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They gutted it like a fish. Are large software houses good for anything but buying up the best shareware, turning it into hide glue, and selling it back to us for a hefty profit?

From: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/895/cpsid_89588.html

Adobe Audition 3.0 features not implemented in CS5.5

Editing and interface

Shortcut bar
Preview in Files panel
Command-line playback of audio files
Advanced scripting support (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, recordable Favorites address most scripting tasks)
Spectral Pan and Spectral Phase views
Top and Tail file viewing
Appending audio files (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, copy and paste from one file to another)
Audition-specific clipboards
Find Beats command
Add Silence between markers
Beat, CD track, CD index, and BWF-J markers

CD

CD burning (alternatives include Nero Burning ROM, Roxio Creator or Toast, Windows Media Player, and Apple iTunes)
File > Open command for CD tracks on Windows (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, use Extract Audio from CD command)
CD database support

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Tone and noise generation
Timed record mode
Loop recording of multiple punch-in takes

Multitrack

SMPTE and ReWire synchronization
MIDI support
Control surface support
Recordable track parameter automation (Write, Touch, Latch modes)
Default multitrack sessions
Session sample rate conversion (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, rate is fixed when you create session)
Multitrack input gain (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, adjust via hardware)
Clip Duplicate command (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, enable clip looping and drag to create repititions)
Loops that adjust to session tempo and key changes
Time-stretching clips
Grouped clips (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, manually select multiple clips)
Clip > Align commands (in Adobe Audition CS5.5, use snapping)
Rejoining split clips
Fade Envelope Across Selection command for crossfading clips in separate tracks
Insert > Empty Audio Clip command
Hidden clips commands
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Video

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File formats

8-bit signed (*.sam)
64-bit doubles (*.dbl)
ASCII Text Data (*.txt)
Audition Loop (*.cel)
Audition Session (*.ses) Note: From Adobe Audition 3.0, save sessions in XML format to open them in CS5.5. Note, however, that effects and time-stretching do not transfer.
SampleVision (*.smp)
Spectral Bitmap Image (*.bmp)
Windows Media (*.wmv, *.wma)

Effects

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Quick Filter
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This is the part I really love:

Tip: For a list of top new features, see What's New in Adobe Audition CS5.5. If you'd like to take advantage of new CS5.5 features without losing functionality from Adobe Audition 3.0, consider installing both versions.

Ah, yes, we all have nothing better to do with our hard earned money but to buy and install your expensive previous versions to regain features lost in your very expensive latest version.

Yes, that's rather unfortunate. No doubt this is related to the code rewrite and porting to OS X.

I guess you'll just have to continue using the previous version for your DPBSD checks, huh?

Cheers,
James
x

Apple Garageband Piano Review



Thanks to Piano World forum member "Soren Jorvang" we now have a DPBSD sample of the piano in Apple's Garageband application!

MP3: http://www.mediafire.com/?ofr332fr37lw96f
PIX: http://www.mediafire.com/?hd04mxeeheh90qi





Figures 1A & 1B. Spectral frequency view (top) and waveform view (bottom, somewhat zoomed out to better show the envelope) of the layer test. The two velocity layer transitions are fairly abrupt in terms of both timbre and volume.

--------------------------
- Apple Garageband Piano -
--------------------------
FILE & SETUP:
- dpbsd_v2.0_apple_garageband.mp3
- Recorded by "Soren Jorvang".
PROS:
- Passes the pedal sympathetic resonance, though notes held through a pedal-up still have resonance.
- Seems to support half pedaling, though the effect is subtle and limited to a small range.
- Note decay times are fairly long.
- Long attack and loop sample lengths, looping for the most part isn't audible.
CONS:
- Fails the key sympathetic resonance test.
- Fails the silent replay test (damps @ pedal up).
- Fails the quick partial damping test.
- Fails the late pedal partial damping test, though pressing the pedal up to 0.125s late won't damp.
- Looped, but pretty well done.
- Attack sample lengths are (C1:C8): 4.5,7.2,6.6,7.2,4.8,2.0,?,? seconds.
- Loop sample lengths are (C1:C8): 2.6,2.0,1.8,2.5,1.8,0.8,?,? seconds.
- Very stretched, groups visible over the entire range, transitions audible over lows & mids.
- Stretch distances: 5,6,4,5,3,4(x4),1,2(x5),4(x3),5,4,4,5,8 = 23 groups.
- This is an unblended three layer sample set.
- Very audible velocity layer switch @ vel=54,90.
- No obvious pedal up/down or key up "clunk" samples.
OTHER:
- Notes played @ vel=1 produce sound.
- Dynamic range: 35dB (vel=1:127).
- Dampered | undampered transition: G6 | G#6
- MP3 levels: peak @ -0.3dB, noise floor @ -90dB.
- Date reviewed: 2011-06-01

Hmmm...so why is it 185mb?

