Playing with Dimension Strings, I see that it's possible to copy/paste Humanize settings, but it still feels quite tedious to apply the same humanizing edits to all patch slots that I want to apply the change.

Is there some trick to making this easier?  Or perhaps this can be improved in a future update?

Ideally what I would like to do is apply the same humanize preset to all patch slots that correspond to a specific player.  The way the tree is laid out in the full preset, this seems tricky.  There would need to be some kind of method of "selecting" all relevant patch slots, then performing an action to "paste humanize settings to all selected patch slots".

As a compromise, I think I have reasons to make different Synchron instances anyway per desk or per group.  So something like right-clicking on a folder slot, then selecting "paste humanize settings to all patch slots within this folder" could be good enough.

Maybe there's an even more intuitive and flexible way to do something similar?

Thanks!

I've been trying a lot of different settings for my preferred CFX setup.  Here's another preset of my latest configuration, I think I'm mostly done tweaking.

Screenshot attached with the preset, shows the EQ settings I've been using.  The high shelf on the second EQ, it's currently off on the screenshot, but I've been playing around with it.  I feel there's just a slight amount of ligering resonances in high frequencies that can go away when using the high shelf, but I'm torn about also loosing the general brightness when playing the piano harder.

Also, I've attached a quick mp3 improv (with bad notes cleaned up) to demonstrate this preset.  Recorded with the EQ settings as shown on the screenshot.

Comments and feedback welcome, thanks!

Also, attached is my first Yamaha CFX (requires full library) preset.   Also included a screenshot of VSL Master EQ I had used outside of the Synchron Player.  Cheers!

When I accidentally tried to load Lucy's steinway presets, the synchron player just silently loaded it and gave no indicator that anything was wrong.  (Edit: to clarify, I think this happened because I don't have the steinway piano yet)

Would it be possible to make a more user-friendly warning that "hey, you don't have all the supported mic positions" or "you don't have this library for the preset you're trying to load" ?

In any case, not a big deal.

Bumping this post in case others have time to contribute.

I totally messed up, I was hoping to contribute my version by now, but all my music things are packed in a container somewhere being shipped across the U.S.  It will still be another month before I can get my music-computer back.

Stephen, I very much liked the first one a LOT better.   On the second version, there's a slightly weird transition that feels the "same" on every note which feels unnatural.  Also the basses seem too dominant over the cellos in that second version.

On the other hand, for the first version, the room noise added a lot of authenticity, and the tone matching technique I suspect made a big difference in the "clarity" - as far as the mix goes, this one is vastly better.  I didn't have a perfect listening setup, but I wonder if the room tone could have had a wider image, it may have matched the microphone mix better.

About the legato itself - the first version's legato felt mostly acceptable, with the occasional feeling of noticing a similar attack on all notes, but not very noticeable in normal listening.  I wonder if the difference is only due to your changes with Start Offset, or if the multi-band compression also had some effect on the perception of the legato transitions as well.

Thanks Dietz, your terminology is much more precise than my wording =)  When I wrote "any chance that may be oriented properly in 3-D so that the 4 channels can be converted into first-order ambisonics", it was my inarticulate way of asking whether the quadro position might already be a tetrahedral mic arrangement and then in someone's DAW or postprocess, they could convert it to B-format.

But you answered my question in your replies already.  I didn't realize microphones were represented with ambisonics too, I checked the manual again too and realize that I misread it before.  Looking forward to what MIR may be able to do in future updates.

Originally Posted by: Musicmaster

Originally Posted by: Dietz

... which also the reason why MIR is entirely based on Ambisonics recordings and processing since the very beginning of its development. :-)

I know and love it - though, it's a shame that MIR offers only traditional channel-based formats rather than the raw Ambisonics render. Perhaps a future version of MIR will come with SOFA support? If I may ask: What order were the IRs of MIR recorded in?

Some nerdy ramblings about this topic...

(1) I would have guessed that ambisonics is only used to represent multi directional sound *sources*.  Otherwise I don't see how the impulse responses would accurately capture the characteristics of a microphone's positioning and polar pattern.  I would also guess that room reflections and spatial precision would get smeared if lower order ambisonics was used to represent microphones.  On the other hand, it is possible to rotate the microphone positions in the software...

(2) Also there is a "quadro" microphone option in MIR.  Is there any chance that may be oriented properly in 3-D so that the 4 channels can be converted into first-order ambisonics?  But the icon looks asymmetric and maybe suggests it's not.

