Table of Contents
Virtual Pianist VIBE in the UJAM App
Installing without the UJAM App
Open Virtual Pianist in your DAW
Experiment with Finisher and Ambience
Loading Presets from the Browser
Switching Between Pianists While Browsing
Switching Browser Filters and Categories
Creating/Overwriting User Presets
Saving Presets Under a Different Name
Effects: Finisher and Ambience
Chord Voicings
Controlling Velocity and Busyness
Adjusting the Play Range in the Realtime Note Display
Controlling Velocity and Busyness
Welcome to Virtual Pianist
Virtual Pianist VOGUE and VIBE
Thank you very much for trying or purchasing a title in our Virtual Pianist series - a line of products designed to enable everyone to produce great piano tracks in no time.
What is Virtual Pianist?
The piano is one of the most versatile instruments ever invented, and so are the people who play it. Obviously, there is no “the piano” or “the pianist”, for there is a large range of piano applications, musical genres, piano types, and player personalities. A classical piano is a different make and model, setup and tuning than say a pop piano. A classical pianist will use completely different playing techniques, ideas and articulations than a pop pianist.
Therefore, each Virtual Pianist, while offering a quite broad palette of sounds and playing styles, will focus on a certain type of piano and player.
There was only one mission statement that we followed throughout the entire innovation and development process:
“If we do it right, anybody – even total non-keyboardists – can produce and perform dynamic, convincing piano tracks while having a ton of fun”.
Therefore, Virtual Pianist is anything but “yet another piano library”. Actually, creating an amazing virtual piano model along with the sound design options that let you always find and tweak that sound you’re looking for, or be inspired by something you didn’t expect, was almost the easy part. And there was a lot of reference, because virtual piano instruments have been around since 2003, and some of our team were involved with the very first of its kind.
The real challenge was to create a player engine that doesn’t sound robotic or boring but actually vivid and inspiring, and that allows for dynamic live tricks such as playing with articulations, fill-ins, ‘busyness’ and other things that bring a piano performance to life. That’s something we hadn’t seen before, but since the UJAM team has so many guitarists, singers or DJs who don’t play the piano but need piano, there was a large pool of resources to tap into for finding out what people want, how they want it, and what would make them truly happy.
One of my favorite moments along the way was when I showed an early alpha version to a friend who’s a classically trained pianist and he went: “Wow, this thing makes me play things I’d never think of, and it’s almost too easy”.
We sincerely hope that this will be what Virtual Pianist feels like to you as well. Because after all, we’re a lot about making music creation easier for people, but even more so, we’re about enabling and inspiring new ideas, and to make it a lot of fun along the way
.
The entire team hopes you’ll enjoy this new virtual instrument!
Peter Gorges
Founder, UJAM
About Virtual Pianist VIBE
The brand new Virtual Pianist series saw immediate explosive success with the launch of VOGUE. With thousands of happy users, we set off to create the second pianist: VIBE!
While VOGUE is the virtual representation of a modern pianist playing an acoustic grand piano on stage, VIBE combines a smooth studio keyboard player with a vintage electric piano, with sounds and styles you can put to great use in all kinds of music from 60s jazz to today’s electronic and ambient music. Again, while the piano model itself is a great representation of that classic keyboard instrument made famous by players such as Stevie Wonder or Herbie Hancock, we’ve put a lot of focus on the player engine and the Styles.
No matter whether you play the piano or not, you will find yourself creating great electric piano tracks on a whim, with lots of live performance options, 5 piano setup Characters to choose from and tons of bespoke Finisher and Ambience effects - all perfectly optimized for the electric piano.
It pays off to also pay extra attention to the advanced voicing options we’ve developed along with VIBE. Set a key, select a chord voicing mode via the new button and be impressed by how elegantly VIBE creates electric piano chord voicings from even individual note inputs.
The entire team hopes you’ll enjoy this great instrument as much as we enjoyed building it for you.
About Virtual Pianist VOGUE
VOGUE is a combination of a modern pop grand piano and a bandleader-kind of pianist, both of which you’ll find on the big stages and in world-class studios around the globe. VOGUE is perfect for you if you produce modern band music – from pop ballads to rock anthems to EDM club hits – but it doesn’t stop there.
