What the people posting here do not understand is the distinction I'm making. If somebody can fake something more or less o.k. it is all the same to them.

20 years ago similar people tried to use analog synthesizers to fake an orchestra. It was a musical grotesquerie. Instead of using great analog synthesizers like the Moog for what they can do, which are their own timbre - these people ignored everything characteristic of that sound and crudely attempted to force an orchestra out of it.

Samples are not the same principle as this synthesized, deconstructed waveform. Samples are reality. A precise, perfected form of pure recording of orchestral tones.

If someone records a violinist playing, note by note, that is a musically useable sound. It is not artificial at all, it is simply fragmented. And then the composer puts together the fragments.

But this tampering with the waveform to produce sound that is like the original violin but now can be played in a different way - it is disgusting. Because the people "playing" this violin cannot play that instrument, know nothing of the difficulties involved, and simply tap like chimps at a keyboard, and smile as they hear the fakery.

I am disgusted by this vulgar distortion of sound and acoustics. It is the opposite of what the VSL stands for - a precise and complete representation of every sound that an orchestra makes with scrupulous and respectful attention paid to every characteristic of the instruments.

So I guess you're a bit of a purist then eh William? I respect your POV but I guess I'm more liberal minded about Synful. I just did a little demo of it and posted it, with others, at V.I. Control Index. I think this program has merits. I like how it can duplicate the expressiveness of an acoustic instrument. Is it as good as VSL legato instruments? Um, nope. They are warmer, richer and sound more organic. But I do respect what Eric is trying to do with Synful Orchestra which is move closer toward more expressiveness in the performance of a MIDI instrument. I think he needs to work on it more to get it to a point where someone like me would part with $700 (Canadian) for it though....

I am one of those "Old World" synth players who is "guilty as charged." The weekest part was the percussion, followed by reeds. I did get good results for 1980's standards.

I love the new world order in regards to VSL and EWQL. Give me another year to learn and it will have changed again by then. So I keep my Prophet 10 close by just in case it goes full circle. Raise the bar. Pull the string.

about that epitaph...

Zenzilla
[[:|]]

@Another User said:

At the end of the day, these are all musical tools and have the capability to produce similar results for which ever tool you choose to use.

In some ways, but overall I'm not so sure. You tend to respond to the programs under your fingertips. Or I should say that most people do; William would consider that vulgar.

In fact, William would probably consider the way I write vulgar: using a combination of playing and scribbling. But I have no problem admitting that my fingers find things my brain wouldn't, and v.v.

William, you'd really hate the Yamaha VL1. [:)]

@William said:

Because the people "playing" this violin cannot play that instrument, know nothing of the difficulties involved, and simply tap like chimps at a keyboard, and smile as they hear the fakery.

I am disgusted by this vulgar distortion of sound and acoustics.

So do you consider it vulgar to use samples of instrument unless one can play that instrument ? Can you play every instrument in the orchestra, or do you just restrict your use of samples just to the ones that you can play, for fear of being vulgar ?

"Disgusted" is a pretty strong word, and I don't think you really mean it. You might not like the sound or the idea ... but you're not disgusted.[/b]

Well, I have to say that I am very impressed with what I've heard from synful and am considering using it instead of VSL performance/pro. Why? Not because I think it sounds quite as good yet... but because it is *SO* much easier to compose using. I can do without the most convincing representation if I can compose easily.
THis is something I've been after for years... virtual instruments played by virtual players who apply their own skill to your piece without you having to micro-manage them.
I am very excited about this technology and hope - selfishly - that it doesn take off. These sample libraries are getting stupidly large now...

@jbm said:

hmmm... I don't really...

I found a couple of .pdfs I downloaded, at some point -- try these:

http://rubato-music.com/Media/Serra_SMS_97.pdf

http://rubato-music.com/Media/cardle_CMPC.pdf

I don't know if I can really leave these up, since I don't have any rights over them. But they were freely available when I downloaded them, so it shouldn't be a problem. It's funny... you'll notice that the first one is from way back in 97, and actually outlines the general type of synthesis used in Synful.

