Hi Stephen,
This sounds very well indeed. And although I understand your point about some more vibrato in the last part, there is a lot of expression in it, what I really like. And I like also the very vivid, some aggressive approach of the first part. You hear the grip of the bow on the strings very well. Here I hear real string players, playing with a lot of passion a beautiful piece of Tsjaikovsky! Thanks for sharing.
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Trem at the end, yes.
@Everyone else interested...
Overall tone production:
So, I am convinced that the Synchron Strings, as a matter of how to mix, are more similar to a real orchestra insofar as that EQ to fix a "problem" causes another one somewhere else, and so lots of automation to make it work is needed. Instead, it is similar to a real orchestra in that properly dialed-in saturation and juicing the harmonic content make it sparkle, silky, etc. Parallel distortion on SOME of the mic positions draws out that close to the bridge/string rosin "wood" sound that I personally love. Also, parallel compression on the close mic positions rocks.
Since I'm using almost all 3rd party stuff, if VSL doens't mind, I can mention the emulations without the company who makes them:
- Culture Vulture
- SPL Twin Tube
- LA2A
- Vari-Mu
- Massive-Passive (just letting things lightly hit the tube)
- ATR-102
To tame some low freq, I used Vienna Suite Multiband on basses to tame low frequencies (again, so I don't cause problems with EQ).
No Synchron reverb was activated anywhere, instead I used MIRicle on a close/mid mic bus. (Synchron preset intended for Teledex, with the wet pulled down)
Oh, and I used every single mic from the full library.
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From 39s to 56s: very nice.
Woohoo! I'll take it from Guy Bacos! 🎉😃
As far as the 1st movement, that tone is fairly harsh, at least insofar as I can tell from this rehearsal (which is a nice recording in that there are basically no mics on the other instruments in a very dry room):
(start at 3:52)
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From 0s to 39s:
Distorted mess.
Stephen is quite right not to look for anything "nice" in this passage. Of course those are the parts where good traditional Orchestras likewise strive hard to get "dirty" and if you would present their realisation likwise picked out of the musical context it would often sound likewise kind of a "distorted mess" and I humbnly believe that is defenitly intended to do so..
However as I indicated I personally would tend to balance that impression with supporting the melodic relevant aspects.
IMHO even more interesting is still the question about the tremolo. While I would be not that afraid to search for a "dirty" sound. I would keep an eye for everything which might remind static automatism.
Stephen if you really already used for the last passage of the Movement I exsample the tremolopatch than perhaps that was what made me feel that it is a bit to static,
So perhaps this might be a good occasion to replace the tremolo with short notes in the tempo which is indicated for the Tremolo in the score. The Synchron Short are great for that and this will give you a much more detailed access to controle for instance dynamic developments or metric accents to make the impression musical more convincing. Just a guess and something worth to know about the strength of the Synchron shorts.
(As an exsample just listen to my latest Synchron-Project a Orchestral composition written 3 Years befor the Pathetique. while there are a lot tremolo passages notated I did not used any tremolopatch at all, all are fast Synchron shorts.)
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I really liked the whole thing. The strings and the performance sound really great to me to me, almost like a real performance. I dont care about distortion (much the same was as I wouldnt care for a 'distortion' froim a 1960 recording of Karajan), all I look for is fidelty to the quality of strings and natural sounding dynamcs, attach release. In fact I never thought Id be tempted to get synchron, but this clip is making me think again.
One interesting thing about the orchestration of the final movement (starting 00:40 in your clip). While studying this many years ago I noticed how Tchaikovsky, the genius he was in part writing, split the main melody into multiple divided strings. I.e., the melody is not played by any one string group, but 'shared' across divided first and second violins. In a live rendition this would create a nice spatial effect. I wonder if you tried to emphasize that.
Anyways it was a pleasure to hear this.
Cheers
Anand
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One interesting thing about the orchestration of the final movement (starting 00:40 in your clip). While studying this many years ago I noticed how Tchaikovsky, the genius he was in part writing, split the main melody into multiple divided strings. I.e., the melody is not played by any one string group, but 'shared' across divided first and second violins. In a live rendition this would create a nice spatial effect. I wonder if you tried to emphasize that.
Yes! The interlocking phrasing.
So, there is an argument that can be made for how the orchestra is actually set up, where you have 1sts at 9 o'clock, violas at 11 o'clock, cellos at 1 o'clock, and 2nds at 3 o'clock. You'd hear sort of a "stereo" emphasis if you were sitting in the center.
In this performance I used the typical set up and my only aim was to try and get it to sound real -- most time was dedicated to the tone of the strings, automating vibrato, and the transitions from note to note.
