Pianos

A piano library (.npno) holds one recording, called a stroke, per root note, bank and velocity layer. The editor is for choosing which strokes go to the instrument, so that a library fits the memory it has free, and for setting how it plays.

Edits are a plan

An edit is a plan over the saved library, shown at once, and every switch can be turned back on. The library is rewritten only when you save, export or queue it, and that can take a moment for a large one. Until then the plan is an unsaved edit like any other: the name is starred, and Revert drops it.

The key map

Each root has a cell over the keys it answers. Drag the boundary between two roots to move keys, and the outer ends to cover or uncover keys. Click a key to hear it, or play the keys on a MIDI controller. A key sounds the loudest layer the plan keeps, however hard you play it.

Trim to fit

A list of switches, each with the size it keeps: one per velocity layer, Pedal resonance, Release samples, and Keys, which narrows the range. A meter compares the library with the instrument’s free piano memory and names the cheapest cut that would make it fit. A library that does not fit cannot be queued.

Velocity layers goes finer: one lane per layer, one segment per root. Click a segment to drop that layer for that root only. Each segment gives the velocities its layer plays at with the program’s KBD Touch at 0, on the instrument What is supported names. A higher KBD Touch reaches each softer layer with a softer note.

Playback

Instrument gain, the damper limit (Keys ring on above), and Kind, which is what the instrument files the library under. Kind changes nothing about the sound.

Roots lists each root. Open one to trim its level, hear it, save it as a WAV, or drop it. A 6.x library trims in tenths of a decibel and can also boost a stroke, by up to about 10.8 dB together with the instrument gain. A 5.x library trims in whole decibels and cannot boost. Per key paints a fine tune across the keyboard.

A new library

New ▸ Piano library… takes one WAV per stroke: 16-bit PCM, mono or stereo, at any sample rate. A file named like 060-b0-l00.wav fills in its root (MIDI note 60), bank and layer for you. Otherwise set them in the dialog. Template builds on a library you already have.

A new library is written in piano format 6.x. Advanced ▸ Format offers 5.x for an instrument that does not play 6.x. With a template, the library takes the template’s format. A layer’s value is on its format’s scale: 0 to 135 spreads a root over the velocity range in 6.x, and 0 to 27 in 5.x.

A WAV with a loop, which most sample editors can set, makes a stroke that loops there while the key is held, and the dialog marks it. Audio after the loop’s end is not used, and the loop’s last four samples are replaced by the four just before its start, which a seamless loop already has. While the key is held, the loop fades the way the instrument’s own grand pianos do, faster on higher keys; with Template it fades as the template’s does, or as pianos of the template’s kind do when the template itself never loops. Without a loop, a stroke plays to its end. Release strokes cannot loop.

A release stroke plays at the level the note has fallen to when the key comes up, so a release recorded at full level suits a note let go at once and is heard softer after a long hold. A key let go where its attack recording is silent plays no release.

What is supported says which of these edits have been played on an instrument.

Sending

Queue a library from its header. It is checked against the instrument and its free space first.