How can I get this kind of piano sound

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1

Here is an mp3 of a sweet nice piano sound:

Claude Debussy’s Première arabesque - MP3 file

taken from here:

How can I generate this kind of sound using sonic pi given the notes.
which use_synth I must use to get this kind of sound.
Or is there any other way?

2

Hi,
to me you will waste your time :slight_smile:. Of course you can translate every note of this score to be played in sonic pi but it’s a hard work and not very very funny. And even you get there, you may use the piano synth of sonic pi, you won’t reach the level of a real pianist.
but before Debussy, you can practice with a more small tune. Frère Jacques to see how sonic pi is working.
@robin.newman made the job (Frere Jaques with processing visualisation) so if i keep only the notes part, this should work

nf=[:c4,:d4,:e4,:c4]*2+[:e4,:f4,:g4]*2+[:g4,:a4,:g4,:f4,:e4,:c4]*2+[:c4,:g3,:c4]*2
df=[1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,2,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,1,1,0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,2]
use_bpm 180
with_fx :reverb,room: 0.8,mix: 0.6 do #add reverb for interest

live_loop :notes do #first part
    use_synth :pulse #differnt synth for each part
    use_bpm 180
    nv = nf.ring.tick #select each note in turn
    rel=df.ring.look #select corresponding duration
    play nv,release: rel,amp: 0.2 #play note with release set by duration
    sleep df.ring.look #sleep for duration of note
  end
end

have fun !

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3

Yes, I agree with that. But if you want to do it, then Sonic Pi does have a piano synth, and you could add some reverb fx to it too. It won’t sound like a real piano or a real pianist - with all the dynamics and expression a pianist would put in. Sonic Pi plays very regularly so particularly with something like Debussy it’ll be a bit wooden.

If you wanted a more authentic piano sound, you could have the notes in Sonic Pi and play them out through a sampler VST for which you can get real piano samples, which do respond to variations in key velocity.

I still don’t think the end result would sound anywhere near a real piano being played, but it depends what you want. As an exercise it would really be something.

Compared with the alternative of studying the piano for years, and buying a nice piano, Sonic Pi does start to look like a good option :smiley:

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4

Hi,

if you don’t mind using midi output of Sonic Pi you can try

which, supposedly, will sound fairly decent.

5

Qsynth is available for windows too but an older version https://github.com/JoshuaPrzyborowski/Qsynth-Windows-Builds. I used it Midi_cc to select bank and qsynth

but again no software can play as a realistic pianist even the worst pianists :-). You can record a real pianist playing via a midi keyboard and get the result into a midi score. But Sonic Pi is not made for that.
So @vinodv i encourage you to start learning piano ! it’s a lot of fun and work but you may one day play Debussy and be proud of yourself. There are some electronic piano around 600 € to begin if you can’ afford a piano.

6

I agree with @nlb that it is difficult to play romantic piano music on Sonic Pi, but it is possible to play a midi file in Sonic Pi using its internal synths with some success: it does miss some notes, as I show in my experimental midi Player Program. I tweaked this slightly so that it is compatible with the latest 3.3beta of Sonic Pi and here is a rendition of part of Debussy’s Arabesque, using both the piano and pluck synths. The midi file is sent from MidiplayerX on a mac direct to Sonic Pi. I also use TouchOSC to control synth settings, as per the article.

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7

well done @robin.newman !
i did not think about this solution. Use an external midi player.
At the end, it sounds pretty good. So i was wrong :slight_smile:

8

Well, just to add my two cents: You can get a decent piano sound but the level of expression, subtleties of dynamics and timing an interpretation has/can have played by an experienced piano player is a totally different story. But I am pretty sure, that @vinodv is aware or that…

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9

That is pretty remarkable in fact

10

SP’s ‘piano’ synth is actually quite versatile, if you use the
vel: and hard: options.

This is not my code, but I’ve ‘twiddled’ it a bit to show
what I mean…

use_bpm 90

live_loop :intro do
  
  # harmonisation de i-iV-V-i-N-V7-i en do mineur
  use_synth :piano
  x = rrand_i(1, 10)
  
  force = rand(0.25..0.4)
  fade = rand(1..2)
  vel = rand(0.25..0.4)
  
  if x > 3
    play [:C2, :Ef3,:C4] ,decay:2 ,hard:force # i
    sleep 2
  else
    play [:Af2, :Ef3, :Af3,:C4] ,vel: vel, decay:fade ,hard:force#VI substitution
    sleep 2
  end
  play [:F2, :F3, :Af3,:C4] ,vel: vel, decay:fade ,hard:force# iv
  sleep 2
  play [:G2, :D3, :G3,:B3] ,vel: vel, decay:fade ,hard:force# V
  sleep 2
  if x > 5
    play [:C3, :Ef3, :G3,:C4] ,vel: vel/2, decay:fade ,hard:force # i
    sleep 2
  else
    play [:C3, :Ef3, :Af3,:C4] ,vel: vel/2, decay:fade ,hard:force # VI substitution
    sleep 2
  end
  play [:F2, :F3, :Af3,:Df4] ,vel: vel, decay:fade # N sixte napolitaine
  sleep 2
  if x > 4
    play [:G2, :F3, :B3,:D4] ,vel: vel, decay:fade # V7
    sleep 2
  else
    play [:Af2, :F3, :B3,:Df4] ,vel: vel, decay:fade # Substitution par Triton Db7
    sleep 2
  end
  play [:C2, :G3,:C4] ,vel: vel, decay:4 # i
  sleep 4
  
  
end

Eli…

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