Using and abusing the sonic and musical possibilities, VOGUE will make you produce great results in genres as far from mainstream piano as Ambient, Film Score, Hip Hop or Alternative. In the end, it’s not about following schemes. It’s about an inspiring musical idea or song performance and a well-engineered and designed piano sound to go with it. You’ll find all of that combined and ready at your fingertips in VOGUE. Just try it!
Installing Virtual Pianist
The easiest way to install Virtual Pianist titles is via the UJAM App. Alternatively, you can download a direct installer from the ‘Your Products’ page in your account on our website.
Installing from the UJAM App
Virtual Pianist VIBE in the UJAM App
We recommend installing Virtual Pianist from the UJAM App – it doesn’t matter if you’ve purchased it or are just starting the 30-day trial period.
The UJAM App will always display all available Virtual Pianist titles. You can choose one, a few or all titles from here. With the installation of your first title, the UJAM App will also install the Virtual Pianist plugin frame which hosts the titles. In the UJAM App settings you also have the option to select a custom location for the plugin content files, for example if you prefer keeping your files on an external drive:
After opening Virtual Pianist in your DAW, you can download, install and start trials directly from within the Virtual Pianist plugin.
Installing without the UJAM App
You can install any UJAM product without using the UJAM App. Just follow these steps:
- Log into your UJAM account
- Navigate to your ‘Backstage’ account overview
- Click ‘Head to Products’ to view all of your products:
- Navigate to Virtual Pianist VIBE or VOGUE and select the option to ‘download the installer’ instead:
- Note that the installer file will install the Virtual Pianist plugin and also the UJAM App because Virtual Pianist is technically depending on the UJAM App. It’s working as a small helper tool for the plugin which is why the UJAM App needs to be running in the background while using Virtual Pianist.
- When you start a trial from a button on a product page, you may be taken to your account or asked to create one if you’re new to UJAM – just follow the steps there as well.
Detailed information
Clicking on the circled “i” in the top left banner of the user interface of your Virtual Pianist opens the Information page where you can find detailed information about your plug-in’s build as well as links to the Acknowledgments, Product Page, Support, User Manual and License Agreement.
Quick Start
Before we look at things in more depth, let us first explore how to play, tweak and create with Virtual Pianist, as that may be all you need for now. This super-short section will show you how to get started in minutes.
Open Virtual Pianist in your DAW
Open the Virtual Pianist plugin. You’ll notice that a title will load by default - this depends on which titles you have installed and activated!
To switch between Virtual Pianist titles, click on the title banner in the top left corner of the plug-in window (shown above). You can now select between the titles that are available to you.
Load a Global Preset
Click into the top center area to open the Global Preset Browser, or simply click the arrows to step through the presets.
In the Global Preset Browser, you can take your time jumping around between Presets from all categories. Just double-click a preset to go back to the relevant title’s main page.
Set The Right Size
You can resize Virtual Pianist’s user interface by either clicking the Resize button in the top-right corner of the user interface or by dragging the little hashed triangle in the bottom-right corner.
Play Piano
First, let’s focus on the sound shaping options. For that purpose, make sure VOGUE is set to Instrument Mode:
- Set the little switch on the left side, right above the keyboard, to “Instrument”
Now the pianist is deactivated and the keyboard becomes a fully controllable piano.
It doesn’t matter how well you play at this point. Just hitting a few notes is enough - we’ll go all virtuoso later!
Choose Your Piano Character
Click your way through the Characters on the left side of the user interface to explore the range of sounds you can get out of your Virtual Pianist. They’re ordered top to bottom from soft sounds to more aggressive sounds.
Experiment with Finisher and Ambience
Now let’s move to the right of the beautiful center visual and check out the effects:
- First, you’ll want to enable the Finisher by clicking on the ‘power’ button to the left of the Finisher module. This multi-effect module provides sound design options optimized for your Virtual Pianist, ranging from subtle to crazy.
- Set the Amount knob to at least 50% to ensure that you can easily hear the effect
- Now click the left and right arrows under the Finisher’s ModeName to skip through Modes, or click on the Mode Name to browse through the Modes in categories
Deactivate the Finisher again and do the same with the Ambience section.
The Ambience module gives you a variety of ambient FX ranging from simple delays and reverbs to crazy combinations and everything in between!
