the velocity value of the performance, but it would still be the exact same sound , just quieter in volume which is not very natural sounding.  

Beagle you're right on target.


Now I like the Studio Instruments.  I don't expect them to have lots of velocity layering. Not for the price I paid for them which was nothing.

Thanks Beagle.

So, you're saying that sampled instruments treat velocity (loudness/softness) differently than synths?
And rely solely on the underlying stacked samples, and not the engine of the application?
So, in order to have a soft sound, you have to have a soft sample assigned to like 10-30? etc etc ad nauseum.

I don't see that. As I have played and created one wav patches in Kontact and way back to Gigasampler, spread across all keys and have been able to play it and have velocity sensitivity. I have also done it with multi wav patches. 
Actually, just look in Kontact for the velocity curve. You can pretty much draw it however you like and get soft to loud expression. 'True Pianos' is another that comes to mind.
 
The Roland JV1080 is a GM synth from like the 80s or 90s. I imagine that the "samples" in it are pretty tiny and pretty singular in use. IOW, a patch may get 1 10kbit 'sound'.

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.

Reece. You may be as bold as you deem necessary. And, you are forgiven. No offense takin at all, ever from you.


But, I think (and maybe that's the main problem here:) that what I started this thread about has nothing to do with "Layers". And, I don't think (there it is again) that I mentioned "layers" anywhere except in response to someone's reference to the word "layers". And, I really don't understand why everyone is talking about "layers".


I am talking about "velocity sensitivity". Now, maybe that whole concept has changed or gone away in the past 15 years and I missed it. If so, please continue on with the bold education process..  

timidi


Thanks Beagle.

So, you're saying that sampled instruments treat velocity (loudness/softness) differently than synths?
And rely solely on the underlying stacked samples, and not the engine of the application?

YES!  Synths create the sounds out of filters and oscillators (and usually a base "sampled note"), but not 100% from samples.  samplers are ALL 100% samples.

So, in order to have a soft sound, you have to have a soft sample assigned to like 10-30? etc etc ad nauseum.

YES!

I don't see that. As I have played and created one wav patches in Kontact and way back to Gigasampler, spread across all keys and have been able to play it and have velocity sensitivity. I have also done it with multi wav patches. 

I would question that you have done that with more than 4 to 8 layers of velocity sensitivity in those samplers.  they are capable of more layers, but I have not seen any sampled instruments/patches available at layers higher than that.  Gigastudio and Kontakt do not manipulate the samples like synths do for 100% velocity range output.

Actually, just look in Kontact for the velocity curve. You can pretty much draw it however you like and get soft to loud expression.

yes, but that would depend on the velocity layers in each patch.

'True Pianos' is another that comes to mind.

True Pianos is a modelled synth, it does not have layers of velocity samples recorded and it will behave like a synth.  that's why its file footprint is so much smaller than Ivory, for example.

The Roland JV1080 is a GM synth from like the 80s or 90s. I imagine that the "samples" in it are pretty tiny and pretty singular in use. IOW, a patch may get 1 10kbit 'sound'.

yes, but that's true for most synths.  yes, some of the newer synths, like for example the Yamaha Motif XS or XF, they use a LOT larger sample base from which to manipulate the output, but it's still not anywhere near the size of the sampled content of Ivory (again for example).  compare the sampled content of the XF to just one piano of Ivory.  I think the entire database of the XF has 741MB of samples to use.  Ivory has 77GB of sampled data for just 4 pianos.

timidi

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.

Reece. You may be as bold as you deem necessary. And, you are forgiven. No offense takin at all, ever from you.


But, I think (and maybe that's the main problem here:) that what I started this thread about has nothing to do with "Layers". And, I don't think (there it is again) that I mentioned "layers" anywhere except in response to someone's reference to the word "layers". And, I really don't understand why everyone is talking about "layers".


I am talking about "velocity sensitivity". Now, maybe that whole concept has changed or gone away in the past 15 years and I missed it. If so, please continue on with the bold education process..  

good!  glad I'm not offending you!
 
but even though you haven't mentioned layers except in response to others, that's the key that I think you're missing.  samplers are recorded in velocity layers and output in layers.  synths do not, they respond to algorithms set up by the synth brain and output 1-127 velocity since they can calculate each note output as needed.
 
if you're using a sampler, regardless of whether it's Studio Instruments, Gigastudio, Kontakt, or DimPro, then you're using velocity layers as I described above.  some patches have more layers than others which will give you a more dynamic sound.   others, like Studio Instruments, have only 1 layer or only a few layers which will give you a very EVEN sound and not very dynamic.  soft output is not possible from a sampled instrument with only 1 velocity layer except by use of volume, not velocity.

I am talking about "velocity sensitivity". Now, maybe that whole concept has changed or gone away in the past 15 years and I missed it. If so, please continue on with the bold education process..

The problem with sample players or samplers is velocity is used to address samples that reside in a layer/s above the base samples. Velocity has no meaning when talking about samples unless one understands layers.  A sound module such as the JV 1080 uses velocity for loudness only. Its a form of CC11 rather than CC7.  Samplers can do the same thing but why waste velocity on that when one can access a different set of samples that have the sound of an instrument at various articulations (not that is the correct term) using layers. If you have any software sampler that uses layers such as Kontakt look at the layers view for an instrument and you will see what everyone is talking about.   

If I read this right, OP is suggesting that in an instrument with a single layer - e.g. a piano, he is not hearing  much *level* difference between playing lightly and and playing hard, as opposed to hearing a range of different samples across a range of dynamics i.e. velocities.  If I am correct, that means he is talking about dynamic expression rather than tonal expression.


I can't comment about solutions as I rarely use it - some of strings are handy as pads.  I used to spend way too much time at the beginning of a project searching though tons of libraries for every instrument I wanted to use, and moving away from creating music.  These days my default template is TTS-1 until I get a working project together, and then I start swapping out sounds and fleshing out the project.  Over time I have built a number of templates of my favorites for synth patches -> Audio chains as well as PC channel > Bus chains for the physical instruments, but I still start with that simple old synth while I am getting ideas and recording.  It is surprising how much of that TTS-1 end up in the final mix.


Bit OT - sorry


Cheers


Grif
 

Beagle

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.

A "fully sampled" instrument would need way more than 4 or 8 layers to express what a performer can express with a real instrument. To make up for that, velocity sensitive filters and/or amplitude modifiers are applied to the limited number of layers to crossfade or otherwise artificially compose a velocity sensitive sound. These same modifiers are also applied in response to other real time gestures (pressure/wheels/sliders/envelopes). What's more, attacks may be treated entirely separately from sustained sound. These are mainly extensions of the same techniques offered in limited-rom sample-based synths.

The number of layers does not by itself limit the degree of velocity sensitivity of SI or any other sampler or synth. The single-layered sample-based synths like the JV1080 referenced above use pitch,  filter, and amplitude levels and envelopes to simulate some of the attack, timbre, and volume characteristics of an instrument as it is played with its variety of intensity. More layers may offer more realism than a JV1080 up to the limit of the number of layers, but are not necessary for velocity sensitivity.

The sfz format would seem to contain sufficient controls to do at least as much as a JV1080 with just one layer. But does SI do it or not?