I noticed that there are two types of Piano waveforms inside motif . One type is different layers of velocity like “CF3 soft","CF3 hard” and ....... the other type is velocity switch which contains all the layers.

I want to know if these wave forms use twice the capacity of ROM or there is a way to just change the keymap without duplicating the samples and not wasting the valuable flash RAM space.

Best wishes for every one.

The amount of “space” needed to store a sample is determined by the sample’s rate and bit depth. All other things being equal, the total memory space needed for two samples, whether they are separated or stacked for velocity switching, shouldn’t matter significantly.

It seems that I wasn’t clear enough.

I am making a new piano sound using my own samples. I have taken 5 layers of velocity and each layer occupy around 30 megabyte of flash ram. so I have 5 wave forms which each one takes up 30MB and contains the samples of one velocity layer.

in real piano above G#6, there is no damper and I noticed that in motif they used another element whch contains all the layers in one wave form. So I asumed I have to make a wave form which contains the samples of all the layers . The problem is that I don’t know if I can create this wave form without duplicating the space which these wave forms use.  In other words I want to know if there is a way that I can have a velocity switch version of the individual, single-layer wave forms that I have, without doubling the space needed .

So I asumed I have to ...

This portion of what you wrote is all that caught my eye. You don’t have to do anything of the kind, this is YOUR piano sample library.

You say you’ve made 5 waveforms. You could have included or combined the Waveforms in any number of ways particularly because you said your waveforms are representing velocities.

Take your waveform set that represents the “softest” strike. You probably have it in your Waveform library set so it responds to all velocities 1-127 (even though when used in an actual Voice, this waveform layer will never be asked to respond to a velocity of 127; you created it to respond to a set range of low velocity values, right?).. You could have “committed” to set a range of velocities, say 1-50, and at that point had the “medium soft” set take over 51-75, for example… this could probably taken place in a single waveform.

Remember a Waveform lets you set a velocity limit and a note range limit. Take a snare drum that is five velocity layers… As the snare drum in Power Standard Kit 1 - (D1/E1). They are five velocity layers in a single Waveform.

Your five Multi sample sets might have been made in any number of ways… There is nothing you “have to” do, it’s up to you.

The very first Waveform in the XF is a Multi-sampled piano with built-in velocity switching between its three velocity layers… You don’t get to see where the switches occur. Yamaha in their thoroughness includes each of the velocity strike layers individually (as separate Waveforms) to allow the user and programmers and opportunity to vary where the “soft strike” switches to the “medium soft” strike, and so forth. You don’t “have to” do this… You can understand why Yamaha does this… It gives the user and opportunity to program there own version of the acoustic piano… All the data is there.

(But if you hang around forums, you start to realize that very few people actually program sounds or even tweak them on any serious level. Plenty complain, if half as many programmed or experimented, they realize just how much of a difference customizing the piano data can make to their piano sound.

So it is good to leave the a Waveforms set as Full Range Velocity Waveforms… This way you can use the Element parameter VELOCITY LIMIT to set the window of velocities available for this Waveform.

Hope that helps.

Bad_Mister - 17 November 2013 05:45 AM

So I asumed I have to ...

This portion of what you wrote is all that caught my eye. You don’t have to do anything of the kind, this is YOUR piano sample library.

You say you’ve made 5 waveforms. You could have included or combined the Waveforms in any number of ways particularly because you said your waveforms are representing velocities.

Take your waveform set that represents the “softest” strike. You probably have it in your Waveform library set so it responds to all velocities 1-127 (even though when used in an actual Voice, this waveform layer will never be asked to respond to a velocity of 127; you created it to respond to a set range of low velocity values, right?).. You could have “committed” to set a range of velocities, say 1-50, and at that point had the “medium soft” set take over 51-75, for example… this could probably taken place in a single waveform.

Remember a Waveform lets you set a velocity limit and a note range limit. Take a snare drum that is five velocity layers… As the snare drum in Power Standard Kit 1 - (D1/E1). They are five velocity layers in a single Waveform.

Your five Multi sample sets might have been made in any number of ways… There is nothing you “have to” do, it’s up to you.

