Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra additions

[bigcat1969]

I love SFZ instruments, I just have no desire to make them. Too much like the old coding days at school says the failed C+ programmer in me. I have done Maize VSTi versions, though I prefer and recommend the SFZ versions.

To clarify on Kontakt there are 'Player' instruments which don't require full Kontakt and regular instruments that do require full Kontakt. The 'Player' versions are licensed by NI and require the developer to pay X number of dollars (10 or something) per license. Obviously I or fearless non-leader can't afford to lose 10 bucks on every download, so there will never be a 'Player' Kontakt version. Aside from that there is no cost to making Kontakt instruments. I love playing with Mr. Westlund's great sound creations and will happily create Kontakt instrument when appropriate.

A thought that I don't know if it interests anyone, DSmolken who makes free instruments for SFZ and SForzando has instruments with Plogue that are if you will the SFZ 'Player' versions of instruments for SForzando. I don't know if they would be willing to 'sign' the SSO if someone is willing to make nice interfaces for it. Anyway that whole thing is beyond my understanding.

Oh there is also Grace Sampler which is free.
http://www.onesmallclue.com/plugin/grace/

[Mattias Westlund]

OK, so let's have a look at the SFZ format from the perspective of someone who was around back when it was concieved. SFZ was an experimental sampler format designed by René Ceballos of rgc:audio in around 2002-2003 or so. AFAICR René was unhappy with soundfonts, the most common prosumer format back in the late 1990's/early 2000's, and wanted to expand and improve upon it, making it more similar to the advanced sampler formats of the day like Gigasampler/Gigastudio. Which had, mind you, round robins and release tails and whatnot around the time that we (well, people my age) were playing Baldur's Gate. So unless you aren't feeling inferior already, just take a moment to let this fact sink in: VO's didn't start with GPO or EWQLSO and Jeremy Soule used 2001 tech to own your ass with the Morrowind soundtrack

Anyway: the SFZ format hasn't evolved. It has a ton of opcodes that are randomly supported across various samplers and sample players. There is no decent visual editor to let you create and edit your SFZ patches. I can only speak for myself, but my idea of sample editing isn't typing shit in Notepad.

[Paul Battersby]

(06-14-2016, 11:55 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: There is no decent visual editor to let you create and edit your SFZ patches. I can only speak for myself, but my idea of sample editing isn't typing shit in Notepad.

Personally, I'd rather work with a text file than a visual editor. I always feel like I have more control that way. I wouldn't use Notepad either but Notepad++ is quite good (in the personal opinion of this career programmer).

I would have no problem creating (or editing) the necessary .sfz files (targeted for use with sforzando) if someone else can locate and massage some good samples and make them sound like they belong with the SSO samples. I would need some guidance on what settings to use for these sorts of opcodes:

Code:

ampeg_release=0.650
ampeg_attack=0.600
ampeg_vel2attack=-0.600
fil_veltrack=11000
fil_type=lpf_2p
cutoff=120

... but I would happily type up a file full of stuff like this:

Code:

sample=samples\horn\horn-e2.wav
lokey=e2
hikey=f2
pitch_keycenter=e2
tune=30

<region>
sample=samples\horn\horn-g2.wav
lokey=f#2
hikey=g#2
pitch_keycenter=g2
tune=-11

... and create keyswitch patches as well (as I've already done for SSO 1.0) I could also potentially write some software to convert from tx16wx to .sfz (for example, since both store sample mappings in text files) although I realize all tx16wx features might not be supported in .sfz

On my wish list for a potential SSO 2.0, staccato samples for anything that doesn't already have staccato samples (like solo instruments).

[Samulis]

Agreed, Notepad++ is nice, especially with extended commands in replace. I did a video walkthrough of editing an automatically generated mapping in Notepad++ - really time-saving!

SFZ is powerful, it just needs the basic sample adding and mapping automated, which is what I've done. I'm considering converting the utility from commercial software to freeware, but we'll see. I also want to add automatic support for crossfading, but hey, it works decently well right now for at least getting those pesky samples mapped.

[bigcat1969]

Ah Morrowind, forgive me for doing one little town, stopping and calling it a project and the poor quality of the writing, but I did the very first LGNPC mod to see if it could be done. My first dubious claim to fame.

Thanks for that SFZ history that explains a lot.

I admire you SFZ coders I really do. My buddy D. Smolkin is just finishing up a cello that has bells and whistles beyond belief and just looking at the code drives me nuts (also the looping). I'm working my way slowly through a 40,000 sample overall project, I just can't imagine doing all that coding in SFZ.

[Mattias Westlund]

More experimental horns! The 2012 MIS samples layered with the Fluid horn section; played around with a 12dB notch filter around 1200Hz for a sort of muted timbre.

Sound clip here

[Paul Battersby]

(06-22-2016, 11:06 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: More experimental horns! The 2012 MIS samples layered with the Fluid horn section; played around with a 12dB notch filter around 1200Hz for a sort of muted timbre.[url=https://app.box.com/s/g9i5nu3r8gsg49zjs4fqyzh0aistokb0][/url]

The horns sound good in the demo clip you posted. When directly compared to "Brass 2011-11-07 Horns Sustain" I can definitely hear the muted effect in these new samples. I wonder how these new experimental horns would sound without the notch filter though? Would it be better than the FF layer of "Brass 2011-11-07 Horns Sustain"? (if you're in the mood to experiment a little more)

[Mattias Westlund]

(06-22-2016, 01:34 PM)pbattersby Wrote: The horns sound good in the demo clip you posted. When directly compared to "Brass 2011-11-07 Horns Sustain" I can definitely hear the muted effect in these new samples. I wonder how these new experimental horns would sound without the notch filter though? Would it be better than the FF layer of "Brass 2011-11-07 Horns Sustain"? (if you're in the mood to experiment a little more)

Sure thing Paul! Horns with the filter removed can be found here.

I also updated the first pack with some rips... not sure how convincing they are but they are at least a bit better than playing rips with section samples on a keyboard, which will never give you the proper slurred feel.

[Paul Battersby]

(06-22-2016, 02:48 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: Sure thing Paul! Horns with the filter removed can be found here.

I'll give them a try next chance I get. I wasn't sure how much effort it was to make that change to all the samples. In my last post I should have mentioned that any new articulations (like the muted horns) or sample improvements you feel like making are greatly appreciated. Some of these new sounds will provide new options when I add orchestral accompaniment to some new song in the future.

I've been looking at the No Budget Orchestra samples too. Perhaps it will be possible (for me or someone else) to blend together the best of both to create a new orchestra (the "No Budget Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra"). I'm not sure how well the samples from each library blend together as far as the ambience / reverb of the raw samples though.

[Mattias Westlund]

(06-22-2016, 05:19 PM)pbattersby Wrote: I wasn't sure how much effort it was to make that change to all the samples.

All I had to do was disable the filters on the three layers in TX16Wx, render the notes, split them, normalize them and map them. All in all less than 10 minutes of work so not much effort at all. Most of the process is automated anyway, using REAPER, Wavelab and sfzed.

(06-22-2016, 05:19 PM)pbattersby Wrote: In my last post I should have mentioned that any new articulations (like the muted horns) or sample improvements you feel like making are greatly appreciated. Some of these new sounds will provide new options when I add orchestral accompaniment to some new song in the future.

Yeah, I'm posting these experimental things here not only for the sake of potentially building a new version of Sonatina, but as a general resource for composers as well. Orchestral samples are still hard to come by in the free realm so I'm just going to keep publishing whatever samples I come up with and leave their usefulness up to the end user.