Topic by Ecaroh

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  • Ecaroh
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Topic: Vibes etc.: Mallet dampening

Hi all!

Pianoteq Vibes is a great model to play with my Wernick Xylosynth midi controller or any other. But for vibes player one very special and important expressive tool is missing: mallet dampening.

In real vibes, when sustain pedal is down it’s typical that vibes player press a bar with mallet to dampen individual tone when others are ringing. He may change one chord tone to another for example. Or make a singing legato melody line with dampening each note.

My question to Modartt is that could PTQ percussion model be coded in following way:
When sustain CC#64 is on and note X is on, if player hits X with low velocity this would dampen note X.
If there’s no pedal then low hit X will produce normal low velocity note.
And same normal behavior is with notes Y,Z etc. with pedal if Y,Z aren’t allready on.

Hope this makes sense...? In my idea mallet dampening could be implemented with clever low velocity algoritm and this would make a HUGE difference to vibes model, believe me.

Edit: and mallet dampening should obviously be a feature that you can put on / off and also define the velocity level (below Y) which dampens. In a perfect world mallet dampening would be made with polyphonic aftertouch but there aren’t yet mallet controllers cabable of that.

Last edited by Ecaroh (13-10-2021 07:43)

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Reply by Key Fumbler

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Re: Vibes etc.: Mallet dampening

The lack of decent polyphonic aftertouch controllers is perplexing, and I'm talking regular midi keyboard controllers.
Really surprised to discover that an expensive premium Xylophone MIDI controller doesn't even have it!

A "last touched" system can be implemented in MIDI in software for mono/channel AT. Maybe that can implemented somehow here?

Reply by Ecaroh

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Re: Vibes etc.: Mallet dampening

Key Fumbler wrote:

The lack of decent polyphonic aftertouch controllers is perplexing, and I'm talking regular midi keyboard controllers.
Really surprised to discover that an expensive premium Xylophone MIDI controller doesn't even have it!

A "last touched" system can be implemented in MIDI in software for mono/channel AT. Maybe that can implemented somehow here?

Xylosynth does not have any kind of aftertouch so my idea of smart low velocity dampening is only real option. Question is can Modartt put little effort to make this real? Of course model should be able to deal with aftertouch as well.

Little off-topic but related:
To make it even more realistic the model could produce some dampening noise which occurs sometimes. There adjustable level and randomness would really make it nicely imperfect. Vibes player is trying to make mallet dampening as silent and smooth as possible but sometimes (at least I) get some special noise. There’s already strike point simulating player NOT hitting a sweet spot every time. Also especially older vibraphones produce more or less mechanical noises (for example pedal clonks and resonances) which could maybe adjusted with age slider. And finaly, there are countless different mallets from soft to hard, different materials, which all produce very different timbres.

To sum it: vibes IS much more nuanced instrument than most people realize. Flexible model could catch much more of this. But back to original topic: the most important one is mallet dampening because for good vibes player that’s crusial expressive tool.

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Reply by johanibraaten

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Re: Vibes etc.: Mallet dampening

It's interesting to read about the usage of xylosynth with Pianoteq. I'm a teacher and we just purchased a xylosynth for our percussionists to use in ensemble/chamber music. How do you find Pianoteq as a sound source for mallets such as marimba, xylophone and vibraphone compared to sample libraries? We bought a xylosynth with buildt in sound bank but those sounds aren't great.

Reply by Drumstrum

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Re: Vibes etc.: Mallet dampening

Ecorah, I really like your idea!  I also use Pianoteq with a Xylosynth, and dealing with mallet dampening at the PTQ end makes complete sense.  CC#64 works really well for half-pedaling but does interrupt the internal Xylosynth mallet-dampening system.  Your suggestion fixes this problem and also means that the bars retain maximum sensitivity, only giving up lower velocity to dampening hits when required.  I believe you summarized your suggestion elsewhere as below.

"PTQ vibes model would dampen a note X with low velocity hit if a) pedal is on and b) note X is already there ringing. If not a) and b) then low velocity hit would make normal low velocity note.  In other words if conditions a) and b) aren’t met then model would behave ”normal way”.

In my view, incorporating mallet-dampening into PTQ would underscore it as the leading virtual instrument for midi mallet-controllers.

Reply by Ecaroh

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Re: Vibes etc.: Mallet dampening

johanibraaten wrote:

It's interesting to read about the usage of xylosynth with Pianoteq. I'm a teacher and we just purchased a xylosynth for our percussionists to use in ensemble/chamber music. How do you find Pianoteq as a sound source for mallets such as marimba, xylophone and vibraphone compared to sample libraries? We bought a xylosynth with buildt in sound bank but those sounds aren't great.

I don’t have much experience with sample libraries but those which I have tested weren’t very convincing. Mostly it was about playability, maybe they sounded ok but felt not good. With PTQ vibes I could quite easily adjust it to my playing and to my controller (Xylosynth) to get nice expressiveness. For example simple parameter ”dynamic range” was very usefull for live stage. I really like also dynamic pedaling with vibes. In general those percussion sounds (vibes, marimba, xylo, pans etc.) are nicely ”vintage” sounding, not so hi-fi which gives them extra realism which I like.

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Reply by johanibraaten

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Re: Vibes etc.: Mallet dampening

Ecaroh wrote:
johanibraaten wrote:

It's interesting to read about the usage of xylosynth with Pianoteq. I'm a teacher and we just purchased a xylosynth for our percussionists to use in ensemble/chamber music. How do you find Pianoteq as a sound source for mallets such as marimba, xylophone and vibraphone compared to sample libraries? We bought a xylosynth with buildt in sound bank but those sounds aren't great.

I don’t have much experience with sample libraries but those which I have tested weren’t very convincing. Mostly it was about playability, maybe they sounded ok but felt not good. With PTQ vibes I could quite easily adjust it to my playing and to my controller (Xylosynth) to get nice expressiveness. For example simple parameter ”dynamic range” was very usefull for live stage. I really like also dynamic pedaling with vibes. In general those percussion sounds (vibes, marimba, xylo, pans etc.) are nicely ”vintage” sounding, not so hi-fi which gives them extra realism which I like.

Thank you for your respons, it sounds promising. It will be interesting to see/hear how the xylosynth/pianoteq blends with other acoustic instruments. We just got a new line array speaker (JBL PRX-one) that I think will be quite nice for that purpose.

Last edited by johanibraaten (14-10-2021 18:13)