Adjust Dynamic Behavior
If you’re a skilled player, you may want to adjust the velocity sensitivity of your Virtual Pianist.
You’ll find the Dynamics control under the MasterTab menu. For the full dynamic range, leave the knob at the maximum value. As you decrease it, there will be less dynamic range giving it a more artificial but powerful feel.
Darker? Brighter?
Underneath the center graphic you’ll find a slider labeled Dark/Light. Play around with it and listen to what it does to the overall sound of your Virtual Pianist.
Enter: The Pianist
Pianist Section
Most of the hard work and brain grease in the development and creation of Virtual Pianist went into creating a realistic piano performance via the PhrasePlayer engine. Try it for yourself and see if we did a good job!
First, you’ll need to set Virtual Pianist to Player mode using the switch on the left side again.
Play a note or a chord
In Player Mode, Virtual Pianist will operate solely based on chords as they are the basis for all of the complex riffs and arpeggios that the pianist is able to perform.
Also only in Player Mode, the on-screen keyboard at the bottom is equipped with a separate Control Octave - it’s the leftmost octave with the marked keys on the user interface, and it’s the octave from C1 to B1 on your MIDI Controller or editor.
Control Octave
The Chord Range of the keyboard starts at C2, so play any note or chord, and the pianist will start playing.
Adjust the Play Range
The second stylized keyboard above the Pianist Keyboard is called the Realtime Note Display. Inside it, you’ll find two white handles. While playing a note or chord, drag these handles and notice how the virtual left hand (orange tint) and right hand (teal tint) ranges of the playback are changed.
Note: Selecting a new Style or Global Preset will cause these sliders to reset to their defined ranges for that specific Style or Preset.
Set a Key
In Virtual Pianist, it is very important that you set a key in the Key selector to unlock the full potential of the Pianist engine! By selecting a key, the Pianist is able to make informed voicing decisions, allowing for a much more realistic and interesting piano performance!
The other added benefit of having a Key selected is that the player will be safely limited to the key of your song. No matter what notes you press in the Chord Range afterwards, Virtual Pianist will only play chords that sound good within the key’s scale - particularly handy when you’re not a skilled keyboardist!
Left hand, right hand
In the Control Octave, the keys C1 to A1 select phrases for the selected Style. In general, these phrases increase in intensity as you travel up the keyboard (A1 being the most intense). The 3 less intense Phrases (C1 to E1) select phrases that only use the pianist’s right hand, while the 3 more intense Phrases (F1 to A1) select phrases that use both of the pianist’s hands, for maximum intensity!
Experiment with seamlessly moving between intros, verses, choruses and breakdowns by using these intensity variations alone!
The B1 key will stop the pianist, killing whatever phrase is currently playing (whether it’s triggered manually or via the Latch function). The last played notes will ring out for as long as the Stop key is held.
Spice it Up
The black keys in the Control Octave add spice to the pianist’s performance. C#1 and D#1 control low chord and high chord one-shots, respectively. You can trigger these at any point of a playing Phrase!
F#1, G#1 and A#1 add Fills to the active Phrase. Don’t worry about the timing - the engine is intelligent enough to play the Fills only at correct times, regardless of when you trigger them.
Conduct your pianist
How hard a pianist presses the keys is an obvious defining factor of the perceived intensity of the performance. You have extensive control over this so-called Velocity by using the pitch bend wheel! If you like, try recording a short piece and then overdubbing the wheel after the fact.
Also, Busyness is an amazing feature for creating variation by adding in faster notes - just turn up the Modulation wheel (labeled Busyness on the user interface). You’ll notice extra notes start to fade in. Unlike the fills triggered by the black keys of the Control Octave, the Busyness feature is a good way to add variations very dynamically and in any place, even the middle of a bar.
Reference
This Reference section of the User Guide is a complete encyclopedia of all features and parameters of Virtual Pianist. We recommend you read it to make the most of your new Virtual PIanist - it’s not too long!
Working with Global Presets
Global Presets in Virtual Pianist will save, load and change all settings on the user interface with a few exceptions:
- Player/Instrument Mode Switch
- Velocity and Busyness wheels
- Sync Mode
- Swing
- Latch
- Key
Or, the other way around:
You can save a complete Virtual Pianist Preset including the Character, Effects, Style, Dynamics, Tune, Dark/Light Slider, Humanize, Speed, and Master Volume!
