William, all very intersting! As a piano player, dynamics are always virtual for me. We invented embellishments to fake long and evolving notes!

I still have the feeling that short notes (longer than spiccato) still contain some "direction". But I should trust a wind player much more than my impressions!

So, I'll switch to what I'm used to do. Modulation for dynamics on long notes, Expression for nuance, Velocity for dynamics on short notes.

My presets are always set to have short notes controlled by the global settings of the preset. I've never been convinced to force them to Velocity on a cell base. Anyway, the on/off switch for Vel X-Fade is a good compromise between speed and flexibility.

Paolo

Thank you, Paolo for sharing your work and thanks to both you and William for the detailed technical discussion that is immensely helpful.  It's always interesting to see the different workflows and strategies for utilizing virtual instruments, and you both have some great suggestions.

As for Bruckner, I can't help but laugh every time I hear his name, as I'm reminded of a silly story from my university days when I was a (reluctant) choir member and we sang his Te Deum.  The good ol' days for me :)

Cheers!

Dave

@Acclarion said:

As for Bruckner, I can't help but laugh every time I hear his name, as I'm reminded of a silly story from my university days when I was a (reluctant) choir member and we sang his Te Deum.  The good ol' days for me 😊

Poor Bruckner, that humble man! Even the choir kids are making fun of him!

Cheers!
Paolo

And this is the version made with the full version VSL. A lot more work, due to much more finesse to which one has to take care of.

This is the last rehearsal before the dress rehearsal.

Bruckner - Seventh Symphony - Scherzo (VSL Full) (AIFF)

Bruckner - Seventh Symphony - Scherzo (VSL Full) (MP3)

Here is a version without final reverb and limiting. It should sound more transparent:

Bruckner - Seventh Symphony - Scherzo (no final FX) (AIFF)

Paolo

I'm particularly interested in this thread because I regard Bruckner as the God of symphonists (and the idea that he was a simpleton is increasingly coming under question in more modern research). Mahler comes close in no. 10 and obviously Beethoven in especially 3 and 6 but taken as a series, nothing can for me match Bruckner's consistency and depth of inspiration, He is also the main influence on my own modest symphonic output. For full orchestra, I only have the VSL special edition and it's precisely on dynamics and clarity that I have considerable difficulty when compoing through notation software -- Sibelius but with a recent switch to Dorico.

I have never been able to get what you have achieved here, Paolo,  but I imagine there is a good deal of DAW tweaking? There are a few things which are unbalanced or sound a little artificial but in general I'm certainly impressed. The difference between the full version and the SE is actually less than I'd been expecting even though it's audibly there.

I can find purely in notation that using the sforzato articulation, there is a bit more attack to the sound but like many others (not you), I still find it a bit flabby and lacking in transparency. This https://app.box.com/s/sjh2nfenomxxs772y4kfwb4wq02f4ns7 is a fairly short example from my most recent symphony. It would almost certainly be worse using any other sample library from my experience. Grosser Saal accoustic used.

I have to say, and this will probably be contentious, that for orchestral works where rhythmic drive and clarity and more important than purely accuracy and distictiveness of sound, that I prefer using NotePerformer which uses only a modest sample base to drive its modelling algorithms. This is not because NP is objectively better -- it isn't and they're not really comparable anyway -- but becuase it requires far less work and knowledge. Here   https://app.box.com/s/8kosap44lcjqgdnrxxe7xcbzmsgbjl2x  is another scherzo example from my 8th symphony which (unlike 12 which has a different remit taken as a whole) got its initial impetus from Bruckner 7 so I request indulgence in posting it here as there is a clear connection.

I'm interested in a) are there other things I can do purely at a notation level with inscore CC's allowed to boost the impact and clarity, so to speak of music like this using VSL SE? Is it really necessary to tweak every note in the string ostinati for instance? b) do others feel as I do that the NP rendering is somehow more alive? You might say apples and oranges but I no longer have the VSL version of no. 8 for direct comparison.

David

David, just a short note to thank you for listening!

I'll be back with some more thoughts on your stimulating post shortly.