(3) One thing I haven't heard people mention is that headphones can be very misleading about the perception of dynamics - which in turn really distorts the perception of space and depth.  I found that my mixes tended to translate oddly flat sounding and too dry on monitors.  There's something about monitoring with speakers that doesn't have the same issue translating to headphones.  Something about the way a room adds subtle early reflections and diffusion that helps us perceive dynamics, perhaps.  I bet this problem would still exist on most 3D headphones, unless using a very high order ambisonic format with personalized binarual rendering.

Cheers

I'm looking forward to hearing people's excerpts, and I'll try to find time to contribute myself!

Stephen, you probably have more excerpts in mind already, but could I also suggest some challenging ones beyond legato:

• Beethoven 7th movement 2 - will require the ability to coax a variety of detache and slower shorts
• Glinka Ruslan and Ludmilla - fun test for extremely agile non-legato yet also non-spiccato
• Prokofiev Symphony 5, scherzo movement - will require nuanced control of note attacks and accents for the melodic motif

Cheers!

Disclaimer - I usually use decoupled instances.  So maybe I am missing something.

I just tried the following exact steps, and things worked as expected for me:

1. started an empty VEPro server
2. started up Cubase, created a new project
3. added a VEPro (VST 3) plugin as a rack instrument
4. from the VEPro plugin, selected "NEW" which created a new instance in the VEPro server;  made sure decouple was off (it already was), left preserved enabled
5. added Kontakt with master sessions drum ensemble
6. saved and exited cubase
7. the VEPro instance remained, because it was preserved, but I closed the instance (kept VEPro server open, with no instances)
8. reloaded the cubase project - the instance was correctly recalled, with Kontakt + master sessions drums, from the cubase project itself.
9. I tweaked the levels of microphone positions and enabled a distortion effect inside of the master sessions instrument
10. saved cubase project, exited again, closed the VEPro instance again
11. reloaded the cubase project again - the instance was correctly recalled with the same tweaks I had made on microphone positions and distortion effect.

Is this the behavior you wanted but were missing? or is there something different I should try?

What works for me is to have two (or multiple) duplicates of the same keyswitched instrument, each instance controlled by different MIDI tracks, but otherwise they are mixed exactly the same.

This way, (a) it avoids the track-count explosion, and (b) allows the instrument to be used in more agile and varied ways that keyswitching is good for, and (c) still allows for manual layering of different articulations when a single instrument articulation isn't enough.

Are you referring to the C, literally the 6th note of the passage?

I see what you mean about considering to sustain it more.  The good news is that this was just my programming choice (for better or worse), and it would be possible to sustain it more, or like you suggested, to add more of the marcato xfade.  You can see the MIDI CC curve that shapes that note at 0:36 of the original version of the video.

My original thinking, I may have ignored details about the attack and sustain for that note - I was thinking about how, as a violin player myself, I would probably have performed it with a touch of molto vibrato and faster bow speed on the sustain part of the note.  I definitely could have experimented more with that CC curve at that time. =)

Hi all,

Someone on YouTube requested me to make a similar demo using Close microphones.

So here it is - https://youtu.be/gyMI2UXPjnM

I'm glad they asked me to try this, because I like the mix better than my previous video.  Feel free to give honest feedback about the mix or the legato in this video!

fahl5, can you please clarify which details you are interested to discuss?  I was not sure exactly which direction you were going - (Option 1) discuss different interpretations of classical works by using sample libraries to share different versions of the works, or (Option 2) talk about the technical details about how to use of sample libraries to get realistic performances (or least, to get a desired result)

Actually I interpreted Stephen's post as Option 2, and that's also what I'm interested in.  It would be great to hear more people talk about techniques, tricks, strategies that people have developed to achieve a good performance using sample libraries. =)

ddunn - thanks!

I received some offline questions about how I approach doing fast string runs and rips.  I thought it would be nice to share on the forum directly.