Loading Presets from the Browser
Clicking on a Global Preset name in the Preset Display at the top center of the user interface will open the Browser View:
Here you can browse to your heart’s content, and exit the browser by:
- Double-clicking on a Preset Name to load the Preset, or
- Clicking the ‘x’ in the top right corner to exit with whichever Preset is selected
Switching between Pianists while Browsing
While in the Browser, you can click through the Pianist Title icons to switch between Virtual Pianists.
If you switch to a different Pianist and load a preset afterwards, Virtual Pianist will switch to the new Pianist interruption-free.
Switching Browser Filters and Categories
Global Presets in Virtual Pianist are structured into Filters and Categories as follows:
- Filters: ‘Factory’, ‘User’ and ‘All’
- Clicking ‘Factory’ shows only Presets that came with Virtual Pianist
- Clicking ‘User’ shows only the Presets you saved (in a freshly-installed Virtual Pianist, the User list will be empty)
- ‘All’ displays both ‘Factory’ and ‘User’ Presets
- Categories: in each Pianist, Presets are sorted into custom categories such as ‘Soft & Dark’ or ‘Pads & Atmospheres’
- The little numbers to the right of the Category names show how many Presets each Category contains
- This is particularly helpful with the ‘User’ filter activated - this way you can avoid browsing empty categories
Skipping through Presets
If you want to just skip back and forth through Presets, click the arrows to the right of the Preset name in the top display.
The display will always show you the current Category and the currently selected position within that Category (e.g. 3/29 means the 3rd out of 29 Presets in that Category).
Saving Presets
Save (left) and Save As (right) buttons
The saving functionality of Virtual Pianist makes it a breeze to manage and create your own User Presets and stay organized!
Creating/Overwriting User Presets
Click the left Save icon right next to the Preset Display to save an altered Factory Preset to a User Preset or to overwrite a User Preset.
If creating a User Preset from a Factory Preset, you will be asked to enter a name, as Factory Presets cannot be overwritten. It will also give you the option to select a Category for your new Preset to live in.
Note that the available Categories are the same as the Factory Preset Categories. When browsing through the “All” Filter, both Factory and User Presets will be combined and displayed in these same categories.
Saving Presets under a different name
When you’ve altered a User Preset and want to save the result under a different name, click the right Save As icon. You’ll be presented with the known dialog for entering a new name and selecting a Category.
Piano Section
The Piano Section is the large area containing the Characters, the key visual, and the Effects and Master tabs - as opposed to the Pianist Section on the bottom of the user interface which contains the Player/Instrument parameters as well as the Interactive Keyboard.
Character
When recording a piano, the piano itself is only the first part of the equation. Other important factors are: piano setup (tuning, adjustment, etc), microphone types and placement, room characteristics, and any audio processing such as equalizing and compression.
In Virtual Pianist, all of these factors are combined into Character presets that offer 5 distinct piano models ranging from soft-natural-ambient to hard-artificial-direct. The table below provides guidance as to what each Character represents and how you can make the most of it (see table on the next page):
|
Characters of VIBE |
Description |
Great for … |
|
Soft |
Darker and a bit more ‘rotten’, with a slight ‘tape-ish’ saturation |
‘Maximum warmth’ stuff such as triphop and moody music |
|
Round |
The most transparent regarding the natural sound of the recorded piano |
A universal and successful tone, good for Pop, Rock, R&B, pretty much anything! |
|
Bell |
Emphasis on the ‘bell-ish’ nature of the piano. More transparent and brighter than the natural sound |
Ballads and other general flirting attempts. |
|
Bark |
A midrange-y sound known to the late 70’s, made famous by the late mark 1 and early mark 2’s of a rather iconic brand |
70’s sound, the dirty funk riff styles, strong accents, unison lines etc. |
|
Hype |
Somewhere between FM synthesis and other artificial electric piano sounds |
Late 80’s stuff, modern fusion, pop music - anything that needs a bit of an ‘edge’ over the natural sound. |
|
Characters of VOGUE |
Description |
Room |
Great for … |
|
Emotion |
Dark with a lot of warmth, resonant - almost blurry, ambient |
Wooden room |
Cinematic, Ambient, Intimate |
|
Ballad |
Full-bodied with crispy transients. Warm, yet direct. Can stand out in a mix or against vocals. |
Bright stage |
Romantic, Pop, Background |
|
Concert |
Full concert grand greatness - big, dynamic, wide and glitzy |
Large studio |
Vocal accompaniment, prominent piano in an ensemble (orchestra, band) |
|
Power |
Slightly artificial. All controls set for power and attitude. Strong transients and high frequencies. |
Hard, subtle ambience |
Pop and rock band settings, rhythmic accents |
|
Plastic |
Fully artificial, almost digital. Set up for brightness and strong transients. |
Bouncy artificial room |
Riffs and themes in modern and retro electronic music genres |
Effects: Finisher and Ambience
The Effects Tab contains two separate effect modules: a Finisher multi-effect with creative sound design modes, and an Ambience section containing various delays and reverb effects, as well as interesting combinations of the two. Every Finisher and Ambience FX mode is always custom-tailored and optimized for each specific Virtual Pianist title!
