I got the Ircam library.
As I wrote in Northernsounds it's a nice palette, and even the mainstream composer can succesfully blend it with any existing library and/or virtual instrument, VSL included, whenever he or she needs some dirty, grotesque, sarcastic, unusual or rough "contemporary" mood: with the Ircam lib you get tons of really uncommon and flawlessly recorded sounds, their demos give an exact idea of how it sounds right out-of-the-box and the library has nothing to do with VSL or EW. At the present time, it's not a VSL competitor: it's a (serious) contemporary solo instruments library, not an orchestral-FX one.
Their UVI player works, but, to be honest, it's not exactly a state-of-the-art piece of software. I guess (and hope) it will be improved...
:-)
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Actually, I think the IRCAM library is really exciting! Not to be used on its own, I don't think, but to fill out the missing articulations in the VSL stuff it's brilliant. I've been popping in requests for these techniques to VSL for years... I wonder if we will see them at some stage?
J.
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At first I was disappointed, but I've been searching the internet and found a preset list for the IRCAM Solo Instruments. They've sampled a lot of extended techniques, many more than XSample Chamber Ensemble and they sound better too. They even have transition samples, like playing a sustained note that moves from sul pont. to ord. etc. I agree that when it comes to ordinary performance techniques VSL is far superior, but for extended techniques I've never seen a library like this and it's not that expensive, almost half the price of XSample. My only concern with using it is getting it to blend seamlessly with the VSL samples.
http://www.ultimatesoundbank.com/uviscp1.html?doc=overview
Brian
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Yes, I totally agree on all points. But they sound to me as though they've been recorded in a very dry environment, so combining them may not be too bad, particularly since the IRCAM stuff would probably be used only for the extended techniques (and the transitions!), and thus would be expected to sound different, to an extent. I'm about 95% sold on this set, as I think it would be a great addition to my composing set-up. I used to make more use of extended techniques in my concert music, before I started using VSL regularly -- this is basically a coincidence, btw; I wrote primarily on paper before I started using VSL -- and I've often felt concerned about these colours sort of disappearing from my vocabulary. So just having access to these techniques in my composition rig would be a real benefit, I think. The only thing that's sort of holding me back is that I already feel burdened down by the job of selecting articulations... I know VSL has made a best-possible solution for this with the VIs, but it's still a chore, and adding more fuel to the articulation-selection fire may just push me over the edge!
J.
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Can anyone say, when working with Sibelius, if the UVI workstation will work alongside VI?
In Finale 2009 (Mac version) it does: one has to assign, say, Vienna Ensemble to channels 1-16 and UVI to channels 17-32 from the "Audio Units Instruments" menu. I suppose it should work the same way in Sibelius...
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Can anyone say, when working with Sibelius, if the UVI workstation will work alongside VI?
In Finale 2009 (Mac version) it does: one has to assign, say, Vienna Ensemble to channels 1-16 and UVI to channels 17-32 from the "Audio Units Instruments" menu. I suppose it should work the same way in Sibelius... Thanks so much for the quick response. I printed out the Urcam reference manual today, and it's pretty much what I been asking from VSL, right down to the notation supplement - I wish they had included the fingerings for the multiphonics they sampled. Anyway, this is great news!
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I have a large library of multiphonics of the bassoon, oboe, cor anglais, oboe d'amore and soprano saxophone. None of spectral components of any of those multiphonics fall together with the equal temperament, not even the fundamental tones. I have a spectral plot, a fingering chart, and the microtonal notation with quarter-tone accidentals for each sample. Without adjusting the pitch of the other instruments in some ways, but not necessarelly an exact tuning of the harmonic components of the standard tuning (non-multiphonic) instrument to a multiphonic, it sounds like in a cat valley.
When you compose with multiphonic, you have no control over that each player creates a slightly other spectrum, in other words, when you carefully adjust, and notate the harmonic context of the standard tuning instrument to the multiphonic, e.g. the string chorus, it will sound different from each oboist when played live. I guess that is the one reason why pieces with multiphonics are often solo pieces, or instrumented in ways where this detriment does not matter. Of course you can always ignore that, and accept how it sounds, or simply use the multiphonic samples to which you adjusted the harmonic context.
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huh? I'm really not sure what you're trying to say... But I hope you're not trying to suggest that sampling extended techniques isn't useful. I mean, because they're so hit-and-miss with different performers and different instruments, I'd be reluctant to use sampled multiphonics at all while composing a new piece - unless I'd actually heard my intended performers playing the precise ones I had in my sample library, of course. But there are so many other great, expressive, and useful techniques out there that VSL hasn't yet sampled...
Anyway, I certainly do wish VSL would release a "21st Century Vienna" collection. That would put an end to any anxiety I have about choosing between xSample and IRCAM (not a choice I really want to make - though lack of brass is a serious vote against xsample). A VSL collection of similar techniques would be bliss... C'mon guys, anything in the works? ;-)
(A totally useless question, I know, since VSL never talks about sample libraries before they're released... But it would be great to know whether I should hold onto my dough for a few more days, weeks, months...)
J.
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jbm
if you like, pm me your email adress, and i upload you some samples of the extended techniques including the notation - it's always good, and sometimes dispiriting, to experience how it is composing with samples of extended techniques
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Well, thanks for the offer, but unless they're pre-programmed in exs format, or something simple, I really can't spend the time integrating them into my system right now. I've used extended techniques of various kinds in the past in my concert music, and never felt dispirited... But I guess you just mean dispirited by working with the samples, not the final performed result? Anyway, the use of extended techniques for widening my timbral palette has sort of slipped away since I started using VSL to actually compose. It's not that big a deal, because I've replaced those colours with other colours derived more directly from the orchestration (or I just write in the technique and enjoy it at the premiere!), but it would be nice to have the options in my working set-up.
