Subject: Piano Tips: was "Patch Tutor Request"
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 22:12:54 -0800
From: timkoelm@iconz.co.nz
To: Adam Hair <ahair@netconnect.com.au>
CC: jv1080@emccta.com
References: <199801192229.QAA14414@emccta.com>

Adam Hair wrote:

> I've really been enjoying these tutors that CJK and Taurus3 have
> been putting on the list. I was wondering though, would it be
> possible to maybe see the best way of designing piano patches?

It appears that no-one has answered Adam's post on piano programming - I'll share a few
views on piano patches and a patch I've created using the internal piano waves.

Basically, when you get down to it, a piano patch is only going to be as good as the
samples that make it. There's only a certain amount of tweaking (filters, amplifiers,
their respective envelopes and EFX) you can do before imperfections in a piano sample
begin to show. How do the internal piano waves hold up? Well, Keyboard magazine, in
their review of the JV-2080 and its expansion boards, put it very accurately when they
said that the preset piano sounds "more like a decent upright than a grand - bright,
animated and "roomy". The loops are indeed very small - there is no open harp resonance,
and the tone on the whole isn't very rich. But you *can* come up with patches better
than what the Roland sound designers have provided us with.

The 1st patch on board the Super JV, "64 Voice Piano", sucks. The filter and amplifier
envelopes close down far too soon on the tone, so any sort of singing, solo piano
playing becomes impossible. Well programmed filter and amplifier envelopes are very
important when programming a piano patch. You have to reach a satisfactory middle ground
between volume decaying over time (the amplifier envelope) and frequecy content decaying
over time (the filter envelope). Too short or long a TVF/TVA envelope time and you
destroy the playability and realism of the patch. I think I've reached a suitable middle
ground in this patch - examine the envelopes closely. The filter and amplifier envelopes
match each other almost identically in their attack decay and sustain times. Pianos
don't have an instantaneous "release" either, so I've allowed for this in my patch as
well.

I've used two different samples in this patch. One is the body of the piano tone (Ac
Piano2 pA), located on tone 3. The other is a sample of the attack portion of a piano
played at high velocity (Ac Piano2 fC), located on tone 1. I've used the Super JV's
excellent velocity crossfading capablities to introduce this "attack" sample at higher
playing velocities. You'll find velocity crossfading functions under PATCH/COMMON
V.RANGE. This combination of samples simply results in a patch which "responds" more to
the player.

To simulate the pitch variation of the notes over time I've used the Analog Feel
parameter, found under PATCH/COMMON/GENERAL. And although I haven't done it in this
patch, to simulate harmonic changes in the sustained piano tone, try modulating filter
cutoff in small amounts with a slow random LFO.

Stretch tuning depth (PATCH/COMMON/GENERAL) should *always* be cranked up to its maximum
depth in piano patches. I don't have an exact scientific definition of what this
parameter does, but it seems to alter the inherently mathematically pure tuning of the
Super JV synth engine - the tuning becomes "imperfect" and mimics the harmonic
relationship between overtones of what you'd find in a real piano. The effect is *very*
subtle, but a must for any sort of piano simulation. I'm sure the Roland development
team implemented this parameter for the sole purpose of emulating keyboard instruments.

Finally, I've enabled the EFX program "Space-D" in this patch. Space-D is a tricky beast
to program, but once mastered, the results are more than satisfactory. Programming
Space-D is more or less a four-way tug o'war between Pre-Delay, Rate, Depth and Phase.
It took quite some time to come up with a combination of these parameters which didn't
sound too "forced" or artificial. Experiment away with this EFX program and see what you
can come up with. You'll notice a great deal of difference when playing this patch with
and without EFX. It's almost like playing with EFX on is listening from the "player's"
position, and without EFX is in the 10th row back from the stage!

And if any of you out there have access to the Piano, Pop, Session or SSS expansion
boards (I don't have any of these), try these tips with them. Let me know what you come
up with.

Best Regards,

Taurus3

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