Performance Set and MIDI Playback

[Stazle]

I'm considering purchasing the performance set, but am unclear as to how it works. I hate the popping when notes change with normal libraries, and I assume that's what the performance set solves, but how does it work?

I'd like to be able to playback a MIDI file and have legato passages sound realistic, along with accented and staccato sections. Does the performance set / tool automatically do this for you? IE: if I load the perf. set trumpet instrument and play a file with legato leaps and staccato notes, it will automatically "work"??? I guess what I'm asking is "what is involved in creating the realistic playback that is present in the individual instrument demos?"

Sorry for the newbie question, but any info would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks!
Dave

[Craig Sharmat]

@Another User said:

I'd like to be able to playback a MIDI file and have legato passages sound realistic, along with accented and staccato sections. Does the performance set / tool automatically do this for you? IE: if I load the perf. set trumpet instrument and play a file with legato leaps and staccato notes, it will automatically "work"??? I guess what I'm asking is "what is involved in creating the realistic playback that is present in the individual instrument demos?"

Hi Dave,

When playing midi into a sequencer nothing could be easier than using the legato tool, just play and that's it...done. Midi files on the other hand are not so easy. Why? It has to do with the durations of notes. In the legato tool a legato note is triggered as you hold down the earlier note. If the duration on the midi file does not overlap the triggering of the new note it will play but not a legato note. It may fair Ok on accents but every library has differnt velocity layers so you can't be sure the original midi file will correspond with VSL velocities. Also you will need to seperate your staccato notes to a staccato patch....there is no way for for the library to know your intent. If or when it can read music and adjust itself to that, i will invite it to cook dinner for me.

[gungnir]

@Another User said:

In the legato tool a legato note is triggered as you hold down the earlier note. If the duration on the midi file does not overlap the triggering of the new note it will play but not a legato note

Now this sounds rather ominous. Craig, does this mean you cannot utilize the legato tool in a sequencer or notation program without overlapping notes? I have always assumed you can get full benefit from the performance set using sequencers instead of realtime input from a midi controller. Am I wrong?

There's no way I would want to start messing with note durations in this regard as I'm trying to simplify things at this stage, not add more tedious programming tasks.

Could somebody clarify the necessary steps involved should one wish to use the legato tool with a notation program, and in a sequencer?


Thanks in advance,
Don

[KingIdiot]

The performance tool works on a timer, that can be adjusted to each players nuance.

You can have it respond to big delays between notes if you're not a great player, or from little to no delay between notes

Notes dont have to be overlapped. A new note jsut has to start withing the e"timer range" for the tool to recognize it as a legato performance.

Its all down to milliseconds. Not seconds BTW [:)]

[Sapkiller]

As King wrote - no overlap is required - just a reasonable tight fit btw
the notes. If you're using cakewalk ther's a nifty little CAL function that
will do the job for you. Just select the group of notes destined to be
played legato, choose 'Run Cal' and use the CAL called Legato.cal
It will fix the note lenght so ther's no overlap, neither a gap betw notes.
I don´t know if there's a similar function in other seq.s though I believe
Logic can do it.

[William]

This is a response to Hammersmith and Gungnir -

The performance tool legato does all the calculating/programming steps required for playing the legato and nothing has to be adjusted after the fact unless you want to change it. The overlapping notes are not a problem because it is a natural keyboard playing technique to overlap them slightly for a legato effect anyway. You can just play, and get it sounding the way you want, and if that is what is recorded on the sequencer it will work perfectly.

You can mix in short notes to a legato line simply by playing short notes, but they will only be the legato instrument stopping and starting. So to get authentic staccato samples mixed with legato you would use a separate track with a staccato instrument.

The only difficulty is if you already have a sequencer recording for an old sampler that you are trying to adapt to the VSL. I did that recently with a forty minute long symphony I had recorded with Miraslav Vitous samples on the Emulator and it took several weeks to get it to play on the VSL because it was almost like re-recording the entire thing. But if you are recording something new specifically for the VSL/performance tool it is much easier and faster.