Some examples of runs I've made with this approach, most of these using the VSL Special Editions:

• same youtube video I linked earlier in this thread, at 0:26
• https://soundcloud.com/suonlabs/the-backyard-adventure - starting around 0:54
• https://soundcloud.com/suonlabs/sailing-the-airship - listen from at 2:27 to build up, the big run is at 2:42
• https://soundcloud.com/suonlabs/en-garde  at 2:11, sorry it's a bit masked under other things

So here's my thought process - it starts by considering the psychology a performer playing a fast run. The notes will be faster than a performer can track rhythmically, so they will be estimating how fast to play the notes to start and end at the right times - I call them "anchor notes".  If the run is long enough, there will also be some anchor notes in the middle of the run too, usually on a beat.  A performer just estimates the speed of notes between these anchors - specifically I think performers will usually play those between notes slightly faster than necessary, until they're about to arrive at the next anchor note. This gives them room for error to make sure they will can arrive to the next anchor note correctly.  Then, the one or two notes before an anchor will be slightly longer to compensate for going slightly faster on previous notes, and finally the next anchor note lands closer to the desired beat - maybe not entirely accurately, but close enough. The anchor also might get held just slightly longer, or slightly accented, or both, before continuing to the next string of fast notes.

Example - same youtube video I linked earlier in this thread, at 0:26, the A-major scale is two octaves.  I put one octave roughly per beat, and used the A note every octave as the "anchor notes".  If you listen carefully, you'll notice a slight lingering just around completing the first octave of the run, right in the middle.  It also has an accent - though I think I may have overdone that accent a little =)

For what it's worth, this is what I think I've observed about myself when playing string runs, and I've also seen similar results in piano pieces, when I've recorded myself playing the keyboard.

OK so, putting this analysis to use, here is what my process usually looks like to fine tune a strings run:

1. identify what the anchor notes would be, place those coarsely where I want when recording/entering the MIDI
2. tweak the in-between MIDI note positions, lengths, overlaps, and velocity CC, to reflect all these principles mentioned above.
3. Layering instruments or microphone positions can also help, because it gives you the opportunity to shift MIDI note positions differently for each instrument, which is a much more natural blur effect than just overlapping MIDI notes.
4. experiment with different articulations and velocities on the anchor notes, and pick an articulation that captures the style I want.  Especially the beginning and end notes - staccato, fortepiano, sfz, marcato - all have slightly different types of attack which can greatly change the character of a run.  The attack can usually be further sculpted by fast velocity xfades, too.
5. experiment with blurring the run, between *and including* anchor notes.  I usually try to make the beginning of the run slightly less blurry than later into the run.

Finally, for very dedicated, obsessed MIDI tweakers, it also helps to think about three different legato transition types on string instruments:  (a) performer only needs to move a finger, (b) performer needs to shift the position of their hand along the fingerboard, and (c) player needs to move their bow to a different string.  When a performer only needs to change fingers, they can be fast and less blurry.  When a performer needs to shift their hand, they can have a slower but more messy transition.  When a performer needs to move their bow to a different string, the transition may not be as messy, but can still be slower and inaccurate in timing.  I usually don't go this far, but actually with Synchron Strings I found it useful to think about, in order to decide when to use fast legato versus slurred/fast portamento legato.

Hope at least one person finds this useful.  I enjoyed the challenge of trying to put this in words, anyway. Cheers!

The first minute of the demo is the version of legato I think is the best - I think it's quite natural and smooth, yet agile when needed.  I'll be very happy to hear people's honest opinions about it.  The video then continues to show other legato techniques, so that you can compare for yourself.

https://youtu.be/mB3-lKJXa9g

Interesting thing about polyphonic legato blur versus monophonic legato blur: The release in polyphonic legato mode behaves differently than the legato blur feature - you can manually create legato blur by overlapping MIDI notes.  As far as I can tell, it is equivalent to "delaying" the release, unlike legato blur which seems to increase the duration of the release fading out.

I found that making blur that way, with poly legato, actually works pretty well, in some ways better than legato blur.  I think it might even be possible to control release time in poly legato mode, too, but I did not try to experiment with that, I was satisfied with the legato that I got.

Cheers!

Wow!   Very nice - the Grieg performance is quite expressive and natural =)

I preferred the dry version for the Grieg piece.  But the wet version was also great, I agree it's a matter of taste at that point.

Which articulation did you use around 0:30 at the top chord ending the phrase?  It is placed beautifully.

Compared to "Old" VSL strings, the mix sound is night and day.  The first examples you shared still sound natural, but there is a spatial definition that the synchron mix has, which I really like a lot.  I was never good enough to mix the dry VSL libraries with that spatial definition, I think ultimately it has to do with using spaced microphone pairs which was the opposite of the dry VSL approach.  So I'm excited about Synchron series for this reason.