The very first Waveform in the XF is a Multi-sampled piano with built-in velocity switching between its three velocity layers… You don’t get to see where the switches occur. Yamaha in their thoroughness includes each of the velocity strike layers individually (as separate Waveforms) to allow the user and programmers and opportunity to vary where the “soft strike” switches to the “medium soft” strike, and so forth. You don’t “have to” do this… You can understand why Yamaha does this… It gives the user and opportunity to program there own version of the acoustic piano… All the data is there.

(But if you hang around forums, you start to realize that very few people actually program sounds or even tweak them on any serious level. Plenty complain, if half as many programmed or experimented, they realize just how much of a difference customizing the piano data can make to their piano sound.

So it is good to leave the a Waveforms set as Full Range Velocity Waveforms… This way you can use the Element parameter VELOCITY LIMIT to set the window of velocities available for this Waveform.

Hope that helps.

it was helpfull thank you , but you did not answer my question. If I have 5 different wave forms with different velocity and then anoder wave form wich combines those 5 waveforms in order to have one velocity switching wave form, do I need double space for storing them ?

it was helpfull thank you , but you did not answer my question.

I have twice already but not in simple enough terms, I guess. But 5pinDIN, did rather directly:

“All other things being equal, the total memory space needed for two samples, whether they are separated or stacked for velocity switching, shouldn’t matter significantly.”

If you created a waveform of “soft” samples containing a number of recordings across the keyboard, and you layered in the same Waveform your “medium” set of samples, the samples still use memory. They still use exactly the same amount of sample memory, they simply exist in the same Waveform.

I thought you would get that from the work you’ve done as the example. Can’t be more specific because we don’t have exact details of what you’ve done.

But think about it, or try it. Best learning is self learning. You’ll find out exactly what happens. The samples use up the same amount of memory whether they are used in a separate Waveform or combined with other layers into a single waveform.

if Joe weighs 150 pounds and is 5’9” tall and Fred weighs 160 pounds and is 5’10” tall.
You combine Joe and Fred as a doubles tennis team, Joe still weighs 150 pounds and is still 5’9”, while Fred maintains his height and weight. Joe will roam the left court, Fred the right court.

Just because they are on the same team on the court together their individual attributes remain the same.

I asked this question because I was seeking a way not to store the same samples twice. once as individual velocity waveforms and then as a velocity switching wave form. Is there a method to reduce the valuable flash ram space that is needed for this purpose ?

I need velocity switchin waveform for G#6 and above.

By looking inside Motif XF waveform bank you will see the following wave forms:

1 CF3 Stretch Sw St
2 CF3 Stretch Sw Mn
3 CF3 Stretch Soft St
4 CF3 Stretch Soft Mn
5 CF3 Stretch Soft St+
6 CF3 Stretch Soft Mn+
7 CF3 Stretch Soft St-
8 CF3 Stretch Soft Mn-
9 CF3 Stretch Med St
10 CF3 Stretch Med Mn
11 CF3 Stretch Med St+
12 CF3 Stretch Med Mn+
13 CF3 Stretch Med St-
14 CF3 Stretch Med Mn-
15 CF3 Stretch Hard St
16 CF3 Stretch Hard Mn
17 CF3 Stretch Hard St+
18 CF3 Stretch Hard Mn+
19 CF3 Stretch Hard St-
20 CF3 Stretch Hard Mn-
21 CF3 Key Off St
22 CF3 Key Off L
23 CF3 Key Off R
24 CF3 Flat Sw St
25 CF3 Flat Sw Mn
26 CF3 Flat Soft St
27 CF3 Flat Soft Mn
28 CF3 Flat Soft St+
29 CF3 Flat Soft Mn+
30 CF3 Flat Soft St-
31 CF3 Flat Soft Mn-
32 CF3 Flat Med St
33 CF3 Flat Med Mn
34 CF3 Flat Med St+
35 CF3 Flat Med Mn+
36 CF3 Flat Med St-
37 CF3 Flat Med Mn-
38 CF3 Flat Hard St
39 CF3 Flat Hard Mn
40 CF3 Flat Hard St+
41 CF3 Flat Hard Mn+
42 CF3 Flat Hard St-
43 CF3 Flat Hard Mn-

First; I need some explanation about some of them. What does “+” or “-” mean?
what does “FLAT” or “Stretch” mean ?

