Sample Modeling The Soprano and Bass Clarinets v1.0.3

Sample Modeling The Soprano and Bass Clarinets v1.0.3 [PC / MAC]

All Samplemodeling™ Virtual Instruments of the Brass family have been developed on the Kontakt™ platform produced by Native Instruments. The Trumpet and Trombone, as well as the French Horn and Tuba, exploit the Harmonic Alignment Technology, developed by Giorgio Tommasini, for real time building of articulations.

The Sax Brothers use an alternative approach, the Synchronous Wave Triggering developed by Stefano Lucato. This latter technique is less suited to the Kontakt engine, due to some technical limitations, including jitter and fixed interpolation.

swam engineThat's why Stefano, working with Lele Parravicini, Luigi Felici and in collaboration with Samplemodeling (Giorgio Tommasini and Peter Siedlaczek), elected to develop an independent platform, built on the specifications of his technology. Development of the SWAM engine (Synchronous Wavelength Acoustic Modeling) required about two years of hard work. But it was worth the effort. While sample-based, it exploits advanced technical solutions derived from physical modeling. Thus, a new line of products, based on the SWAM engine, was added to the "classic" Samplemodeling Instruments. This resulted in speeding up the development of new instruments, as requested by all our customers wishing to have at hand an entire Samplemodeling orchestra.

SWAM Instruments

Created by Stefano Lucato and Emanuele Parravicini

in collaboration with Peter Siedlaczek & Giorgio Tommasini

Realistic, expressive, real time playable virtual instruments?

Yes. All these instruments exploit a new technology on a proprietary platform, the SWAM Engine. The acronym stands for Synchronous Wavelength Acoustic Modeling, developed by Stefano Lucato.

They use samples as a base material, chromatically performed by a professional player over a very wide dynamic range. But the analogy with a sample based library ends here. The underlying, proprietary technology allows continuous interpolation among different vectors like time, dynamics, pitch and formants. Advanced real time processing techniques yield realistic legato/portamento, vibrato, squeak, overblow, ornamentations & trills, pitchbends, formant shifts, subharmonics, growl and flutter tongue to be performed in real time.

Virtual instruments? No additional software needed?

Differently from other Samplemodeling instruments running on NI Kontakt, SWAM instruments are supplied only as plugins running on virtually any host. They run on PC and Mac and have been extensively tested on most common sequencers, like Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer, ProTools etc. Standalone mode on a PC requires a suitable VST host (see below). Mac users do not need a VST Host, since they may directly load any Swam plugin in the built-in DAW GarageBand.
What are the differences between SWAM and Kontakt-based instruments?

Both families share the following principles:

• These are not conventional libraries, but virtual instruments, where no pre-recorded, sample-based articulations are used. Virtually any articulation can be shaped, even in realtime, using a keyboard or a windcontroller.
• Both allow continuous control of the dynamics across the entire range. This means that any type of seamless crescendo-decrescendo without phase artifacts can be shaped using a single expression controller.
• Both allow to reproduce virtually any type of legato/portamento by simply overlapping start and destination notes.
• Both allow continuous control of the intensity and frequency of vibrato.
• Both are ready to play even "out of the box".

There are, however, substantial differences, due to technical aspects and background philosophy.

Kontakt-based instruments exploit the powerful features of a renowned engine, including sophisticated scripting, flexible equalizers and filters, efficient use of convolution and pristine sound quality.

All samples have been recorded in an anechoic chamber, using top professional musicians and state of the art, multi microphone recording techniques. Sample processing has been carried out using the Harmonic Alignment technology, which allows seamless crossfade between dynamics while maintaining the timbral quality of the original samples. The instruments are programmed according to an adaptive model, based on the performance “fingerprints” of the real instrument, aimed at minimizing the differences between the real phrases and those played by the virtual instrument.

Velocity and expression rescaling, advanced timbral control acting on the individual harmonics, virtual stage postioning, and creation of realistic ensembles from individual instruments are also unique features of Kontakt-based instruments.

Artificial intelligence techniques are used to reproduce the natural imperfections of a real player. Articulations too difficult to achieve in realtime using several controllers are easily carried out by using a series of keyswitches.