Using these effects is pretty straightforward:
- Disable or enable the Finisher or Ambience modules via the circular buttons to the left of the section labels
- Step through Modes using the arrows or click on the currently selected Mode’s name to open the drop-down menu, where you can browse through the FX organized into categories
- Turn up the Amount control to dial in the effect. Both knobs go up to 100% wet - i.e. at their maximum position you will only hear the effect signal
Master Tab
The Master Tab lets you adjust two global controls of the piano:
Dynamics
The Dynamics knob adjusts the sensitivity of the piano model to key velocity - i.e. whether the piano gets softer the softer you hit the keys, or the lower the MIDI velocity values it receives. When you turn it all the way down, the piano will always sound loud and lack dynamics. The more you turn it up, the softer the piano will be at lower velocity values, and the more dynamic range it will have.
Tune
The Tune knob lets you tune Virtual Pianist up and down by half a semitone or 50 cents. The cent scale is how you usually tune an instrument in a DAW. If you should want to tune Virtual Pianist to certain Hz tunings, here’s a reference (see table below):
|
Frequency |
Tune |
|
435 Hz |
−20 cents |
|
436 Hz |
−16 cents |
|
437 Hz |
−12 cents |
|
438 Hz |
−8 cents |
|
439 Hz |
−4 cents |
|
440 Hz |
0 cents |
|
441 Hz |
+4 cents |
|
442 Hz |
+8 cents |
|
443 Hz |
+12 cents |
|
444 Hz |
+16 cents |
|
445 Hz |
+20 cents |
Volume and Level Meter
The large MasterVolume slider on the right of the Piano Section lets you adjust the output volume of Virtual Pianist. Combined with the built-in level meter, it helps maintain an optimal level going into subsequent audio processors or mixer channels.
Dark? Light?
Slider at full Light position, graphics fully illuminated
The Dark/Light Slider underneath the beautiful visual renderings of Virtual Pianist lets you tweak the overall aesthetic of the piano sound – and the brightness of said graphics too.
You can either use it statically for the entire track, or dynamically via automation for making bright, powerful choruses stand out against dark, subtle intros.
This slider controls a combination of multiple piano-optimized filters, so at any position it retains the essence of the piano while taking away or adding frequencies across the spectrum.
Pianist Section
Pianist Sections of VIBE (top) and VOGUE (bottom)
The Pianist Section – the bottom area of the user interface, is where you play and perform on the piano that you set up in the Piano Section above.
The Pianist Section offers two basic operation modes:
- Player Mode – where you get to take a seat in the producer’s chair, telling a versatile, professional pianist what to play for you
- Instrument Mode – where Virtual Pianist is a virtual piano instrument that you can play like any regular piano
Player Mode
This mode has been designed to create a range of rhythmic, arpeggiated and artistic piano performances that you can control without being skilled on the keyboard. It takes as little as holding one key. How much more control you want to take is totally up to you - you can play complex chords, you can control the density and intensity of the phrase in various ways, throw in fills and of course change the entire musical style in the middle of the road.
We went to great lengths to create an intuitive toolset that allows you to play, vary and dynamically control the Pianist’s performance whether it be live, while editing or via overdubbing.
