Hammersmith User Guide
Contents
1. Rack New default gt OG 17 32 33 48 The Hammersmith Grand E Tune Output st 1 M It Voices Mas 500 E 0 00 Midi Ch R 1 lemory 0 58 GB Ss a Options Instrument Effects 1 Set the volume of the close mics In the compact view above you see three faders below the piano graphic We call this section the MIXER These faders control the volume of the microphone channels if you have the Professsional Edition you have three faders here LE has two faders These are simultaneous microphone sources for mixing the piano sound as you like Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide PRESET MENU Top left is the PRESETS panel this is where you can load name and save your own presets to Hammersmith THE MIXER At the top right of any of the faders you see a small button labelled E This is the Edit button and pressing this will enlarge the MIXER to it s expanded view Here is a close up of the expanded MIXER in PRO Now you can see some more controls knobs to adjust things like the EO and the Attack or Decay of the sound Note that in the above graphic the Edit button is highlighted blue for the MID channel If you click on the Edit button beside the CLOSE or ROOM faders then the expanded view will shift to either of those channels instead You can therefore only see the expanded view of ONE channel at a time If the red power button at the b2. Soniccouture THE HAMMERSMITH USER GUIDE Soniccouture CONTENTS CONTENTS INSTALLATION TO ADD THE LIBRARY AND AUTHORIZE IN KONTAKT RECORDING THE HAMMERSMITH BRITISH GROVE STUDIOS MICROPHONES RECORDED FINAL MIC SELECTION SAMPLING SPECIFICATION MIDI THE KONTAKT INSTRUMENT THE INSTRUMENT PANEL PRESET MENU THE MIXER PRESETS THE OPTIONS PANEL DETAIL CONTROL EXPRESSION CONTROL TUNING CONTROL THE EFFECTS PANEL SUPPORT E U L A The Hammersmith User Guide 10 10 13 14 15 17 19 21 24 25 Soniccoulu The Hammersmith User Guide INSTALLATION Keep the SC The Hammersmith folder somewhere safe on your system C drive or main Macintosh Hard Drive You can move the library folder to a separate HD after you have authorized it TO ADD THE LIBRARY AND AUTHORIZE IN KONTAKT FIRST INSTALL KONTAKT PLAYER Kontakt Player Download Link 1 Open NI Kontakt in standalone mode In the Libraries tab click Add Library 2 Navigate to the downloaded product and choose the Library folder 3 When the library graphic loads in Kontakt click Activate 9 KONTAKT ERN Browse info Librories TT Moni Modules fiut New default C dd Librory instr Nou instrumentz 4 NI Service Center app will now launch Login or create an account and enter your product serial number shown in your SC account with the download product RESTART KONTAKT TO COMPLETE AUTHORISAT
3. international and local copyright law The ownership of all title and copyrights in and to the Software including but not limited to any images photographs animations video audio music text and applets incorporated into the Software is fully asserted by Soniccouture Ltd The Owner may only install and use Soniccouture libraries and software on multiple computers strictly under the following conditions where multiple computers comprise part of a single composition workstation for a composer or where the Owner has two non concurrent sites of work for example a studio desktop and a laptop for live performance The Owner may not transfer modify rent lease loan resell distribute network electronically transmit or merge the Software 25 Soniccouture The Hammersmith User Guide DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY The software is provided as is and without warranty of any kind The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of the software and documentation remains with user To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law Soniccouture further disclaims all warranties either express or implied including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose with regard to the software and any accompanying hardware To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law in no event shall Soniccouture be liable for any consequential incidental direct indirect special punitive or
4. the title 21 Soniccoutu e The Hammersmith User Guide FILTERS This section can either control Dynamic FILTER or control the MASTER EQ Both can be active at once or used separately Choose which you re editing with the drop down menu The filter gives you control over a static High Pass Filter a dynamic Low Pass filter with VELocity sensitivity and RESonance The MASTER EQ on the other hand gives you four parametric bands of EQ applied to the entire instrument s output at once NB If you are using individual outputs on the Instrument page this EQ is not in that signal path MASTER is only available to the default output of the Kontakt instrument SPACE Here is the convolution reverb with controls over the MIX level SIZE and HPF LPF filters of the reverb 22 Soniccoulu re The Hammersmith User Guide The drop down menu gives you a selection of impulse responses from our collection including some specific to Hammersmith such as All Strings which is an IR made from all the strings struck at once Note that the Effects tab and its settings are saved and recalled with the Presets used on the Instrument tab 23 Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide SUPPORT If you have any problems or questions relating to the use of this product please feel free to contact us You can either email us at support soniccoutu re com or we have a support f