A few parts of the Grieg piece did feel unrealistic to me - some of the shorts were just too precise, the very fast runs didn't blur right, and the very ending chords had a weird sheen to them.  Did you feel the same way too, and just ran out of time?  About the runs in particular, I have a few questions - (a) which articulation did you use and (b) did you use mono or poly legato, and what were your release/blur settings? 

For me, so far, I found that poly legato with some bit of overlap in the MIDI notes, using the slur legato articulation, would sound OK for runs.  I noticed that overlapped notes in poly legato mode have a different kind of blur result than the legato blur / P. Release feature, which I think works better for agile runs.  But I haven't spent enough time with Synchron yet, maybe there are better ways to do more convincing string runs.

Interesting =)   

So the obvious thing you probably already know about is that velocity xfade (whatever CC control you want to assign it to) can accomplish a similar effect as varying CC11 volume.

But I guess what you are really talking about is that it's useful to separate timbre changes and volume changes by using both velocity xfade and CC11, right?

I think it's actually still possible to vary CC11 with realism, but it's necessary to be more conservative about *when* you can change it.  We can probably assume that reverb is basically a linear operation.  That means the baked-in room sound should be realistic no matter what volume is set.  So as long as you do not adjust CC11 while the instrument is actually making sound (especially while reverb tails are audible), I bet you can avoid the problem you're talking about.  While the instrument is making sound, any variation you would like to do while the instrument is making sound can still be done with velocity xfade.

Actually, we can probably go a few steps further and be less conservative about it:

• If you vary CC11 slowly enough, then the difference in reverb tails being slightly longer or shorter will not be noticeable.
• Depending on your mix and which articulation, maybe the sustained note can mask the reverb.  So maybe you can also modify CC11 while notes are being sustained, as long as you don't modify CC11 when reverb tails are audible.
• If your orchestration is dense enough, other instruments are likely to hide reverb tails a lot, so you may also be able to change CC11 more aggressively while other instruments hide the weird reverb tail issue.

Here is a video - https://youtu.be/vdu0GCbfCSs

Indeed the runs were already using the slurred legato style, I love it.

Also, I especially love the bow noise on the high notes (more audible on the other mic positions) - when I hear it, I can see a little cloud of rosin coming out of my speakers!

I originally felt the same way.  I do wish there were one or two more "sloppy" legato transition styles, and a light portamento version, too.  (Here's to hoping that VSL may be willing to add such transition styles in the future?) 

However - after really sitting down with the legato this afternoon and giving it a serious open-minded chance, I am beginning to really like the legato styles that they have provided.  In particular, I feel these legato styles provide *controllable* flexibility.  I can see how this will be useful in a wide range of music, working more broadly than sloppy legato transitions would (even though I'd still wish for the sloppy/portamento options, too). 

I just uploaded a legato demo in a separate post, too.  Jimmy and Stephen, do you feel that example has the same problems that you are describing here?

Stephen, about your Berlioz example -

You might already agree that getting realism from sample libraries always requires trial and error between velocities, crossfades, and articulations, often using unexpected articulations with unexpected velocities to get the right nuance.  For me personally, this is a game I'm willing to play, and I hope that Synchron Player makes it easier to play that game, or at least doesn't make it harder to use wrong articulations that surprisingly might work in unexpected places =)

In your clip, it looks like there's not much velocity xfade action going on.  I bet it would open up a lot of possibilities to vary the velocity xfade more dramatically - to sculpt attack/development/decay of individual long notes, or over arcs of notes in one bow stroke.  You probably already have tried various different legato articulations with trial and error, but my feeling is that if you just trial and error some more, it could work.  One particular example that really sticks out to me is around 0:40 - 0:45. instead of using slurred legato followed by the long patch, I suspect it would sound better if you used normal or fast legato, followed by short sforzando articulations to mimic a detache with a slight attack.  In some places, I think you might consider using other articulations than legato, too, where a more crunchy attack or a light release are needed - those details sometimes add more realism than a legato transition would, especially on beginning/ending notes of the phrases.

