Why there are no VST with Kawai samples?

WieWaldi · 2024-07-04T12:25:09+00:00

Actually this is a very old question that is pondering me a long time. I find a lot of VST samples of the typical brands like Steinway, Bösendorfer, Fazioli,...

Mindbullets

Rob Ok, not premium, but the Komplete Kontrol S88 Mk3 meets those requirements.

I know, it's so close! If they do this with a premium action I might consider ditching my CP88.

johnstaf Who wants to wait 20 milliseconds for the VST to choose a velocity?

Good question. I wondered if it would start immediately with the 127 velocity sample and crossfade to the AT samples after 20 ms, but if it's a global delay before initial sample playback, that would be a no-go for me. Too bad there's no trial available.

Gombessa

Mindbullets Good question. I wondered if it would start immediately with the 127 velocity sample and crossfade to the AT samples after 20 ms

This is how I read it too:

This is done by detecting an overflow of velocity intensities of 127 by aftertouch (within 20 msec) and replaces the original 127 velocity sound with an extremely natural “limit-breaking sound” which is played according to the overflow degree. This product is equipped with three additional limit-breaking velocity layers after exceeding 127.

It starts with the 127 max velocity, and then swaps it out real-time after _20ms with a 128, 129 or 130 velocity sample.

It's another thing that kind of feels like a kludge. Will it work? Dunno, maybe. It would be easy to test with a MIDI script - strike a note at velocity 50, have it play the 50 velocity as well as a muted strike at velocity 60-70, and then 20ms later mute the velocity-50 strike and mix in the velocity-60 one. Can you notice a difference? Is it unnatural to have the extra volume/bloom come in a fraction of a second later? I have no idea. But I do recall enough people complaining about the sample volume increasing on the old AvantGrands when the sustain pedal is pressed, so I suspect that at least some people may notice the effect.

And not to dogpile, but typically the highest velocity of 127 is supposed to be a crashing, unmusical fivetissimo anyways; one that a pianist would not normally play except for the absolute most strident, violent strikes. So if you have a velocity 127 sample, and need 3 additional velocities above that, you might as well have made the 127 a velocity-120 strike instead, and placed the additional three velocities at 123, 125, 127. 😖

johnstaf

Gombessa It starts with the 127 max velocity, and then swaps it out real-time after 20ms with a 128, 129 or 130 velocity sample.

It's another thing that kind of feels like a kludge. Will it work?

The attack phase is very important in the perception of timbre. I think something like Pianoteq could be very good if they used sample attacks.

Gombessa And not to dogpile, but typically the highest velocity of 127 is supposed to be a crashing, unmusical fivetissimo anyways; one that a pianist would not normally play except for the absolute most strident, violent strikes. So if you have a velocity 127 sample, and need 3 additional velocities above that, you might as well have made the 127 a velocity-120 strike instead, and placed the additional three velocities at 123, 125, 127.

Definitely. On my FP90 it's quite difficult to reach 127, just like it's difficult to max out an acoustic. I like the way VSL samples the fffff levels.

Taushi

Gombessa It starts with the 127 max velocity, and then swaps it out real-time after 20ms with a 128, 129 or 130 velocity sample.

It's another thing that kind of feels like a kludge. Will it work? Dunno, maybe. It would be easy to test with a MIDI script - strike a note at velocity 50, have it play the 50 velocity as well as a muted strike at velocity 60-70, and then 20ms later mute the velocity-50 strike and mix in the velocity-60 one. Can you notice a difference? Is it unnatural to have the extra volume/bloom come in a fraction of a second later? I have no idea. But I do recall enough people complaining about the sample volume increasing on the old AvantGrands when the sustain pedal is pressed, so I suspect that at least some people may notice the effect.

And not to dogpile, but typically the highest velocity of 127 is supposed to be a crashing, unmusical fivetissimo anyways; one that a pianist would not normally play except for the absolute most strident, violent strikes. So if you have a velocity 127 sample, and need 3 additional velocities above that, you might as well have made the 127 a velocity-120 strike instead, and placed the additional three velocities at 123, 125, 127. 😖

I came for the explanation, but stayed for "fivetissimo". 😂

This is very interesting.