Anyway, there's much more out there... just Google!

J.

ps - check out this little bit of madness, while you're at it:

http://www.rubato-music.com/Media/leven.mp3

no... there's no Synful-ness in there, just pure VSL!

I have to say this piece sounds more fake than the pieces on the synful site...

Interesting posts coming now...

hehe, kind of funny to me, Nick, that you just said "real"... I guess that means "the music irritated the hell out of me, but the performance was convincing". [;)]
I'm not offended, though. I like that piece very much. Though I do hope you listened to the whole thing, and gave it a chance to move you... it's actually quite a beautiful piece, by the end.

William. I'm a little confused by your being "disgusted" with these technologies. I have to say that it seems a little harsh... But maybe you're just sitting on the far side of the line between representation and invention. But if what you're saying is well-founded, then it would presumably be an adequate musical endeavor for me to simply arrange all the samples in a sequence, and play them back, one after another... If that sounds absurd to you, then it stands to reason that the samples, in and of themselves, are not (yet) art... It is in combination that they come to life. A musical whole.

For me, if someone could find a way of completely atomizing the library, so that whichever sample best represented the musical idea I was after would be used when called for, that would be sheer perfection! Total flexibility is what I'm after. The ability to realize whatever musical idea I have to its utmost expressive potential. That's it. Obviously, we differ. And that's a good thing. We'll have to let VSL figure it out from there! [;)]

cheers,

J.

Really [paynterr]? You find this more "fake" than the Synful stuff? For me, the problem with the Synful pieces is in the staccato notes -- they really sound like truncated long notes, to me...

But I suppose it makes sense, considering the exaggerated use of ostinati -- the samples are literally repeated, in close proximity, a number of times. Maybe that's not what you're talking about... I don't know. Can you be more specific? To me, these instruments sound pretty real, but then, this is only my composing mock-up. So it's very hard for me to hear it objectively...

J.

okay, paynterr.

I just listened to it at low volume, and I have to admit that I know what you mean. To be quite honest, it seems to me that it is the result of a disparity between the original recorded volume of each sample, and the perceived amplitude of those samples in the final mix. Maybe some sort of compression could overcome this problem in the mix, but I'm not so sure. To me, it seems almost as though samples should all be recorded at an absolute amplitide, so that the natural differences in amplitude between the various instruments could be communicated directly to the listener. No more normalization during mastering!
I don't know if this would help, but I think it might...

J.

http://www.synful.com/index.htm

listening to the demos
I suspect the string quartet demo to be a real string quartet.
What do you think [*-)]:

@paynterr said:

Well, I have to say that I am very impressed with what I've heard from synful and am considering using it instead of VSL performance/pro. Why? Not because I think it sounds quite as good yet... but because it is *SO* much easier to compose using. I can do without the most convincing representation if I can compose easily.
THis is something I've been after for years... virtual instruments played by virtual players who apply their own skill to your piece without you having to micro-manage them.
I am very excited about this technology and hope - selfishly - that it doesn take off. These sample libraries are getting stupidly large now...

I agree. If you go to Sanctus Angelus website, there are more than a few little demos by composers (some reasonably well known too) trying their hand at this interesting new program. And it IS very easy to get ideas down. That "delay performance" tool seems to analyse the playing style and matches it. Without it, yes the samples or patches sound a little stiff. But press that button and you get smooth legatos, arcos, staccatos, etc. I don't think anyone is debating whether it's better than VSL though. VSL is beatiful. There isn't anything like it out there. And it's worth the money, every cent.

But to play devil's advocate for a second, say a person just wants a reasonable approximation of a sketch they wrote on say Finale. They import their file into Sonar, Logic or Cubase and boot up Synful. Without much finessing, they get a pretty darn good rendering of their piece. I know most conductor's or small ensembles appreciate having some kind of audio reference of a piece they've been given to play. I am going to keep my eyes and ears open to the developments in the genesis of Synful because it very well might be something to be reckoned with down the line.

