New Bandstand Demo

Hi all,

forgot: I tried in Cubase with different songs but could not repro the using more and more memory with each song problem.

if you want to empty cells that have insturments in one song but not the next you need to do this manually. easiest is to select new preset before loading in the next song.


Best,
Markus

 

Hello Markus,

Liking sounds is often a question of personal feelings .. ..I compared more than once the midifile with the original BS-sounds with your mp3 fill-ins . I preferred the bass in yours, but the other sounds (e-piano, saw) sounded (to me) better in BS.

Have a splendid new years eve tonight, and forget all AP, BS and other troubles.....

Kindly,

Luc
BE

 

Hi Luc,

thanks for your opinion!

Happy New Year to you and everybody in the forum!


Best,
Markus

 

I have done this with an email to tech support.

And with all due respect, the sooner it can be seen to the better. I have since tried to open BS from within ProTools and a similar thing happens. So it's not just Live.

Live's midi implementation is very basic by anyone's standards. I suppose this is because Live has never touted itself as primarily a midi based application but as Digidesign are learning midi implementation is important, especially given the potential power that midi offers.

BS is a very good example of how one can meld midi and samples together. Obviously there are a few hiccups at the moment but if NI can get BS seeing it's full potential it will be a must have app.

 

I think that Bandstand, in general, is very good including the sounds or instruments. I would recommend the following:

1. Provide the customer with choice in the wavetable they wish to use, e.g., SGM128, SGM180, GigaSampler GM500, Bandstand Voices, etc. The thing about soundfonts is that the technology is getting old but the good news is that there are thousands of them out there for free.....I think I have them all. In fact, before Bandstand I used sYnerGi GS (drums XG compatible) modified with instruments from GM500. This wavetable weighted in at about 128mb after my modifications.
2. Provide a Lite version of the Wavetable so that you can load all of it (or most of it) into memory as a preset. This would solve the delay or hiccup caused while waiting for the instruments to load before playing a midi or style file or changing instruments while the style or midi file is playing.
3. Provide a higher quality (larger byte size) wavetable for higher quality performance (in studio or high class night club, book store/coffee shop) where you can take a little longer to load your instruments (pre load - preset).
4. Provide all wavetables which are GM, GS and XG compatible with respect to the drums (midi note number matches the drum instruments with respect to these standards).
5. Allow drums to be loaded on any channel.
6. It is absolutely critical that the quality of the drums is maintained throughtout all this. Midi or style files would quickly suffer if this were not the case.

Furthermore, I think NI should not throw out the baby with the bath water. Just fix, change, etc. some of the Bandstand instruments and keep using them as one alternative. If you can keep the quality up there by reducing the size to around 500 to 750 mb (lite version with excellent drums) then one could preload the required instruments in a preset. For example, the approach I take with kontakt where I preload the instruments I need for a specific song set or genre of music. I am not a programmer so I don't know if this is feasible in Bandstand. You see the thing is it should be easy to beat the hardware (and software) competition, e.g., Yamaha's Tyros uses a wavetable which is relatively small. I don't remember what it is but I think it is somewhere around 100 to 200mb.

You see I believe, NI should stay consistent with overall strategy and keep the quality higher than its competition and consistent with corporate direction ,e.g., kontakt, B4, Bandstand, etc.= high quality. Bandstand nicely fills out the product line for live performance. It just needs a little work to get it all ---- perfect.

What's wrong with the above?

Frank L. Rosenthal

 

It just occurred to me that on the upper level of GM Wavetables one could use Colossus. I have this Library and I think it is very good indeed. However, it is not suitable for loading instruments quickly for midi or style files. So the strategy could be:

Colossus provides the high quality high end GM wavetable which could also be used for lead or melody voices.

Bandstand Instrument (existing including some changes and fixes) could provide high quality midi and style file voices.

Bandstand Lite Version for quick loading and suitable for live performances where midi files or style files are being used, eg., one man bands.

Allow customers to design their own wavetables, e.g., SGM 128, SGM180, GM 500.

In my case I will continue to use kontakt as my high quality go to sample player for the lead or melody instruments and Bandstand for my auto accompaniment and other live performances needs. I will also keep using NI's B4 II for my lead organ instruments. In kontakt I use Libraries like, Garritan's Personal Orchestra & Jazz & Big Band, Colossus, Akoustic Piano (future purchase), Instruments which came with Kontakt 2, Bardstown's Instruments, etc.

As you can see I am a enthusiastic supporter of Bandstand. I am not certain whether the Bandstand features can be built into kontakt but it might be a good idea to keep kontakt clean of such things. However, it might be possible to load very high quality instruments into Bandstand and use 2 instances of Bandstand in the host software (1 for auto accompaniment and 1 for lead or melody voices). This may make sense when more features suitable for live performances might be included in future enhancements within Bandstand.

 

The UltimateSoundBank's Global Plugsound module does this. It has been around for some years now. It has a lite version of the midi implemented instruments and a full version. This takes account of the vagaries of loading and CPU pressure without compromising on the sound quality.

 

studio673, I find your comments very interesting concerning Plugsound. Plugsound is one of the few sampler/wavetables which I have not tested. I have heard it said that it does not respond to midi program change commands. Do you know if this is correct. I have also heard that the sounds are fairly good.