Here are the controls in the order that you should look at them in:
Playing Chords
The basis of everything and the start of any performance is choosing the Chord. You do this by pressing one or more keys in the note area of the Interactive Keyboard, which is the range from C2 upwards on your MIDI keyboard or in the MIDI editor.
Unlike in Instrument Mode, the Pianist will always use chords at the core of the performance when in Player Mode. Virtual Pianist has powerful chord recognition that provides easy and intuitive ways of playing chords:
- Press one key to create 5th intervals
- Press two keys to create min, sus2, sus4, b5, aug, 6, 7, maj7 chords
- Press three or four keys for Virtual Pianist to detect the most similar chord (available chords reference chart to follow)
Note: This is the behavior that the Player will follow if no Key is set! See ‘Setting a Key’ section to learn how the behavior can change
Chord Display
When a chord is detected, it will be displayed by the Chord Display which is located directly above the C4-C5 octave of the Realtime Note Display.
Take a moment to experiment with combinations of keys, chords and bass notes and watch the Chord Display so you can get a feel for the chordal options that Virtual Pianist has to offer.
Chord Reference
Here is the list of all supported chords, with fingering schemes in C.
Note: Gray italic letters mean the key is optional. For example, you can play only C and B, or you can play C, E, G and B - in both cases a Cmaj7 chord will be detected. Have a look at the following table:
|
Chord |
Keys |
|||
|
5 |
C |
G |
||
|
maj |
C |
E |
G |
|
|
6 |
C |
E |
G |
A |
|
7 |
C |
E |
G |
Bb |
|
maj7 |
C |
E |
G |
B |
|
b5 |
C |
E |
Gb |
|
|
aug |
C |
E |
Ab |
|
|
min |
C |
Eb |
G |
|
|
min6 |
C |
Eb |
G |
A |
|
min7 |
C |
Eb |
G |
Bb |
|
mMaj7 |
C |
Eb |
G |
B |
|
m7b5 |
C |
Eb |
Gb |
Bb |
|
dim |
C |
Eb |
Gb |
|
|
sus2 |
C |
D |
G |
|
|
sus4 |
C |
F |
G |
|
|
7sus4 |
C |
F |
G |
Bb |
|
min11 |
C |
Eb |
G |
F |
|
add9 |
C |
E |
G |
D |
|
madd9 |
C |
Eb |
G |
D |
Note: When the user input is ambiguous and could be interpreted into multiple different chords, the engine will pick the chord with the lowest root note, e.g. If you input C D G, a Csus2 will be interpreted. But if you input G C D, a Gsus4 will be interpreted.
Bass notes in the left hand
When you play a note that’s more than 7 semitones (usually a 5th) lower than the lowest chord note, it will define the bass note for the left hand.
You can even play an octave in the low range as long as the highest note of that octave is more than 7 semitones lower than the lowest chord note.
Phrases and Variations
The Control Octave is the leftmost octave of the Pianist Keyboard when in Player Mode. It is also the octave from C1 to B1 on your MIDI keyboard or MIDI Editor.
This octave doesn’t play any notes or chords, but rather lets you control the performance of the Pianist. Selecting phrases changes the intensity of the performance and which hands are actively playing.
The notes C1, D1 and E1 control three right-hand-only phrases, and notes F1, G1 and A1 add a left hand part, while from left to right the intensity of the phrasing also increases across all 6 Phrases..
You can always check the assignment of a key switch by hovering over it with the mouse, displaying a tooltip. Here’s an overview:
|
Key |
Hand(s) |
Intensity |
|
|
B1 |
Stop |
||
|
A#1 |
Variation 3 |
||
|
A1 |
LH + RH |
3 |
|
|
G#1 |
Variation 2 |
||
|
G1 |
LH + RH |
2 |
|
|
F#1 |
Variation 1 |
||
|
F1 |
LH + RH |
1 |
|
|
E1 |
RH |
3 |
|
|
D#1 |
High Chord |
||
|
D1 |
RH |
2 |
|
|
C#1 |
Low Chord |
||
|
C1 |
Right Hand (RH) |
1 |
|
To select Phrases and add variations:
- Press a white key to select a Phrase, or hit the Stop key to stop the player.
