Making virtual instruments - some very strong hints

[Dave2002]

I think this might be generally useful, rather than buried in the Tech section.

I found this very interesting video showing how to make virtual instruments. https://www.spitfireaudio.com/editor...r-own-samples/ It's done by the people from Spitfire audio - who specialise in making high quality sounds for composers and musicians who use electronic devices and computers to write and perform music.

As said in the video - this might be commercial "suicide" though I rather doubt it. Most people who want to do this will probably not be competing directly with Spitfire audio. People who are making money out of this sort of thing may find it's cheaper to just buy the finished products from Spitfire.

There are a few tips to be obtained from the video, and since the end result is done in Logic Pro X, it can be attempted by some of us round here. I suspect that other tools will also have similar ways of associating samples with notes. The audio doesn't have to be done using the tools used in the video. What seems to be helpful is the naming conventions for the files which are generated.

Go direct to Youtube here - https://youtu.be/Yvco_DWMV_g

[Dave2002]

Looking at the video referenced in post 1 suggests that the Spitfire people have relatively little to fear from giving away their secrets. It's actually really hard to figure out what they are doing from the video - just keeping track of what, and how they are doing. In fairness, if one has software which will take their virtual instruments, just seeing if they have any at a "reasonable" price will very probably work out cheaper, than trying to spend days and weeks with a DIY virtual insrument. Also, Spitfire is not the only company offering virtual instruments, so for some instruments there are other options.

In the video, mention is made of the EXS 24 sampling synthesiser, which works with Logic Pro X. Different DAWs may work with different sofware. I suspect that one other thing that Spitfire have is a set of tools which map their virtual instruments to different VI systems, whichever tools they use to produce the base set.

One "slight" (for which read - it might be a real killer!) difficulty with virtual instruments is that different DAWs may only work with some specific virtual instrument sets.

Here is another video showing how to put samples into a DAW using Ableton Live - and map it to a keyboard/MIDI interface - https://youtu.be/R8YkHCwbN7Y

Just simply taking samples and mapping them to a keyboard is a start towards making virtual instruments, but it is not going to work very well for more realistic instruments. Of course many of the sounds used in electronic music have no external "real" instrument reference standard.

Here is another video showing how almost any sound can be mapped into pitched "instrument" sounds - https://youtu.be/AVvGo4m2joM

These approaches show how relatively simple sounds can be mapped to pitches for midi.

To do better virtual instruments, it is usually necessary to note that "real" instrument sounds usually have at the very least a start, a middle and an end. The start represents the attack of the instrument, the end the decay. In the centre of a note - the audio volume level may be more or less constant, though with effects such as vibrato. Wind instruments are different from strings, and also drums.There are different effects for strings - for example pizzicato and bowed notes. Wind instruments can also have different articulation. Brass instruments, such as trumpets, may have a different sound for mutes.

To produce better virtual instruments, samples for the different playing modes need to be taken, and matched to what the DAW/Synthesiser can play.

Sound (volume) levels are also important. If notes are written as piano or forte, the sound levels need to be higher for ther forte ones. Sounds for Midi virtual instruments can be modified by adjusting the parameters - often referred to as the velocity - which would be appropriate for a physical Midi piano keyboard. Of course there isn't always a real need to have an external keyboard, or even a hardware keyboard at all. Tools such as Sibelius and Musescore which are based on musical notation, can set the levels for piano and forte, and many steps in-between and beyond. It is possible to produce audio (a virtual performance) with just these software systems alone. Crescendo and diminuendo changes are possible by the software adjusting the levels (velocities) smoothly between different loudness levels.

There are added complications. The pitch and tone of "real" instruments may change as the sound levels go up and down. While it seems desirable to keep instruments in tune, if carried to excess this can lead to virtual orchestras which sound too perfect - and just not right. I can think of one orchestral performance - conducted by Jochum - where the overall effect was amazing - and yes - the brass instruments were pushed right to the limits, which IMO added to the excitement. A picky record producer might have those hard notes smoothed out - and totally kill the effect. Just as it's possible to get near perfect rhythm using electronic systems, it's also possible to "correct" pitch fluctuations. In moderation this may be OK - to fix really "bum" notes, but it may also drain the life out of music making. I can think of one other performance, conducted by Gergiev, where I suspect that some of the strings may have been deliberately allowed to play slightly vigorously and slightly out of tune. It matched the music very well - and was a great performance. Who says that music has to be performed with notes on exact frequency values?

So much of "music" these days is artificial, and based on quite rigid rhythmic patterns - and yes - to my ears it does sound artificial and boring, even if many people doing it may try their best to overcome the artificial sounding nature of their work. Part of the work for virtual instruments seems to be to get "exact" tuning for different pitched notes, but in the limit this might actually be counter productive. (IMO).

It may be fun to try to make virtual instruments, but it isn't necessarily going to be easy.