Sample your favourite concertina so it can be played on a keyboard.

[David Hornett]

Hi all,

 

My son, Saxon, has just demonstrated how he can capture and digitally sample musical instrument sounds into a 'VST Instrument' using one of my Tassey Tiger concertinas as a sampler. This means the concertinas sound can be added to a keyboard through a DAW (Digital Audio Interface) and then played through the keyboard using all keyboard effects. I was amazed at the absolutely perfect replication of the instrument's voice.

 

In short, the sound file can be added to the sound library of your keyboard.

 

He asked me to write that if anyone is interested, and would like the sound of their favourite concertina replicated as a VST Instrument, he can be contacted through his website: https://saxon-hornett.com

 

All the very best

 

David Hornett

[David Barnert]

Search through concertina.net on “sound font” and you’ll find many references to a high quality concertina sound font that has existed for years.

[Michael Eskin]

I did exactly that for my various iOS concertina and sound module apps! A lot of work getting all the volumes balanced and the attacks right, but worth the effort.

[seanc]

It’s always a catch 22. You want all of the notes to be in tune and the same volume. But that can make it sound sterile and wonky. On the flip side, sampling every note can take up a lot of memory.

 

if you are sampling and the stretching the notes, then you want everything to be in tune. If you sample all of the notes, you want to capture those notes being off, as it can really help to capture the real sound and feel.

 

[David Hornett]

Yes. With mine he did four voices (sound files).

 

1, the 'as is'. (Precise samples of all notes as they are, worts and all)

2, the 'balanced voice' (balanced voice, volume and response)

3, The complete scale  (stretched from G2 - D7 with all notes on the scale, including those not found on an anglo)

4, Complete scale, balanced, including breather hiss.

 

He did it because, of the sound files he found, he found none that sounded convincingly like an anglo concertina when put into his compositions.  (4 above sounds pretty amazing when a tune is played).

 

I must admit I had not thought to direct him to concertina net, which I shall do now, Thank you David.

But never-the-less, if anyone has the desire to capture the exact sound of their favourite concertina in a sound font, it can be done, which I must admit, until yesterday I had absolutely no idea was possible. (Please excuse my ignorance.)

[seanc]

David,

which do you use most?

 

or how do you use them? eg. Do you use the each note sampled specifically for melody, and the perfect stretched for chords?

 

[David Hornett]

I have not used it at all. It was just amazement that such a thing could be done that made me pin the post, along with the thought that maybe someone out there may like to capture the sound of their favourite instrument in a form that could be used as a sound file in Logic Pro.

 

Saxon is looking to use it in his compositions (his day job is a professional composer: adds, theatre music, music for singer song-writers, films and so on).

 

He has sat down and played it to me, a number of different tunes and genre, on the keyboard, sounds great, but I can't play a keyboard so it is beyond me to have any use. If you look at his website https://saxon-hornett.com/ you will hear the type of material he produces, the stuff he has kept ownership of so can put on the site. Unfortunately he has not put the concertina up yet. He was hoping to sell it as a sound file, but I reckon the market for such a thing would be pretty restricted.

 

If you are interested how he did it and how he intends to use it he is contactable through his site.

[Don Taylor]

David H.

 

If Saxon could convert your samples into a .sf2 or a .sfx file (soundfont files) then these can be played in Musescore on Windows, Mac or Linux.

 

Musescore can import abc files fairly painlessly so it would then be possible to 'play' an abc file with your samples.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Don Taylor