- Hit C#1 or D#1 to throw in a Low Chord or High Chord one-shot.
- Hold F#1, G#1 or A#1 for as long as you like and a Fill will be added to the phrase. Fills automatically align with the currently playing performance, so sometimes you’ll need to wait for a beat or two before the Fill kicks in.
Setting a Key
You can restrict Virtual Pianist to use only chords that are within the key of your current song. This is how Virtual Pianist behaves depending on the state of the Key parameter:
When no Key is selected:
- Single notes in the Chord Range trigger neutral chords (5th chords)
- For the more complex styles that play notes other than notes in the current chord (accidentals, runs and modulations) those notes are chosen relative to the current chord
When a Key is selected:
- Single notes in the Chord Range trigger more complex chords that work in the key
- For styles that play notes other than notes in the current chord, those notes are chosen so they stay in key where possible.
- Example: When an Emin chord is played in the key of C and the style wants to play a second (II) interval (or modulate the root note up by one scale step) the key makes sure it plays F and not F#
- When a Key is selected, you have a few different voicing options to select from that further influence the Player’s behavior (see next section).
Setting a Key also acts as a safety net if you’re not a skilled keyboard player!
Here you can browse to your heart’s content, and exit the browser by:
- Double-clicking on a Preset Name to load the Preset, or
- Clicking the ‘x’ in the top right corner to exit with whichever Preset is selected
Chord Voicings
As soon as you select a Key, your Virtual Pianist will be able to make informed decisions regarding the voicing of the chords. You’ll notice the Chord Voicing button is now accessible.
By clicking this button, you can select from three unique voicing options, to further control the intelligence and complexity of the pianist. Here’s a quick rundown of what the three voicing modes have to offer:
|
Voicing |
Description |
|
Simplified Voicing |
In this voicing mode, the interpreted chords are limited to simple triads, and there’s also a bit of clean-up and tightening of the MIDI notes in the Style Phrases. This mode is great for integrating the Phrases into a variety of musical genres! |
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Universal Voicing |
This is a rather ‘universal’ chord voicing that a talented pianist would likely play. It’s a bit more involved than simple triads. For those who own VOGUE, this is the behavior that is used under the hood. (Don’t worry, we’ll update VOGUE soon to include this new feature!) |
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Complex Voicing |
This voicing mode uses more complicated chord voicings often found in Neo Soul music. This mode is quite impressive if you are not a genius with music theory - let your Virtual Pianist do it for you! |
Controlling Velocity and Busyness
The two virtual wheels to the left of the Pianist Keyboard let you gradually control the Velocity and Busyness of the piano performance:
- Turn Velocity up and down to change the intensity – how hard the notes are played.
- Turn up the Busyness control, and the Pianist will add even more notes to the phrase
Both are really fun and intuitive to use when overdubbed onto a recorded performance or a track created with Drag’n’Drop (more on this in a bit).
Note: as expected, these two controls can be controlled by the MIDI Pitch Bend and Modulation automation, as well as the actual wheels on your MIDI keyboard if you have one.
Adjusting the Play Range in the Realtime Note Display
Realtime Note Display
The Realtime Note Display above the Pianist Keyboard is both a display showing you the actual notes played and a dual slider that allows you to draw the lower and higher note range limits for the Pianist.
It’s that straightforward:
- Drag the left handle to set the range for the left hand
- Drag the right handle to move the range for the right hand.
As a visual guide, the left hand zone is tinted yellow and the right hand zone is tinted purple.
As you can see by the tint fading out at the fringes, the ranges aren’t definite, but rather “comfort zones”. The actual resulting range is always influenced by the style and displayed while the player is active, so you have a good reference while dragging the handles.
This is a really intuitive and powerful tool to make the pianist play lower or higher, or with both hands closer to each other or further apart.
Note: Where you actually play on the keyboard also has an effect on the range. If you play note above C4, this will shift the range of notes upwards.
Using Latch
In Player Mode, activate Latch if you want the pianist to continue to play even after you’ve released the keys. This is especially useful when designing presets or fine-tuning your piano sound!
You can also use the Sustain Pedal as a temporary Latch control.
To stop the pianist when it is in Latch mode, hit the Stop key (B1, rightmost key of the Control Octave marked with a stop icon). Alternatively, you can deactivate Latch.