Would we notice the volume increase after 20 ms? Some people say they can't hear delays under a second, but others can. I'm in the latter camp. And for others who can hear those delays, would it, indeed, sound like that unnatural blooming people complained about with the Avantgrands? Because that wouldn't be ideal.

And with those super violent loud strikes, the sound doesn't really get louder or more violent after the initial strike - it blooms and changes timbre slightly, but not in a way that would require a sound louder or more strident than the initial sound. It's the initial crash that's somewhat unnatural - everything after that is just the blooming of sound - and that part sounds rather natural. So, I'm not fully understanding the logic.

I think the developer should've really given an example of what this means. I find a lot of developers are doing this very impressive technical jargon lately, that doesn't really translate sensibly when taken as stated, and sometimes is just a flashy restatement of a very typical/common feature.

I also wonder if saving these super high velocities for only when you've pressed 127 with a strong aftertouch ...is why their instrument has been accused of having a limited high dynamic range that seems to top out at just forte. And that may be true, if they're saving all the highest velocities for this particular circumstance.

Sure, you don't want your fff samples kicking in at 100...BUT, conversely, you also don't want your ff samples to only kick in after 127 AND a requisite of aftertouch.

johnstaf Definitely. On my FP90 it's quite difficult to reach 127, just like it's difficult to max out an acoustic. I like the way VSL samples the fffff levels.

Agreed. I've owned at least five different DPs since 2020, and not one of them let me get to 127 with ease. Even when I felt I was about to put my hand through the keybed, I was still barely at 120. So, who are these people whose instruments just reach 127 with ease, lol.

Also, I agree that VSL samples fff/ffff very well. While, with every other VST I've used, I have to alter the velocity curve to make it easier to reach 127 so I can get the highest, most strident velocities, with VSL, I always kept 127 as the highest velocity, because I never really needed to go that high. Their highest velocities, were, in fact, just like karate-chopping the piano - something you would never do in normal practice and never use. Where VSL sometimes drops the ball on their p-ppp range, they can never be accused of skimping on the f-ffff range.

Gombessa

johnstaf I think something like Pianoteq could be very good if they used sample attacks.

Absolutely, hearkening back to Roland's old SuperNatural Piano - sampled attack, modeled decay/resonance.

Come to think of it, I think some people have done exactly that - use a sampled piano for the initial attack, and blend in PTQ for the resonance/decay.

dore_m

After reading through this thread, I think this new feature can only be tuned to a very limited set of keyboard controllers. That's a very narrow group, so why bother? It's an interesting proposition, but even if all controllers had polyphonic aftertouch, they'd be calibrated differently anyway, and there would be no consistency in implementing this feature.

We ALREADY have problems that need personal fine tuning via custom velocity curves - adding this feature worsens that problem IMHO

SouthPark

Yep - as KFB and company did some tests --- on one selected keyboard, finding it had relatively significant 'velocity' offsets over various different sections of the keyboard -- in bands (groups) of notes.

Regardless of whether in note groups/bands, or significant offsets among neighbouring notes, it may be something for some people to think about, especially the ones that want their accurate/reliable controllable velocity.

That gets into areas of calibration - and also areas of no-means for calibration (for each and every key), regardless of cost/time/etc. This also brings up the ceiling value of seven bit ..... the '127' (with 'zero' as the first level), as in keeping clear of that 'saturation' level if there is significant uncertainty in the actual velocity from a keyboard.

But - on the other hand, if somebody wants to customise to whatever they want - for each note - then that's ok --- that's if they have a way to customise - which generally requires somebody to get or build their own D.I.Y. keyboard, so that they can have full access and control for customisation.

But also considering just how 'good' the D.I.Y. keyboard design and performance is ..... because a lot of people try to roll-their-own, and claim good reliable performance, but often has various issues that they probably prefer to not mention. Although it's good to have people having a go, and that will be good if one's design really is a good one.

I'm interested to later (in the future) delve into the induction (magnetic induction) types of D.I.Y. I initially was thinking of optical approach. But changing my mind now. Turning attention toward the induction side.

