False notes in Choir Omnia

Sofus

Hi!

When I press a piano key in Kontakt the loaded Choir Omnia sometimes playes false notes. It seems to be the same key that give these notes which are false in the sense that they start on a pitch taht is either too high or too low, and then the note slides into the right pitch after maybe a second. It doesn´t matter if I send midi from CuBase, the same thing happens. Could the voice samples be inaccurate, or am I doing something wrong?

Please help!

Blank_Name

Yes, for the basses, F#2 and G2 bend slowly to pitch, but only on sustain, not marcato.

Can this be fixed?

Sofus

I find this behaviour for several notes in all voices, not just the basses.

Should maybe CO have som samples resonemang?

Sofus

Redone, not resonemang

Blank_Name

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/74975#Comment_74975

Your right. I had only checked the new, but this occurs in all voices.

Jeremy_NI

What version of Choir Omnia are you using? There were several improvement regarding tuning with version 1.1.0 released in December 2022. Kontakt 7.1.3 is required for this update.

Blank_Name

Hi Jeremy. I am using Kontakt 7.3.2, and Omni 1.1.1

Basses sustain Cmaj chromatic.zip

The attached files demonstrates C major from C1 to C2, then a chromatic scale from C1 to C2. F# and G are the worst affected, but noticeable scooping is heard on other notes between F# and B. This is only showing the first octave of the basses on sustain, but as others have pointed out all voices are affected in places.

Sofus

Hi, Jeremy!

I use Kontakt 7.3.2 and Choir Omnia 1.1.1. I have now gone through the vowels A, E, I O U and the consonant M in sustain mode for all keys regarding Sopranos, Altos, Tenors and Basses, and this is what I found:

A Sopranos: D4, D#4 are sliding

U Sopranos: C4, C#4 are sliding

M Sopranos: F#4 - C5 background noise

Altos OK!

A Tenors: E2, F2 are sliding

A Basses: F#1, G1 are sliding, G#1 - B1 bad initial intonation

E Basses: G1 is sliding

I Basses: E1, F1 are sliding

U Basses: F#1, G1, C2, E3, F3 are sliding

M Basses: C1-F1 sliding initial intonation

Also most voices/vowels have initial intonation "chipping" at some notes.

If all voices could be as even as the altos, things would be super!

Another thing that worries me is that volume and modulation changes when you change vowels. This can give a lot of extra work when trying to get balance between the four voices. The same thing happens between different notes on the same vowels.

I realize that I´m doing a lot of complaining here, and my primary concern is the sliding and the differences in modulation/volume between vowels. The initial intonation error you find in some notes you would also find in a normal amateur choir (I sing the high tenor part in the Helsingborg Symphonic Choir so that´s no secret to me . . .). The CO is certainly one of the best I´ve ever heard, and I just hope these final issues can be dealt with in the future.

Thank you for taking our opinions seriously, Jeremy, and thanks to all others who also contribute to our mutual discussion!

Jeremy_NI

@Blank_Name @Sofus Thanks for the detailed report, I'm forwarding it to our Kontakt Instruments team. Will get back when I get feedback from them.

Blank_Name

@Sofus @Jeremy_NI

I just realised that the octaves appear to be numbered wrong on the Kontakt virtual keyboard, or I am misreading them somehow. The bass range should be C2 to F4, but on the keyboard it looks like C1 to F3.

The notes that we have given in the examples should be numbered one octave higher.

Sofus

I think the numbering is correct. The same numbering is used in other vsti´s as well (I have checked in EW Symphonic Choir just now). I´m not certain what the name would be in English, but C1 is the first note in what we call "the big octave". C0 would be the first in the "counteroctave" and C-1 the first in "Subcounteroctave". You can even see C-2 be mentioned sometimes but among these notes there will be some that are to low to be heard.

If you know the right words for Big, Counter- and Subcounter-octave in English, please enlighten me!

Blank_Name

I've always seen C4 used for middle C, but it is only one of several conventions, apparently, middle C being named C3 or C5 in other systems.

Says Wikipedia:

"There are pitch-octave notation conventions that appear similar to scientific pitch notation but are based on an alternative octave convention that differs from scientific pitch notation, usually by one octave. For example, middle C ("C4" in ISPN) appears in some MIDI software as "C5" (MIDI note 60).[4] This convention is probably related to a similar convention in sample-based trackers, where C5 is the basic pitch at which a sample plays (8287.12 Hz in MOD), forcing the musician to treat samples at any other pitch as transposing instruments when using them in songs. Alternately, both Yamaha and the software MaxMSP define middle C as C3. Apple's GarageBand also defines middle C (261.6256 Hz) as C3."

Wikipedia also gives the octave names you mentioned:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz_pitch_notation#Octave_and_staff_representation

Sofus

Thanks! This clarifies a few things!

Also looking forward to future answers about the issue with sliding notes.

Blank_Name

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/77126#Comment_77126

With regard to sliding notes, I think the best way forward is to either edit the samples or pitch-shift good samples. Here is a detailed explanation of the process: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3r7-B201QOc