5. ION Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide RECORDING THE HAMMERSMITH The Hammersmith is Soniccouture s first traditional piano instrument We have created sampled instruments using the piano before in our Xtended Piano set of instruments but this was the first straight piano We thought long and hard about how we wanted to approach it We spent some time researching special pianos with some significant recording or historical provenance but none seemed right for us Eventually we discovered a Steinway specialist called Andrew Giller who had among his stable of pianos a Model D the legendary full size Steinway Grand which had been retro fitted with a self play MIDI system This is very unusual to find in a full size concert grand generally these systems are fitted to baby grands that will fit easily in the home However for whatever reason a previous owner of this piano had spent a great deal of money to do so 4 Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide The reason this was exciting to us was that it would enable us to trigger the piano using MIDI which has the following advantages 1 It would give us a very even consistent velocity response the same levels for each and every key of the piano 2 We would not need someone to play the piano meaning that we could run much longer recording sessions with no mistakes coughs or lunch breaks In short we would be able to capture huge amounts of
6. PLING SPECIFICATION Over a 5 day session at British Grove we planned to sample every note of the Steinway with 21 velocity layers with the sustain pedal up and then the entire process again with the sustain pedal on This doubled the studio time required but would give us the sympathetic resonance of the all the strings ringing when the sustain pedal is pressed The result is a very natural sustain sound clearly different from using the unsustained samples in the usual sample library way Other details such as key off noises damper noise and pedal thumps were captured as well The final library specs are as follows 24 bit 48 khz stereo sampling 19 GB library with NCW compression 52 GB in Professional Edition over 10 000 samples over 30 000 Professional Edition version 21 Velocity Layers Intelligent Anti Repeat Real Sustain Pedal sampling e 2 Stereo Mic Channels 6 channels in Professional Edition Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide MIDI The Hammersmith will respond to MIDI notes from 21 A 1 to 108 C7 and to Continuous Controllers 64 sustain 66 sostenuto and 67 soft pedal Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide THE KONTAKT INSTRUMENT Note that you can hover your mouse over any control in The Hammersmith to get Info about its function if you have the Kontakt Info pane activated THE INSTRUMENT PANEL Kontakt 5 e 9 Info 0 58 GB Multi
7. clean consistent data from the piano during our studio time BRITISH GROVE STUDIOS It was important to record the piano data in the most high quality environment available controlled very sound proof and with a great acoustic Peter Henderson the recording engineer for the piano project suggested British Grove studios in Hammersmith West London Built in 2002 by Mark Knopfler to represent the state of the art both in digital and analogue recording there is no better studio in the UK The recording room is large with a double height ceiling and a very clear pure acoustic Once in the studio having ensured that the MIDI playback functioned properly and silently we set up a great deal of microphones Various options were recorded and a final selection made in post production away from the studio in real world listening conditions Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide MICROPHONES RECORDED 1 Neumann KU100 Head 2 Hammers KM84s 3 NEUMANN FET 47s close 4 NEUMANN 495 close 5 B amp K 4006s 6 NEUMANN KM133 D 7 SHOEPS slightly spaced ORTF 9 SHOEPS MK2 s further back 8 AKG D19 in soundboard hole 10 NEUMANN TLMs spaced in omni 11 NEUMANN M50 Decca Tree 12 NEUMANN 0875 ceiling FINAL MIC SELECTION CLOSE MICS NEUMANN M49 PAIR AKG D19 MID MICS SHOEPS PAIR NEUMANN KM133D PAIR ROOM MICS NEUMANN M50 DECCA TREE NEUMANN KU100 HEAD Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide SAM
8. ers returning to position when you release a note and can also be turned on or off PEDAL NOISE This sets the level of the sustain pedal noise and can also be turned on or off ROOM NOISE This sets the level of the background room noise and can also be turned on or off NB If you change channels on the Instrument page this noise is silenced until the next note is received SOFT PEDALThis sets the DEPTH of response to the soft pedal CC controller 67 and can be turned on or off The higher this knob is set the deeper the effect of CC 67 The entire detail section can be locked at the far right If locked then this section is not affected by loading a Preset Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide EXPRESSION CONTROL This middle section is basically control of velocity You ll want to use this to get the best response from your MIDI keyboard to suit your own playing style There are several tools here to help you get the best response CURVED SHEL FIXED LEARN MODE USER MAX VEL CURVE VEL gt VOL M 5 V INPUT First of all on the far left you can control the MAX and MIN velocity allowed through to the instrument This means that even if you input velocities outside this range they will be forced within the range you set The CURVE knob here adjusts the CURVE if we re in CURVE mode between the MIN and MAX values and you can also c
