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Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:14 pm
by dahnielson
See demos further down...

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:37 pm
by sbenno
Excellent Anders ! Sounds promising.
I am currently away from my LS box, and since I am a very impolite guy would you be so
kind to render those 4 classical MIDI (chopin) to ogg and post them here ?

I used them alot while porting LS to Windows as they put a decent load on LS :)
Should we one day meet remember to claim your beer :)


http://www.piano-midi.de/midis/chopin/chpn_op66.mid
http://www.piano-midi.de/midis/chopin/chpn-p24.mid
http://www.piano-midi.de/midis/chopin/chpn_op10_e05.mid
http://www.piano-midi.de/midis/chopin/chpn_op25_e11.mid

We could then add some your oggs to the LS demo page, the more demos the better people can assess the sampler's capabilities.

thanks,
Benno

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:45 pm
by dahnielson
Sure, will do it.

I was just thinking about that we should have a kind of ACID test for piano libraries: a MIDI file containing great deal of dynamics, both p, mp, mf, ff and both short and long notes (some followed by a rest to evaluate any release samples). Making it possible to fairly compare libraries.

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 10:24 pm
by dahnielson
This was actually a useful shakedown of my Rosegarden/Ardour/LinuxSampler setup, everything hooked up and synced together (correction: it just kinda "syncs", only enough to bounce a couple of demos):

http://files.dahnielson.com/tmp/chpn_op10.ogg
http://files.dahnielson.com/tmp/chpn_op25.ogg
http://files.dahnielson.com/tmp/chpn_op28.ogg
http://files.dahnielson.com/tmp/chpn_op66.ogg

All demos was exported dry so that the direct output from MCGv2 can be assessed properly. Anyone who wants to can feed them through a reverb of their choice.

Please, go ahead and add them to the demo page. Just download them and put them in a better permanent place than my "tmp" directory. :) (Oops.. there's are minor clipping in one or two of the oggs, I didn't check the levels between takes. Sorry.)

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:37 am
by dahnielson
Here's what Mats had to say about the recording of the library:
The grand piano is an early 90´s Yamaha CF-III, which I recorded with a pair of Neumann KM84´s in X/Y at a distance of about 75 cm above the keys. I´ll never use small diaphragm mics on piano again.
And here's what Per "Worra" Larsson have said about Mats:
I've talked with Mats a couple of times and I've also listened to some of his stuff. He's a great guy that really knows the technique behind samples and recording them and makes great stuff. So, I wish him all the luck! These are probably among the best free samples you can get your hands on! Only hope that the site has enough bandwidth, because he'll need it!
Both back in 2003. Mats has since appeared to fallen off the earth, possibly left the earths orbit.

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:49 pm
by sbenno
Thanks Anders !
beers++ :)

it sounds indeed much better than FreePiano
http://www.alchemystudio.it/FreeSamples/FreePiano.zip

but to be compared to the PMI pianos the middle tones sound a bit dull.
I am by no means an expert, it would be interesting to hear opinions from Grigor and other pianists too. :)

But for a freebie it is very good, it is certainly the best free piano sample I have heard so far.

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:09 pm
by dahnielson
sbenno wrote:Thanks Anders !
beers++ :)

it sounds indeed much better than FreePiano
http://www.alchemystudio.it/FreeSamples/FreePiano.zip

but to be compared to the PMI pianos the middle tones sound a bit dull.
I am by no means an expert, it would be interesting to hear opinions from Grigor and other pianists too. :)

But for a freebie it is very good, it is certainly the best free piano sample I have heard so far.
Yes. And to be fair, this is a Yamaha CF3 sampled in 5 velocity layers while PMI Bösendorfer is an Bösendorfer (ironically now fully owned by Yamaha) sampled in up to 16 velocity layers. This is as good as free gets for now. If anyone want something better $50 for the PMI Bösendorfer 290, SampleTekk 7CG Jr (a Yamaha C7) or one of the SampleTekk Black Grand modules (a Steinway D) is a small price to pay to upgrade.

The demos doesn't show off the whole lib, it also includes release samples and some sampled effects (like the sound of pedaling ... I guess).

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:56 pm
by dahnielson
dahnielson wrote:Both back in 2003. Mats has since appeared to fallen off the earth, possibly left the earths orbit.
After a call to NORAD I've tracked him down:

http://www.livingsound.se/

(I've dropped him a note asking for permission to mirror the MCGv2.)

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:38 pm
by dahnielson
I have received a reply from Mats who give us his OK for free distribution. :)

Re: Mats Helgesson's Maestro Concert Grand v2

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:50 pm
by cuse
Great!

As Benno said, I can mirror all instruments on our downloads server. Whenever you get the permissions for one, just forward me the email with the permission from the author (just in case) and the link to the instrument.