Orchestra Template Test

[GMaq]

Hi,

Very impressive work, I haven't tried the template but I'm impressed with the distinct timbres of the various sounds! Thanks for all your efforts on this!

[Michael Willis]

As a side note, one thing I forgot to mention last time is that your template has hardcoded paths to a local folder on your machine for the "template-dir" property, and that applies to all tracks: I thought this was normal and harmless (I see the same in another template I have installed), but if I don't manually fix the template-dir to reflect the real path on my laptop, none of the SFZ are loaded. I guess it's normal for Ardour to save your path when saving the template, but maybe there should be a placeholder strng on the version you have on github, and instructions in the README on how to replace it? (e.g., with an inline sed). There may be a variable you can use in the template to refer to the local template folder no matter the installation, but I'm not familiar with the syntax unfortunately.

Hmm, I experienced this problem before and forgot about it! I tried to ask about it on the Ardour forum, but didn't get any answers. Last time I found a way to work around the problem, but I don't think it will work on this one.

https://discourse.ardour.org/t/template ... -dir/89283

Just exported a new version of the waltz using the v2-tweaks template: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jp42N ... 48A9Jraza-

Again, for being a fairly quick import from MuseScore, this sounds good to me!

That sounds really good, Michael! I don't have my nice monitor speakers or headphones here in my office, but on my little pc speakers it sounds pretty good. I'll give it a listen on the nicer system when I get home.

Very impressive work, I haven't tried the template but I'm impressed with the distinct timbres of the various sounds! Thanks for all your efforts on this!

Thanks milo and GMaq! To be honest I'm still not totally satisfied with the sound. I had some brass players listen to it yesterday, and they told me that the brass part isn't convincing. However I think there probably isn't much more I can do without getting a more professional set of orchestral samples.

[Rainmak3r]

Hi Michael,

not sure if I should be asking this here, another post, or another place entirely, but I thought I'd add this in response to this discussion as it's motivated by your efforts on the template.

I've been working on a few other, more complex, symphonic pieces, and when I tried to follow the same approach I used for the waltz (export to MIDI from MuseScore, import in Ardour), the results were much worse this time. I did a bit of research on both MuseScore and VPO, and I think I now have a slightly better understanding of the different SFZ options that are available.

Apparently, the -PERF scripts won't work as expected with MuseScore, which uses velocity to control volume (unlike the -PERF scripts that use the mod wheel). When I tried the mod-wheel versions, results were a bit better, but of course with broken volumes (which you did warn me about, saying mixing levels should have been adjusted as they're probably tailored for the -PERF ones). In the process, I finally understood how the -KS versions work, and they do seem more flexible indeed, as they allow for a dynamic "swap" of samples when you use a specific (an unused for the instrument) key: this seems perfect for tracks generated by MuseScore, as it allows me not to have to duplicate tracks for pizzicato and tremolo parts (as I had to do with the waltz), but just keep on using the existing one; I just need to insert a key switch where I know I need one, and it should do the job for me. As such, in the next few weeks I plan to adapt your template to use those scripts, and test whether there is indeed an improvement.

That said, I suspect some of the -KS scripts are broken, or maybe there's something else I don't understand, which is what I wanted to ask you about. When I manually load them via sfizz_jack to test them with my keyboard, while viola-SEC-KS-C2.sfz works fine, for instance, 1st-violin-SEC-KS-C2.sfz and 2nd-violin-SEC-KS-C2.sfz have an incredibly low volume. I had a look at the SFZ format to try and understand the syntax, but apparently the volume properties for the samples seem the same as the non-KS versions (even though I didn't really check them all, which I probably should). Considering I found a few exchanges between you and the author, where you apparently did actually test them all (or most of them) to contribute fixes, are you aware of this issue? I haven't tested them all, so I don't know if the violins section are the only ones affected, but it would be helpful to know if there was indeed a regression from the previous version (I'm using 3.2 right now), and what to look for in case.

Thanks!

[Michael Willis]

That said, I suspect some of the -KS scripts are broken

That's quite possible. I never tested the KS scripts, as I prefer separate tracks per articulation. The sfizz developers are fairly responsive; try reporting this in their discord channel, or as an issue on GitHub. Be prepared to send an example Ardour session.

[Rainmak3r]

That said, I suspect some of the -KS scripts are broken

That's quite possible. I never tested the KS scripts, as I prefer separate tracks per articulation. The sfizz developers are fairly responsive; try reporting this in their discord channel, or as an issue on GitHub. Be prepared to send an example Ardour session.

Oh, right, I didn't think it might be an issue with sfizz... I'll give it a try with qsampler too, and if it works there I'll contact the sfizz guys. Thanks for the quick answer! (and apologies for misspelling your last name from time to time, I just noticed it's Willis and NOT Wellis as I thought )

[Michael Willis]

Willis and NOT Wellis

From what I've been able to determine, it's an old English name that refers to somebody who owned a well and/or was responsible for the maintenance thereof, so Wellis isn't too inaccurate.

[Rainmak3r]

Oh, right, I didn't think it might be an issue with sfizz... I'll give it a try with qsampler too, and if it works there I'll contact the sfizz guys. Thanks for the quick answer! (and apologies for misspelling your last name from time to time, I just noticed it's Willis and NOT Wellis as I thought )

Mh, I just tried again and it worked as expected now... probably a temporary issue in my setup yesterday, I guess. Should it happen again, I'll make sure to make more tests with LinuxSampler as well.

[psyocean]

It looks like a great project! Sorry, I'm not good in English, as I understand this is a SFZ play-edit tool. Necessary thing! After the repositories with Linuxsampler was died, I now stay without SFZ libraries. Perhaps this can revive them - the glory and power of SFZ tools! If it will be placed in some deb-repository - it be so useful

[Rainmak3r]

Oh, right, I didn't think it might be an issue with sfizz... I'll give it a try with qsampler too, and if it works there I'll contact the sfizz guys. Thanks for the quick answer! (and apologies for misspelling your last name from time to time, I just noticed it's Willis and NOT Wellis as I thought )

Mh, I just tried again and it worked as expected now... probably a temporary issue in my setup yesterday, I guess. Should it happen again, I'll make sure to make more tests with LinuxSampler as well.

FYI, I've started working on that CC support in both MuseScore and VPO (and in the future, hopefully, Ardour):
https://github.com/lminiero/musescore-vpo-midi-actions

I'll open a separate post in the Recorders/Sequencers section; it's far from complete and has a few issues/limitations, but I'd love to hear your feedback!