@jbm said:

Really [paynterr]? You find this more "fake" than the Synful stuff? For me, the problem with the Synful pieces is in the staccato notes -- they really sound like truncated long notes, to me...

But I suppose it makes sense, considering the exaggerated use of ostinati -- the samples are literally repeated, in close proximity, a number of times. Maybe that's not what you're talking about... I don't know. Can you be more specific? To me, these instruments sound pretty real, but then, this is only my composing mock-up. So it's very hard for me to hear it objectively...

J.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the piece, but a well recorded sample lib like VSL could sound more fake, more easily than, say, this new synful tool. Why? Well, because synful creates what is essentially a unique sound with a each play of the key, it is a lot easier to get rid of the machine gun effect.
Although I agree that the quality of VSL is far superior, it cannot match the stitching together of notes that synful manages, therefore the quality can quickly give way to the expressiveness (or something like that) so that synful sounds more real.
I must admit, I love the idea of being able to have a single track per instrument/player in the orchestra and just letting them get on with playing the music I've written, me directing them roughly in the direction of how loud to play etc. but generally leaving the 'performance' up to them. ANd I'd like to see this work for ensembles too. Why not make ensembles from individual instruments, making them as large or small as you want. Follow the real-world analogies. You want 8 horns, then use 8 instruments. YOu want 50 string players, then there you go. It also means that when you split the orchestra, you don't have the problems you have at the moment. ANd since it is a case of cut-and-paste when it comes to giving them something to play (using a few random settings on each track to ensure they are slightly different to each other).
Compare this with the ever-increasing sample library size of VSL. This is probably out of place on VSL, but since I've already given them by 3.5k sterling...
Interestingly enough, I've never written as little music since getting VSL. THis is partly a function of using Halion and converting the samples, partly a function of Halion being buggy, but mainly a function of just having too much there in my face, too much choice. I think VSL was probably a mistake for me.
I am an IT Architect by profession and I hate to have to program my music too. That's my day job, not my hobby and that is what it feels like what with having to have multiple tracks just for the same legato instrument, not to mention multiple other tracks for other articulations, all loading into memory. For me, the complexity of VSL and the sheer choices I am given (not to mention having to run performance tool out of the DAW) is just too much hassle and actually puts me off using it.
There has to be a better way and I believe this is it... after all, some of these instruments are not that complicated to model, especially if you can do what convolusion reverbs do, that is sample the characteristics of the instrument rather than the actual notes.
Just my thoughts at the end of the year...
Happy new year to all here... and give a little thought and money to the SE Asia crisis if you can.

@jbm said:

Really [paynterr]? You find this more "fake" than the Synful stuff? For me, the problem with the Synful pieces is in the staccato notes -- they really sound like truncated long notes, to me...

But I suppose it makes sense, considering the exaggerated use of ostinati -- the samples are literally repeated, in close proximity, a number of times. Maybe that's not what you're talking about... I don't know. Can you be more specific? To me, these instruments sound pretty real, but then, this is only my composing mock-up. So it's very hard for me to hear it objectively...

