Sustained dilemma

[sofia-m]

Hi,

some users commented they wished my pianos' sustain lasted longer, at least in some registers. The samples are 14 seconds long. Of course, the original recording are much longer, so I figured I might re-cut some pedal down samples (I'm not keen on looping).

I'd like some feedback, preferably from those who played my 2.0 libraries, about which octaves should have longer samples, how long the samples should be (taking into account each library is already 4.3GB), and how this would enhance the playing experience in the genre of your choosing.

Thanks.

Sofia

[sunrat]

Side note regarding the size - have you considered using FLAC files rather than wav? SFZ can use these and offer quite a reduction in size without compromising quality.

This set I have used is FLAC files - https://github.com/sfzinstruments/MatsH ... GrandPiano

[sofia-m]

Side note regarding the size - have you considered using FLAC files rather than wav? SFZ can use these and offer quite a reduction in size without compromising quality.

I'm not overly fond of FLAC. Smaller size, but you still need to decompress the files, so more CPU juice.
Then again, it's easy to batch convert from WAV to FLAC, so users have that option if they wish.

IF I were to cut longer samples for sustain, that'd be no more than the 3 lower octaves, pedal down (240 samples).
The increase in size wouldn't be massive anyway.
I'm just pondering if it's worth it, depending on how many users would need such enhancement.

[ForrestH]

A drawback to distributing FLAC'd SFZs is that some SFZ players don't support FLAC.
CPU load...well, I'm currently looping a ten-second file of pink noise in WAV and FLAC formats, and the CPU load, on a somewhat dated i5 running Audacious, is basically indistinguishable between formats.

[Michael Willis]

14 seconds sustain seems plenty long enough for any arrangement I would ever make.