9. g On the far RIGHT of the EXPRESSION CONTROL section you can set the amount that Velocity affects Volume We generally find this best at about 21 dB but you can adjust this to your own preference as well The entire velocity section can be locked at the far right If locked then this section is not affected by loading a Preset Soniccoutu Es The Hammersmith User Guide TUNING CONTROL This last section is microtuning You can turn this off with the little square button at the far right of the word MICROTUNE or leave it set to Equal Temperament the default It doesn t use much CPU so it s not important to disable it if you re not using it There are two main sections to the Microtuning the PRESETS on the left and the EDITOR on the right The PRESETS work much like the main Instrument presets on the Instrument page you can double click to change the name hit SAVE to save and step through presets with the little arrows or by using the list display There are some subfolders here grouping tuning presets into various categories For example if you want to hear the piano tuned approximately how Bach had his harpsichord tuned you can choose the folder Keyboard and the preset Werkmeister III The tuning EDITOR on the right always displays the last note you played and lets you adjust the NOTES offset semitones and CENTS offset to that note In Equal Temperament all these are zero and if you hit the INITALISE butto
10. h allows you to route the piano channel to an actual Kontakt output channel if available Thus you could route things differently in your DAW for surround voicing or other processing outside Kontakt In the field of knobs to the right of the fader you have control of the Attack and Decay of the samples on that channel and then a 4 band parametric EQ Soniccouture The Hammersmith User Guide The black switch beside the letters EQ enables or disables the entire EQ for that channel and the black boxes below MID switch between high and low mid bands PRO Version only To the right of the blue Edit button you have a pull down menu This allows you to change the microphones used on that channel Each of the three mic positions has two microphone options Output st 1 Voices D 500 Purge Midi Ch A 1 emory 1 73 GB The Hammersmith Grand E e Tune M THE HAMMERSMITH PRESET DEFAULT Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide PRESETS At the top left is the Presets section of Hammersmith If you double click on a Preset name it will be highlighted and you can type your own preset name there Clicking on SAVE at the bottom will save your Presets to the special Presets folder for the Hammersmith library and will be available next time you load Hammersmith THE HAMMERSMITH PRESET Note that saved presets don t immediately become visible in the list until
11. n all will be set back to zero Equal Temperament again If you turn on the OCTAVES switch at the bottom right then adjusting any note will also adjust all other octave equivalents of that note at the same time ie if you adjust C 1 then C 2 C 3 C 4 etc will all be adjusted similarly Sometimes this is what you want sometimes it s not TUNEKEY MIDI 64 Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide The entire tuning section can be locked at the far right If locked then this section is not affected by loading All three sections of the Options page are always SAVED when you save an Instrument preset on the Instrument panel They are only LOADED with the preset if the respective section is unlocked 20 Soniccoulu e The Hammersmith User Guide THE EFFECTS PANEL Kontakt 5 e Multi c met Rack New default 4 OE 17 32 33 48 The Hammersmith Grand gt Output st 1 tp Voices 1 Max 500 Purge 0 00 Midi Ch A 1 Memory 0 58 GB N MERSMITH 0 TIO ATTACK REL Options Instrument The effects panel is divided into a few sections 5 Here you can adjust the stereo width 12 o clock is normal and also flip the stereo image left to right COMPRESSOR Four controls here for the THREShold RATIO ATTACK and RELease of the compressor You can also bypass it with the switch beside
12. ns from top to bottom DETAIL EXPRESSION and TUNING EJ Johnston Piano Suite nka La Monte Young Well nka 14 ROOM NOISE 01 16 7 32 7 Tune 0 00 THE HAMMERSMITH SOFT PEDAL B LEARN MODE VEL V O L OUTPUT P TUNEKEY A2 MIDI 57 Note that the DATA folder also contains presets for the Tuning feature which will be covered in the Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide DETAIL CONTROL This top section gives you some control over how the piano mechanics respond to the way you play ANTI REPEAT This will turn on round robin behaviour so that if you repeat a note at a constant velocity you won t hear the same sample repeat n normal piano live playing this is unlikely to happen but it can be useful sometimes when sequencing MIDI REAL PEDAL This turns on and loads the Real Susatin Pedal samples This means that when the sustain pedal is down you are hearing the piano with the sustain pedal down and thus all the sympathetic resonance We very much like this feature and consider it one of the strengths of our library but be warned that it does double the polyphony requirement and thus the CPU demands of the instrument So although it sounds wonderful there may be times when you need to turn it off to allow real time play KEY OFF This sets the level of the Key Off samples the note releases and can also be turned on or off DAMPERS This sets the level of the damp
