automatic velocity mapping?

[learjeff]

Check out Constructor at http://chickensys.com. Might be what you're looking for but there's not really enough info on their site, there's no demo download, and at $200 it's too expensive for "buy and try" approach (for me, at least!)

I'm in the process of designing a program that does much of what you want, and more. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to create a quality multisample soundfont (actually, using sfz format) to help increase the quantity and quality of free sampled instruments on the net.

It would automatically assign keyboard zones to samples based on pitch and level (peak or RMS at your choice). Mappings would be based on configurable policies. It would also help you record and collect the samples by showing you the coverage of your current sample set (key & velocity), and recording the samples as you play them, immediately mapping them and updating the display, with an easy way for the user to accept or reject samples (space bar for the last sample, point-n-click for other samples), and play a draft version of the soundfont at any time. A post process would refine the sample set, doing things like normalization, de-noising, etc., as desired by the user.

Currently, it's in the "dreamware" stage. My next step is to learn to program VST plugins, because that would be an easy way to get started on it (so I don't have to deal directly with the soundcard interface).

I did write some tools to assemble multisample soundfonts, tools I used to create my jRhodes3 soundfonts (free, no strings attached). Click on the "Tools" link on that page to learn more about those tools, which are available for free -- but it's nerdware and assumes you have all the samples for a given velocity layer in a single wave file. The new program will avoid the concept of a "velocity layer" entirely: you'll just play samples and it will assign zones on a best-fit basis. While I think layers are really the best technically, it's just too difficult for an amateur to do practically. (It was definitely the hardest part about recording the samples for my Rhodes soundfont.) I even tried building a "thumper" for the Rhodes keyboard. Unfortunately, the one I made was way too noisy!

I expect it will be over a year before I have a prototype of the new concept.

Cheers,
Jeff