The Sound Board

Spitfire have released another one of their inexplicably weirdly programmed pianos, the Autograph Grand. The good news is that it’s free and that it’s got a great sound. The bad news is that, like the Glass piano of last year, it doesn’t respond (or hardly responds) to incoming velocity data and the dynamics have to be controlled instead with the mod wheel. Someone really needs to explain the reasoning behind this strangest and most unpianistic of decisions.

This could actually have been a really great piano library because the timbre is quite nice across the entire range and the recording is excellent. Making it all the more frustrating to play this thing as it doesn’t behave or respond like a piano at all.

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They should have gone the whole hog and made it controllable by breath ONLY.

Bizarre.

I think this is an example of the trend of "one trick pony ultra artisan product" where you take something and make it into something that works completely different from how it would usually work, just for the sake of being different.
The value lies not in the product itself, but in the way if works completely counterintuitively to what you might think as "art". Kind of like a painting that is just a blank canvas.
I never got that aesthetic, and I think I never will.

Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Feb 10, 2023 5:01 am The bad news is that, like the Glass piano of last year, it doesn’t respond (or hardly responds) to incoming velocity data and the dynamics have to be controlled instead with the mod wheel.
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Piet are you sure?
It sounds like they've sampled two (perhaps three) dynamic layers and that the knob is some kind of filter or perhaps modulation of the sample start.
Fist three notes is velocity the next three is modwheel...



I have not used the piano, don't really know why I downloaded it..
I think LABS are great for their experimental stuff.
This is a piano, it should on piano book?
I'm sure it would work in decent sampler.

Best,
/Anders

The culprit is probably cc11. I have found that when cc11 is set to zero, volume and dynamic layer respond to key velocity. The more you raise cc11, the less that is the case.

This. As soon as you make CC11 zero, it behaves as a regular sampled piano. Albeit one with a limited set of velocity layers, but still one with a rather nice tone. Is this system confusing? Yes. It the plugin an utter failure. Nah.

lofi wrote: ↑Feb 11, 2023 9:39 am(...) Piet are you sure? (...)

Quite sure in the sense that the library doesn't respond or behave like a piano at all, yes.

On my system, cc11 (expression) merely acts like a volume control so when that fader is down, I don't hear a thing. Have to have it up to get sound out of this plugin. And with the modwheel (cc01) at low or medium settings, the higher dynamic layers (or, at least, what is supposed to sound like higher dynamic layers) are inaccessible with velocity. Now matter how soft or hard you play, you get a mezzopiano-ish timbre. It's only when the modwheel setting exceeds 80-85% or thererabouts, that a brighter sound (which we associate with a higher dynamic level) comes peeping through (but with that setting, the lower dynamic range becomes inaccessible).

Perhaps I phrased it not entirely accurately in my first post (my inner modwheel must have been down): where I said "dynamics", maybe I should have said "dynamic timbre changes".

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Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Feb 11, 2023 11:33 am Quite sure in the sense that the library doesn't respond or behave like a piano at all, yes.

I see.
Haven't tried the Glass nor the Autograph instrument.
Your post tickled my interest so I had to try it. No keyboard attached.
Didn't come to the same conclusion as you regarding the behavior.

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Still think one should consider the LABS as experiments and not full-fledged instruments.
And that they should keep the pianos @pianobook since it is, from what I understand, also a Spitfire venture.

The original labs, the £2 donation-ware was quirky, odd and sometimes completely useless.
But you still knew the donation would go to good caouse.
I wish they would find their way back to those kind of releases.


Best,
Anders

I have nothing negative to say about LABS as a concept and series, Anders. Got four or five LABS instruments installed and occasionally find very good use for them. It's just the way these recent LABS pianos are programmed that I just don't understand. That's all. How anyone would think it's a good idea to have to control a piano's dynamic timbre differentiation with a modwheel rather than with velocity, is completely beyond me. I searched but can't find a single argument for that approach to make any sense, nor can I think of a single situation where that would be the preferred way to work with a piano.

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I have several LABS, I rarely, if ever, use them. This piano holds no appeal for me and Piet is right, the concept is nuts.

Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Feb 12, 2023 2:44 am …control a piano's dynamic timbre differentiation with a modwheel rather than with velocity, is completely beyond me. I searched but can't find a single argument for that approach to make any sense, nor can I think of a single situation where that would be the preferred way to work with a piano.

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Or is it a limitation / “feature” of the plug-in?
I have no insight in the process but remember someone (probably Christian) from Spitfire saying the new plug-in is hard to program. I believe it was before Decent Sampler was available.

Since all the labs are hosted within the same “shell” or host plug-in the issues you are experiencing might be due to how the host plug-in is programmed.
Perhaps everything that they put inside it needs to be or are automatically mapped to CC1/11 etc.
This doesn’t justify the lack of playability you are experiencing but might be an explanation.

I’ve fiddled some with it and in my system it works as expected. The harder I press the more “bright” it sounds and the attack sounds faster or harder.
In a pop context this piano will play nice and as a freebie it plays great.

/Anders

Ashermusic wrote: ↑Feb 12, 2023 10:23 am I have several LABS, I rarely, if ever, use them. This piano holds no appeal for me and Piet is right, the concept is nuts.

I thought the original Felt Piano was very useful and have used it a lot. However, I agree-what a weird programming choice on Autograph.

Lawrence wrote: ↑Feb 12, 2023 2:06 pm

Ashermusic wrote: ↑Feb 12, 2023 10:23 am I have several LABS, I rarely, if ever, use them. This piano holds no appeal for me and Piet is right, the concept is nuts.

I thought the original Felt Piano was very useful and have used it a lot. However, I agree-what a weird programming choice on Autograph.

I like Sonuscore’s LoKi felt piano.