13. ontrol an amount of RANDOM velocity here You won t see the RANDOM on the curve since it s calculated separately for each note If you change modes from CURVED to SHELF COMP or FIXED you can see that the CURVE knob also changes it s function slightly depending on the type of velocity mapping you want to use The last mode USER is a special case USER mode allows you to calculate a curve by playing your MIDI controller and letting the instrument decide how best to map it based on your playing USER MODE When you enter USER MODE you will need to also hit the LEARN MODE switch on the far right Then Hammersmith will ask you to play some notes very quietly pp on your keyboard You can play as many notes as you like at this point and Hammersmith will average them to get an idea of how you and your controller play pianissimo or very softly Once you think its got a good idea of that hit the NEXT button and 17 Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide Hammersmith will ask you to play at a medium velocity mf Again play some medium velocity notes to give Hammersmith an idea hit NEXT and finally it will ask you to play some very loud ff notes After that you can hit FINISH and Hammersmith will calculate a curve based on those three average values HELF COMP FIXED LQQUSER LEARN MODE MODE E INPUT This will then remap your playing to where Hammersmith thinks pp mf and ff belon
14. orum within the KVR Audio community which can be found here Soniccouture Support Forum We will always endeavour to reply to any enquiry within 12 hours but do bear in mind the differences in time zones so please be patient 24 Soniccoutu The Hammersmith User Guide E U L A End User license Agreement PREFACE This End User License Agreement EULA is a legal agreement between you and Soniccouture LTD for the Soniccouture product accompanying this EULA which includes computer software and may include associated media printed materials and online or electronic documentation Software By installing copying or using the software you agree to be bound by the terms of this EULA If you do not agree to the terms of this EULA you may not use the software The software is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties The software is licensed not sold Soniccouture Ltd grants the Owner of a Soniccouture product the right to create finished musical works and performances using the sounds and software that comprise the Soniccouture product The making of sample libraries in any form commercial or otherwise using Soniccouture audio or software be they single hits loops fully mixed audio clips or scripts is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN without express written agreement of Soniccouture Ltd and violations will be prosecuted to the full extent of
15. other damages whatsoever including without limitation damages for loss of business profits business interruption loss of business information or other pecuniary loss arising out of this EULA or the use of or inability to use the software even if Soniccouture has been advised of the possibility of such damages 26
16. ottom of the fader is off the channel is greyed out and not sounding You can still edit it if it s off but you won t be hearing what you ve done until you turn it on When you turn a channel ON it s samples are loaded to RAM so the first time you do this might take a minute Another thing to notice in the expanded view is that if a channel is ON a silhouette of that microphone appears in the piano graphic above reminding you which microphone is on and selected white Soniccoulu re The Hammersmith User Guide As you can see in the above graphic all three mic channels are ON and the ROOM mics Decca Tree are selected in the expanded view and therefore coloured white in the piano graphic above Let s have a look at the controls for each channel The fader is of course the level of that channel and the blue Edit button at the top merely reminds us it is currently selected for editing The buttons below the Edit button are o for Solo this will solo that channel so you no longer here non soloed channels when you play This can be useful when editing but you can also save this solo state if you like You can solo more than one channel Solo does NOT cause samples to be loaded or unloaded The Phase button below the Solo inverts the phase of that channel The Power button below enables the samples for that channel and loads them if they haven t already been loaded The small down arrow below the Power switc
17. the next time Kontakt is launched this is a Kontakt bug and hopefully will be resolved in the future You can use the little arrows to step through saved presets or the down arrow to open a longer list display THE HAMMERSMITH PRESET M Almost Upright nka Badly Detuned nka Craig Armstrong nka Dan s Velocitu nka EJ DEFRULT nka Dopeu nka Far Away and Blurry nka E Massive Attack nka NOT Supertramp at all nka Rachmaninoff nka 13 Soniccouture Presets are actually stored in the DATA folder on your disk which is at the top level of the Hammersmith Library folder The Hammersmith User Guide Hammersmith will always look here for it s Presets but you can move these files around or share them with other people if you like Options page section of this guide THE OPTIONS PANEL e E Multi New default The Hammersmith Grand Output st 1 d Voices 1 Max Midi Ch A 1 Memory 0 58 GB ANTI REPEAT E REALPEDAL DAMPERS E CURVED MIN VEL RANDOM INPUT TUNING CONTROL EQUAL TEMPERAMENT Kontakt 5 500 PEDAL NOISE 7 anni MICROTUNE Gamelan EQ EQUAL TEMPERAMENT nka 7 Keyboard Mesopotamia Just Limit C nka Pentatonics User Piano Tuner nka Options Instrument Effects This panel contains various options for setting up the piano to behave the way you prefer It s divided into three sectio
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