hi Lee,
Interesting comment about the memory requirements for the CFX Piano, Bogdan.
Maybe I should clarify why such huge size (btw. I'm talking about
Garritan CFX VST library)....
The library contains three different piano recordings and the difference between them is where microphones were positioned. For example, there's "Classic" library, where microphones were positioned at the side of piano (that is, where the audience would hear it). And then there is "player" library, where microphones had player position (that is, listening from keybed side). Obviously, these libraries have slightly different sound.
When we decide to use the VST (or make a custom voice), we need to decide which sound we prefer and so we only use samples from that particular set of samples (i.e. Classical). That way we already reduce the size of the library to one third. Means, if we decide for "Classic" sound, then it will have size of
only 40GB.
Each set contains separately recorded samples of ambience (microphones had certain distance from piano), separately recorded samples of hammers and separately recorded sustain samples. And yes, there are also separately recorded samples at closed lid, at partially open lid and fully open lid.
When used as VST, we can anytime mix all that to our desire, but that's not possible if we wish to create custom voice -because a single voice can only have certain sound (which we can modify later on keyboard). Anyway, after we eliminate certain samples (i.e. ambient, closed lid, etc.), we end up with say, 8GB. That's still too much for creating a voice..
Notes are recorded at 8-10 velocities, which is great, but we don't really
need such precision -because it takes a lot of memory and a lot of time to create a voice, and so four velocities is
just fine. By reducing amount of velocities, we further reduced the size.
Now.. each velocity contains 80+ samples (almost every note has separate sample). We don't need that many.. if we use four samples per octave, it should be
just fine: 4 x 6octave =24 samples only.
Depending on the tone, each sample has length of 10-30seconds. I found out that in most cases that's very generous because almost a half of sample contains silence -that's especially true for higher notes (C3 and higher). Solution: cut the samples to desired length.
To make (too long story) shorter: we end up with a voice that has size of about 50MB. We need to keep in mind, that this voice represents only one particular setting in VST!
PS: Genos owners already have built-in CFX piano and so I don't think it's worth to bother with all that. Strings? Well, now you have an impression of how complex it can be.
I hope that was interesting for some of you,
@
Mike -fully agree with you.
@
Lee...Also, we should not confuse sample quality with sample defect.
...
-YES! As is the case for Saxophone voice I
complained about: it sounds just great, but C4-G4 issue is something I can't forgive.
Bogdan