Hi all,

Just was having fun test-driving Synchron Strings today.  Here's a quick example using Synchron Strings legato patches.

http://suonlabs.com/synchron-legato-experiment.mp3

• Used all four legato styles and no other patches.  Only used lyrical vibrato in the audio file here.  I did listen to it it with the normal vibrato style, too, and it sounded basically just as good to my ear.
• Used the out-of-the-box Room Mix setup, no other processing.   I also did try it with other mic setups and the legato sounded basically just as good to my ear.
• I did not "compose for the samples."  Actually I just improvised the melody while trying to keyswitch in real time, and then cleaned up the performance, tweaked the timing of the notes, drew in CC automation for velocity xfading manually, and tweaked keyswitches.
• Used mono legato mode.
• After finalizing the MIDI clip, I copy-pasted it four times:   1st time, copied it into cellos to double the melody in octaves, 2nd time copied it to violins high register, 3rd time copied to solo cellos slightly lower register.  I did *NOT* tweak each copy individually, they are all exactly the same MIDI.

I would love to hear what you all think, whether you think it sounds natural, and if not, what about it sounds incorrect.  I'd be interested to here such feedback and then check back at whether it's something I could improve in the MIDI or if it may be something in the library itself.  Please discuss!

My thoughts:  It sounds really good to me!  I like the ability to control the expressiveness quite precisely.  I felt I was able to coax the performance I wanted with a reasonable workflow tweaking keyswitches and CC automation.  I was able to control where I wanted immediate attacks, soft attacks, faded note releases vs more immediate release, note transitions while swelling the velocity, transitions that jumped immediately quieter, etc.  Velocity crossfading worked nicely to make the last notes at the bottom of the scales sound very natural.  And, when I copy-pasted to different registers and across violin to cello, things translated extremely well.

The moderate-speed runs/arpeggios sound nicely blurred to my ear.  I haven't tried to create faster runs yet, where the inaccuracy of players in an ensemble becomes more important.  I'm predicting it will be better to keep poly legato mode for faster runs.  I wish there could be one or two "messy" legato transition styles for that purpose, but at the same time, I think it's highly valuable that the given legato styles are more precise - the ability to control them in such versatile and expressive ways is arguably more important for a broader range of scenarios.  Still, various additional "messy" playing styles where individuals are not so accurate with each other would be very welcome, if it could be done in a future update or a future product!

A note to VSL directly - I think there may be a possible bug revealed in this example.  There is a noticeable awkward volume change around 0:12 - Actually in the MIDI, that note is already released by then, and there is an intentional gap between that note (G) and the next one (G an octave higher).  Does that mean the release sample is getting affected by velocity xfade?  Perhaps it may sound better if release samples were not affected by velocity xfade after being triggered?

Thanks!

I'm curious about the details of matching synchron percussion and synchron MIR room pack.

I think your choice of piece is very challenging for the mixing task.  The percussion instrumentation, including piano, really exposes the qualities of reverb of synchron percussion library and also in the MIR room pack, and the short tails of the synchron venue make it even harder to make that match.  I imagine that if it's possible to make the piano match very closely the sound of the synchron percussion library, then similar mixing approach would also work well for other instruments in MIR, at least woodwinds and strings, for the purpose of matching to synchron percussion.

So having said that, some concrete questions and thoughts:

(1) Can you please describe more about how you have mixed the pianos so far, and what have you tried so far in an attempt to match the sound of synchron percussion library?

(2) Which microphone positions / mix have you used for synchron percussion in this piece?

Here's the way I am hearing the mix currently.  I feel like the pianos sound great by themselves, but they seem to be in a different "space" than the synchron percussion library.  Compared to the sound of synchron percussion, it feels that the piano has too much "solid presence" in the tone, and it sounds too much like a coincident microhpone technique, or panning the two pianos, as opposed to having them be spatially positioned.  Which does sound great then only the pianos are playing.  but with the xylophone or timpani along with, suddenly the piano mix sounds too up-front and not spacious in the correct way.

I would be very interested to know if any of these ideas actually makes an improvement or not, if you have time to try them.  I don't (yet) have synchron percussion or synchron MIR roompack yet to try myself.  But I'm very excited to buy them when I can.

Possibility 1 - is it possible the pianos sound more like synchron percussion if we used a reduced dry mix / increased wet mix?

Possibility 2 - Do you have the "distance dependent scaling" turn on, in your MIR mix?  What about "simulate air absorption"?  I wonder if that would help the fit.

Possibility 3 - Would it make any difference to move the pianos further from the virtual microphones in the MIR venue?