The site is giving me some crazy error page when I try to pm you, but I'll try again later. If you do have them programmed into some common format then I would love to give them a try.
thanks,
J.
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My impression is that the VSL user base could be divided into two categories:
1. Composers who write for "media", ie film, commercials, computer games etc. The quality of the sound library is of course crucial for this category, since these sounds will be part of the final composition. It seems that most of these composers work and compose primarily with a DAW. I guess that a realistic orchestral sound will always be more important to this category than multiphonics, scratch tone, toy pianos etc.
2. Composers who write "concert music", ie for musicians, singers, choirs, orchestras etc. Composing this type of music is usually done with notation software (or by hand!) and software libraries are mainly for playback.
My guess is that among professional VSL users 90-95% belongs to the first category.
I seriously doubt that VSL will spend time and money to develop a library that will interest only 5-10% of their customers. I hope I'm wrong.
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I seriously doubt that VSL will spend time and money to develop a library that will interest only 5-10% of their customers. I hope I'm wrong.
I do worry about the same thing. However, VSL also takes pride in being the biggest and best sample library available. So, with other sample libraries offering these timbral extensions to the traditional instruments, I doubt VSL wants to be seen as "lacking" in *any* category. If you're going to be the best, you've got to be the best. Period! Right?😉
And besides, it's not as though these techniques are relegated to use only in concert music - they definitely have applications in action, horror, suspense, and so on.
J.
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@jbm said:
And besides, it's not as though these techniques are relegated to use only in concert music - they definitely have applications in action, horror, suspense, and so on.Well, we all know that the best way to compose a really horrifying cue is to write something really "contemporary"... [;)]
/A
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one day not too far in the future, a bloke who hardly knows the difference between a minor and augmented triad in the root position, composes something better then Krzysztof Penderecki by accident real-time musical interactions with this IRCAM samples from the fifties...
http://www.univers-sons.com/player/player.php?id=3734
.
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You are most astute in prophecying this. Rita, and one must proceed to ask the question: why can that bloke do that, when that same bloke could never, in the entire procession of cosmological decades to come (after the last of the protons decay and the black holes have all evaporated) ever write something better than Beethoven (or Hlidegard von Bingen for that matter) ?
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why can that bloke do that, when that same bloke could never, in the entire procession of cosmological decades to come (after the last of the protons decay and the black holes have all evaporated) ever write something better than Beethoven (or Hlidegard von Bingen for that matter) ?
huh? (yet again)... "better" (yet again)... Well, aside from that statement being pure fantasy, the process of composing has changed entirely in 50 years, not to mention 200+ years. I certainly hope nobody today, or in the foreseeable future can speak Beethoven's or von Bingen's language better than they could - that would put a whole new meaning to the word anachronism. And just to bring that point home, von Bingen could also never have composed "something better" than Beethoven, if you allow Beethoven to become the benchmark for a moment. And it's not likely Beethoven could have composed "something better" than Penderecki, if you use Penderecki as the benchmark. For that matter, it's beyond highly unlikely that Beethoven could have composed "something better" than von Bingen. He wasn't dedicated at birth to the church, and probably couldn't sing his way out of a karaoke bar. Beethoven was great at composing music of his time, using the tools of his time, as was von Bingen, and Penderecki... The sounds von Bingen, Beethoven, and Penderecki were making were new to all of them. They were searching for something, and music was the medium in which they searched. Whether it's your own voice, a piano, or a computer, that search comes from the same place, and has essentially the same objectives, I think... The real point is that nobody today can ever **hear** music in the same way as von Bingen or Beethoven, or for that matter Penderecki. We can imitate, and pretend that we do, but that's when we start digging down into the truly mediocre. And I'm not talking about the avant-garde, so please don't get started on that... In his best moments Arvo Part is speaking a truly personal language, which miraculously, in spite of its absolute simplicity, blatant tonality, harmonic clarity, and so on, manages to be totally *of his time*... And many have tried to compose "something better" than him, and have failed. There's no prescription for being of one's time, no checklist, there's only the search...
Anyway, "Rita's" post also suggests that the techniques we're talking about are somehow specific to composing "in the style of" Penderecki, which is obviously just her being controversial, since I know she's EDIT--> *not so lacking* in knowledge and imagination. Your "bloke" will not likely compose "something better" than Penderecki, Beethoven, or von Bingen, looking at it from the narrow frame of the achievements of each. But hopefully he'll compose something worthwhile, that a reasonable number of people will understand to be of some significance... The most difficult thing is to figure out how one can be *of* one's time - not ahead of it, and not behind it. And, for better or worse, the computer is most definitely becoming the instrument of our time. But what's so interesting about the computer, and its application to the compositional process today (and probably continuing into the future), is that it doesn't *necessarily* have to be the medium of performance. I mean, I know this was true of Beethoven's piano, as well, but there's something different about the role of the computer... It can be involved in the process *only*, if the composer has a reasonably developed knowledge of how to use it. I guess it's a bit like knowing music theory, but it has the capacity to include all that, and go far beyond it... But I'm getting into a whole new discussion, so I'll leave it for now.
J.