What is happening here is that for the first time, one begins finally to stop critically listening to samples, and instead allows himself to listen to the actual music. And of course this represents a milestone in using samples to create music, you are at long last relieved of the gruesome task of working to convince yourself that it is starting to sound real, because now, it simply does sounds real. You enjoy dwelling on the timbral and expressive character of those individual notes, for example in the case of that exquisite clarinet.

But the myth of virtual orchestration will not be irrefutably dispelled until several works from the literature are produced to allow comparison. For example, Maarten's very attractive "Moonlight Dance" bears considerable resemblance to the opening of the First Symphony by Sibelius. If some of this movement was produced as a demo, and if one could then sit back and enjoy it as an aesthetic episode, we could finally conclude that we can indeed achieve an acceptable level of realism for our projects, for the first time ever.

Congratulations Maarten on your work, they are delightful reveries and extremely well done both technically and in regards to inspiration.

Gungnir

Maarten,

The short pieces you produced are excellent! You've really used the expressiveness of the samples, and your music is very fine and imaginative.

I completely agree with previous post of Gungnir about how one stops worrying about the samples and actually pays attention to THE MUSIC! That's the whole point, and it has taken this long to finally get down to it.

On the technical side the legato clarinet of the "Moonlit Dance" is unbelievably good. Nobody would believe that wasn't a real soloist prior to this library. This has made me only more impatient and anxious to get the performance tools, which I'm still waiting for...

Maarten,

I just did listen to your demo. CONGRATULATIONS! Beautiful and sounds very convincing. It did help me very much in my decision to purchase the library .

[:D]

Thanks

Igor

Whoa!
These demos are amazing! Great composition, wide range of styles. Maarten has done this site a great service.
I have one problem now creeping up on me after hearing them. This is the first time I have ever said this: From now on, I will always have to question whether what I am hearing is a real orchestra or sampled material. And I don't think I'm exactly easy to fool. Of course, until everyone starts using VSL, it shouldn't be too big of a deal . . . [[;)]]
This is good. Now instead of thinking "Wow, that's really close to sounding real" now I can just sit back and enjoy.

~Chris

Maarten,

[[:|]] Those demos not only nicely show off the VSL, but they are also excellent music!
I especially like the Msp Camouflage piece. Wonderful work!

Fulkren

Maarten,
Excellent music! Just out of curiousity, what sort of hardware config do you have? How many GSs are you using? Just wondering as I plan out my own system. Thanks!

~Chris

Wonderful. You all can´t see me, but I´m here laughing on my own because it sounds so ridiculously good I can´t convince myself it isn´t a live orchestra.

As for the four pieces, I think "Camouflage" had a lot of tension and was VERY well orchestrated, but I was really surprised and impressed by the sheer beauty of "The Moonlit Dance". That´s something special in my humble opinion.

ARGH!! I got save the money to buy this!! [:D]


EDIT: And of course we must congratulate Maarten Spruijt for this superb job.

Thank you all, very much!

I must say, it was absolutely HEAVENLY to compose these demos with VSL... you actually here your music come to live while working. With every part I recorded over an existing one, live on the keyboard, there goes this shiver down your spine... the performance legato patches really are THE big step from typical midi-mockup* to 100%-acceptable. Like some way: music is between the notes. The subtle breaths, glisses, slides, clicks, tongues...

You don't listen to the midi anymore.
What has been said above is very true - it's more about the music now, the notes, the composition, the orchestration. Of course you still have to make a good mix, same goes for a real orchestra obviously, but the great performances of the individual instruments are there to begin with!

Galleddrim (is that a Tolkien name or something?) - these demos were played back by only one Gigastudio PC, 768 MB RAM. I did however use multiple bounces on the "Camouflage" piece, because it used the biggest patches, a lot of performance legatos. They eat quite some RAM. The other 3 demos range from 15 ("The Moonlit Dance") to about 25 ("Turning Tide") midi tracks. So not that much, to get a full embodied sound. The reverb used is Lexicon MPX500, with different orchestral ambience layers setup (busses) throughout the orchestra (close, mid, far).

