New Bandstand Demo

I've done a new Bandstand demo which shows off the Slap Bass 2 samples well, also electronic piano and electronic drums. Go here: http://www.moviepostercollector.tsohost.co.uk/skyline/Ashant1_Bandstand.mp3

 

nice one, John! keep them coming.

would you mind posting the MIDI file as well?


Best,
Markus

 

Hi Markus
Here's the midi file. http://www.moviepostercollector.tsohost.co.uk/skyline/Ashant1_Bandstand.mid

John

 

Markus,

This demo is pleasant enough but unfortunately it uses "pablum" sounds. These are easy sounds that pretty much any GM soundset can do a decent job with.

If you want a demo that sells Bandstand it should be one that includes all of the guitars and horns, preferably in a lead context. GM users tend to be real pragmatic. I take demo's based on cliche' midi's (6/8 50's ballad, classic rock, soul/funk, alternative) as being more valid than the typical over-produced movie theme ("Yamaha") type of demo.

(Note that I've purchased and downloaded several soundfont GM soundsets, owned the SC55 and Motif 7, currently own SC88vl, M-GS64 and XV5050 w/world card, VSC88 softsynth, M-Audio Key Rig softsynth and have checked out the HyperCanvas demo. After much comparison I'm still using the Roland M-GS64 at gigs. Motif 7 is probably the only synth that was better. Unfortunately I wanted to use it for more than GM and the piano's ... well ... you know me ... need I say more? ;-)

My quickest test is a midi of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" that I found on the net. It tests both the rock drums and distorted guitar, two generally weak sounds.

Ernie

 

thanks for the midi file !

here the comparaison with my Roland expander Hardware (best than blah blah blah....)

Roland hardware :

http://www.audiolivepro.com/Ashant1_SC88PRO_hardware.mp3

Bandstand :

http://www.moviepostercollector.tsohost.co.uk/skyline/Ashant1_Bandstand.mp3

So,

Bandstand sound warmer and full.

Regards,

Olivier

P.S : My expander was recorded by the Waveterminal 192 X input with the best S/N ratio possible

 

Some feedback for you: "Warmer and full" doesn't work in live performance. The PMI piano's are quite warm and full but I can't use them live because of the ambience that gives them their warmth. (So far - the Hybrid piano sounds interesting) The Akoustik Steinway is not a particularly warm piano but it works real well live because of it's imaging, dryness and lack of case/body resonances. Whatever dampening NI used, worked. What makes gigging modules like the Sound Canvas and Yamaha XG series unique is their total dryness.

The best sounds for live use tend to be "in your face".

Ernie

 

Hi,

The Bandstand sound is dry, in my face !

With Mackies SRM 450 (RCF model / old version), it sound better than my sound canvas.

Some midis have to be modified to have a good result.

For me ambience and warm are different things.

I should say i hear a better resolution and dynamic in the sound

Perhaps, i'm very stupid....

I don't understand you.

Regards,

Olivier

 

The attributes needed for playing live are going to be different than when recording in the studio, and it's the latter I'll be using Bandstand for. (I use a Roland XP50 and Fantom X6 live).

I've posted one or two demos just to help other purchasers see what's possible, and so they can compare with the 'reality' of the sounds they presently get from, eg. soundfonts, Roland Sound Canvas, etc. which are very poor by comparison, and the reason why Bandstand has been eagerly awaited. I personally find most of the Bandstand samples very convincing and I'm already using it for my song recording.

The Brass Section ptach is not all that good, although the individual sax/trumpet sounds are just fine. The Nylon Guitar patch is good but the Overdriven and Distorted guitars are poor. I won't need those anyway - I'm a guitarist! I must say though, I haven't heard any synth - hard or soft - come up with a convincing electric guitar sound of any kind. I assume there must be some universal modelling issues that everyone struggles with.

Overall, I think it's an excellent product, aside from the (i) the manual, (ii) one or two of the patches, (iii) and memory management issues - although I'm still not sure if those are down to one of the packages I use, Band In A Box, rather than Bandtand.

 

I've been using Bandstand in the studio for some radio jingles and I'm having some really good success. The brass sounds along with the strings sounds could be improved (I'm also a guitarist so those sounds don't worry me as much). Why does Bandstand have to autoplay? Very frustrating at times, I'd like the freedom of controlling when it starts to play.

Colin

BTW I'm still coming up as a guest here too.

 

Hi all,

thanks for your feedback - helps me to set the direction for the library work. also the optional autoplay with songs is a good point for a future update!

my feeling is that hardware still rules as far as balanced GM sets are concerned. if somebody knows a really good sample library example, please let me know as well. can be commercial or free in any format - SoundFont2, Giga etc. I can then try to get the set and convert it into Kontakt format to play back some test songs in Bandstand for comparison. if you want to add more test songs than the below, please post links!

I share the critique on the Brass1, Strings, and some guitar sounds. also I personally like the solo strings much better than the solo brass. woodwind as pretty good, however (I used to play Oboe). well, it gets subjective pretty quickly but I think the first patches above were mentioned most often.

next question is how close are we e.g. to the mix sound of a SC-88VL (which is sitting next to my laptop here). I'd say the volumes are pretty good at this point but we do use different modulation settings in some cases (like CC1 adds vibrato on the SC and filter on Bandstand). also EQing and compression seems different in both sets. that probably leads to a different blend in the mix. in general I think our sounds are better suited for solo play whereas the SC sounds are better in the mix. do you agree?

question is now, can we add a different EQ setting for the same library - given the replacement of the critical sounds above - to get a better mix? do we also have to add a compressor to each channel to get the same in your face sound like the SC? should we add a differnt library for the mix and keep the existing sounds for solo play? that is something that I think Roland is doing in the SD-20 where they seems to have 3 completely different sound sets.

any input welcome!


