Zen - classification

[Big Tick]

In interesting in hearing your views regarding classification. So far the Zen categories are:

Lead
Loop
Pad
Bass
Sound Effect
Brass
String
Percussion
Organ
Woodwind
Piano
Guitar
Voice

Every sound can have one or more category tags applied, and then additional, level 2 tags, like:
Synthetic
Ambient
Mono
Electric
Acoustic
Distorted
Percussive
Noisy
Bright
Breathy
Clean
Unpitched
Thin

The system can actually deal with level 3 and more tags, although I haven't found them useful so far.

I still have many questions regarding this classification system, as I feel there are shortcomings already:
- can it be used to classify most, if not all, vsti presets ?
- Rhodes and wurly are classified as Piano + Electric. Is this convenient or do you prefer a special category for E-Pianos ?
- How to classify a clavinet ? a bell ? a marimba ?
- Is there a need for the generic, "Synth" category ? I have the feeeling that anything classified as a "Synth" would be either a "Pad" or a "Lead", or both.

All comments are welcome...

'Tick

[ozmoz2008]

All comments are welcome...

'Tick

In level 2 maybe: world, evolving, fat(or thick),bowed.

Indeed EPianos could be in its own level 1 category.

I am really looking forward to your new app.

Thanx Tick!

[asseca]

fat(or thick),bowed

+1

Also, how would one tag the human whistle sound, I suppose the "World" would solve these ?

Isn't "Evolving" basically a "Pad" ?

Indeed EPianos could be in its own level 1 category.

ATM I feel it would be better to tag all the different Pianos + Guitars as follows:
Tag all the different pianos:
Piano + Electric ... Wurly, Rhodes
Piano + Acoustic
Piano + FM ... (DX+FM pianos)
Piano + PM ... (Pianoteq, Truepianos)

Tag all the different guitars:
Guitar + Bass + Electric
Guitar + Electric
Guitar + Bass + Acoustic
Guitar + Acoustic
Guitar + FM ... (DX+FM guitars)
Guitar + PM ... (Revitar)

There is still the issue how one should use the Synthetic tag. Absynth for example tags ALL its presets with "Synthetic". Logically one would then use a tag "Sampled" for all instruments based on samples (not waveforms). If one uses the logic thinking of Native Instruments, then the list would look like this:

pianos:
Piano + Electric + Synthetic ... Wurly, Rhodes
Piano + Acoustic + Synthetic
Piano + FM + Synthetic ... (DX+FM pianos)
Piano + PM + Synthetic ... (Pianoteq, Truepianos)
Piano + Electric + Sampled ... Wurly, Rhodes
Piano + Acoustic + Sampled
Piano + FM + Sampled ... (DX+FM pianos)

guitars:
Guitar + Bass + Electric + Synthetic
Guitar + Electric + Synthetic
Guitar + Bass + Acoustic + Synthetic
Guitar + Acoustic + Synthetic
Guitar + FM + Synthetic ... (DX+FM guitars)
Guitar + PM + Synthetic ... (Revitar)
Guitar + Bass + Electric + Sampled
Guitar + Electric + Sampled
Guitar + Bass + Acoustic + Sampled
Guitar + Acoustic + Sampled
Guitar + FM + Sampled ... (DX+FM guitars)

[Big Tick]

I think, in the Zen logic, classification should define how the preset sounds, regardless of how it is generated. The way I see Zen being used, you're working on a track, you're thinking, "I could add an electric piano comp here", load up Zen, search for "piano + electric" - you don't know yet if the one that will work best in the track will be based on samples, FM, resynthesis.... so this is not going to be a search criteria.

When I added the "synthetic" category, it was to tag the "synth bass" type of presets: basically, any bass sound that is not acoustic nor electric. I don't think this tag should be used to differentiate "sampled-based" vs. "others" sounds.

Asseca, I like your suggestion for tagging the guitars, the only caveat is that it would not be possible to find all the guitars that are not basses. The underlying Zen database is certainly capable of complex queries with AND / OR / NOT operators, but the client UI is not - and so far, I like the simplicity of the current version, where browsing for presets is very intuitive.

'Tick

[asseca]

I don't think any system Kore/Steinberg/Zen can find only the Guitars without the Basses.
That would only be possible with a massive number of "Categories", using AND/OR/NOT logic would probably be just too complex for most users to understand ...
As far as I can see one will always have to compromise with these tags ...

[asseca]

I just though of something that *might* be do-able. At the moment the Zen filter logic uses AND. Now if one could set any filter-tag to be inverted (presenting NOT), using e.g. Ctrl-Right-Click or select via a Right-Click menu, then it would create the possibility to exclude things, e.g. Bass from the Guitars selection ...

[Big Tick]

Yes... maybe.... there is visual complexity to consider too: at the moment tags can have 3 different states/colors:
- selected for search (blue on black),
- found in search results (black on white),
- not found in results (white on black)

if "NOT" were displayed, say, as "selected for search" with strikedthrough text... maybe it would work.. I would need to prototype that first.

[Big Tick]

Here is something else:

In addition to the classification tags listed above, the "tags" list features user-defined tags... but not only ! the "NEW" tag for instance, is fully managed by Zen (it is applied to all the presets that have been downloaded and not yet listened to).

So... do you have requests for such, system-managed tags ?

I was thinking of one, "Last Import" - to easily find all the presets that have been imported during the last "autoimport" session. This way you can easily load up a vsti, load a bank with bass sounds, autoimport all presets, and then select them all with the "last Import" tag and apply the "Bass" zen tag to all of them.

'Tick

[asseca]

Yes... maybe.... there is visual complexity to consider too: at the moment tags can have 3 different states/colors:
- selected for search (blue on black),
- found in search results (black on white),
- not found in results (white on black)

if "NOT" were displayed, say, as "selected for search" with strikedthrough text... maybe it would work.. I would need to prototype that first.

or simply prefix the tag-text with "NO ", for example: "NO Bass", "NO Guitar", "NO Noisy" ...

[Big Tick]

ok I got the "not" feature working - with strikeout text for the display. It works great, and doesn't look too weird. I'll keep it

[asseca]

ok I got the "not" feature working - with strikeout text for the display. It works great, and doesn't look too weird. I'll keep it

Thanks

[jens]

- Rhodes and wurly are classified as Piano + Electric. Is this convenient or do you prefer a special category for E-Pianos ?

the latter is the case for me...

[EvilDragon]

Add special category for EPs.

Add categories: bells, ethnic, chromatic (to work along with "percussion", that's your marimba right there!), plucked, bowed.

Clavinet would be string+plucked+chromatic.

[softska]

- Rhodes and wurly are classified as Piano + Electric. Is this convenient or do you prefer a special category for E-Pianos ?

I prefer just "Keys" rather than "piano" (more inclusive) , but that's just me. It seems pretty clear cut that keys or "piano + electric" and "piano + acoustic" will never get mixed up.

[EvilDragon]

Good call on Keys. Still, would be good to have both Piano and E. Piano categories in.