Transplanting sampled pianos from Kontakt into Forte. Long .

[Phil Aiken]

This is cut and pasted from the Mastering Vast forum. I thought it might also be of interest to Forte owners here. I did my 3rd transplant yesterday, and it is now extremely painless compared to the first 2. I only wish I had had space for a 4th, but I may do a couple of others and rotate them. I will likely redo the 1st 2 to minimize the amount of user ID's used, and if I can also gracefully trim them a bit, may have room for Scarbee Rhodes or something.

Anyway.....cut and pasted for anyone who is interested:

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This is long, not proofread, and from memory. Please PM me if I omitted anything or you are trying to follow along and get stuck. It is likely the fault is mine and not yours.

 

DO try this at home!!!!!!

 

Having been through it a few times, and wishing to 1. Use as few user ID's a possible, and 2. Not have to sample map on the Forte, I used this method today. Took

me fraction of the time it took to do my other sample libraries. Software involved was Kontakt, Chicken Sys Translator - Kurzweil version, KurzFiler.

I'm using Sampletekk's Rain piano - the same principles apply to other sample sets.

Sampletekk's Rain Piano has 11 velocity layers, all of which are consistent across the length of the keyboard. This is important. If your source sample set has different velocity transitions on different keys you will need to edit within Kontakt to make them even. It is OK to have the same sample in split into 2 to match its neighbor.

Open the full program and strip out all the release samples, pedal down, etc. You can add the releases later, or you can use a release layer native to the Forte.

Save.

 

For each of the 11 velocity layers, I created a separate .nki with just that layer by opening the full program, and deleting the other velocity layers. I then stretched the layer to inhabit the full velocity range. If the reason for this is not obvious, it is to ensure that Translator would later populate the kHz keymaps with a 100% success rate. Using multiple velocity layers can either crash Translator (if too many) or result in samples not mapping. It also does not seem to like gaps in the velocity range. This is a little more work up front for MUCH less later. Name them in a logical way, so you know which layer is which later on.

 

Now use Translator to convert the 11 .nki programs to .krz programs.

 

In succession bring the 11 (or whatever) .krz files into kurzfiler. There should be 2 keymaps, one for the left, one right. Click on each keymap and hit consolidate keymap. This reduces all the samples in the keycap to one sample ID. Yea!!!!! Save as a renamed .krz.

 

If you like, and just because you can, open one of the consolidated .krz files into kurzfiler, then import the rest. You can now save the whole shebang as one krz file.

 

Import that krz file into the Forte. Go to the 1st program. On the layers page, change enable to Attack Velocity. Range to pop/fff, key range from bottom to top. This is so that when you duplicate layers, you will not have to do this for each layer.So.....duplicate this layer as many times as necessary. In this case 10 times, giving you 11 layers.

 

Go to the keymaps page. Scroll up to layer 2 and change the keymaps to the next velocity layer. Continue on through all 11.

 

It still will not sound like anything as all (or no) samples are triggering depending on the velocity. Time to split up the layers.

Open the full version in Kontakt, on the mapping editor page as a visual reference. This will make it easy to see where the velocity transitions are. On the layers page(s) in the Forte, set the low and high values for the velocity enabling to match the original Kontakt program.

 

Now it should sound like something. Not perfect, but getting there. You will note that the releases are abrupt, and that the dynamics might not be how you would like them to be,

 

Let's fix the releases. 2 things. First - for each layer set the amp release to .500 or so. I don't have it in front of me - you can look at another program to check if that sounds wrong. The releases should sound natural but still a LITTLE more artificial than having release samples involved. So.....go into a factory piano program you like, find the release layer, go back to the original program and import it. Set volume to taste. Make sure the trigger is set to reverse on this, if you just brought it in as opposed to importing.

 

Dynamics are a matter of personal taste, and interact with the velocity curve you have selected under global. I use "piano touch". On the DSP MOD page, I start by setting all of the output levels the same, then change the Velocity tracking on volume to 20db. What happens next is really all about taste and the specific instrument. Play a bit, see if it feels right. If not dynamic enough, you can raise the Velocity tracking. Or, you can get into messing with the individual layer volumes. I like to have somewhere to go near the top of the velocity range so I usually boost the last couple of layers successively higher. If the low velocities are too loud, tweak them down. There is a lot of trial and error here, and this can REALLY customize the samples to your taste. Do not skimp on time here. Of course, you can always come back to it, save a few versions, etc.

