Musical instrument bank modelled on Rakarrack, anyone?

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Greetings all!

A genuine IT whizz I'll never be: if things are getting really complicated, I'll be pretty much stumped. So I'll most certainly never make the grade as a programmer or developer (I wish...!). Yet I'm rather good at novel ideas. And my next one is if integrated musical instrument sound banks along the lines of Rakarrack could be feasible, in theory.

Rakarrack is, in fact, an effect processor. But it also contains a 'Bass' sound bank (with which, obviously, bass guitar playback can be triggered). And even better: this doesn't even require MIDI!

With Rakarrack, any electric string instrument can be plugged directly into the sound card and, with the flick of a switch, be turned into a bass guitar. Now, if bass guitar is doable in this way, why then not developing a Rakarrack variety in which a whole range of orchestral/band instruments (instead of effects) is featuring?

Personally, I certainly could do with instruments like trumpet, trombone, sousaphone, clarinet, the entire sax family (soprano/alto/tenor/baritone/bass) and tenor banjo. Orchestral string/brass/reed sections would also be most welcome.

Anyone out there willing to take up the challenge???

tnob

[ssj71]

This is theoretically simple, but quite complex in practice. The way Rakarrack acheives the bass sound is simply by pitch shifting, where you take a wave and resample to stretch it out and make it lower frequency. Its not a sound bank (unless I'm seriously mistaken). Its the same principle as if you play a 66rpm record at 33 rpm, everything sounds low (all frequencies lowered 1 octave). Going the opposite way you get the chipmunk effect. If you play with any pitch shifter plugin you can achieve the same effects quite easily. This is great for making a bass sound because an electric guitar operates on the same principle as an electric bass, just scaled down in size (up in pitch) so the formants are related. Formants are the different frequencies in a sound, how they are related and change over time, caused by the mechanics of whatever produces the sound (in vocals formants are caused by the size and resonances of the throat, nose, shape of your mouth etc.). The formants for a banjo are very different than from an electric guitar however, so its a non-linear transformation, requiring more than just a pitch shift. Horns, reeds, etc... each one will require quite a bit of analysis of the sound so this idea is a huge task. It is doable, there are lots of effects that approximate these conversions, but its not going to be casually accomplished. I'd love to see somebody do this, its a cool idea, and maybe your post will inspire someone, but don't expect it soon.

[tramp]

Now, if bass guitar is doable in this way, why then not developing a Rakarrack variety in which a whole range of orchestral/band instruments (instead of effects) is featuring?

This could be covert to a limited amount with Impulse Response.
I've attached here IR-files which I've made (with SpecMatch) for convert a acoustic guitar (Piezo/Mic) to Banjo and Dobro "like sounds". You can load them in IR-LV2 and then run it into Rakarrack.

[ssj71]

Cool. Got any audio examples of using it? I think this will largely just capture the EQ of the sound, as convolution is a linear operation in the frequency domain, but its close enough for a lot of fun

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Hi tramp and everybody else,

This banjo/dobro sound for Rakarrack is a real surprise. That is to say: I haven't heard it yet, but yes, I agree with ssj71; at least with regard to a sound sample being cool (the rest of what he says Mandarin to me).

Serious though, guys: if, for the moment, you let go of Rakarrack as template for my initial idea, would [re]producing musical instruments, in the Linux realm, be conceivable in any other shape or form? What I mean is, in principle, an easily accessible, user-friendly musical instrument audio sound bank/musical instrument audio sound repository. Or, perhaps, musical instrument MIDI patches 1-127, from a quality sound card, turned into an independent graphic front end.

Could such things actually be developed/realized?

I'm not a programmer or developer. So I'd appreciate your input.

tnob

[AnthonyCFox]

Could such things actually be developed/realized?

They are, it's called modelling. Pianoteq is modelling pianos and I'm pretty sure I've heard of other instruments being worked on by other companies. There are also several companies doing guitar/bass amp modelling.

Like sampling this kind of work requires a very large investment in skill, time and resources and is unlikely to manifest itself in any big way in the open source community. That is unless someone finds a shortcut. Here's to hoping that happens!

[Veerstryngh Thynner]

Thanks AnthonyCFox! I'm very much helping you hoping. And if enough people join in, maybe a musical instrument soundbank will happen, one day.

To ssj71 I owe an apology, perhaps. When I wrote that I didn't understand a word, I was referring to your brief reaction to tramp's banjo/dobro.

I couldn't follow your terminology there, your request for a sound sample excepted - that's what I should have said, in hindsight. Your explanation on why turning Rakarrack into a musical instrument soundbank is so fiendishly complicated, on the other hand, was really educational - I assure you!

And finally I'd like to ask tramp how I should go about re loading banjo/dobro IR files in IR-LV2 and running those in Rakarrack.

Thanks very much, guys: I have learned a lot from you!

tnob

[tramp]

And finally I'd like to ask tramp how I should go about re loading banjo/dobro IR files in IR-LV2 and running those in Rakarrack.

Maybe I'm a bit unclear, you have to run IR-LV2 in a separate host, for example jalv.gtk
(start command-line)

Code: Select all

 jalv.gtk http://factorial.hu/plugins/lv2/ir

You can load the Impulse files into IR-LV2 by select them from the integrated file browser.
Connect your input with IR-LV2, start Rakarrack, and connect the output of IR-LV2 with the
input of Rakarrack. Finally the Rakarrack output with your system out.
You can as well vary with the connection assemble, by run IR-LV2 after Rakarrack.