Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

General user help and bug reports for Playground Sessions for Windows
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Moreless
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Joined: Sat Sep 09, 2017 12:45 am

Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

Post by Moreless » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:01 pm

Why does the Piano Demo Sound for Left and Right hand sound a lot more bright? I played with the advanced piano volume settings for 30 minutes and couldn't get the sound similar to the Piano Demo Sound. Are there known settings for matching the Left and Right hand Piano Demo sound?

Adjusting the Brightness option doesn't seem to do anything no matter if it's at 0% or 100%.

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sw1tch73ch
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Re: Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

Post by sw1tch73ch » Fri Jun 01, 2018 3:43 pm

It might be the piano dynamics affecting the brightness of the sound. If you play a note softly, it sounds different than if you play it hard. But you also have a volume control thrown in the mix, so the notes can be play moderately hard but be quiet or played softly and be loud. What you would need to do to get the same brightness from the notes, assuming they're using the same piano voice, is to match both the dynamics and the volume settings.
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andrewwegierski
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Re: Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

Post by andrewwegierski » Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:45 pm

Hi there,

It probably has to do with the timbre of the instrument. Imperfections in the instruments are only magnified when they are virtual. The right hand piano sound is going to be naturally brighter and crisper, while the left hand is going to sound very dark and heavy, especially in the extreme low register.

The piano demo sounds should be exactly the same as the in app piano that sounds when you play your keyboard.

Best,
Andrew
Andrew Wegierski

Customer Support Representative
Music Arranger

support@playgroundsessions.com

Moreless
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Re: Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

Post by Moreless » Thu Jun 07, 2018 7:35 am

andrewwegierski wrote:
Mon Jun 04, 2018 1:45 pm
It probably has to do with the timbre of the instrument. Imperfections in the instruments are only magnified when they are virtual. The right hand piano sound is going to be naturally brighter and crisper, while the left hand is going to sound very dark and heavy, especially in the extreme low register.

The piano demo sounds should be exactly the same as the in app piano that sounds when you play your keyboard.
I'm not talking about the output of the actual instrument. I have that on mute. The audio that sounds muffled is the sound Playground Sessions is outputting when I play. Why would the Right and Left hand Demo sounds be louder and more crisp than the sounds I am playing? Can this be fixed?

andrewwegierski
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Re: Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

Post by andrewwegierski » Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:57 pm

What I wrote about pianos in general also applies to any MIDI sampling, as in the Playground app.

It sounds like you're saying that you're not striking your keyboard controller loudly (thus playing at a soft dynamic), but the Playground MIDI output is louder anyways. Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything I can do about it right now.

I know that you've already played around with the piano volume options in settings, but perhaps the sample rate or audio devices can fix the muffled sound. The sample rate should be at 44100, and you can play around with the device and type under the audio devices setting. If you're on a windows machine, try using Windows Audio, and avoid "ASIO."

I'm still a little confused by your question. When you say "Piano demo" are you referring to using the piano demo function of the app (like, having the app auto play the tune so that you can learn it), or are you using "piano demo" loosely to refer to the MIDI sounds from Playground when you strike your piano? If I'm still missing something, please clarify (it sounds like the latter). Thanks!!
Andrew Wegierski

Customer Support Representative
Music Arranger

support@playgroundsessions.com

Moreless
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Sep 09, 2017 12:45 am

Re: Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

Post by Moreless » Thu Jun 14, 2018 11:39 am

andrewwegierski wrote:
Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:57 pm
It sounds like you're saying that you're not striking your keyboard controller loudly (thus playing at a soft dynamic), but the Playground MIDI output is louder anyways. Unfortunately, I don't think there's anything I can do about it right now.
If I strike a note on the keyboard hard, it does not reach the same high bright sound as the Piano Demo for Left and Right Hand. The Playground MIDI output is louder.
andrewwegierski wrote:
Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:57 pm
I know that you've already played around with the piano volume options in settings, but perhaps the sample rate or audio devices can fix the muffled sound. The sample rate should be at 44100, and you can play around with the device and type under the audio devices setting. If you're on a windows machine, try using Windows Audio, and avoid "ASIO."
The only option for Sample Rate is 48000 for me. I'm using Windows Audio.
andrewwegierski wrote:
Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:57 pm
I'm still a little confused by your question. When you say "Piano demo" are you referring to using the piano demo function of the app (like, having the app auto play the tune so that you can learn it), or are you using "piano demo" loosely to refer to the MIDI sounds from Playground when you strike your piano? If I'm still missing something, please clarify (it sounds like the latter). Thanks!!
"Piano Demo" to the left of the Left and Right hands that say "Autoplay Left Hand" and "Autoplay Right Hand." When these are on, Playgrounds output MIDI is higher than any sound the keyboard will output.

I'm trying to get my keyboard's output sound to sound as bright and high as the Autoplay Left/Right hands Piano Demo.

Are there settings that can be manually changed in the system files (for example an .ini file) or Windows registry tweak?

andrewwegierski
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Re: Piano Demo Sound vs Actual Sound

Post by andrewwegierski » Thu Jun 14, 2018 11:58 am

It must be something to do with your audio devices, if anything.

I just played around in the app with extremes of the advanced piano settings - brightness, wetness, dryness, room size, width, etc...and what I found is that no matter what I set those at, the piano demo sound outputted by the Playground app is identical to the sound that comes out of my computer when I'm playing on my keyboard.

Make sure you don't have other interfaces or MIDI machines that could be generating a different sound for you than Playground does. What type of keyboard do you have?
Andrew Wegierski

Customer Support Representative
Music Arranger

support@playgroundsessions.com

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