As I've been working on getting an improved sampleset for the steel string guitar ready, and in to more formats, my little brain has been crunching away on what I want to be able to do with my future nylon string set, the project most dear to my heart.
I would really like to be able to include the string touches and squeaks that occur BEFORE you strike a note. I think this would be particularly effective on quiet passages in classical guitar where fingerings get difficult and where there are very real prep noises before a note or chord is played. Also, such noises are ever-present anyway, so these would not always be isolated events and would therefore require a ton of work to place manually before each note in a file.
So what I'm thinking of is a sampler that reads ahead, so that a sample could be attached to a note, but played before that note (with some control over how long before the note this occurs). Does such a thing exist, or is it even possible within current midi specs?
thanks for any ideas...
Keith
Sampler with look-ahead?
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- KVRist
- 46 posts since 2 Sep, 2005 from Calgary, Canada
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- KVRist
- 261 posts since 19 Jan, 2005
Well, I've recently implemented that in an Emulator X piano - there's keypress noise at the beginning of most of the pp samples, so I've added silence to the beginning of the louder samples to line them up. Emulator X allows modulation of the sample start position, so I implemented a controller that eliminates the delay and keypress noise for snappier playing.
The trouble with this method of programming pre-note noise is that you can hit the key and release it faster than the sample responds, so that you get the pre-note noise and then the release, but not the actual note. There are workarounds, such as lengthening all the notes by an equal time amount in your sequencer, but it's kind of ugly. MIDI-OX can delay Note Off on live passthrough, but you can break this method if you hammer on the key faster than the delay.
So yes, it is possible, but not so much live (the note is expected to start right away, so unless your controller can send pre-note trigger events of some kind - other notes, maybe - the live response is going to be bad). In a mix, you also need to compensate for the delay induced by waiting for the pre-note sound before starting the note.
Unfortunately, I can't see how a MIDI-controlled device could do actual read-ahead, since the expected behaviour is receive Note On -> play sample immediately. The host would need to specifically support read-ahead, and I doubt any of them do because it's non-causal in a live situation...
The trouble with this method of programming pre-note noise is that you can hit the key and release it faster than the sample responds, so that you get the pre-note noise and then the release, but not the actual note. There are workarounds, such as lengthening all the notes by an equal time amount in your sequencer, but it's kind of ugly. MIDI-OX can delay Note Off on live passthrough, but you can break this method if you hammer on the key faster than the delay.
So yes, it is possible, but not so much live (the note is expected to start right away, so unless your controller can send pre-note trigger events of some kind - other notes, maybe - the live response is going to be bad). In a mix, you also need to compensate for the delay induced by waiting for the pre-note sound before starting the note.
Unfortunately, I can't see how a MIDI-controlled device could do actual read-ahead, since the expected behaviour is receive Note On -> play sample immediately. The host would need to specifically support read-ahead, and I doubt any of them do because it's non-causal in a live situation...
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 46 posts since 2 Sep, 2005 from Calgary, Canada
Hi 93'.
Being such a poor keyboard player that mine never leaves the studio, it's interesting to hear from someone to whom live use of midi is so important. I guess I default to thinking about it in non-real-time terms. I need to get out of that mindset.
I've been working on getting a reprocessed 24 bit version of the present sampleset into the NN-XT in Reason for the past few days, and (similar to what you mentioned about the Emulator-X) the control of sample start time offers a lot of possibilities, which I'm certainly not finished exploring yet.
I certainly get what you're saying about the ugliness of lenthening all the notes in the midi file. It would just get too hard to manage.
I guess what I'm imagining is a sort of faux-read-ahead for file playing, where the host would read the file, parse for prenote info, and write a temp file that actually gets played. At least that way, the working file would still make musical sense.
By the bye, what are you using for inserting silent samples in your files? I bought Awave, but I've had trouble with it hanging when I use that function. I might be able to do one or two samples -then it just quits. Maybe it's time for a rebuild.
thanks,
k
Being such a poor keyboard player that mine never leaves the studio, it's interesting to hear from someone to whom live use of midi is so important. I guess I default to thinking about it in non-real-time terms. I need to get out of that mindset.
I've been working on getting a reprocessed 24 bit version of the present sampleset into the NN-XT in Reason for the past few days, and (similar to what you mentioned about the Emulator-X) the control of sample start time offers a lot of possibilities, which I'm certainly not finished exploring yet.
I certainly get what you're saying about the ugliness of lenthening all the notes in the midi file. It would just get too hard to manage.
I guess what I'm imagining is a sort of faux-read-ahead for file playing, where the host would read the file, parse for prenote info, and write a temp file that actually gets played. At least that way, the working file would still make musical sense.
By the bye, what are you using for inserting silent samples in your files? I bought Awave, but I've had trouble with it hanging when I use that function. I might be able to do one or two samples -then it just quits. Maybe it's time for a rebuild.
thanks,
k
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- KVRist
- 261 posts since 19 Jan, 2005
Umm... MATLAB actually. Basically just sample2=[zeros(padlength,2);sample];...SampleSmith wrote:...what are you using for inserting silent samples in your files?
I think I forgot to credit Mathworks in my demo readme...
I find Wavelab Lite very frustrating for inserting silence, because you have to have an area selected before you can bump the audio inside it to the end and leave a space. In Creative WaveStudio you could pick a start point and a length in milliseconds, but Creative Wavestudio is so primitive the fades have audible artifacts...
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- KVRAF
- 8389 posts since 11 Apr, 2003 from back on the hillside again - but now with a garden!
Audacity is pretty good for inserting silence.. 
free too!
I wrote a longer post, but pm'ed instead
DSP
free too!I wrote a longer post, but pm'ed instead
DSP
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 46 posts since 2 Sep, 2005 from Calgary, Canada
Thanks, guys.
I haven't tried Audacity since I gave up trying to work in Linux, about a year ago. I'll pull down a copy of the Win version and give it a try.
And thanks Duncan, re the PM. I'm certainly in over my head on this, as I am most of the time anyway (more nerve than brains.
). I wonder if this is something for William K?
Keith
I haven't tried Audacity since I gave up trying to work in Linux, about a year ago. I'll pull down a copy of the Win version and give it a try.
And thanks Duncan, re the PM. I'm certainly in over my head on this, as I am most of the time anyway (more nerve than brains.
). I wonder if this is something for William K?Keith