Sampling with velocity layers... when?

[Ecaroh]

Happy new year all of you!

Title says it, when we might get a chance to use samples with velocity layers? This question arises because only engine capable of that is Piano and for some reasons we get new sounds nowadays very seldom. I believe there's lot of potential which is now unrealized.

I can think few options for Nord:

(1) they can open Piano sampler to public use. This means that users could do their "pianos" (or any multi-layer sounds) by themselves.

(2) they can add this multi-layer possibility to synth's sampler. Maybe in next generation Stage or other models

(3) they can develope a new multi-layer library for Piano part from which you could BUY new sounds.


I think this 3rd option may sound bad for some because Nord has always given their sounds for free. But to me even this buying option is better than current situation where nothing happens. If sounds were available to purchase then Nord could do better cooperation with another 3rd party companies. And practically these extra sounds were extra, nobody is forced to buy anything. Nord could (and IMO should) still have this main Piano library for free.

But of course, I wouldn't mind about those other options (1 and 2). It's just that 3rd option is allready there if they would wanna go that way. IMO this would benefit everybody - Nord, Nord users and other sound design companies.

[tsss27]

I have been wanting this feature forever...

The first option would be my preference.

The second one, you can sort of do this already if you have a Wave 2 by crossfading velocity layers. It is not perfect and it takes a lot of work to dial in more than 2 layers, but it's workable for most sounds. Of course, velocity switched articulations, on brass for example, would simply not work -- you'd have to activate those via pedal or modwheel.

I do agree that your 3rd option makes a lot of sense. In theory this could be combined with the first one, so that people can make their own samples, but can also buy those made by professional virtual instrument companies. I think the new ProjectSam strings give a tiny glympse of what could be possible by getting more 3rd party companies involved. The obvious problem I see is that there may not be any more free releases if this idea was actually realized, but that would be countered by the ability of users to create their own piano files.

In reality though I don't know if any of this will ever happen. For whatever reason Nord seems very reluctant to allow users to create files for the piano library. Some have speculated that it would give easy access to Nord's samples but this does not make sense, because you can't do this with the sample library either.

[cgrafx]

if you know what the source data is (input sample) and you have access to the output data (nsmp) than you have pretty good method for reverse engineering the conversion/compression process.

This is a big incentive for Nord never to release a sample editor for the multi-layer piano engine.

[tsss27]

if you know what the source data is (input sample) and you have access to the output data (nsmp) than you have pretty good method for reverse engineering the conversion/compression process.

This is a big incentive for Nord never to release a sample editor for the multi-layer piano engine.

Do you know of anyone who has in fact decompressed nsmp files then? Perhaps someone interested in such things should work on making a .npno builder

If someone wants to extract the samples from an nsmp or npno file, they will find a way to do it. An official editor (which does not permit this functionality as far as I know) shouldn't make a difference. As an example, there are tools which will extract all of the sample contents from encrypted Kontakt libraries. Kontakt is not required to use them and naturally using them will violate the license agreement of the software, but they exist because someone wanted those samples badly enough. Kontakt is a much larger platform, and a good chunk of the Nord samples (unsure on the pianos) come from 3rd party Kontakt developers to start with! The insentive for someone to extract the samples from nsmp files is rather low as a result I think...A lot of those nsmp samples are already out there, just not under Nord's brand name.

I guess I just fail to understand how an official editor that only allows certain functionality would aid in the extraction of these files.

[Ecaroh]

I believe this reluctance (to open Piano samples) is because they fear that they might lose ”Nord sound”. People would use whatever they think is best. I think this is a real fear from business point of view. Another and not so nice reason might be that they don’t want their instruments to be ”too good”. If they were perfected fewer people would consider buying another model in next few years. Who knows, maybe there’s open piano library waiting in Stage 6, if they follow this Apple-like business model.

But all this speculation aside, problem is nowadays that we would really like to have more multi-layer sounds and Nord gives them too seldom. Also our preferences vary so you would probably want different sounds than myself. Now when very seldom we get new sounds it’s kind of a lottery if they are useful.

Hopefully Nord would really think at least option 3.

[cgrafx]

Do you know of anyone who has in fact decompressed nsmp files then? Perhaps someone interested in such things should work on making a .npno builder

Sorry I didn't make my point clear. Nord hasn't (and won't) created/released an nsmp editor because it would expose Nord's encryption/compression algorithms.

[tsss27]

I'm confused. They already have the sample editor. It doesn't allow for editing of existing nsmp files yes, but I don't think anyone is asking for that functionality and I'm not sure why the npno file format would be any different; allow for creation, but not editing, of this format with a proprietary Nord app. In this way, Nord's piano samples are still locked for editing just like the sample library, while users can still create their own sample sets.

[FZiegler]

If I understand cgrafx right, he doesn't point to the sound files but to the editor itself to be attacked via reverse engineering. It's not something you and I are capable of - but a single person is enough to decipher the whole algorithm. And _then_ sounds could be extracted, too.

That's a point I'd understand.

[cnsg_music]

The second one, you can sort of do this already if you have a Wave 2 by crossfading velocity layers. It is not perfect and it takes a lot of work to dial in more than 2 layers, but it's workable for most sounds. Of course, velocity switched articulations, on brass for example, would simply not work -- you'd have to activate those via pedal or modwheel.

Can you explain what you mean here please? I know you can assign modulation with velocity as a source on NW2, but how does one trigger a totally different sample based on velocity?

[cnsg_music]

It's a crossfade, so say you have an instrument with a soft and hard velocity. You would velocity morph the layer volume and possibly other parameters too like filter cutoff. Morph the soft layer to go quieter as velocity increases, and do the opposite for the hard layer; the hard layer should be set at 0 or close to it and the soft one should be set at the maximum volume you wish to have it played at.