@jypma,
Which of the many piano soundfonts from Soundfonts4U did you like best?
There’s two that I liked:
- Nice-Steinways-Compact-JNv1.5 (“Studio” preset): OK sound. However, lack of expression when playing low-velocity notes. Also, the release samples (or release envelope?) is a bit too long for my taste.
- Nice-Upright-Piano-Compact-JNv1.3 (“Upright Piano” preset): Really playable upright piano. Not that “grand” sound of course, but nice for boogie-woogie and such.
For grand piano, I’m actually using Roma’s Salamander sf2 from higher up in the thread.
Would you be able to re-upload your Salamander SF2? I’ve been working all day trying to get a playable piano on my new zyn (rpi4 8gb) and haven’t been having a lot of luck.
I’ve been working with the original(-ish?) Salamander SF2 from freesoundfonts4u, but the upper register is deafening! If you have a good, playable one, I’d love to get that before spending a lot of time trying to rebalance the dynamics on this.
Isn’t this salamander sample the one that’s already pre-loaded for the linux sampler (not fluid) under pianos? It’s a really decent sample.
Edit - I guess that’s the “original” one you’re using already. I found it pretty playable. The second preset anyway.
It’s not playable as a piano on this hardware. It works alright as a single-note melody line in a mix, but it’s too demanding for the rpi4 to keep up with even moderate playing. Occasional sustain usage, triads in the left hand and one or two notes in the right and I can hear dropped notes, and sometimes even new notes that fail to play.
I’ll push this a bit when I get home, that wasn’t my experience playing around. I’m pretty heavy-footed on the sustain pedal too (because mistakes are harder to hear when everything’s muddied together). I had a four-part loop going with a simple progression two other synths and a drum loop with a filter added and it seemed okay. I was really impressed with the power and lack of dropped notes. Anyhow, let me see if I was just high on that new zynth smell when I’m back in front of it.
Thanks! And I’ll go record some demos. Because the existing SF2 conversions of Salamander online have (as I mentioned), TERRRRIBLE upper-register dynamics. I just read through the SF2 spec, and apparently there’s no keytracking available for attenuation, just for volume envelope timing, which means modeling the upper register will be a bunch of fiddly hand-calculated attenuation values. (Why I was hoping Roma had theirs handy to re-share!)
Why don’t try the GIG version of salamander? Linuxsampler native format is GIG and it’s supposed to perform best with it.
Also, the polyphony of the current linuxsampler version is limited to work well on a rbpi3, but it could be increased for the rbpi4. In fact, it’s a task that should be done right now … 
Simply take a look to the linuxsampler install script on the “zynthian-sys/scripts/recipe” and try to optimize and rebuild …
Regards,
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Which is probably what I’m enjoying playing poorly.
Helm on the other hand, is a pig. Sounds great, but not something I’d layer in with a few other synths, unless you like that glitchy xrun sound.
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BTW, @sehrgut, did you try the pianoteq engine?
I know, it’s not free software… but its playability and quality is simply amazing . I couldn’t return to a sample-based emulation after playing pianoteq for a few days …
And the price is really reasonable … in fact, it’s the first and only time i buyed a software license in all my life 
Close your eyes, put your free-software lover heart in one hand, and your music lover heart in the other hand… can you feel the weight? 
Regards.
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@jofemodo: I’ve been looking online for a GIG version and haven’t found one. The above is dead, but if you have it handy, I’d love to get ahold of it! I didn’t want to just autoconvert, because I’m sure there will be parameters missing and wrong if I do that.
I’ve also tried out Pianoteq and I’m very tempted! I’m impressed at how well it runs on the rpi4, because I remember my desktop ten years ago struggling to run it! I’m quite tempted, but also would love to get one of these sampled pianos in a playable state. Knowing even YOU bought a license is convincing! 
I’ll peek in on the linuxsampler install script and see how high I can push the polyphony before getting xruns.
Goddammit they’re running a summer sale. There goes my $209. Here’s the pianoteq Steinway vs. the Nice Keys Steinway, played with pretty much identical articulation:
Pianoteq:
Nice Keys:
@khidr9: Here’s a demo of the dropped notes in the bundled Salamander sfz (can’t remember if retuned or vanilla, but they behave the same). You can tell the difference between my mistakes and the dropped or clipped notes pretty easily, I think:
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Here’s a very rough edit of a piece I wrote that I somewhat arbitrarily added to the upper register to test here. This is using the linux sampler, the second salamander grand piano v3 preset under pianos.
I think I agree with you. There is evident voice stealing in a few sections (some of it is just a poor conversion from notation to midi where I need to clean it up for machine performance, but there are places it’s obvious). It isn’t bad, but putting a piece through it beyond my own limited abilities supports what you’re saying.
Going to try with pianoteq. Maybe upping the polyphony on linux sampler for us new pi4 folks is a good call.
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Too funny, I was just posting as you were… yeah, the same dropped notes are clear. Doesn’t really take a ton to push it. Although the actual sound is okay… but now I have to go buy pianoteq so this is a moot point. Bonus, their licensing allows more than one machine so we also get to install it on our extra zynths. 
edit – Because I’m a completionist— buy pianoteq is the answer. Same piece with steinway D classical on pteq. Now it’s just my compositional errors you here
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k, so now I gotta find the consensus on which packs to get . . .
I just did this and am getting an internal server error every time I try to install the binary through webconf. This thread has been an emotional up and down. (went with studio as All of the pianos and the eps and clavs were tremendous)
Same problem with latest version and 6.03
Just had to ignore the error… reboot anyway and all is good.
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But… they could come out with new models. And also… don’t we really want to tell companies like this: holy crap this is an amazing platform to support- these dummies will buy anything!!!
P.s. saw that survey - but there’s no option for studio
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Could you ELI5 how to install this? The forum doesn’t seem to specify which ARM binaries I need and how to put in my serial.
download the linux installer - you’re going to upload the entire 7z using the webconf. For me it gave a 500 error after installing… once I learned to stop worrying and love the error, I rebooted anyway after the error. After the reboot go back there and a spot should appear for your new studio (or whatever ) license. Once I did it successfully it was from my phone, in another room, with a beer. You might need the beer for it to work.
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