[LAU] Yamaha Disklavier Pro grand piano (132MiB, new improved version)

[Stephen Doonan]

Roberto Gordo Saez wrote:
> Yes, it can be used in qsynth. I also use qsynth myself.

Great!

> 
> Actually, only the channel 1 is needed, it does contain all the layers
> included into it. They will be triggered automatically by programming
> different velocity levels in a sequencer or playing your external MIDI
> keyboard at different pressure levels. It is very easy, just attach
> your MIDI keyboard to the channel 1 and start playing.


Thank you very much. I'll do that. My MIDI keyboard is a Yamaha P-90. 
I'll plug its MIDI out to my sound card (an M-Audio Delta 1010) MIDI 
input, then connect that MIDI input to Qsynth using Qjactctl's 
Connections window, load your piano sound font and play. :-)



> The other channels in the soundfont are there for debugging or special
> purposes. For example, if you want a particular track of your sequencer
> to always sound bright, you could attach it to the channel 2. Under
> normal conditions you probably want to use the channel 1 only.


Thank you very much for the explanation.



> Note that the pressure levels may vary between keyboard models. In my
> cheap keyboard I can only reach around velocity 110 no matter how strong
> I press the keys. Other people could find the opposite: that the strong
> layer is reached extremely soon, at soft levels. So that is what I was
> asking for feedback on the different keyboards (my keyboard is not a
> good reference).


I will give some of that feedback after I play with the soundfont for a 
while. Right now, after playing just a few minutes, it seems that the 
strong layer (the brightest piano sound) is reached too soon on my 
keyboard, but it has several velocity settings (curves). So I'll try 
them all, including the flat response mapping physical key velocity to 
MIDI velocity data.


> Let me know if you make music with it, I'll be happy to hear!


Yes, I'll make some music with it and post a link to an .ogg file so 
everyone can hear. But first I want to play with the font and give some 
feedback.



> In this soundfont the samples came from a donation made by the OLPC
> project,


I was curious what OLPC was, so I Clusty'ed it (I like Clusty.com better 
than Google) and found the website: One Laptop Per Child. Interesting 
idea and mission.


> but it is rare to get such good samples with free licenses, so
> I'm working to sample other instruments myself, at high quality
> (24bit, 96Khz). If everything goes well, I hope to eventually announce
> a lot of high quality, free soundfonts. Though it is a slow process, it
> may take some time, and I need to convince some musician friends to let
> me sample their instruments (an invitation to lunch at a restaurant
> after the recording sessions may help) :-)


If you (or others on the LAU list) are interested in creating some 
high-quality samples, you may enjoy reading some of William Coakley's 
notes about how and why he creates his piano samples:

http://williamcoakley.com/articles.php?article=index.php

He has a "less is more" approach to sampling, which he explains at his 
website.

His "Perfect Piano V" samples are what I have use and preferred for 
several years now. They sound very beautiful to me. But they are 
available only as commercial add-ons to several popular manufacturer's 
MIDI-triggered tone generators.

Best wishes,

Steve