hardware e.g. motif vs sample libraries? patch sizes?

[alan alda jnr.]

Can someone explain to me the massive difference in patch sizes on hardware keyboards (e.g. motif, triton, fantom, electro) and the multi-gigabyte libraries we see for soft-samplers?

For example, the fantom x8 ships with 128MB of wave ROM, has hundreds of sounds, and the piano patch alone has 700 samples. If we allow 60MB for the piano patch, on average that's 80KB per sample, and that couldn't really be possible could it? Am I missing the fact that these keyboards have hard disks inside as well, or what sort of compression is going on, and what sort of memory are they using to hold their samples?

I think if you picked the best of what the soft-sampler world has to offer, you could outdo any one patch from these keyboards, but how do they pack all those admittedly very nice sounding samples (hundreds of patches) into that hardware?

P.S. I was just looking at a section of the clavia site where you can download extra patches for the electro, and they were all on the order of 7MB. Listening to their mp3 demos, I don't really see how this can be possible. btw, I'm thinking all this because I'm tossing up buying one of these big four for gigging versus buying a laptop/mac w/softsampler.

[funkynuts]

Back in the day memory was tiny so sound designers learned to make do with very little.( a hardware s&s synth could have as little as a couple of megs or even less)
Sounds may only have one or two velocity layers,note lengths kept short and looping employed,one sample stretched across several keygroups etc.
Modern Giga style patches employ notes held as long as their natural sustain allows,as many velocity layers as practical and the multisampling of every individual note.
A lot of hardware still sounds great though and has not lost its place in production or performance.
Its only really when you find the need for a completely authentic sounding acoustic instrument or other emulation that the giga style patches become invaluable.

[alan alda jnr.]

you are right, and that's the simplest explanation, but I'm thinking it's not just limiting the actual number of samples but employing some sort of compression as well.

For instance go to http://www.clavia.se/downloads/mp3/index.htm#ne2 to check out mp3s of nord electro 2, and then here http://www.clavia.se/products/nordelectro/sounds.htm to check out the sizes of the patches (you can download additional patches). How can those rhodes patcehs be 2.7MB???? OK, i don't think they sound as good as scarbee's libraries, but scarbee's are hundreds of MBs... I know sound is all that matters, but this interests be technically. Any insights?

[soulata]

Clavia NE2 sounds great btw, I have it and love it. I'd really like to know how they did that, too.

[dougsyo]

Clavia NE2 sounds great btw, I have it and love it. I'd really like to know how they did that, too.

A few years ago I had a choice of a Korg CX-3 or a Nord Electro - same price. I bought the Korg and kept it less than a year. I'm thinking about the Electro, but I admit I lust over the Hammond XK-3

I love the Electro... it sounds IMHO better than Roland's VR-760, and a whole lot lighter too.

Doug

[rockin1]

I think if you picked the best of what the soft-sampler world has to offer, you could outdo any one patch from these keyboards, but how do they pack all those admittedly very nice sounding samples (hundreds of patches) into that hardware?

This is true for real instrument sounds, but when you are talking synth sounds, the hardware stuff actually has a very unique sound that isn't found anywhere in the software world. I wish someone would come out with a plug in dedicated to hardware rompler synth sounds only. Not the real instruments please, just the synths. Of course to get there they would have to hire sound designers as good as those employed at Roland and Korg and I have yet to see any plug in developer do that aside from Spectrasonics and USB and they are more interested in the future...

[Pete C]

I totally agree about something like the Motif having sounds that basically blow away those of software romplers. Sure, you can make a collection of sample-based VSTs like Scarbee, Ivory, Ultra Focus, MOTU Symphonic Instrument, etc and beat something like a Yamaha S90 ES, but it takes 50+ GB of sound to do it. How the hell do they cram all that amazing quality WELL under 1 GB??

[bluedad]

I totally agree about something like the Motif having sounds that basically blow away those of software romplers.

I agree..I use a Motif and Sonic Synth (ver 1)on my gig and I notice there's quite a bit of difference between the sonic qualities of the Motif vs Sonic Synth

[Left Headphone]

Motif

[hollowsun]

I totally agree about something like the Motif having sounds that basically blow away those of software romplers. Sure, you can make a collection of sample-based VSTs like Scarbee, Ivory, Ultra Focus, MOTU Symphonic Instrument, etc and beat something like a Yamaha S90 ES, but it takes 50+ GB of sound to do it. How the hell do they cram all that amazing quality WELL under 1 GB??

Using time honoured skills from the dawn of sampling, that's how! Small samples with cleverly crafted (small) loops, well chosen multi-sample intervals, optimised sample rates and bit depths depending on the sound (like 22,050Hz sample rate on kick drums and certain basses, etc., that have no HF content to speak of). These are then played back using highly optimised hardware through highly optimised synth engines to bring these samples to life and then further refined with multi-effects.

These guys are craftsmen... artists that can coax more out of 1Mb of memory than most modern-day developers can achieve on libraries that span several DVDs

They are also meticulous and demanding and having had the privilege of working with some of them on different occasions, I appreciate their talent and craft enormously- what they can do with such limited memory resources is just simply staggering.

I feel that many modern soundware developers have become lazy - it is much easier to produce bloatware libraries than to reduce and compress their samples down to something more managable... far easier to just take samples every minor third (or every note) that are longer than you'll ever need (and hence bypass looping) and it all looks good on paper (6Gb of sample data) and yes - they can (and do) sound great. However, for the end user, it can be counter-productive requiring ever faster computers with more and more memory and storage (and patience while they load).

I am of the 'old school' and subscribe to the 'less is more' mentality as is evident in the 'NOSTALGIA' virtual ROMpler I recently created for Zero-G (excuse the plug ... no pun intended!). That comes with something like 1,500 sounds and 5,000 samples but just 1.5Gb of storage required. Each sound is small and highly optimised and uses little CPU or memory.

Despite what your girlfriends might say.... size isn't everything... it's what you do with it

[Hink]

funny my wife just says "mwwwfglwhgglegglemufggle"