James
x

- Average the sum of attack & loop sample times and you get 7.3 seconds.
- Multiply by the stretch groups (23) and you get 167.9 seconds.
- Multiply by 3 for the layers and by 2 for pedal up & down and you get 1007.4 seconds.
- Multiply by the sampling rate (44100), multiply by 2 for stereo, multiply by 2 (2 bytes per sample) and you get 177.7 MB.

Close enough for government work.

Cool, thanks for showing your working.

Cheers,
James
x

Dear Dewster, thanks for your efforts, I want to contribute in this project by sending you the results of running your requested test on Propllerhead Reason Virtual Piano: Steinway Nicewood D.

This is the link of the result MP3 file. I hope it helps your project.

dp_bsd_v2.0_reason_steinway_nicewood_D_01.mp3

Thanks reza! I sent you a PM...

Dewster, this is an incredible undertaking! Thanks a lot for all the effort and the shear quality of what you have done here. Also, the nice objectiveness I have found on most members of this forum is most encouraging, and on that front you shine as well as others like Kawai James who, working for a particular company, can objectively advise over other brands' advantages. This surely speaks highly of the members on this forum. Thanks everyone!

I was thinking if there could be a way of quantifying the pros and cons to determine overall rankings of the pianos you have researched? There would be an obvious subjective side to this, but, if correctly commented, it could prove very valuable to people looking for their first purchase or, for example, a significant upgrade! With the info you have collected, one could infer things like: from sound X to sound Y the better quality is so mild that it does not justify an upgrade, or reversely: from sound W to sound Z the leap is so significant that its more than worth the price.

As it is, the info is there, but its very complex to weigh side by side three or four models one could be entertaining as options.

Thanks again for the incredible amount of work! I have found this very enlightening (and has me very glad of my recent purchase and specially with my ears that intuitively guessed what you have here researched so meticulously! )

Best regards,
Rafa.

Thanks! I do think about this, making the reviews more quantified, accessible, and user friendly. As you say there is "an obvious subjective side" and I find so many things so subjective (does the looping of DP X sound worse than DP Y?) that I can only comment on whether I hear them or not, and if so whether they sound particularly good / bad to me. For any meaningful comparison I'd have to go back to many samples and spend a lot of time listening, and the reviews themselves already take many hours what with the analysis, archiving, back and forth with the (very gracious) donors, etc. and I'm rather loath to extend that.

The reviews are more of a list of high points and low points a prospective DP buyer should perhaps be aware of with the sound, and so they might want to focus some portion of their demo session on the ones that are most important to them.

I do have a clickable list in the first DPBSD post to all of the individual reviews, as well as a single text file at the share point that contains all of my text reviews. I suppose I could add some kind of spreadsheet or table. Do you (or anyone else here) have any specific suggestions?

By all means, don't do an overall quantitative ranking of all DP's. There are way too many different preferences - some value touch, others value dynamic range, yet others the blending of samples, or they check looping, stretching or whatever you include in your most valuable analyses (and in fact many parameters as well that you do not include). A spreadsheet for listing all major features of sounds might be helpful, but a one-dimensional rating would give rise to endless, artless, and meaningless debates (such as we can see on other forums for other products).

Keep your great work going!

Roland RP201 Review



We now have a DPBSD sample of the Roland RP201 thanks to Piano World forum member "Derek Andrews"! To enable all resonance effects, Derek found it necessary to use the DPBSD MIDI file created by PW forum member "jmmec" for the HP-307, and further developed by "VivatRudolphus" for the FP-7F. Why it is Roland's wont to default these settings to "off" for MIDI playback is a mystery - particularly when turning them back on would stymie most people, even those armed with the RP201 MIDI implementation manual and past experience with SYSEX. Ah well, enough griping, and thanks again to jmmec and VivatRudolphus for doing the MIDI yeoman's work for us!

MP3: http://www.mediafire.com/?2ni22gzsbfbd424
PIX: http://www.mediafire.com/?5xjerssesjcee33

Derek has this to say about the RP201:




Figure 1. Spectral phase view of the stretch test, low notes. Almost no stretching going on, which is good (and somewhat unusual for DPs other than Kawai these days).


Figure 2. Waveform view of the entire looping test. Decay times are rather short, looping is audible and fairly annoying.


