danmckinney's forum posts 6

Yeah, UVI isn't the biggest player on the market, but there are developers who are offering some really nice stuff. I really like the Acoustic Samples stuff from Arnaud Sicard, especially the B5, which is the best Hammond & Leslie emulation I've used. (and I've got the real deal here in my studio to compare with - a Hammond A100 and Leslie 122).

https://www.acousticsamples.net/

I also really like the IRCAM solo instruments - some really cool & unusual sounds along with more standard orchestral solo stuff...

https://www.uvi.net/en/orchestral-composer/ircam-solo-instruments.html

Also, Jamal Hartwell at https://gospelmusicians.com/ has done a lot with UVI.

Falcon was great to build the instrument in, and had some definite advantages over the competition. The UVI audio engine had been used as the basis for the Motu Mach 5 before UVI offered their own platform with Falcon. As fas as sampling and synth stuff goes, it's pretty deep.

And, yes, I miss the Troc & Khyber! And Brownies, and the Continental in New York, Maxwell's in Hoboken...

The good old days...

It's not that humans are bad (a brief glance at the headlines notwithstanding), but it's physically impossible (for me, anyway) to reproduce exact velocity levels from key to key beyond just fff, ff, f, mf, mp, p, pp, and ppp. My brain and fingers are just not that accurate. My mechanical contraptions, whether powered by gravity or electrical impulses, do a much better job of keeping things right where I want them.

As far as precision in the studio goes, when I'm recording music the first take is often the best. We all know that trying too hard to drop every note where it's "supposed" to be can easily ruin things.

But, when it comes to accurately modelling how a real keyboard behaves, precision IS key. If I want the sampled piano to react just as the real one does, the keys need to be struck precisely when I'm recording the samples, so that in the final product, a velocity of 67 on your midi keyboard triggers the exact same note that a velocity of 67 would play on the real piano. I like to think of an invisible thread from your studio to mine, linked to the actual piano that's been sampled. The more precisely I can connect your midi keyboard to my grand piano, the stronger that thread becomes.

When you use the sampled piano in the studio, my precise picture of the piano can be played however you like - sloppy, drunk, emotively, clumsily, spontaneously - and that's how it will sound, reflecting whatever you put in it. My preoccupation with precision doesn't affect anything but that solid link between the virtual and the real.

But my effort at precision stops at trying to create that virtual mechanical link between your keyboard and my piano. There's no effort to improve the sound here, to better organize the way the piano responds after the samples are gathered, no effort to clean up or edit real life. If the piano sounds a little twangy at times, or doesn't respond in whatever mathematical curve seems "correct", there's no effort to fix it. I love the piano as it is, and that's what you're going to get, the piano as it is.

There's no synthesis, no tuning apart from what my piano tuner does, no stretching or swapping "purer" sounding notes for wonky ones. That's the idea behind the name "Whole Sounds". Apples with peels, and seeds. (Hopefully, no worms.)

A company like Pianoteq goes in the other direction, processing and synthesizing pianos, creating instruments from whole cloth, which is a fine way to go. I've nothing against processed products - Doritos & American cheese are staples at my house. More power to Pianoteq! I'm simply committed to going the other way.

Precision where it counts, but leaving the sounds as they are. That's the deal.

Jim - Center Valley's about 4 miles south of Bethlehem. And I played in Philly plenty back in the day - '87 to '98. A lot of gigs at Khyber Pass and the Troc!

Sampling that old Steinway could be great! But, at this point, any sampling I do would be with a programmable key striker, an electromechanical thingie that can hit the key at very exact velocities. The first Baldwin I sampled I did by hand, and even though I've played for years, for all practical purposes, I could only squeeze out eight discrete velocity levels. With my new system, though, I can theoretically get as many velocity levels as are defined by MIDI - 127. Although that's REALLY overkill. 20 should do.

Long story short - humans are not needed to sample any more. Besides, it's horribly tedious and time-consuming. Some tasks are best left to the robots, like bomb-defusing, deep water exploration - and sampling pianos.

Hello! My name is Dan McKinney, studio guy and keyboard player. I've played in bands for years, from garage rock (Original Sins) to roots rock (Jim Weider), and operated a small studio in Center Valley, PA for years before concentrating on producing sampled instruments, which is my main studio gig these days.

I had done a sampled drum product way back in 2004, which is actually still available, lo these many years later. Now I am obsessing over sampling pianos (my latest candidate, an old Baldwin Acrosonic spinet, sits to my left as I type), and plan on releasing a set of sampled Baldwins before the apocalypse comes (hoepfully sooner rather than later).

Hello, all.

I wanted to introduce my new sampled piano, the 1954 Baldwin Parlor Grand, for UVI Workstation.

The samples were recorded from my own studio's piano, which has been in my family since I was a kid. It's a piano and loved and used for decades, both for my stuff and other studio projects. You can check it out at https://www.wholesounds.com/1954-baldwin-parlor-grand/

The piano was sampled from four mixable mic perspectives, and includes onboard eq & compression, and features hammer and pedal sound sample layers, sympathetic open string resonance, custom-built convolution reverbs, and much more.

I offer a fully functional demo version, and I would absolutely appreciate any and all feedback I can get from you guys!

I've posted the piano in the gear section, and I welcome any and all reviews!

http://equipboard.com/items/1954-baldwin-parlor-grand-for-uvi-workstation

Thanks.