Possibility 4 - The panning issue is a big one that breaks the immersion between piano and synchron percussion. In this kind of studio space, the percieved position of an instrument is actually not so much caused by the volume level difference between L and R channels.  In fact, by the meter, the L and R levels may not be much different at all, even though we would still perceive some spatial positioning of the instrument.

Instead, I think the perceived spatial position in the synchron percussion library is more attributed to the reverb of the stage itself, the early reflections, and even just the phase difference of the same sound arriving at slightly different times on each mic (i.e. 0.1 - 0.2 milliseconds different perhaps?  it's possible to do some rough geometry estimates with the speed of sound to get a good number.  but it's not just the distance between the two mics, it will be less delay than that).

So maybe it's worth a try to keep the pianos more centered across the stereo field, in terms of their level difference between L and R, and instead to further accentuate their side positioning by using a sub-millisecond phase difference between L and R channels, like 0.1 milliseconds or even less.  This can be done with the Matrix Mixer FX.  And, maybe even emulating a deca tree by having two mixer channels of audio for each piano, one channel for L and R, another channel for C, with levels and phase delays adjusted to simulate the sound coming from a specific location on the stage.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

One last follow-up -

Thanks for your most recent suggestion, it's definitely useful to know about.  The macro I created fits my scenarios better, without having to exit/re-enter the key editor and splice/glue parts.

DG, I greatly appreciate your time and effort to help out, thank you!

Missed a sentence - "It would be great to hear your solution"

Cheers!

I did try the time warp tool.  But maybe I am missing something.  It would be great

Let's take the example of a piano track + other tracks at the same time.   Suppose we have a scale run that we want to squeeze to go slightly faster.  How do we do that without affecting (a) the other tracks and (b) other notes in the same track?    At least for me, this is a pretty common situation when trying to tweak the nuanced performance or realism of an instrument.  I'm surprised more people haven't asked about this.  Are other people tweaking MIDI performances in a better way that entirely avoids this situation?

About the time warp tool.  It's not the same as stretching/squeezing selected notes only.  As I understand, that tool is intended for intuitive ways to automate the project-wide tempo track.  Trying to isolate tracks with musical or linear time mode before warping - almost works, but it's highly unintuitive.   It may be possible to create macros that (1) solo a track to musical or linear time as appropriate, (2) enables the user the opportunity to time warping to only one track while in the key editor (3) makes all tracks linear time and removes the tempo automation that got created, so the grid looks correct after the warping.  But then it (a) still affects un-selected notes in a track, (b) if I had tempo automation already, it's destroyed in the process, and (c) at that point, the macro I have now is already a faster workflow.  

Ultimately, whatever I figured out so far still does not parallel the smoothness of being able to simply select a group of notes and stretch/squeeze them together quickly and precisely.

Cheers =)

I finally figured out a trick to stretch / squeeze / warp selected notes in Cubase key editor  It's still not as fast or flexible as dragging to resize with a mouse in FL Studio, and it behaves badly when no notes are selected, but otherwise seems to work.

After that much struggle, the least I can do is share my solution so anyone searching over the internet might find this solution =)

Step 1. Create and save a logical editor script.  The script is essentially the same as the "double tempo" and "half tempo" examples, with a different multiplier value.   In order to shrink/stretch exactly the same, I used "Divide by 1.1" to shrink, and "Multiply by 1.1" to stretch.

Step 2. Create the "shrink selected notes" macro from the following Commands:

1. Transport - Locators to Select (default shortcut "p")
2. Edit - Cut
3. Transport - Return to Zero (default shortcut numpad ".")
4. Edit - Paste
5. Process Logical Preset - the macro we just created in Step 1
6. Edit - Cut
7. Transport - To Left Locator (default shortcut numpad "1")
8. Edit - Paste

Basically, this macro moves the selected notes to the beginning of the track before applying the tempo change, and then moves them back after shrinking/stretching.  That way, the notes don't accidentally change position as well.

MMKA - as for Samplitude Pro - does it have something similar to expression maps?   I downloaded the Samplitude demo, checked out the manual, tried out the piano roll.   It's a totally different language... impossible to judge how efficient I would feel without spending months with it.  I like the eraser, but the zooming was uncomfortable for me.  Ultimately, it's too much time and effort to learn it in detail after having done that with two other capable sequencers already.

Cheers!