Subject: [linux-audio-user] Is there interrest in a (near) perfect piano for tiMIDIty for composing music ?
From: Roel de Wit (roel@utopiasd.com)
Date: Thu Jan 23 2003 - 12:44:34 EET
Hi,
> The samples are unlooped and some go as many as 40 seconds, I believe.
> This library is pretty large, approaching 2GB, but it sure does sound
good.
> Not perfect, but very, very good.
Well send me one of your favorite piano MIDI files and I'll make a recording
for you to listen at.. So that you can compare to the current (in my eyes)
not perfect beta version of Grandest Piano v0.1.
Ever since I made 'digital instruments' (since 1995/1996) I've always tried
making instruments as small as possible because in my oppinion this allows
for the greatest amount of users to work with it. Since we usually price our
products quite low compared to competition we are depended on large sales
(uh, that's to pay the rent, food and university, not really much more these
days). I agree that the larger a piano is the more likely it is that it
sounds even better but 2 GB is hardly usable for the average person.. I'm
not saying I won't release a full version using around 1.6 to 1.7 GB of
samples, which are all the samples that were made for the piano but it
certainly hasn't got much priority. To be honest I've thought about
resampling the samples to a minimum usefull samplerate to further decrease
the size (around 100 MB or less). The only thing that's stopping me is that
we use oggvorbis compression (high quality) to store the instruments in the
installer making it easy to download over 200 MB of soundfonts while only
effectively having to download 15-40 MB for the installer. The current
installer (still only windows based, linux installer can be done within a
day if needed) is 40 MB.. I've also made a 6 MB installer in which I
couldn't hear any different compared to the 40 MB installer so you might see
the benefits of compression here.. If I would resample the samples to a
lower frequency oggvorbis compression will be less effective and the quality
of the samples would become lower because of this forcing us to ship out CDs
instead of simple download accounts.
> Bardstown has also delivered native 24-bit for Halion and EXS.
I'll see if I can't borrow a friends copy of Halion or EXS (have to look
around) and make a version of Grandest Piano for them too. If there are any
other much used softsynths/samplers please tell me.. I've often only making
instruments for friends as a hobby but never make music myself (I did play
the piano 10 years ago though). If I find the time versions for most popular
softsynths will be included in the installed (this won't take any extra
space since we'll simply build the banks, again and again in one pass from
the samples stored in oggvorbis format).
> Some library guys are now doing 8 and 16 velocity layers. I've tried one,
> but I didn't like it as much as the Bardstown. Cost - $199 U.S.
Well Grandest Piano may not be as 'grand' in size as your piano is but it
will certainly have a grand sound :)
--- Roel / Utopia Sound Division http://www.utopiasd.com
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