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** PEARL CONCERT GRAND - Newly denoised sample set (2.4)

I’m a new owner of pearl concert grand ...... Kontact tells me I have to go to the library’s folder and then I have to add the serial number .... I don’t have a serial number ..... where is it located ?....Thanks,Jim
 
You need to add the serial number (which you got in the e-mail after purchase, but you can also see it in the user area on ISW website) via Native Access, then point to the folder where the library is unpacked.
 
I never got a serial number after the purchase ...... I checked every email including the one where they sent me the product and no serial number .....
 
E.D.
Thanks for your help impact SoundWorks sent me a serial number I’m good to go thanks so much for your help I really appreciate it ....Sincerely, Jim
 
I have bought pearl concert grand just now, but when I was trying to register this product with new serial number by Native Access, it told me that my serial number was registered already! What happened with your system? Can somebody from Impact Soundworks look into this issue and help me out?
 
ISW sent me a serial number......I entered the serial number via Native Access and my program loaded and is working fine...Get another number from them...Good Luck......Jim
 
I picked this up and wanted to give some thoughts approaching this from a pianist as well as a programming perspective. First the good, the pedal behavior and adjustability is among the best I have encountered in a sampled piano library. The mic perspectives here are very distinct as opposed to some libraries which have as many as 8 mics, but they are not very distinct between many of them. The interface is clean, attractive, and easy to navigate.

As far as the basic sound quality speaking mainly from the close mic perspective, there is quite a bit of muddiness, particularly in the lower registers, and is not as clean as most other libraries, though I find the upper half of the keyboard range and treble to be acceptable and actually quite nice with hints of sparkle. There is a notable change in timbre around A2. While note to note is fairly consistent, it is easy to pick up the layer transitions, not surprising since there are only 8 layers.

Many of the samples, in particular the lowest velocity range, have a lot of noise such as rumbles, hiss, etc. Check out A4, pedal down sustain, round robin 1, lowest velocity layer for an example. Sounds like something being drug across the floor during the sustain. Another example is A4, pedal up sustain, round robin 1, 2nd lowest layer which has a double strike in it. I was able to play around with the mappings a bit which made a huge improvement in the overall quality and playability of the library. I also noted occasionally a hung note although I haven't found out yet exactly how to reproduce this. Not sure if the velocity to brightness control is working properly, any change is very subtle to non-existent with this control.

Out of the box, the velocity curve is set too low and to bring out the best sound, the curve needs to be increased quite a bit and then blending in the stage and/or hall mics to add back some brightness and ambience. Also moving the release up a bit helps with the abrupt note cutoff at the default setting. You also get a bit better repedal response as well given these are tied together. Generally there is a lot of potential here, but the library needs more work. I would suggest the following to the developer as a patch update.

1. Remove the noisy samples, particularly in the lowest velocity layer, by either stretching the layer above or a better option is to use the best of the two round robin samples for both RR1 and RR2.
2. Remove the A4, pedal up sustain, RR1 sample, 2nd lowest layer.
3. Fix the occasional hung note. As mentioned not quite sure of the source.
4. Maybe some alignment on the mapping around A2 to line up the timbre better in this region.
5. Look into the Velocity->Brightness control. I wasn't finding a huge difference if any with this control.

I think the above could be accomplished with a couple of days work. Longer term, a couple of suggestions for the next major version:

1. Add sympathetic resonance which most libraries have at this point. To do this clone the pedal up sustain samples to a separate group, move in the start to where the string is just ringing. Add in scripting to activate these notes when the key is pressed and a related harmonic note is struck. Add to the interface an on/off switch and volume control.
2. Maybe look into selectively applying AET to the few noticeable layer transitions. This would probably only work for the 24 bit samples as there tends to be artifacting with 16 bit samples.

All the above are strictly my thoughts and suggestions as opinions vary greatly on piano libraries. I think overall this would be a great library for recording or playing lyrical/emotive pieces. There is a lot of potential here to take it up to the next level.
 
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Vel->Brightness definitely works. Try playing velocities above 100 with this knob at minimum and at maximum. It's quite obvious...

a better option is to use the best of the two round robin samples for both RR1 and RR2.

Strongly disagreed there, RRs should be consistent. Neighbour borrowing would be preferred to duplicating a single RR, but then you can't say it's fully chromatically sampled...

That said, these samples were already denoised, and going with even heavier denoising would rob too much of the hall from the samples. But perhaps it'd be worth having a second go at them from the source material, now that RX7 is out :)
 
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What I was trying to say was that between two round robins, one may be relatively clean and the other with artifacts. Just use the best sample in both the RR1 and RR2 mappings. Hope this makes sense. That way you only need an updated nki. Obviously this would take away the round robin functionality for those zones. I wouldn't necessarily go back and attempt to further denoise the samples, but would be interesting to see what RX7 brings to the party.
 
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An idea has been thrown around ISW to do re-denoising of the whole sample pool from the original raw recordings at some point. Should be muuuuuuch easier now that RX7 supports multichannel processing (took them long enough!).
 
An idea has been thrown around ISW to do re-denoising of the whole sample pool from the original raw recordings at some point. Should be muuuuuuch easier now that RX7 supports multichannel processing (took them long enough!).
I don't know enough about denoising technology & processing, but I'd hope any possible future processing of the original samples didn't destroy the natural air & presence of the tone of Pearl Concert Grand. There are too many over processed/"airbrushed" sampled pianos out there - we don't need another one!
 
Pearl has already been denoised to an extent, as I mentioned earlier. Of course the core tone is what's most important, but you gotta get rid of the artifacts, and tools for removing that are becoming better and better with time. So eventually you gotta take another shot at it.
 
Pearl has already been denoised to an extent, as I mentioned earlier. Of course the core tone is what's most important, but you gotta get rid of the artifacts, and tools for removing that are becoming better and better with time. So eventually you gotta take another shot at it.
Fair point - as long as Pearl retains its character :)
 
I'm not the one doing the denoising :) But it would be the same guy who denoised the current Pearl sample pool, so no worries there. He's the best in biz.


Also don't trust my ears, I can't hear anything above 15k anymore. :grin:
 
I'm not the one doing the denoising :) But it would be the same guy who denoised the current Pearl sample pool, so no worries there. He's the best in biz.


Also don't trust my ears, I can't hear anything above 15k anymore. :grin:
Haha! OK let me rephrase that - I trust your JUDGEMENT . . .
 
That would be great if they were willing to go back to the original samples to do this. I know this would be a mountain of work. If anything, I would expect there to be more air and clarity in the library using the more advanced tools we have today. When I denoise these types of samples, I use harmonically based filters that will leave fundamental and harmonics untouched. You can also only treat specific portions on the sample so critical sections are left alone. As indicated, this is an art, so having the original guy involved would be great!
 
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