Legato samples - confused me

[MAJ]

Hello everyone,

I'm little bit cunfused by legato samples and their using. What exactly does this mean?

Lets says Strings. On the viollin, if I'm playing legato notes, I play the same bow - not changing up and down. If I have two slurged notes, I play them with same direct (up/down). How to do this in the library? Shuld I place legato articulation befor the first note? It has no sense, because I can make different articulation on first note too (Sfz, or fp, for example). And legato is about the fact, how to merge two notes. So if I set legato before the first note, I can't set articulation for this first note.

OK, so, shuld I use legato articulation switching before the second note? Will this sound as legato? And there is very same problem with articulation of the second note too. What if this second note shuld be short (staccato), or flagoleto (harm)? How to solve this?

I can make layer of different samples, but if I use this, there is twice more played musicians at the moment, right?

Can you explain this to me, please?

I'm sending concrete piece of music, here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B6UNH59lz50nNU05eG5yaDU0b2M

Which articulation (Keyswitch) do you use for these notes? First note it staccato, second is legato, then staccato, legato, staccato? This is first bar. There is repetition 3-times. And the last bar: 4-times legato, sustain, 3-times legato?

All the best, Martin

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hello Martin

I can't really answer your question. Music with samples doesn't work the way you want to know. The way should be: Try to get to know the sound of all your samples and chose then the one which is closest to your idea as musician. So the start of a group of 4 notes which "are joined" with a legato bow could be with a détaché long -, with a sustain -, with a sfz - or even with a dim - sample.

The best approach is: Forget all the names and indications of the samples and use them because they have the sound you are looking for. I know this isn't a good solution if you are using samples in connection with a score program - as it seems to be. So this is probably a disadvantage of using samples with Finale, Sibelius etc. Who would start a couple of legato-notes with a diminuendo?

I mentioned above that you get to know the sound of your samples. I would go even farther: You should to get the sound of all the samples + the sound of all their different levels (layers).

Listen to the Solo Violin "détaché long vib" p, mf, f, ... sound equal, the sound of the ff-sample contains in addition a really expressive vibrato... it sounds quite different. So sometimes just this sound is really good to start such a couple of legoto-eights for giving an accent to the very first note.

If you are new to VSL-Libraries I would try a lot of such combinations to get more familar. I did it once for my self.

Listen to the short example. Just combinations of staccato, détaché short, détaché long and legato.

Here is the use of the practice above.

A lot of success

Beat

[noldar12]

From your questions, it is not clear to me if you have read the VI manual in detail or not.  If not, doing so might prove to be helpful.

There really is not any "correct" answer when it comes to setting up keyswitches.  For my own situation, the best solution was to create a custom matrix for each instrument as needed.

As for the legato samples, what makes them different from many other samples is that they include a release sample.  IMO, you can think of legato samples not only in terms of slurring, but also in terms of smooth bow changes.  Also, in general, using dynamic samples when appropriate will help with realism, rather than strictly relying on CC 11 and to some extent CC 7.

Beat is surely correct in that what sounds best is best, and that may, or may not, be connected to any given sample name.  Sometimes what sounds best may not be what one would ordinarily expect.

[MAJ]

Hello, Thank you very much, both! Martin