As we all know the VSL samples are recorded in a controlled environment and don't have any ambience tails. You could call them dry. This is NOT the same as close! They haven't been recorded too close, but (from my user experience) at just the right distance, so you don't get too much close-mic'ed instrument artifacts, which make it difficult to get them sound further away. The VSL samples seem to have just some more distance (not too far either), and therefore respond great to external reverb. You can move them around just the way you want. So VSL being dry is not an issue! I wanted to bring up this point myself, because I've read too much negative posts on forums (of non-owners!) about VSL being too dry or close.

Thank you all very much for the nice compliments!
I will continue writing VSL demos!

Take care,

Maarten


* hence: without the #

Well, I can't stand it anymore... the restraint from putting another charge on my credit card specifically to pre-order and now order this library has been overwhelming... [[:|]]

As an amateur, weekend and evening composer, I think I may have a good chance now on properly scoring and hearing what the heck I'm doing... ie, String sections, etc. (Having never bought a sample set before, boy am I lucky the VSL is here now when I'm ready to get one, as it presents truly the samples for the type of music I like to compose.)

But I must say Goobye NY totally sold me. Hearing a Vieneese trombone sample doing the "Glen Miller sound", with kit and brushes put big smiles on this American's face.

Well done.

Herb for the whole project.... danke sehr... I can't believe how excited I am by this project. It's almost like cheating the sytem... getting such high quality symphonic sounds can be possible from my own desktop!!!
Consequently this will inspire me, with that feeling of "cheating the system" to make sure I do stick to my music education... and not just compose for "effect" or MIDI cheesyness. If that makes sense. If the music doesn't work, it probably will be that much more obvious with this library, I bet.

I don't know what people are complaining about. Dry is good. With ambience and reverb tails on the samples, you would never be able to get it to sound the way you want it to sound. With dry sounds you can add the reverb yourself using whatever software or hardware you feel should be used.
I can appreciate this as I do recording of classical soloists and choirs. Believe me, I would rather record a dry-sounding track and add reverb myself than have ambience bouncing totally out of control. Of course, if you can control the ambient environment to begin with, that's ideal . . .

~Chris


P.S. Maarten, "Galleddrim" is a Tolkienesque name of my own invention. Also a main character of a story I've been writing since . . . oh, the sixth grade.

Addendum: I have one gripe about the demos. I wish they were encoded at a higher bitrate. No matter what anybody says, 128kbps is not CD quality. I can hear the compression distortion all too clearly when listening to the demos. I use at least 192kbps when I encode any music from my personal listening, and usually higher bitrate for orchestral or choral.

ABSOLUTELY!
I almost forgot to state it!. Aren´t we talking about sound quality here? Nothing less tan 192 kbps should be use for demos. At 128 I can tell they´re loosing a lot. It´s VERY noticiable. Please fix that, excellsious VSL people [:)]

Maarten,

excellent, congratulations! I, for one, cannot tell the difference between a real orchestra and a VSL midi orchestration! On the same note, here is another demo using VSL:

http://finjaco.home.online.no/Jazz2k_-_Remembering_The_Past.mp3
(taken from: http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=3;t=004182 a wonderful forum!)

Next week a download for the uncompressed wav files will be available.

all the best
Herb

@brownhunter said:

Consequently this will inspire me, with that feeling of "cheating the system" to make sure I do stick to my music education... and not just compose for "effect" or MIDI cheesyness. If that makes sense. If the music doesn't work, it probably will be that much more obvious with this library, I bet.

Yeah, this is very true!

Working with VSL actually makes you think about orchestration! You have to, else it won't work, just like working with a real ensemble. VSL gives you like natural, very expressive instruments and players. It's up to you to make the musical and technical balance.

I think VSL not only forces 'beginners' to study orchestration, it probably also gives you a much better idea of what a composition will sound like with a real ensemble (e.g. later on in a project, with VSL used for the midi mockup).

Take care,

Maarten