Figure 3. Spectral pan view of the layer test compressed 20:1 to bring out detail. Three unblended velocity layers with very audible transitions.

----------------
- Roland RP201 -
----------------
FILE & SETUP:
- dpbsd_v2.0_roland_rp201.mp3
- "Grand Piano 1" patch (default).
- MIDI sequenced / audio recorded with Anvil Studio & laptop PC.
- Recorded by "Derek Andrews".
PROS:
- Passes the pedal sympathetic resonance test, the effect is pleasant sounding but fairly subtle.
- Passes the key sympathetic resonance test, strings both lower and higher subtly respond.
- Passes the quick damping test.
- Passes the half pedaling test.
- Passes the late pedal partial damping test up to the test limit of 0.5 seconds.
- Partially damped notes have timbre differences and when almost fully muted sound buzzy.
- This is an unblended three velocity layer sample set.
CONS:
- Fails the silent replay test, note damps @ pedal up.
- Rather short note decay time.
- Visibly and audibly looped.
- Attack sample lengths are (C1:C8): 2.3,1.9,1.9,1.8,1.1,0.8,0.4,? seconds.
- Loop sample lengths are (C1:C8): 0.8,0.7,0.7,0.7,?,?,?,? seconds.
- Very lightly stretched, though not audibly so.
- Stretch distances: 1(x22),2,1(x6),2,1(x25),2,1(x29) = 85 groups.
- Velocity layer switches are visible and audible @ vel=64,104.
- Audible change in stereo image at both velocity switch points.
OTHER:
- Notes played @ vel=1 produce no sound.
- Dampered | undampered transition: F#6 | G6
- Dynamic range 46dB (vel=1:127).
- MP3 levels: peak @ -2.7dB, noise floor @ -57dB.
- Date reviewed: 2011-06-26.

Dewster, where could I find this FP-7F "unlocking" midi? I was working on the SYSEX myself yesterday, but if I could reverse engineer the one made by VivatRudolphus, things could be much easier!

As for the quality rankings, I'm sorry I was not more precise! I was not talking about a: this DP is 9.7, this other is 7.5. But rather be able to rank their different abilities... again, subjectively. So, for instance have a 'looping pleasantness (or lack of looping)' ranking: pianoteq will score 10, perhaps that Casio I heard yesterday will rank 4, I don't know.

I was thinking it as a 'purchase research guide', of which I did one very recently. Of course I just now realized that this is a sound approach exclusive project. So there is no a lot of info on key action and other stuff like extra features: sequencer, recorder, sampler, etc. At any rates, I agree it would take a significant amount of time to do so, and I was in no way expecting you to just 'put out the hard work!'

Perhaps being able to have an excel file with checks on the different 'pass' tests you have so one can sort them from 'more complete' to 'less complete' and then have that 'sound pleasantness' (subjective) ranking so one could also take that into account? Don't know... seems like a lot of work, perhaps its better as you have and each one is able to judge by themselves and in their own 'sounding environment'.

Thanks a lot, as always, for this fantastic project.

Rafa.

That's pretty much the way I'm thinking too. No point in a single number score. I may end up doing a spreadsheet of some sort.

Thanks for the input maurus!

It's hiding in the pile of links listed in the FP-7F review. Here is a direct link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?o002og310mtnt6o

Good luck reverse engineering it! I was trying to do that a couple of days ago. I started getting dizzy and had to lie on the couch for a while with a martini.

This is as far as I got:

Channel 4, Bank 68 : Select GP1 (GP1 in RP201)

SYSEX format: F0, Roland, device, model, TX, addr high, addr mid, addr low, data bytes, checksum, F7
F0 41 10 42 12 40 00 7F 00 41 F7 : mode set (GM reset)
F0 41 10 42 12 40 01 30 24 6B F7 : reverb macro (off)
F0 41 10 42 12 40 03 00 00 40 00 7D F7 : EFX Type = Damper Resonance
F0 41 10 42 12 40 03 17 00 26 F7 : EFX Send Level to Reverb = 0
F0 41 10 42 12 40 44 23 00 40 32 40 32 22 53 F7 : Part EFX type (?)
F0 41 10 42 12 40 46 23 01 02 00 40 50 32 12 F7 : Part EFX type (?)


I appreciate your input! I think presenting all of the results in one spot would definitely make comparisons easier. I'll put some more thought into it.

