Acoustic Piano module in VCV? (I could implement one)

Plugins & Modules
#1

Hi, I’m developing a few modules oriented towards generative music; and I would also like to have a (small) module with a simple acoustic piano sound with a 1V/oct and trigger/gate inputs. Is there any free module already available (not a single sample played at different rates)?

If there isn’t one, I could implement one (using fair good 4 octaves samples, packed in a 40MB file that could be shipped with the plugin in the res folder); is it worth it?

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#2

Hello Marzio, Well other people have assembled patches for the piano sound: Simple Piano Emulation - Music & Patches - VCV Community (vcvrack.com) Not sure if they did come close to the real sound but they do exist! See what you reckon to their versions and then see what you think you can improve on? A full module would be good though! Thanks for creating your modules, they always turn out great.

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#3

Maybe an idea to look at development for a SFZ/Soundfont sample player?

edit: Yeah certainly a little piano module is a great idea!

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#4

+1 to the soundfont development

#5

A little piano module is a great idea!

but also another +1 for Soundfont.

#6

can I ask, what a "little piano " is?

#7

basic piano module? :slight_smile:

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#8

Sure, it’s like a big piano, except it’s smaller.

[Just jesting… the ‘little’ was referring to the module size, not the piano]

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#9

would be nice to have a port of e.g. mda-piano for Rack :slight_smile:

#10

Thank you, I thought it was the name for some specific type (of sound) of piano, such as the toy piano or grand piano for example

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#11

EssEff by RJModules is a SoundFont2 player and has a grand_piano.sf2 bundled with the module (I think you need to right click and use the menu to select it).

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#12

It’s simple to use and it’s not a bad sample but its not polyphonic so you can’t play chords.

#13

One thing I’ve learned (a complete novice with 12months experience) is that it is one thing to get something that sounds like a piano, it is quite another to get something that plays like a piano…

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#14

Here is something beautiful that plays like piano with just a simple touch https://touchpianist.com

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#15

That’s nice but not what I meant. A lot of the appeal of the piano is the dynamics - playing the same note loudly or softly produces completely different sounds. The sustain pedal opens the note to full sustain, but actually acts as a mute when shortening the note. When even a single note is played, all the strings resonate in subtle ways (as does the body of the instrument). I am far from being an expert in such things, and it may be that the difficulties in reproducing all this render the exercise futile. I prefer to believe otherwise. It may actually be easier to build a real piano out of wood and strings, than in VCV Rack, but that won’t stop me trying.

#16

I wonder if there are any open source physically modeled piano you could try to look at ?

I do agree that even though sampled piano can sound very nice (nice enough that you wouldn’t necessarily hear the difference in context/in a mix) , they are quite different to play :sweat_smile: . As you said, a real piano has so much variations, interactions between notes , anomalies in tuning between each string, the wood casing resonance etc etc. So many subtle details a sample library as good as it is won’t always be able to capture :sweat_smile:

#17

Linked example is just sampled piano, but nice thing here is that Y axis mapped to velocity and it is multitouch, so if you play from phone or tablet you can sustain some notes with one finger and play next with other, so that is covered.

#18

I use host-fx to load Kontakt which has several nice pianos

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#19

Same. I tend to go for the imperfect, but characterful sampled pianos from the Pianobook site.

#20

Pianobook samples are awesome! That viola!

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