Pantonality

I remembered a bit from my other thread about the above velocity 127 and thought I would paste it in here. This was a response from the producer of the library, named Ichiro, at Premier Sound Factory. Any latency in the Velocity Plus feature is discussed a bit, his contention is that the crossfade to the higher velocity layers is complete before the envelope reaches its peak. Please refer back to the VI-Control thread for more responses from this user.

Steve

Hello,

My name is Ichiro and I recorded and produced KAWAI Legend. I appreciate your interest. I have over 20 years of career as a sound engineer, but classic is not my field. Therefore, I am interested in your opinions. I would like to actively update what I can respond to from what you feel necessary and want to correct.

We were fortunate to have a large recording camp for 10 days with KAWAI's tuner and the craftsmen who make SK-EX. When recording, we tested several studios in the Kanto region of Japan and selected the studio with the best sound as much as possible. Our team does not like super dry, nor do we have a taste for hard or soft sounds. We only hope to record SK-EX as it is as much as possible. We do not have a specific genre or purpose. And the result is the sound of KAWAI Legend. As a result, I think various people will have various impressions, and it may indeed be a bit different from the sound of a general piano library. Anyway, we enjoy it as the sound of a piano played in international competitions heard up close.

When recording KAWAI Legend, We used multiple pairs of microphones, but only adopted the one pair we felt was best. Choosing a microphone is fun, but since we use 96kHz 24bit RAW data as it is, It already has 30GB of data and gave up adding microphones. I am negative about mixing the sound of multiple microphones for a single piano, from the concern of blurring the phase, in usual recording and sound libraries.

Do you need EQ on the library screen? While excellent EQs are overflowing in the market, I personally am not very interested in using the built-in EQ in Kontakt, but I think it is not difficult to equip if there are many needs. Normally, I rarely insert a compressor into a concert piano, but do you also need a compressor?

With Velocity Plus, there is no latency. The crossfade completes before reaching the top of the attack, so at least I can't find discomfort in my ears. If a problem occurs in a specific situation, please send me the data and I will verify it.

The notation of the velocity layer has been corrected to avoid misunderstandings.

I will answer re-peat.

I’m not a man who belongs to the school that says that the sound of the notes of a good piano should die near instantly the moment the key is released. Personally, I'm rather the opposite, but as a craftsman, I abandoned my personal liking and faithfully followed the sound of the actual SK-EX. However, I am interested in parameters that can adjust the length of release. It takes some time, but I am considering working on it at the beginning of the year. Thank you for the nice proposal.

KAWAI Legend is a 96kHz library, but it is realistically possible to additionally equip all sample files in 48kHz or 44.1kHz. But I doubt that enthusiasts will use the 44.1kHz session for their work, so I think 48kHz is better if I add it. I usually use Weiss SARACON for sample rate converter, but I will consider if there are other wishes.

Also, I liked re-peat's classical demo. If you don't mind, can I introduce the mp3 on our website?

Thanks again.

Ichiro
PREMIER SOUND FACTORY

Taushi

Pantonality I see what he's saying, but, still, listening to demos, the decay is unnaturally short and dry. Even when playing absolutely stacatto, notes shouldn't die away like they do on this VST. It's almost like there's just an ON-OFF option for the notes, and that the release samples and overtones are much too quiet or not sufficiently connected. Even playing in a very dry, acoustically treated room, the piano wouldn't sound like this. The notes wouldn't just die away like that, because ultimately the strings are being muted by the damper, which creates a noticeable decay. The strings don't just stop instantly followed by overtone sounds.

Also, the dynamic range of this instrument seems a bit compressed, when compared to other VSTs.

I wonder if this has been fixed, since this post seems to suggest the developer is willing to listen.

johnstaf

Pantonality I am negative about mixing the sound of multiple microphones for a single piano, from the concern of blurring the phase, in usual recording and sound libraries.

It's good to hear this. It baffles me how some libraries are put together.

SouthPark

Pantonality Anyway, we enjoy it as the sound of a piano played in international competitions heard up close.

As Ichiro put it. So do I. I did listen to some demo where the link was posted earlier on. We'll put up the embedded youtube here though.

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