On this subject (and I may have missed something somewhere) is there a facility for altering the sound from a player perspective to a typical audience or Mic perspective—practically amounting to a reversal of upper and lower strings in the stereo field? This is very important for classical recordings, for instance. It's a parameter dealt with in different ways by many sample-set and virtual instrument developers. An example would be the different Gigapulse impulses for the player and what they call the "mid-side [referring to the M-S Mic array, not physical position] singer perspective" of GS3's Gigapiano II—a very harsh-sounding but rather playable sample-based instrument.
I've mentioned elsewhere (not this forum) the 'realness' of the old and by modern standards ridiculously tiny "Ultimate Piano Collection" recorded by Olivier Truan for East West some ten years back, featuring Steinway D&C, Fazioli F228 and Bösendorfer 225:
http://www.eastwestsamples.com/details.php?cd_index=176
THIS is gorgeous piano sound, and may be a great basis for analysis of waveform behaviour etc. as reported on another thread by Jake Johnson. These samples still, for me, exceed the subjective sonic realism of even the most gigantic sample libraries. One small element is the apparent artificial truncation of the highest notes, no doubt to save memory (expensive in those days and on the AKAI sampler limited to 32MB).
I've posted some brief improvisations (downloadable) for those interested.
NB All mp3s are 320kbps, and totally dry unless noted:
http://www.divshare.com/download/3806863-f92
This is the basic "Steinway D loud" white-keys, single sample per key (!), pedal-up samples patch.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3806889-2be
Steinway C, pedal-down samples.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3806897-c76
Fazioli 228 Loud, as per Steinway D above.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3806917-dcf
Fazioli 228 Pedal-down samples.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3806920-c16
Fazioli Marcato—these patches use chromatic sampling (ff) but each sample lasts only 2.5 seconds, intended for fast solo playing. This demo plays all 88 notes in sequence from Middle C up, then down.
http://www.divshare.com/download/3806923-2e8
The Bösendorfer 225 Loud patch
http://www.divshare.com/download/3806931-a92
Same demo with the Bösendorfer Marcato chromatic samples
http://www.divshare.com/download/3807235-10e
A slow, low-to-high climb through the Steinway D Loud and finally:
http://www.divshare.com/download/3807047-f8c
A processed (reverb and LP filtered) Steinway D pedal-down samples demo (courtesy of Franz Lehar).
Anyone interested in WAV or AIFF files of these discrete samples, please e-mail me.
My point here is twofold: gain some perspective in what has been done historically in capturing the piano sound, emphasizing the importance of 'sound styling' or taste in the final outcome, and inject some potentially quantifiable data into the discussion.
It is obvious in the demos, in the rapid single-note passagework, that we are not listening to a real instrument, I suspect largely because there is no fundamental interaction between the notes. Pianoteq, brilliantly, removes this obstacle. On the other hand, there is a tremendous 'immediacy' and authenticity to the sound of these genuine samples which are, after all, simple recordings of an actual instrument.
I think it's time for someone else to have their say,
Cheers,
Stephen.