Release samples?

[learjeff]

I've seen a lot of buzz about release samples. How do they work? Unless it's fairly sophisticated, they'd sound terrible.

I have Giga but it's broken (my computer locks up if it's installed; Tascam support doesn't respond). I do remember trying some Rhodes with release samples, but don't remember whether it was a soundfont or Giga. The release samples stunk -- they were based on the key press velocity rather than the volume of the note at the time of release, and sounded ridiculous whenever I'd hold a chord for a while and then release.

Anyone have any insight into release samples & whether they work well for certain sample sets & players?

To me, it's almost intractable, because you have two components to the sound: the vibration of the string or tine that gets damped on release, and also the sound of the damper striking that tine or string. The former is related to the current note volume. The latter is related to the release velocity. Neither is directly related to the strike velocity (unless you release very quickly).

So, what's the deal? I suspect it's overhyped and less useful than we'd think, unless we have lots of samples: k * v * a samples, where

k is the number of keys sampled
v is the number of release velocity layers
a is the number of different note amplitudes at the time of release

Perhaps release velocity isn't significant, in which case we only need k * a samples. But do any sample players choose the release sample based on the current amplitude? I doubt it.

BTW, time could be used instead of note amplitude, to achieve the same purpose. (Time between strike and release.)