William

[Jim Rowell]

Gungnir:

I know you use Sibelius, so do I. The legato tool works great. I have the note durations set to 100% in Sibelius, but I'm not sure that makes a great deal of difference. You just write it, load a legato patch, set up the tool and hit "P". It sounds absolutely real. I'm a university-trained clarinet player and I did some a-b comparisons between the VSL legato clarinet patches and me. No difference. The keys click where they do on a real clarinet, the difficult intervals sound difficult (as they are) and it is simply real.

Regards,

Jim Rowell

[Jean]

@Jim Rowell said:

The keys click where they do on a real clarinet, the difficult intervals sound difficult (as they are) and it is simply real.

Jim, thanks for restating that point. There are a few misguided people who believe the legato functionality sounds absolutely fake (who also happen to praise QLSO into high heaven, what a coincidence), thanks for setting them straight. [;)]

[Jim Rowell]

Jean:

It is the exact opposite of fake. I have written some very exposed music for woodwind quartet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon) and the legato passages are stunningly real. I have played some of this for other woodwind players and they can't believe it's not real. My big wish is that we could switch the mode of the performance tool with a midi control message, i.e., legato to thru or repetition mode. Then I could write a clean and realistic score and not bother to have a separate clarinet stave for legato or other performance modes. I know there is a workaound using Sonar (which I have), by moving the legato passage to a separate track, but it's a pain and I'm not able to hear what a composition really sounds like while I'm writing it in Sibelius. I haven't heard EWQL. I'm on a 56k connection and haven't downloaded the demos. But using the Room Simulator and Ernest's impulses in Samplitue with these samples yields a result that I would be very surprised if that library could touch.

Take care,

Jim Rowell

[Stazle]

Thank you for all the feedback. I have two questions:

1) I compose music using "freeze-time" recording (ie: I press the note/chord I want and then hit "5" for quarternote). Will the performance tool work appropriately when PLAYING this midi file through Finale? Also, when going from legato to staccato, can't I just enter a program change to the staccato performance tool patch? Or does the performance tool not respond to MIDI controller commands?

2) Jim, how do you get realistic concert hall acoustics after digitizing the performed midi file? For instance, "I use Program X with the following filters and settings... etc etc.... then I put everything into Program Y and adjust A, B, and C with the following parameters... etc." Thanks again!

Dave

[Nick Batzdorf]

The default Legato Tool settings work perfectly for me - you hold down one note and play the next if you want legato, or leave a gap if you don't. I wish everything involved with performing samples was as natural as that.

[Jim Rowell]

Dave:

Nick answered part of your question. As for playback on Finale, I don't use it so I can't be sure. But using Sibelius, playback is perfect. I don't use a keyboard, I just write the notes in the score. With the proper performance patch loaded and the legato tool in place between Sibelius and GS, I just hit play and it plays legato. No tweaking, importing into sequencer, etc. For the concert hall ambience, I import the midi file from Sibelius into Sonar. Then I record each track separately using the capture to wave feature of GS (Sonar will send midi start messages, so everything is synchronized). I then move the resulting audio files to Samplitude and assign each section, i.e., 1st violins, 2nd violins, etc., to its own aux bus. I use Cakewalk's FX3 (Soundstage) for placement in the hall, then apply the Concert Hall 1 impulse from the GOS update to the master, and sometimes, as with percussion, add a little to the aux bus. You have to be careful with the FX3 to capture only positioning and early reflections, but this can work very well. If you do it correctly, the resulting sound compares favorably with a commercial orchestra cd. As Peter Alexander has noted, Samplitude has the best audio engine on the planet and with these samples and Ernest's impulse, it is fantastic. You can't just change patches to switch off the legato tool. It stays on and if you use a regular patch, such as staccato, it will play but an octive higher and some notes won't sound. You will need a separate track for cube instruments, and I hope the VSL team will give us another option soon. But whether they can do that or not, the bottom line is that the performance set is revolutionary and the closest anyone has come yet to getting a "real" performance from a computer and samples.

Good luck,

Jim Rowell