Setting the timing
The Timing tab opens when you click Timing right next to the Pianist Keyboard. It provides four controls that let you adjust the timing of Virtual Pianist relative to song position, tempo and other tracks.
Sync to keys or DAW
This feature lets you determine whether phrases start playing
- the moment you hit a note (Note On)
- or quantized to the next 8th song position (Song Position)
In most cases, you will want to leave this setting at Song Position because then Virtual Pianist will always almost magically stay in time with the rest of your tracks e.g. when you’re live-recording.
Doubling or halving Speed
With this menu you can halve or double the speed of the pianist relative to your DAW’s tempo. You can get way more out of the selection of styles by trying them at unusual speed factors.
Adjusting Swing
Use this parameter for syncopating Virtual Pianist’s phrases. Technically, moving the slider to the right delays off-beats in relation to the overall grid.
Humanize or robotize
All phrases in Virtual Pianist were played by a skilled pianist and therefore aren’t perfectly quantized to robotic sterility, but contain very subtle timing variations that create a live feel. The Humanize slider lets you control the amount of those deviations:
- Move the slider towards Loose to exaggerate the live feel. This can sound great when combined with other live instruments.
- Move the slider towards Tight to remove any timing deviations - this comes in handy in quantized electronic arrangements.
Of course, you can also use MIDI Drag & Drop to drag phrases into your DAW and hard-quantize them there in any way you like.
Using MIDI Drag & Drop
You may have noticed the little areas with six dots that appear on the keys of the Control Octave.
By clicking on one of these areas and dragging into a Virtual Pianist (or any MIDI) track in your DAW, you can convert a phrase into a MIDI clip.
That MIDI region will contain the phrase of the key you dragged from, with the last detected chord, considering the Play Range and Busyness setting but not the Velocity setting.
Note: When you Drag’n’Drop onto the track of the Virtual Pianist itself, Virtual Pianist will switch to Instrument Mode to play back the phrase.
MIDI Drag’n’Drop is particularly useful if you:
- Want to build a song piece-by-piece
- Wish to combine Phrases from various Styles
Want to make detailed edits to Phrases
Instrument Mode
In Instrument Mode, Virtual Pianist doubles as a virtual piano with great sound design options. In this mode, the Pianist Keyboard is a real, regular piano. You may notice that the Velocity and Busyness controls are still functional – and a bit different!
Controlling Velocity and Busyness
In Instrument Mode, the Velocity control changes the intensity of notes in relation to the actual note velocities you play or have recorded.
And whereas in Player Mode the Busyness control gradually adds more notes matching the current phrase, in Instrument Mode the control fades in an 8th note delay transposed up an octave.
This delay is not an audio effect, but rather in the MIDI - meaning that additional MIDI notes are added. This is a pretty fun feature to mess around with, and it often yields some inspiring results!
Learning MIDI controllers
You can map (learn) Virtual Pianist controls to hardware knobs on your MIDI controller or MIDI control messages in general. It’s this simple:
- Right-click the Virtual Pianist parameter you wish to assign
- Click “Learn MIDI CC”
- Turn the knob or fader, press the button on your hardware controller (or send the corresponding MIDI message in general)
- Always make sure you don’t have a phrase playing while you MIDI Learn, as phrases may contain Sustain Pedal (#64) events and these can get assigned, leading to interesting but usually unwanted results.
- MIDI Learn assignments are global to the Virtual Pianist plugin, i.e. you only have to learn an assignment once for all Virtual Pianists.
Automating Virtual Pianist
Virtual Pianist Parameters in Ableton Live
A large selection of Virtual Pianist parameters can be automated in your DAW. Automation will even “survive” switching between Pianists, as Automation is global to the Virtual Pianist plugin.
To learn how to set up and create Automation in your specific DAW, please refer to your DAWs user guide.
The Automation menu of your DAW will display Virtual Pianist’s parameters that are available for automation.
Sometimes Automation names of parameters may sound ambiguous – you can find out the exact Automation name of a control by right-clicking it on the Virtual Pianist user interface.
Ask Us Please
If you have questions about Virtual Pianist or any UJAM products, our support team is there for you – please send us a message: www.ujam.com/contact-us/
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