Why are samples less loud in software?

[Jake Jackson]

Do I just not have my system set up right, or are samples now recorded at lower levels for software multisamples than they are for hardware (or used to be, at least)?

If I turn off the filters and turn up the volume on the two synths I've owned, the level for the hardest strikes will rattle the windows and could cause hearing damage. Not sure if the hardware sounds were normalized or had exciters attached, but they have a lot more force and harmonic content. I understand the value of many velocity layers in the software, but I miss the juice. Are samples now recorded at a lower level or is the problem with the hardware--do I need a keyboard amp to hear the software at its correct levels?

[daverich]

hmm

Could be a mic/line level issue.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[sergef50]

Level is completely relative,

Turn your hardwaredown and your masterup

problem solved. unless your saying your hitting your keys hard and still not triggering the top velocity layers? in which case you probably need to tweak the vel responce in your sampler or on your keyb.

[Rangtangtang]

mmmm...do you have velocity in your sample presets?

If it is non-verlocity sample preset it might help to normalize the sample before you make the preset. Might also depend on the sampler your using too. Anyway, a sample coming out of a sampler will never be as good quality to just dropping the sample onto the track.

[sergef50]

not 100% true but it would sound different slightly!

...sometimes your sampler will also have a default -6DB on all new stuff loaded, this is to help mixing, stop clipping etc...

e.g. you have 2 sampled keys both normalised to 100%....play a chord....OWCH.

[Jake Jackson]

But how do you gauge or determine the recorded level, or the level that equates to 0 in software, of a hard strike sample on a hardware synth? My hardware manual says to push its volume slider to the very top and use the mixer's or keyboard amp's volume control to get an acceptable sound. Is this highest volume setting on a hardware sampler the same as 0 on a software system?(But the hardware at this level just sounds much, much more forceful\hot, without clipping or distortion. What could be called presence, but it sure sounds like volume and pain.)

Or is the middle setting on the hardware slider instead the same as 0 on software?

Or is the difference in the volumes caused by the wattage on the keyboard's amp? The hardware amp can just push out more electrical current, which can be reduced on a board, while the software instrument needs an amp to instead increase the volume?

In other words, I don't even have a way to find where, on a volume slider, a given pair of samples (one from a hardware synth\sampler and the other from a software synth\sampler) should reach the same decibel level. Is the middle setting of the volume slider basically 0? My impression is that the hardware synth's recordings (an Ensoniq KS-32 from 1993) were made at the maximum level that could be used without clipping or distortion. I'm not sure that the software instruments were recorded at this high a level to start with. They sound bright, of course, but thin and not as proportionately louder as the hardware synths hard strike samples. In other words--if the samples were recorded at different levels, one sample set's maximum volume will be much quieter than another's maximum volume, yes? In which case, why are so many software instruments recorded at lower levels for their maximum volume?

Maybe I need to ask a more practical question: how do people amplify the sounds coming out of their laptop\computer if they play live? Do you run a line from your soundcard to an amp or mixer, and have the sound at 0 on the computer screen, but increased on the amp or mixer, or do you max things to just below clipping, above 0, on the software and then lower the volume some on the mixer to avoid clipping? Or does it all just depend on the recorded level of the samples? (Which again leads to the same questions--Are the highest velocity samples in software usually recorded at lower levels than on hardware samplers? If so, why?)

Sorry if this post seems tangled up. I'm a little tangled up. The software samples just seem softer.

[jancivil]

Do I just not have my system set up right, or are samples now recorded at lower levels for software multisamples than they are for hardware (or used to be, at least)?

If I turn off the filters and turn up the volume on the two synths I've owned, the level for the hardest strikes will rattle the windows and could cause hearing damage. Not sure if the hardware sounds were normalized or had exciters attached , but they have a lot more force and harmonic content.

It may be any or all of the above. expectations of hardware were completely different; a user of that stuff wouldn't have had the same idea for doing these beef-ups herself. Today the expectation is that the samples be more or less pristine, rather than to jump out of an instrument big-time.

[blatanville]

i would look at your audio interface.

a professional keyboard would be outputting at +4dBu.
if you're using a "consumer" soundcard or audio interface, the actual peak output is -10dBu ("line level" in consumer devices have this softer output to prevent distortions in less-rigourously designed circuits, so the devices can be made more inexpensively, and with less fear of blowing up a user's other gear if they happen to patch it incorrectly.)
Pro gear is conceived and designed to work at a more optimum level, assuming that the people connecting/recording them know more about audio than the average Joe @ Home.

Also, what's your monitoring system?
If you're monitoring through computer speakers or even a home stereo, the Ensoniq is driving the gear 14dB harder than it was designed to handle.
If you're monitoring through pro monitors/amp, and using a "consumer" soundcard or audio interface, you're not driving it up to it's normal operating range.

certain combinations of gear are just not that compatible. But, once you identify the levels of the components, you could "engineer" around them: turning up the trim pots on your mixer, if your soundcard/interface is a consumer model, for instance. You'll get more noise in the signal, but you'll have to decide if that's a real problem or not (might be just the thing a particular sound needs!)

hth,

[thecontrolcentre]

Do you run a line from your soundcard to an amp or mixer, and have the sound at 0 on the computer screen, but increased on the amp or mixer, or do you max things to just below clipping, above 0, on the software and then lower the volume some on the mixer to avoid clipping?

I run my hardware synths and sampler into a mixing desk, where I set the gains as hot as is needed, then buss the signal into my soundcard. I set the final levels in software (Ableton Live)and put a compressor on the main outs to avoid clipping.