I got a little further on the reverse engineering on those two question marks you have. The Part Effects Type:
So, from F0 to 12, we agree on what they represent. On to the address:
- 40-44-23 : Here the manual clearly states that the second pair is 4x, x being the midi channel, so those two are accessing different midi channels, your first "?" changes an effect on channel 4, the second one on midi channel 6. Both are PART EFX TYPE messages of 6 bit extensions.
- The first and second data pairs afterwards actually determine the type of effect:
1. 0040 - This is a Damper Resonance effect.
2. 0102 - This is an Enhancer effect.
- Now, the following pairs are, in order: EFX Macro, EFX Depth, EFX Control1 and EFX Control2.
- I am utterly lost as to what the 'macro' is! And why it is set to 32H (50 dec) for the Damper.
- The Depth is set to 40, which is 64. The problem is that some pairs actually use signed numbers, so this could be either half depth, or actually 0! unsure.
- The other parameters are the EFX Controls, which are defined as Depth (#1) and Damper Offset (#2) for de 0040 effect, the Damper Resonance, and Sensitivity (#1) and Mix (#2) for the Enhancer. So, the depth of the Damper is set to 32H (50) and the offset (volume of additional slight resonance when pedal is not pressed) is set to 22H (34) which is about half the maximum effect as well. For the enhancer, it is set to 40H (64) on the sensitivity and 32H (50) for the Mix level.

But I'd like to emphasize the fact that this enhancer is actually transmitting to channel 6!!! so is probably doing nothing to the test at hand.

That is what I have figured out so far, once the complexity of the midi implementation sunk into me, it would not be too hard to configure the effects if one knows what effect is actually being called into action!

Oh, and another thing!!! The Piano Designer features actually affect all 3 Grand Pianos, at least while performance is played through midi. The Rock Piano ignores the Piano Designer settings.

Hope someone else finds this as interesting as I do, but if not, I had a nice monologue with myself for about an hour

Rafa.

Ah, that's the key I was looking for, thanks!


When they say "Macro" I believe they mean a complete default setup. Unfortunately Roland doesn't decode or even list the possible parameters here.


Depth is probably not signed, I'd bet this is set to 50%.


Good point, I agree. Probably put there for another instrument in the mix, or the vestige of another setup (MIDI cruft).

Now I'm feeling dizzy again, but it's too early for a martini!

Propellerhead Reason Steinway D Nicewood Review



Thanks to Piano World forum member "reza" we now have a DPBSD sample of the Reason Steinway D Nicewood!

MP3: http://www.mediafire.com/?nbsz16p414f7ni8
PIX: http://www.mediafire.com/?k328u0dd7e5u63r

reza has this to say about the Nicewood:


Some germane analysis pix:

Figure 1. Spectral pan view of the stretch test, low notes. A fair amount of stretching going on, with 26 samples covering 88 keys.


Figure 2. Spectral phase view of the layer test. Four unblended velocity layers with two audible transitions.


Figure 3. Spectral pan view of the note C4. Long (as these things go) attack and loop samples make this one of the better loopers I've encountered.

------------------------------
- Reason Steinway D Nicewood -
------------------------------
FILE & SETUP:
- dpbsd_v2.0_reason_steinway_d_nicewood.mp3
- This is the unmodified "Nicewood" preset for the Steinway D piano refill.
- Windows XP SP2 Laptop, NI Audio Kontrol 1 external soundcard, Reason V4.0.1.
- Recorded by "reza".
PROS:
- Passes the first pedal sympathetic resonance test.
- Nice long note decay time.
- Looped, but pretty nicely done.
- This is an unblended four velocity layer sample set.
CONS:
- Fails the second pedal sympathetic resonance test.
- Fails the key sympathetic resonance test.
- Fails the silent replay test - the note replayed at v=1 is audible.
- Fails the quick partial damping test.
- Fails the late pedal partial damping test.
- Fails the half pedaling test.
- Visibly but not very audibly looped.
- Attack sample lengths are (C1:C8): 4.0,5.0,4.0,3.7,2.5,1.2,0.6,? seconds.
- Loop sample lengths are (C1:C8): 1.9,2.3,1.9,1.7,1.5,1.0,?,? seconds.
- Fairly stretched, both visibly and audibly.
- Stretch distances: 6,4,4,3,3,2,4,3(x16),4,4,6 = 26 groups.
- Velocity layer switches visible @ vel=56,86,114; audible @ vel=56,114.
- Fairly narrow dynamic range.
OTHER:
- Note mute sounds are a bit too loud.
- Notes played @ vel=1 play fairly loudly.
- Dampered | undampered transition: G6 | G#6
- Dynamic range 24.6dB (vel=1:127).
- MP3 levels: peak @ -10.5dB, noise floor @ -90dB.
- Date reviewed: 2011-06-27.

Yawn...where's the Kronos?

James
x