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Hi Aria,

thanks for your feedback! glad you liked the tutorial.

(1) I forwarded your note to Olivier. I am sure he will work this in if possible.

(2) you are right, currently una corda is implemented by adjusting the dynamics only. it is not only a matter of recording the extra samples but also the shear amount of addditional sample data. let us look into a better solution here for one of the next updates. I am sure that our clever designer can come up with something.

hey, I was looking for a 3 pedal controller for a long time - thanks for letting us know about it! there is also one that I designed together with CME that has not only the usual plugs but also MIDI and USB outputs with assignable CC#s.


Best,
Markus

 

Hi Jrw,

since Kontakt 2 is listed, AP should be seen as included as well as Bandstand since there are based on the same engine.

as far as I remember, the AP developer already confirmed that he is building AP 1.1 with the PT 7 SDK.

so that means that AP will probably have this even before Kontakt 2 ;-)


Best,
Markus

 

Hi Markus,

concerning pedals I have another suggestion. I have two midi controllers connected to my computer using a 2x2 midi interface. From time to time I make sessions with another pianist and we also play pieces for 2 pianos. I have noticed that AP actually thinks that only a single midi controller is connected, i.e. it merges the signals from both controllers. The consequence is that (i) when one player uses his/her damper pedal, he/she pedals also for the other player and (ii) when both players press at some moment the same key and player A releases the key before player B, player B's key is also released although he/she still holds the key down. Is there a technical solution for these problems?

The triple pedal you designed with CME looks really fancy. Btw, I'm curious to know what your favorite midi controller is, in terms of hammer mechanics.

Best,

Aria

 

Hi Aria,

I believe that in your case, you would have to fire up two instances of AP set to two different MIDI in ports. you might have to do this in a host otherwise the MIDI in port of the last closed instance will win when you exit the stand-alone instances. i.e. this will be in in port in both instances the next time.

currently the CME UF-8 is the favorite at NI as in quality for the money. I believe other users have recommended a couple of other controllers somewhere in this forum.


Best,
Markus

 

Hi Markus,

do you mean to run AP twice on the same machine? Is that possible on the Mac? If so, I guess you would need to make a lot of compromises with respect to the performance, e.g. installing the libraries twice but on different harddrives. Anyway, I can give it a try, but how do you do that actually?

Best,

Aria

 

Hi Aria,

just give it a try with the same library. it should work fine. I believe that Kontakt might even share the samples accross two instances but I am not 100% positive on that one.


Best,
Markus

 

I have that as well. A nice and not to expensive controller.
And having all 88 keys is also very nice ! How do you like to set up the v.curve on the UF-8? I usually go for velocity 1 sometimes with a +1 in the AC velocity curve but usually flat, 0. the "0" curve in AC doesn't get me all the way to 127 but hmm, it sounds fine to me anyway!

By shere chance, you wouldn't know how to set up the UF8's controlls (seq remote, vol sliders etc..) to work in protools? (I am aware that this is not your product

Any tips and setups that you know of at NI would be greatly apreciated (perhaps even a template?)

It should be said that I am relatively newbie with setting up midi CC's and the whole DAW experince (but I am getting there but the "geeky" side of me is definatly there You know, assembly and setting up the computer by myself, triming windows to run PT etc..

I have been looking for this too! The CME looks nice is it easy to set up to work with AC ?

Ps. Markus, I really do like your products, both AC and EC. It should be said once more that I think you've done a really good job getting the sounds right. I hope that I havn't come off too angry about "the childrens disease" these products have - you know, it is just a little frustrating sometimes, when you have to spend times on figuring out workarounds, (this was especially the case to get ProTools to work! "If I disable this perhaps.." - this of course leads to frustration with the DAW experience as a whole) So I was a little disappointed when you support team said "well, you might wanna disable Dualcore to avoid the problems with the modulation patches on EC" - you know it defeats the purpose of building a pc with nice parts if you have to turn off its features to get your programs to work as they should! I am glad that you are going for DualCore implantation and I hope you see it through on all your products in the near future.

That being said, I Recently got the new Paul McCartney album "Chaos and Creation in the backyard"(great album, so go get it!). The cool thing is that I can match his Bosendörfer, Steinway and Würlitzer sounds on my computer! You can really hear the same character of the pianos in AC + EC and that is a major accomplisment! Kudos to you and your production team ;-)

 

Hi Lilleslayer,

good to read your last post! yes, we are on our way to overcome the childrens disease as you call it. the upcoming AP and EP updates should both work with PT7.

as for the CME, their support is pretty good. I have found out so far that the recorder buttons work somewhere in the range of CC# 114 - CC# 119. volume sliders should be CC# 7 in different MIDI channels. maybe somebody else can jump in on how to setup PT to these?

great that the sounds work for you


Best,
Markus

 

Yikes! You are not really playing two piano's.

Since the virtual piano has one sound with the convenience of two keyboard actions you are actually playing four hands on one piano. The problem extends all the way to the ear. Even if you take care of the technical problem the sounds, since they come from the same sampleset, will be EXACTLY the same, meaning it's impossible to tell one player's piano from the other. I've dealt with his and it's hell in a monitoring situation, especially if people's styles are similar. You can't tell if you played the note or your partner played the note without "referencing" your finger. Takes awhile to get used to.

For the listener, much of the interplay is lost.

I would recommend using a second piano sound or softsynth so that it actually sounds like two piano's.