Second; Are the actual samples repeat in some wave forms? For example there is
“CF3 Stretch Sw St” and then we have mono version and then we have “soft” , “med” and “ hard” and so on. What I try to understand is that all these different waveforms share the same set of samples in order to reduce the space needed for storing them in ROM ? Or each wave forms has its own set of samples though they are exactly the same ?

The total ROM of XF is 741mb so repeating over and over the same samples should not be possible. I am not sure but I think there should be a way that we can store all the samples needed just one time and then using some kind of addressing to use the same samples in different waveforms. Am I right?

Please help me.

First, I explained previously Yamaha makes available all of the samples because MOST people do not attempt to make their own pianos from scratch… This is because most people don’t have the multimillion dollar facility to do the job right.

You do not have to store every permutation of your sample, unless you are going to sell it to everyone in your own synthesizer product. Yamaha did this because we anticipate the musician who purchases the synthesizer may want to build their own piano. So not only are composite Waveforms like 0001:  CF3 Stretch Sw St
This is a Yamaha CFIIIS Stretched tuned Velocity Switching Stereo waveform.

Waveforms 0003, Waveform 0009, Waveform 0015 and (Waveform 0023)

CF3 Stretch Soft St
CF3 Stretch Med St
CF3 Stretch Hard St
(CF3 Key Off St)

These are the three velocity waveforms offered individually… And the key off noise. If you want to create your own triple strike piano that extends the soft strike to velocities of 1-99, and set the Medium strike to 100-120, with the Hard strike to 121-127, you could. To be complete they used those mixing positions to record the dampers falling back to the strings (Key Off)… Although technically speaking this is not a velocity triggered sample, it is triggered at key release.

While someone else might prefer 1-50, 51-99 and 100-127 as the switching points.

If Yamaha was not going to give you a choice (like the competition) you would get the first Waveform (the composite) and that would be it. But as you see you are provided the full velocity switching Waveform and its three component strikes separately.

You also see the piano sampled in MONO (Mn) - not just played back in mono - actually sampled in mono. And again Yamaha provides the user with the full compliment of strikes and the Key Off sound.

The “+” and “-” are to denote whether the samples are used to extend the range above or below the original sampled pitch. This allows the programmer to have different harmonic combinations and use phase relationships when creating custom piano “layers”.

Stretch and Flat have to do with how the acoustic piano is tuned. Stretch tuning is how most piano tuners tune a piano, as opposed to “Flat” (flat here does not mean out of tune flat, it means the equal temperament tuning is strictly enforced throughout)

If you are endeavoring to sample your own piano better study up on Stretch tuning and Flat (non-Stretch) tuning… Next time your piano tuner is over let him explain the benefits of Stretch tuning on how a piano blends with other instruments. People who buy your instrument will want to know how (which tuning convention) you tuned the instrument. And, of course, if it just for you, you can provide just the exact data you require. Not sure because you have all questions without providing what you are doing. But the more you know exactly what you want to do, the more efficient you can be in constructing your data.

I don’t fully understand you final question. Waveforms are collections of Samples so that you can use them in a Motif XF Voice. Whether you can do the same kind of collections as Yamaha did in the preset Wave ROM is moot because you will be creating your Waveforms to control your specific Samples… and you will not be interested in providing the data for any other purpose then the voices you are going to create. A Waveform can be used to create as many Voices as you desire.

AWM2 is Yamaha proprietary method of sample storage, you do not have access to all that goes on behind the scenes in the WAVE ROM, what is provided in the sample engine is sufficient to build custom instruments from scratch… For those few who do…

Thank you very much for your long and detailed answer but there is still something unclear for me and I try to ask my question in the simplest form that I can

I have 2GB flash RAM. I have my own set of samples which I took from a very old Grand piano I found in a big studio.

