How are pianos sampled at multiple velocities?

[joshb]

I've always wondered about this. You see all these piano libraries that boast that they use 10, 12 or 18 velocity samples per key, and I have to wonder...how do they strike each piano key at precisely 18 repeatable velocities?

Does anyone have any knowledge about this?

[enroe]

Yes - of course they have a robot-hand that strikes the
keys with a given force of 10 Newton, 15 Newton ...
100 Newton.

No - seriously: There are always humans who play an
instrument. And the same applies to the piano: A player
pushes the key with different forces - and hopefully
the 18 different amounts of force will be realized.

Sometimes some recordings had to be repeated, but
it's always a subjective approximation.

[CGR]

Production Voices Production Grand used a Yamaha C7 with MIDI capabilities, so multiple precise velocities were sent to the piano from a DAW for consistent sampling. My understanding is they captured way more samples than the final product release has, so they could choose the best velocity samples to be mapped in Kontakt for the optimum result.

Also, C.Bechstein used a custom made, automated striking mechanism on the keys of a standard acoustic grand (their D282 Concert Grand) in order to capture accurate velocity layers (in their case 26 layers):

https://www.bechstein-digital.com/details/

[joshb]

Interesting. It had to be something like that.

Thanks!

[DSmolken]

With piano, it can be a mechanism. Another way is to use a human to record a whole lot of notes going up and back down in velocity, more notes than you need. After it's all recorded, sort them by peak, and pick your dynamic layers out of those. This is commonly done with drums, and can also be done with piano when there's no mechanical way of hitting the notes available.

[joshb]

With piano decay times as long as they are, and the hit or miss nature of trying to simulate velocity strikes, that must make for a remarkably tedious recording session.

Unless, maybe, they're looking at a meter and only old it out it the initial peak is within a reasonable range.

[bosone]

for piano i always thought that a "mechanical hammer" on the keys was very straightforward.

i knew this one:

https://www.vsl.co.at/en/Keyboards_Comp ... a_Imperial

The CEUS computer grand is capable of recording even the most subtle key movements and positions using microprocessors and highly sensitive optical sensors. It plays those recorded notes absolutely identically using solenoids installed under every key. Far exceeding the limits of any other system, the CEUS measures the velocity of the hammer on its way to the string just before striking it (a distance of just 0.15") with an accuracy of 0.001 milliseconds, and even records and exactly reproduces the key movements after every strike.

http://www.company7.com/bosendorfer/ceus.html

[whyterabbyt]

obviously one can also get a human to try playing lots of times on each key to various degrees of hard and soft, then automate the process of sorting them according to peak and average volume with analysis software (ive known of sox being used, for example).