Ernie

 

Hi Ernie,

thanks for sharing your experience. Actually, you're totally right. I have also noticed that the identity of the sounds is disturbing. The only acceptable solution that we found is running two machines, each connected to a single midi controller and using two different piano sounds. However, we merged the output on the level of the monitors, but used different panning, so that one piano was more left and the other more right. This solution works, but it's only good if all you want to do is the experience of the immediate playback. And it's complicated, because my friend has to bring each time his computer system. It also limits your possibilities for using the MIDI potential.

So I think that it would really be amazing if NI implemented the possibility of using different controllers at the same time in a future update. If you have ever played music for two pianos (or even some crazy contemporary literature for multiple pianos) you know how difficult and/or expensive it is, to find practice rooms with several pianos. That might well be also a market niche for NI (but maybe NI thinks that there are not enough users out there interested in multiple piano playing).

 

What two piano's are you using?

It might be easier to run a VST host with two VSTI's. If you don't want to bring a keyboard, mouse or monitor I would recommend Forte' (www.brainspawn.com). You could set it at home to start up on bootup. Be sure the computer bios & OS are set to bootup without a keyboard and mouse. Forte's moderately expensive ($129.95) but real good for live performance.

I've got a system setup this way. Plug in and boot to Forte' - set initially to Akoustik. (It's hosting several VSTI's.)

I don't know if Steinberg's VSTStack can be set to start on bootup. If you want to go on the cheap and don't mind carrying the "attachments" you can just use a sequencer. Create a file that acts as a template with tracks hosting the VSTI's.

Ernie

 

Hi Ernie,

thanks for the hint. I'll try out Forte (I saw that there's a free trial version). I used two AP pianos (Steinway Grand and Boesendorfer).

Aria

 

Hi Markus
first im like the sound of AP very much!!
But i miss Keyboard sensitivity like the ( The Grand 2 )
and ask you:
Can you give us the possiblity to tune the scale of Werckmeister and the others, with some extra scales to exp?

i miss to download some other Presents, from the users. And can you tell us the time need, to finally the patch?

Best,
TEry

(sry my english, im not from your great country )

 

Hi Tery,

no worries about the language!

with keyboard sensitivity, do you mean more options than the velocity and dtnamic curves in the AP editor?

adjustable tunings - I write this down for evaluation.

user presets are on my list already. Phil is preparing the first one as we speak.

status on the patch is coming next week as promised.


Best,
Markus

 

Hi Markus,
i think is a way to say: Your Play with diffrent keyboards, need more ore lesser hit to find the curves. Have you dont the great Grand 2 from Steinberg in your House to try out? Not easy to find a way to say: ( and by me worse english! )
This Knob ore wathever give the amoung of pressing a taste to the prog. That mean's you can say:
i would play easy and give about 25% from my play-press to the velocity courve. Its sound fine. The most i played have the same level. Only very more pressing give it some other Levels. 1-128 by 25% meand 1-128/4 = 1-32
The Program give for examples:
all Pressing Key's by
1-4 = 1+4/2
5-8 = 5+4/2
ok im not a mathematiks, but im tryout this Knob from Steinberg...
the same thing by 50%
1-2 = 1.5
2-3 = 2.5
and 100%
are not a problem.
No idea how Steinberg make this done, but i find it a nice feature to have too, in AP!
Thanks to hear about the patch, and the other things! This diffrent tuning things in AP, are the best thing, i ever see. Mabe we find out some other tunings, i remember to read about some, but this are very old things ...
Greetings
TEry

 

Hi Tery,

you mean the knob at the bottom right here? I will have to play around with the Grand 2 a little more to better understand how it works.

http://www.steinberg.de/images/ProductImages/The_Grand_2_Global_Options.jpg


Best,
Markus

 

Hi Markus,
yes this button!! I hope you find out the way this knob works, and tell me you find it usefull for AP ore not!?
Best,
TEry

 

I don't know whether this bothers someone but me. If I press down a key very slowly I expect no sound at all. This is the behaviour of my stage piano Yamaha P120 which sends a MIDI value of 1 for those notes and stays silent. But the AP triggers the according sample at the lowest volume level hence producing a sound no matter how slowly one presses the key. Would be great if this could be fixed.

offbeata

 

Actually, if you want to go crazy with this ...

Two graphs, timbre and level.

Timbre:

Different color bars going horizontally, each one representing a sample layer. Vertical axis is velocity. A set of buttons allows one to select which layers are included. Allows you to select and set the velocity ranges of each layer. (Hope you guys did a good job normalizing the samples ;-)

Volume:

Draggable line with smoothing (think Corel Draw!) describing the transfer function between velocity and output level. Level on vertical axis, velocity on horizontal. Endpoints are not fixed, dh, max volume can occur below vel=127 to accomodate older keyboards (DX7). I'm thinking the graph would need to accommodate a 50-60 db dynamic range.

Note that with the above one could set up velocity curves where AP could be layered with another softsynth to create crossfaded instruments.

If and when AP patches are implemented, these settings would be saved with the patch and would allow the creation of the standard "mellow" (all low velocity samples) and "rock" (all high velocity samples) patches found in other libraries.

Ernie

 

I completely agree. One needs the possibility of silently pressing down a key for creating only the corresponding overtones. Given that Olivier Frappier plans to implement this functionality this would be very useful.

Aria