Sometimes I'm working on some cues or tracks and I like to have everything at my fingertips.. I want to be totally focused on the music... Looking for articulations doesn't help me in those circumstances.
Now we all know that in reality writing music is always also reinventing the procedure of writing as well, but to cut things short, I could generalise my way of using the library like this:
When the main stuff is done, I will gradually dig deeper through the 'production' & will usually prioritize on parts that require the most 'fixing'.
Fixing can be indefinate but there's a point where you simply have to stop and deliver the music to who ever has to pick up on the job or just switch to another job or cue..
Personnally my experience has made me realise that the better my 'all' patches are, the less fixing I have to do afterwards... Again I'm being schematic here, but just to illustrate my point, here's an excellent real life example that happened this afternoon.
Earlier today I loaded a "basic all" solo viola (or violin or cello) I can't remember exactly...I'll check when I get back to work tomorrow. I was composing a quick snippet for a portion of a commercial.
Well, the patch had 2 velocity layers per articulation.. I played for 20 secs, clearly understood that 2 layers wasn't enough for me at that time. And I'm afraid I then turned to another library.... And found an 'all-round' patch that performed really well. The line was done in 3 min. & I didn't have to load any other patch or fix anything at all.
Frankly I would've preferred samples recorded on the silent stage but there was no way I wasn't gonna go the quickest way on this job..
I agree there may indeed be sometimes when the the fact you're using an 'all' patch is going to influence your musical idea... And it's a good idea to keep an eye on this phenomena.. I know I try to..
There's a kind of natural balance to find..
A good counter example is that I will sometimes load a very specific patch with a precise instrumental technique or something of the like even though I don't know exactly what I'm gonna play on it.
It's just my instinct that's bringing me to it ... It pops to my mind that I should use it at that point of my work. It'll sometimes work very well, sometimes not that well at all. [:D]
Also, King's comment on 'practicing' is a good one. I think with VSL the more you use it the faster you work. (Using it is also practicing). Maybe there WAS a VSL patch I missed this afternoon. I just went where it seemed the fastest easiest way .... 1 patch for writing + 3 patches for 'fixing' was not an option..
King Idiot :
@Another User said:
not to mention you might see other options that they've been planning show up that will kill your need for "generic" patches.
As I was saying, that's exactly what I hope (& trust) they'll do.. So why are we actually waisting our time on the subject of velocity layers...[[;)]]
Untill then, even though I agree more velocities doesn't 'necessarily' equate to more playability (michi's point on sequencing is a good one), in many cases I feel it actually really does provide more playability (By this I mean more depth in the reactivity of the samples thus more expression for an equal effort in the execution)...
Obviously I don't care much about the quality I'm only looking for a great 'return' and a minimum of mouse clicks.... ...... [6]