Best,
Markus

 

Hello Sky,
Maybe (maybe, because taste is such an individual feeling) that A. Sax wouldn't have liked the saxophone sounds? That was my believe yesterday evening (when I listened to some midi files using them) .. I found them not sounding 'deep' enough ......
Luc
BE

 

Hello Markus,

Oh yes, please, make the autoplay of a song an option which has to been set ... It sounds indeed frustrating ...

Kind regards

Luc
BE


lUc

 

Hi Markus,

I have Bandstand and I have used it on both the Mac and PC platforms. Here are some observations that you might want to take on board.
On the PC: I upgraded my Ram to 1.25gb and have a P4 2gHz config and whilst this seems to be OK Bandstand has been acting erratically in different environments.
Stand alone seems to be the most efficient but within Ableton Live it uses up more CPU and it seems to have "sticky" memory management issues. For example I open up a midi file for the first time and it plays with a certain amount of voices, lets say at a maximum of 45 with an average of about 25. When I either load up another midi file and then open up my original file it now plays anywhere up to 75-80 voices. i.e. same file different memory requirements. It seems like it is failing to purge all memory before importing a new midi file or doubling up on the old file. Consequence: unless the max voices setting is increased and even then? voices drop out.
This doesn't seem to happen in the standalone mode.

Bandstand seems to work better on the Mac yet the latency slider does not update as you slide it.
And yet again from with Live the whole shebang mounts up and eats up CPU like it's nobodies business.

Most of NI stuff really takes a lot out of the cpu of even your higher level PC or Mac and I suppose this comes with the territory. That's one reason why I haven't upgraded to Kontakt 2 but I thought that Bandstand, given that its a midi player, even though its playing samples, would be slightly more efficient. It needs to be.

Overall, I like the concept and look forward to NI overcoming some of the teething issues that plague new apps. The sounds are fine in my book but the ability to load your own samples would make this app a killer.

 

I believe if you use the optimize memory function it will ease your CPU problem.

Colin

 

Hi Studio,

thanks a lot for your feedback.

as for the voices in VST plug-ins, I got the same amount of voices just testing stand-alone and in Cubase SE. I guess you are using the same audio device in both cases with the same latency setting?

could you please give me a step-by-step guide for Live? I managed to drag in the SMF file and assign the Bandstand VST to one track but I am unsure on two things:

* how to assign the same VST instance to all tracks
* how to import the SMF so that it will chose the correct MIDI tracks and not just say 2 - 8

also please make sure that you did apply the PC fix in the following thread before redoing the tests.

http://www.nativeinstruments.de/forum_us/showthread.php?p=196272#post196272


Best,
Markus

 

Hi all,

okay, I took all the instruments from the Ashant1 MIDI song and converted them from th SoundFont2 lib SGM180 to Bandstand format. loads superfast and uses very little resources on my low spec PC laptop.

let me know what you think about the sounds of that lib in Bandstand. relative volumes and effect sends of sounds can still be adjusted but samples should work without further processing.

http://nidownload.minuskel.de/Ashant1_Bandstand_SGM180.mp3


Best,
Markus

 

Markus
Sorry, I'm not sure what the experiment was here?

I also have the SGM180 (free) sf2 bank and although this is a good collection on most sounds I think the Bandstand samples are better. But we really are into personal preferences here - sound and music. For example I actually prefer the SGM128 bank to the 180!

I agree with Studio's main point which was well put - after using Bandstand in a session for a while 'memory sticky' issues often start happening. I'm not a techy so I can do no more than agree with the sentiment!

 

Hi all,

sorry, I did overlook the memory issue in relation to loading different songs. let me look into this more. does this only occur in plug-ins or also in stand-alone mode? can you repro in other hosts but Live?

with the SGM180 experiment I was trying to find an alternative to the included library in case people need a quick solution for sound or performance reasons.


Best,
Markus

 

Thanks Markus, the PC fix seems to have had some effect but not in Live, when BS is used as a VST plug-in.
I have attached a jpeg displaying the process that I use, at this stage to get BS in as a VST using only one instance of it.

When I import the SMF I do this from Live's explorer window as I want to be able to see the individual sm files and then manipulate them if needed.

You can also open up the smf from within BS as a vst but like the standalone mode you cannot see the individual midi files.

IN this mode re: atached pic there is severe dropouts, irregardless of the PC registry fix.

Bringing in BS and utilising it as one instance is the same with all other multitimbral modules, eg, Stylus RMX, etc. When you lay out each midi track as in the pic, and assign the appropriate midi channel to each track BS takes a moment and then loads the approprite midi information and samples into itself. It then overloads the system playing the same file that in standalone mode manages only 20 to 40 voices and 25% of cpu usage. There is obvioulsy something amiss here.

hope this helps.

cheers
George

 

Hi George,

thanks for that bitmap! I now was able to set things up in Live and boy, does it overload the CPU. I also get about 25% CPU in stand-alone with the same song.

strange thing is that the same VST plays just fine in Cubase SE. okay, let's do this: can you please let Ableton know and ask them to test this scenario as well? I will make sure that they get a Bandstand box.

I put this on my list as well as something to be checkd by our developers.

how do you deal with the fact that Live cannot send all channels from the same MIDI track to the VST instrument when you got an SMF0 file? in Cubase you can either send all channels from the same track or split the SMF0 track into single SMF1 tracks. also I could not figure out how to import the tracks in Live so that they keep empty bars in the beginning. e.g. a piano line that should come after say 16 bars already started playing at the beginning of the song. finally I am not sure if Live read the SMF tempo correctly?


Best,
Markus