EDIT: I think the link to your second example is broken.

Paolo

Paolo that sounds way better!  It has that dramatic quality Bruckner created.  One little thing I noticed was you can make at least some of those accented notes shorter.  Often that is a way to accent a note, because the attack is more exposed.  So, like a written quarter note actually being played a dotted 8th or even just an 8th.  Players will often cheat the actual written note values esp;ecially on rhythmic passages.    

Anyway - now you have to do the whole symphony!  Have fun  - I'll see you in a year.    

" I regard Bruckner as the God of symphonists " - lunar

Excellent comment.  To me - and this is only a personal preference - the greatest are Bruckner, Mahler, Vaughn-Williams and Beethoven.  

(Though as before one can keep going with the list...)

@PaoloT said:

David, just a short note to thank you for listening!

I'll be back with some more thoughts on your stimulating post shortly.

EDIT: I think the link to your second example is broken.

Paolo

Strange -- looks like something went wrong with the original hyperlink. Pls. paste in this -- tests OK to me

https://app.box.com/s/8kosap44lcjqgdnrxxe7xcbzmsgbjl2x

David, I could listen to both examples. I understand how much Bruckner influenced you, despite a more modern harmony! It's music that can flow contiously between powerful and meditative, with vast areas of light and shadow. Orchestral colour is really a fundamental ingreadient of your music!

I like NotePerformer for how immediately it allows one to make a clear image of the music. Its artificial intelligence has really great musical taste, and can render any style in a very musical way. I have however a couple reservations on it for my personal use: first of all, the more dense the orchestral texture become, the least realistic it is. Great for small ensembles, however.

The second reservation is that it lacks extended techniques. I hope sooner or later an expansion pack will arrive, with more techniques. If one doen't need them, no problem. If there is considerable use of them, NP can't translate the score.

Making a rather realistic rendition of a score with sample libraries is a lot of work, sadly. I guess that more expert musicians can work faster than me, and achieve great results in a limited time. I think it can be done, and this heavy work can be – admittedly – also very fun!

Paolo

@William said:

One little thing I noticed was you can make at least some of those accented notes shorter.  Often that is a way to accent a note, because the attack is more exposed. […]

Anyway - now you have to do the whole symphony!  Have fun  - I'll see you in a year.    

William, excellent hints, as usual! I'll revise it to increase contrast.

While I may not render the full symphony, I would like to at least make the full Scherzo. It is a concentrate of Bruckner!

Paolo

@PaoloT said:

I like NotePerformer for how immediately it allows one to make a clear image of the music. Its artificial intelligence has really great musical taste, and can render any style in a very musical way. I have however a couple reservations on it for my personal use: first of all, the more dense the orchestral texture become, the least realistic it is. Great for small ensembles, however.

Interesting what you say here about NP, Paolo. My take is that for dense orchestral texture, it usually provides an admirable clarity but on the other hand makes any "holes" in the score clearer and can lose something of the atmosphere or warmth of sound. With my 12th symphony as a whole, VSL creates the atmosphere of the whole a bit better.

Bruckner is clearly present in all of my symphonies even where the initial inspration may have been quite different. The trilogy 10-12 is rather more "post-romantic" with composers like Silvestrov or Weinberg being models but yet Bruckner so often dominates in scherzi or slow movements. Hope you do manage to get the whole of the Bruckner 7 scherzo done. What is the source for your score? If there are scores availalble in Sibelius or Dorico format, I might one day be tempted to try my hand ppaurely as a "conductor" rather than a composer/conductor.

William's suggestion is also interesting. I wonder indeed whether Dorico, which naturally shortens many notes other than legato as default, would automatically create more drive with VSL SE than the same score in Sibelius? Perhaps a little experiment is in order!

@Another User said:

I wonder indeed whether Dorico, which naturally shortens many notes other than legato as default, would automatically create more drive with VSL SE than the same score in Sibelius?

I wonder if notes are shortened, in Dorico, only for NP. I would myself prefer if for ordinary libraries it preserved the performance information shown in the Play mode. This would really make Dorico a replacement for a DAW.

Paolo