I already made 5 waveforms for each level of velocity and I call them:

001-Grand pp (30Mega Byte)
002-Grand p (32Mega Byte)
003-Grand mf (35Mega Byte)
004-Grand f (35Mega Byte)
005-Grand ff (34Mega Byte)
-------------
166 Mega Byte(total)

So I need 166 MB in Ram to store them all. I save these waveforms in Flash Ram and 166MB is used to do that. Now my question is this:

If I make another waveform, lets name it ”006-Grand sw”, using all the samples in order to make a velocity switching waveform and add it to the previous list, Do I need another 166MB free space inside flash RAM ? or because the samples are already there is there a way not to occupy another 166MB of RAM?

Am I clear this time?

If I make another waveform, lets name it ”006-Grand sw”, using all the samples in order to make a velocity switching waveform and add it to the previous list, Do I need another 166MB free space inside flash RAM ? or because the samples are already there is there a way not to occupy another 166MB of RAM?

Am I clear this time?

If you made another waveform, 0006-Grand SW, using all the samples in order to make a velocity switching waveform… Then you don’t need waveforms 0001-0005. DELETE them, all their data is contained and mapped as a single Waveform.

Of course if you keep both it will use another 166MB, in the “user” sampler you cannot access the same data without using additional memory. The USER area is different from the PRESET WAVE ROM area.

Your waveforms weigh 166 pounds, you combine them together into a new Waveform that new Waveform weighs another 166 pounds… Is the analogy confusing or am I not being clear. The two together weigh 166x2

Swap MB for pounds… The five waveforms use 166MB, your sixth waveform combines the five, it also uses 166MB… The two sets together weigh, Er, use 166MBx2. Or 332MB.

I’ve already explained you don’t need both. Once you create Waveform six, you can Delete the first five… Particularly if you are worried about the use of memory.

If you create a piano VOICE (in [VOICE] mode, you would need to use five Elements to make a piano sound using your five Waveforms… Element 1 = pp, Element 2 = p, Element 3 = mf, etc
If you build you Voice from Waveform 0006, you’ll require only a single Element… To get the same result.

Both will use 166MB.

I can’t make it any more clear than that.

As it’s clear piano does not have damper past G#6 so I need
“006-Grand SW” for programing the higher, damper less! Piano notes.
on the other hand I am thinking about selling this library because I think it is good enough to do so. So I am not sure omitting individual layers is a wise choice.

What do you suggest?

Meanwhile thanks for all the detailed responses.

After about three months of hard work I have just finished the sampling and sample editing of a nice Grand piano. I did all the refinements and now it’s time to make waveforms and key banks.

As I said earlier in this thread I have five different layers of velocity. What I initially had in mind was to make one waveform according to each velocity layer, this way I would be using 5 elements of the MOTIF sound engine. Also one element will be used for key off samples. So two elements will be free.

The problem with this approach is that from G#6 and above there will be different AEG envelope settings(different release according to lack of the damper for higher notes in piano)from below G6#. and just 2 empty elements is not sufficient for 5 velocity layers.

On the other hand making a velocity switching waveform which covers all the piano notes (A0-C8) and store it along with the previous five waveforms and then range limiting and using it for higher notes, was just a waste of valuable RAM capacity.

For resolving this issue I have decided to make 5 waveforms for different velocity layers form the lowest Piano note which is “A0” to “G6” AND then make a velocity switching wave forms for high notes (G#6-C8). This way I will avoid storing the same samples twice once as individual layers and then as velocity switching.

I just want to know your professional sound designing opinions about my approach.

Best wishes

On a Yamaha the piano range is A-1 through C7 with C3, note 60, as middle “C”

I don’t need 5 velocities on the notes above G#5… There simply is not enough detectable difference in harmonic content to waste the time, effort and memory on them. I rarely if ever look for very detailed expression from those notes. Seems like you are thinking thus through so things look equal.

I say put your eyes and equal sensibilities on the back burner, and think with your ears!
If I you find you would be considering five way layering on notes that are not only not played that often, but exhibit very little in way of difference in timbre. If you were talking about and octave of notes in the middle of the instrument, it would be different.

Use common sense, over some need to make equal piles.