 

It should be sounding and feeling pretty great now. It is time for the special sauce. Go through the factory pianos and see which FX you like. Copy both the insert FX and the sends, some of which are enabled by the sustain pedal being down and emulate the resonance caused by this. ALSO - with the insert FX - if you grab one with Sympathetic Resonance, and you should, go to the keymaps page and turn on sympathetic resonance for each layer other than the releases.

This will likely be enabled by one of the front panel buttons, and the amount controlled by the fader underneath. Not too much!!!! If it is not there - go in and turn up the wet/dry manually.

 

Live with it - tweak it. Experiment with different FX chains.

 

I now have Scarbee Wurly, Sampletekk White Grand, and Sampletekk Rain Piano living in my Forte.They are there when I turn it on - no laptop, no Receptor, no computer. It's a beautiful thing. The 2 pianos provide grittier and extremely playable compliments to the factory pianos, and the Scarbee Wurly is a bread and butter sound for me, plays SOOO well in the Forte, and applying the VAST FX to it is amazing.

 

[rockinredeye]

You are the Port Master. Does sound like a beautiful thing. I will follow your instructions in 2021 when I get my Forte.

[ElmerJFudd]

This thread has Dave Weiser written all over it. Where's he been most of the summer? On holiday I hope.

[burningbusch]

Beethree, it's good you documented this and got it all working. You're going through the basic steps that I recommend on the Kronos, though I can usually create the Kontakt multi-samples in layers and then using Translator convert them to Kronos in a single conversion. Translator also creates a Program that has these multi-samples mapped (though this part can sometimes be problematic). So that saves a bunch of steps you had to go through. You might detail your issues and send them off to Garth at Chicken Systems to see if this can be improved on the Kurzweil. If he never knows the issue, he can't fix/improve it.

 

I am very interested how Kurzweil handles release samples. This is pretty critical to me. Most workstation are quite basic when it comes to release samples. Whenever the key is lifted, the sample is heard. But what really needs to happen (at the very least) is a timer is triggered when the voice is initiated and that as the note decays, the volume for the impending release sample is lowered accordingly. This might not make a lot of sense, but if you don't do it, when you play a loud note and sustain it for three seconds, you get a loud release sample even though the volume of the decaying note is down considerably volume-wise from the initial attack. I've found a solution for the Kronos using the gate in the AMS mixer with a very slow sawtooth LFO acting as a timer for the voice. Anyhow, AFAIK this can't be done on Roland or Yamaha but there might be hope with Kurzweil and VAST.

 

Busch.

[burningbusch]

Also, I've been preaching this stuff the Kronos forever. I've corresponded with tour pros who are looking to bring either a) their signature sounds into the Kronos or b) get the soft synth libraries the love into it. It definitely takes your keyboard to the next level. You have a machine personalized with your sounds to your needs. Sure beats buying new a keyboard every six months in the hope of finding your ultimate sounds.

 

Busch.

[rickzjamm]

Beethree, you da man! I've been wanting to put some Prophet sounds into my Forte but just being overly cautious I guess. Can you do a Youtube vid? That would really break it down & we can hear the glorious results.

Thanks

[Phil Aiken]

In my first few attempts, after crashing Translator by trying to convert all layers at once, I had SOME success doing groups of 4 layers at once. Not perfect, though, and the subsequent mapping was a drag. The better safe than sorry method was much faster. In retrospect, I wonder if groups of 4 with the top and bottom boundaries dragged to 127 and 0 might have worked out.

I will scope out what is happening with the release layers. I snatched them from factory programs and they sound just fine. Thinking about it, any mechanical noises would be the same volume no matter how long the notes were held, while the sounds of the strings being damped would be affected.

[Phil Aiken]

Oh....trivial. Didn't make it as far as the stairs down to my studio.

There are multiple assignable envelopes in a VAST program. Just assign one to begin at key start, set as you wish, and use it to modify the volume of the release sample, which itself has been set to trigger at key release.

I haven't spent too much time analyzing the release sample keymaps from the factory programs to see if they go beyond mechanical noise. I just know that even at low levels they mask the unnatural release of a note just stopping or fading. Now that I have have cracked the user object ID limit by consolidating samples, perhaps I will bring in the Sacarbee or Sampletekk releases. I have about half a gig left of sample memory, which should suffice, and I will also load in the Mike Pinder Mellotron/Chamberlain sets that I still use frequently.