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The Pixelpoet Trick to Improve Legato Transitions. A Short Video Tutorial

muziksculp

muziksculp

Senior Member
Hi,

I noticed that there were no videos posted on YouTube showing the famous Pixelpoet trick edit to improve Legato Transitions of Strings libraries. So, I decided to make one, using the Heavyocity NOVO Strings Legato.

I hope this is a helpful video, and you can try using it on other unlocked Kontakt Strings Libraries that you own.

The midi data for both versions is identical, and so is the mixer settings.

Cheers,
Muziksculp



Here is a new Video Tutorial showing how to apply the PixelPoet edit to Audio Imperia's AREIA Strings, I used the Celli Legato for this video.

Click to read more...
 
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Wow, amazing results! it will work with an existing legato group of samples to improve it a little bit? (jaeger legato strings) or it has to be a long articulation only.
 
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Xabierus Music said:
Wow, amazing results! it will work with an existing legato group of samples to improve it a little bit? (jaeger legato strings) or it has to be a long articulation only.
Click to expand...
Hi @Xabierus Music ,

I think you need to select the samples that include the legato transitions, I'm not 100% sure about this detail, but that's my understanding. I'm currently out of town, so don't have access to my studio to test this with Jaeger Legato Strings, but I'm curious about this now that you bring it up. You can try to test it with Jaeger Legato Strings, selecting the long articulations, and see if that works.

I will try to test Jaeger Legato Strings with the Pixelpoet Trick/Edit when I'm back in town, and have access to my studio. Most likely this coming weekend.

Cheers,
Muziksculp
 
Hi @Xabierus Music ,

OK, I spent at least an hour trying to see if I can perform the PixelPoet trick on JAEGER's Legato Violins patch.

But sadly, I kept getting this error message (see pic below) when I tried to switch the mode from DFD to SAMPLER in Kontakt. I think it is related to which samples I selected, I tried several options based on the name of the samples, i.e. the ones with 'leg' in the name, also tried other options, even just selecting specific dynamics, i.e. Dyn 3 only since they seem to be the ones triggered when I play the legato patch, but I just got tired of trying to get it to work.

This is the message I get after selecting the sample groups that I thought are needed, but it keeps telling me that there are purged samples, and this does not allow me to switch to SAMPLER mode to apply the rest of the steps needed.

If you are willing to try it, or someone else on this forum on the JAEGER Vlns Legato patch, I would be interested to know if it can be done, and which sample groups need to be selected.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

This is the error message I keep getting :

 
The error message is pretty specific. Is it possible that you haven't activated all mic positions on the patch you trying the editing on? When selecting articulations from purged mic positions this message would come up.
 
muk said:
The error message is pretty specific. Is it possible that you haven't activated all mic positions on the patch you trying the editing on? When selecting articulations from purged mic positions this message would come up.
Click to expand...
@muk ,

Thanks for the feedback. :thumbsup:

I will look further into this detail.
 
muziksculp said:
Hi @Xabierus Music ,

OK, I spent at least an hour trying to see if I can perform the PixelPoet trick on JAEGER's Legato Violins patch.

But sadly, I kept getting this error message (see pic below) when I tried to switch the mode from DFD to SAMPLER in Kontakt. I think it is related to which samples I selected, I tried several options based on the name of the samples, i.e. the ones with 'leg' in the name, also tried other options, even just selecting specific dynamics, i.e. Dyn 3 only since they seem to be the ones triggered when I play the legato patch, but I just got tired of trying to get it to work.

This is the message I get after selecting the sample groups that I thought are needed, but it keeps telling me that there are purged samples, and this does not allow me to switch to SAMPLER mode to apply the rest of the steps needed.

If you are willing to try it, or someone else on this forum on the JAEGER Vlns Legato patch, I would be interested to know if it can be done, and which sample groups need to be selected.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

This is the error message I keep getting :

Click to expand...
wow thank you for trying it out! i tried the same the other day when i wrote on this post because i was getting the same error message in the same specific area (when changing from DFD to Sampler), i thought I was doing something wrong, but i see that it is common in those patches, I will try too the recomendations that are writen below, thanks again for confirming this!

Have a great day !

Xab
 
Hi @Xabierus Music ,

I have some very good news for you. :)

I finally got the PixelPoet Edit performed on Jaeger Legato Violins, and the difference is again day, and night between the preset legato and the edited version.

I will be posting an audio clip showing both versions in action. Also some helpful notes on how I got it to work. I will need to spend some more time to make sure I got all the details correctly to post the instructions. I think this would be useful info. for Jaeger users, I'm also curious to see how the Celli, and Violas Legatos sound after I edit them. I think it was really worth the time spent trying to improve them using the PixelPoet trick, the built-in 'Sample Start', and 'Legato Smooth' dials don't even get close to what the PielPoet trick offers.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

1647812163994.png
 
Mr Greg G said:
You can adjust the legato sample transition speed in Jaeger IIRC, so I don’t think this trick would be useful in this case.
Click to expand...
Not the case. The PixelPoet edit improves the legatos a lot more than the transition speed dial in Jaeger. I will be posting some audio clips so you can hear the difference.
 
muziksculp said:
Hi @Xabierus Music ,

I have some very good news for you. :)

I finally got the PixelPoet Edit performed on Jaeger Legato Violins, and the difference is again day, and night between the preset legato and the edited version.

