INDEX: News | Listening to a Preview | Download | Licence | Technical info | Links | Acknowledgments
INDEX: News | Listening to a Preview | Download | Licence | Technical info | Links | Acknowledgments
The Noct-Salamander Grand Piano project produces a new SFZ semi-concert grand piano from existing high-quality sampled sound sources, using a physics-based approach. The sound is bright and soft, intended for use in relaxation music and jazz.
To achieve the above objectives, we thoroughly addressed the following two points: (1) overtone balance and envelope adjustment, and (2) ensuring a high level of homogeneity and continuity in the sound quality of each velocity layer.
The original source was the high recording quality Salamander Grand (the widely used SFZ soundbank), and all 480 sampled data in it were carefully remastered. We spend a great deal of time setting up and adjusting the processing system in order to achieve perfect quality (at the limit level of specifications). In addition to the beauty of the tones, we have also restored the sound caused by the condition of the piano used in the recording (deterioration of the hammers, etc.) and removed noise that may have been caused during the recording process.
The result of these efforts is a new open-source large grand piano.
The SFZ+WAV sound bank package (48kHz24bit, Size:1.5GB) is provided free of charge (license: CC-by). In addition, all source code and parameter files are available to the public.
Our goal is to create a sound source that will please both performers and listeners, and our pursuit of perfect quality will continue. Upgrading of specifications may be considered depending on usage.
Listen to several classical masterpieces created using CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth.
Katsuhiro Oguri (Professional Musician)
has given us permission to use MIDI data.
Please listen to the genuine performance with Noct-Salamander Grand.
Sazanami was used for FIR reverb effect.
No equalizer is used.
| Images I, L. 110 - I. Reflets dans l'eau |
Suite bergamasque, L. 75 - III. Clair de lune |
Ballade, L.70 |
|---|---|---|
| Preludes, Book 1, L. 117 No. 8. La fille aux cheveux de lin |
Reverie, L. 68 | Arabesque No. 1, L. 66 |
Performance by (C) Katsuhiro Oguri. Note that this MP3 file is not distributable.
Katsuhiro Oguri (Professional Musician)
has given us permission to use MIDI data.
Please listen to the genuine performance with Noct-Salamander Grand.
Sazanami was used for FIR reverb effect.
No equalizer is used.
| Chopin - Prelude, Op. 28 No. 15 | Schumann - Kinderszenen, Op. 15 - 7. Traumerei | Liszt - Liebestraum No. 3, S. 541 |
|---|---|---|
Performance by (C) Katsuhiro Oguri. Note that this MP3 file is not distributable.
We have also prepared a version by the original Salamander Grand for you to listen to and compare.
Used MIDI data is available at http://piano.s20.xrea.com/midi/. Thanks to Rikako-sama.
Sazanami was used for FIR reverb effect.
No equalizer is used.
| Original Salamander Grand V.3 (MP3,48kHz) | Noct-Salamander Grand V.4 (MP3,48kHz) |
|---|---|
Note that the two MP3 files above were created by the same MIDI data and the same effects.
Check for homogeneity/continuity of volume and sound quality.
| Original Salamander Grand V.3 (MP3,48kHz) | Noct-Salamander Grand V.4 (MP3,48kHz) |
|---|---|
| Original Salamander Grand V.3 (MP3,48kHz) | Noct-Salamander Grand V.4 (MP3,48kHz) |
|---|---|
The package also includes an SFZ file without hammer noise and pedal noise settings.
CC-by (same licence as the original version)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
V3.0 (Nov.24,2023) * First release based on Salamander Grand Piano V3+20161209. V4.0RC1 (Mar.3,2024), V4.0RC7 (Apr.30,2024) * Applied 4 filtering with effective rate, reassigned WAV, adjusted all volume of WAV, erased noises and restoration of overtone/envelope F#1 and notes around C3.
Our project does not involve new recordings, but rather the development of a new piano sound source by digitally processing the Salamander Grand, which has a high recording quality.
"Salamander Grand Piano" Web site:
https://freepats.zenvoid.org/Piano/acoustic-grand-piano.html
In order to ensure a high level of homogeneity/continuity of each sound source, all of Salamander Grand's basic WAV sound sources were remastered. Instead of modifying the SFZ file, we applied a carefully configured filter per note to each of the 480 WAV files.
Naturally, we referenced the tones of several concert grand pianos. The beautiful tone of a large grand piano is due to the steep decrease in overtones from the bass to the treble. Since this is a natural consequence of physics, if we have good sampling data from a non-large grand piano, we can obtain a sound very close to that of a large grand piano by adjusting its frequency components. In this project, the overtone amount by scale and velocity is adjusted as follows:
In order to pursue natural sound quality, the levels of filtering and envelope modification were varied gradually according to the scale.
The original sound source is a sampling of the YAMAHA C5, but these processes make it possible to reproduce the tone of a larger grand piano.
In Version 4, homogeneity/continuity of sound quality in the scale was carefully adjusted:
The Salamander Grand had a major problem in "F#1" and "C3", which caused a break in the continuity of sound quality. The restoration process described in the fifth item above enabled us to obtain the sound that we originally wanted, and the sound source as a whole became more complete.
The restoration process for "C3" and "F#1" was extremely difficult. "C3" had a number of problems, such as strange noises when the strings were struck, insufficient overtone amount, and abnormal overtone amount transitions, so three types of processing were combined: fade, equalizer, and mix. That was manageable because, in the case of "C3", the frequency components necessary for restoration were still present. However, this was not the case with "F#1". We repeated trial and error, but could not obtain a decent sound. We thought that the cause was either the wrong position of the hammers or an abnormality in the strings on the piano used for recording, but we realized that "F#1" did not contain the frequency components that were originally necessary. Since it is impossible to recover the original sound alone, we ended up generating it from "A1". We have made it to a level where you would not notice it unless we are told, but we want to record this note only.
The C5 grand piano used for sampling was tuned fairly accurately, but slight errors in very low and very high notes such as A0, C1, D#1, F#7, and C8 were corrected to standard pitch according to tuned.txt. For pitch adjustment, the built-in sound bank of the YAMAHA EA1 was referenced.
Although waveforms and spectra are used extensively in the adjustment process, the final evaluation is made by listening to each individual sound and its homogeneity and continuity. For adjustment and confirmation, we mainly use a USB audio interface Roland Rubix22 and studio monitor headphones SONY MDR-CD900ST. In addition to that, BOSE 101IT speakers are also used for final confirmation.
The license terms of the original sound source require that the modifications be clearly stated. This project adopted a policy of clarifying not only that, but also the content of the modification process. The reason for this is to avoid unnecessary suspicion because the tone quality of the Noct-Salamander Grand is very different from that of the original source. Therefore, all processing was done by script, and FFmpeg (an open source product) was used for WAV data processings. All codes are available at GitHub repository. See src/build.sh for details. You can change the parameters of overtone_config.txt, and run "make noct48" to generate your own piano sound (you need to get the original version of Salamander Grand). This allows for a level of complexity and fine-tuning of tone quality that is not possible through the GUI of VST plug-ins or filter settings within SFZ files. Note that it takes about 12 minutes to build a complete 48 kHz version (Core i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60 GHz).
We are very grateful to Alexander Holm for developing the original sound bank and advising us on this project. We searched numerous free sound banks, but only Salamander Grand Piano had sufficient quality and freedom of development.
Chisato Yamauchi, Misato Astronomical Observatory
cyamauch (at) ir.isas.jaxa.jp
Last Modified: 30 Apr. 2024