 

You need a new instance for every instrument and this is not CPU efficient. I bought the Global module hoping that I could do what BS does but to no avail. The instruments are set out like standard midi but that's it.

The modulation controls over the sounds are very good indeed. But mapping the drums of the Global module to smf's is tedious. In other words the Plugsound modules are good if you're looking for a library of individual sample sounds but given that the concept is now some 5 years old they are a bit dated given the lack of midi control they offer.
And as far as the quality of the sounds are concerned, I have the Fretted instruments and the Synths modules, as well as the Global, and yes the sounds are good given the cost of the modules against say something like the Spectrasonic equivalent. But I would look elsewhere nowadays as there is much more competition at similar prices.

 

Studio673, your response is very consistent with what I have heard on other forums. In my view there is a significant opportunity for NI to provide a product (Bandstand) which has the required features (program change, drum compatibility, etc.) to satisfy market demand in the live performance area. NI may even bite into some of the hardware arranger keyboard market share.....with a little fixin' they've got it.

In fact given the restriction you pointed out concerning PlugSound, I much prefer the quality of features, sound and performance of Kontakt 2.

 

@mkrieg

hello,
you asked for free soundfont files:
http://www.sf2midi.com

it´s great when we can replace some bandstand instruments with own instruments or import other libraries.
at the moment i use only kontakt with colossus virtual instruments for my midi files. but the library is not for live performance...it takes to long to load the instruments.


could you give us more soundsamples in different genres?
(midi + mp3 file) (rock, pop, classic)

 

If you allow drums to be loaded on any channel then it would not be conforming to the GM standard. I purchased BandStand because it was designed to play SMF.

Colin

 

Colin, I understand what you mean. All I am recommending is that Bandstand conform to the all the standards out there which are GM, GM2, GS and XG. In the XG standard you are able to load drums on any channel. This would not hamper your SMF files....it will still load the drums on channel 10 as always. I for one do not see a problem with this. If however there is then all it means to me is a great deal more work in converting all the other standards to GM. I have the software to do it. It is just better to have all these standards, e.g., to play a Yamaha Swing Style:

Channel 2 Standard Kit (with its own effects and volume)
Channel 8 Jazz Kit ( " )
Channel 10 Brush Kit ( " )

You see in Yamaha Styles which use the above, you would likely need to load the Brush Kit in 10 and then for those variation where snare drums with sticks are required you need to live with the Brush Slap or something like that. It just makes for a nicer all around sound to allow drum kits to be loaded in any channel.

Just as a point of clarification, I am talking here only about drums. Bandstand can otherwise remain as GM with 128 programs. If you have good instruments you do not need several hunderd as you find in GM2, GS or XG.

 

Hi all,

I am with Frank here - stay with 128 instruments and enhance them if needed.

I need to take a look at the drum kit XG enhancements and the drum kits on all channels. this will not hurt GM at all but is also not done just like that. both things are on my list but not highest priority.


Best,
Markus

 

I agree with you when you put it like that. Being able to have parts of different kits is better. You can also assign an extra channel of drums with GS. I might setup a midifile to do this and see if Bandstand recognises it.

Colin

 

Well true to a point, but having used Yamaha XG arrangers myself it is quite clear that many XG MIDI styles and music files require sounds that dont fit into GM alone. I have a QY700 arranger. There are many excellent styles on available in XG format for that machine which simply would not sound the same or authentic if converted to GM - even if using excellent GM wavetables. I believe to support the extended sound sets of XG would be a definite winner - drawing in potential market from all those users of arranger workstations looking for a better playback and a computer based solution.

 

dstenning, I understand where you are coming from. I have placed greater emphasis on the quality of the sounds vs the quantity. If you increase the quantity and maintain the quality you will increase the byte size of the wavetable. This will make it more difficult to load the sounds quickly for use in live performances. I have converted hundreds of styles to various formats. I abandon those style files which do not work so well given I have so many to chose from. In many instances I can get things to sound fairly good.

At a minimum I would like to see Bandstand being able to remap an XG midi or style file drum kits to GM or GM2 standard.

 

I think one solution to the loading problem is to support switchable "lite" and "full" wavesets. regarding the greater quan tity vs wavetable size issue it is worth bearing in mind that not all sounds require huge sample size to work well. I am thinking in particular of synth sounds - something that XG does better than GM. In this case the sonic advantages of XG can be down to things other than the sample itself - for example use of filter sweeps and effects etc. The range of effects available in the XG standard allow far more sound variability without incurring bigger samples ( although it might take up more cpu ).

I downloaded a Yamaha style set years ago which had very authentic renditions of dance styles - trance, goan, house etc, all from a small wavetable, but the styles sounded superb because of the diversity of effects ,eq, reverb settings that could be applied - all within the XG spec of course. None would be possible in GM.

Just my thoughts.

 

dstenning, I much perfer the sound quality of Bandstand, some of the larger soundfonts and of course Colossus as compared with Roland's GS or Yamaha's XG. So I would prefer if NI maintained the quality of Bandstand (fix some of the sounds identified), provide a lite version for those who need it and allow customers to install their own versions of wavetables to suit their needs.

 

Not.

Ernie