I will be posting an audio clip showing both versions in action. Also some helpful notes on how I got it to work. I will need to spend some more time to make sure I got all the details correctly to post the instructions. I think this would be useful info. for Jaeger users, I'm also curious to see how the Celli, and Violas Legatos sound after I edit them. I think it was really worth the time spent trying to improve them using the PixelPoet trick, the built-in 'Sample Start', and 'Legato Smooth' dials don't even get close to what the PielPoet trick offers.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

1647812163994.png
Click to expand...
Amazing news ! I suspected that could be a workarround but im too noob in the kontakt background yet to figure it out, this image is already helpfull, i really apreciate your efforts, and congrats for geting it to work, im sure it will sound amazing, i will wait for the clips to see the big difference in the sound transition of the legato patches, again, amazing job!

have a great day!

Xab
 
Xabierus Music said:
Amazing news ! I suspected that could be a workarround but im too noob in the kontakt background yet to figure it out, this image is already helpfull, i really apreciate your efforts, and congrats for geting it to work, im sure it will sound amazing, i will wait for the clips to see the big difference in the sound transition of the legato patches, again, amazing job!

have a great day!

Xab
Click to expand...
Hi @Xabierus Music ,


I also used the PixelPoet edit on Audio Imperia's AREIA Strings Legatos. Again, with greatly improved results compared to the stock legato patches.

I will be posting a new video during next week, showing the details of how to perform the edits on both Jaeger, and Areia String Legato Patches. Which could also be helpful to use it on other Unlocked Kontakt libraries.

I will post some audio clips a bit later today showing the improvements this edit offers when compared to the stock legato patches.

Cheers,
Muziksculp
 
muziksculp said:
Hi @Xabierus Music ,


I also used the PixelPoet edit on Audio Imperia's AREIA Strings Legatos. Again, with greatly improved results compared to the stock legato patches.

I will be posting a new video during next week, showing the details of how to perform the edits on both Jaeger, and Areia String Legato Patches. Which could also be helpful to use it on other Unlocked Kontakt libraries.

I will post some audio clips a bit later today showing the improvements this edit offers when compared to the stock legato patches.

Cheers,
Muziksculp
Click to expand...
Wow thats nice, i only have Jaeger by now, but its good to hear that this can be applied to other Audio Imperia Strings, great news !

Ill check those clips as soon as i see them, great work !

Have a great day

Xab
 
The pixelpoet trick is nothing more than telling Kontakt where to start playing the interval (Sample Offset) - in this case earlier than in the stock version. You can do the same with any other articulation, although I found the trick to fail quite often and have my own way of doing it which I'll have to make some videos about at some point.

Afaik the speed knob in Audio Imperias libs does the exact same thing (setting the start point of the intervals) and so do the knobs in the Spitfire libraries I have. So if it sounds different when using the pixelpoet trick that's very strange.

It's very simply stuff and there is nothing magical about the pixelpoet trick. In fact it's just the first step in tweaking legatos. There are other parameters to be tweaked since the trick can also degrade things.
Eventually I'll make videos about all that since I've spend many hours over many days digging much deeper into legato tweaking etc.
 
Hi,

OK, so here is the first comparison audio clip, you will hear the Preset Jaeger Legato Vlns first, then a short silence followed by Jaeger Legato Vlns with PixelPoet Edit.

Both versions use the exact same midi data, and dynamics curves. Both are set to the Classic Mix option. and 31% Vibrato, Reverbs are turned OFF, I'm using an algorithmic Reverb for both that share the same Kontakt instance, and a limiter on the Master Output. The Preset version is set to -250 ms sample start, and 80% Legato Smoothing.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

View attachment Jaeger Pixelpoet Leg Vlns test 2.mp3
 
muziksculp said:
Hi,

OK, so here is the first comparison audio clip, you will hear the Preset Jaeger Legato Vlns first, then a short silence followed by Jaeger Legato Vlns with PixelPoet Edit.

Both versions use the exact same midi data, and dynamics curves. Both are set to the Classic Mix option. and 31% Vibrato, Reverbs are turned OFF, I'm using an algorithmic Reverb for both that share the same Kontakt instance, and a limiter on the Master Output. The Preset version is set to -250 ms sample start, and 80% Legato Smoothing.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

View attachment Jaeger Pixelpoet Leg Vlns test 2.mp3
Click to expand...
wow the transitions sounds smoother and softer and gets rid of the classic legato bump built in the original patches, it is clearly an improvement !
 
Xabierus Music said:
wow the transitions sounds smoother and softer and gets rid of the classic legato bump built in the original patches, it is clearly an improvement !
Click to expand...
Yes, that's exactly what I hear. You can also adjust the sample start values to get different legato results. I had it set to around 10.6 ms. which is on the conservative side.
 
Hi,

OK, so here is an audio clip showing AREIA Vlns Legato . (first without, then with PixelPoet Edit improvement).

You will first hear the stock Vlsn Legato preset, followed by a Harp Gliss sound signaling the end of the first version, and the beginning of the PixelPoet version.


The stock preset is set at -250 ms Sample Start and 80% Legato Smoothing, both set to 33% Vibrato. Exact same dynamics, and midi data. The PixelPoet edited version is set at -125 ms Sample Start and 50% Leg. Smoothing. Both versions are using the Classic Mix setting.

Just a bit of algorithmic reverb, (both preset reverbs turned OFF), and a limiter on master bus, no EQ.

View attachment Areia Leg Vlns Improvement Compared v2.mp3

Cheers,
Muziksculp
 
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