J.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the piece, but a well recorded sample lib like VSL could sound more fake, more easily than, say, this new synful tool. Why? Well, because synful creates what is essentially a unique sound with a each play of the key, it is a lot easier to get rid of the machine gun effect.
Although I agree that the quality of VSL is far superior, it cannot match the stitching together of notes that synful manages, therefore the quality can quickly give way to the expressiveness (or something like that) so that synful sounds more real.
I must admit, I love the idea of being able to have a single track per instrument/player in the orchestra and just letting them get on with playing the music I've written, me directing them roughly in the direction of how loud to play etc. but generally leaving the 'performance' up to them. ANd I'd like to see this work for ensembles too. Why not make ensembles from individual instruments, making them as large or small as you want. Follow the real-world analogies. You want 8 horns, then use 8 instruments. YOu want 50 string players, then there you go. It also means that when you split the orchestra, you don't have the problems you have at the moment. ANd since it is a case of cut-and-paste when it comes to giving them something to play (using a few random settings on each track to ensure they are slightly different to each other).
Compare this with the ever-increasing sample library size of VSL. This is probably out of place on VSL, but since I've already given them by 3.5k sterling...
Interestingly enough, I've never written as little music since getting VSL. THis is partly a function of using Halion and converting the samples, partly a function of Halion being buggy, but mainly a function of just having too much there in my face, too much choice. I think VSL was probably a mistake for me.
I am an IT Architect by profession and I hate to have to program my music too. That's my day job, not my hobby and that is what it feels like what with having to have multiple tracks just for the same legato instrument, not to mention multiple other tracks for other articulations, all loading into memory. For me, the complexity of VSL and the sheer choices I am given (not to mention having to run performance tool out of the DAW) is just too much hassle and actually puts me off using it.
There has to be a better way and I believe this is it... after all, some of these instruments are not that complicated to model, especially if you can do what convolusion reverbs do, that is sample the characteristics of the instrument rather than the actual notes.
Just my thoughts at the end of the year...
Happy new year to all here... and give a little thought and money to the SE Asia crisis if you can.

@Laurent said:

http://www.synful.com/index.htm

listening to the demos
I suspect the string quartet demo to be a real string quartet.
What do you think [*-)]:

It is not a fake... if you download the demo, the midi for that piece comes with it, so you can try it out yourself

If anyone's interested, here's a little thing I knocked out last night with this program:

http://www.sanctusangelis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=649

Nick

You shifted the topic to make your point. You have a habit of doing that don't you? I like vulgar sounds too - just not when they are put out as representations of orchestral instruments.

drewbuchan
I never said one has to know how to play all the instruments! Though that would help. The more the better. However, a sample library like VSL is almost a complete education in orchestration, since it is broken down into fragments of notes and articulations, including almost everything the instruments do. The focus is always on the original instrument that was recorded. With the synthesizer however, it is purely a matter of striking a note on a keyboard and saying "hey! that sounds like a violin!" It emulates one, and gradually we get farther and farther away from that original real sound.

JBM

All right, disgusting is a little extreme. But no one ever responded to what I was saying - that a recording of a violin is still a violin. There is a direct connection with the actual instrument using samples. Especially ones as good as VSL. Suppose you have your perfectly "atomized" and reconstructed violin. What is that thing? A violin? Someone pretending to play a violin? Why should anyone listen to that? Why don't they just listen to a violin itself? They ARE doing that with samples, but not with an "atomized," deconstructed, reconstructed, synthetic emulation of a violin.

BTW Why isn't everyone here excited about the new availability of the Moog synthesizer? That instrument is a pure synthesizer. But no one here cares in the slightest. Why? Very simple - it isn't viewed any more as a substitute for an orchestra. It is too original and unique a sound for anyone here to be interested in because it doesn't produce the same tones everyone has heard a million times. Hmm... That seems a little old-fashioned to me, JBM. Though I wonder how that could be, since I'm the one who's old-fashioned here. I thought.

William,

I absolutely understand where you're coming from in an ethical sense. But for me the ultimate goal would be to set up a score, write some music, and have it sound as though it was somehow magically performed and recorded by a professional ensemble or orchestra. However that's done is not really my concern. It seems to me that some sort of sample resynthesis technique will probablly wind up doing this before straight sample playback. I could be wrong. One of the major drawbacks of samples, in this regard, is the fact that they are "locked" in time, as I mentioned before. And my experience of this has been that on occasion I simply can't do what I want to do and still make it sound good. So I either deal with the sound being a little off, or I scrap the idea in favor of one that is more easily reproduced using samples. Neither are great alternatives, but the latter is probably worse. What I need is a technology that escapes these limitations.

Your point about the moog is a good one. But obviously there are a great many people out there who are wildly excited about the moog. Here, probably the majority of us are still more interested in the sounds of the orchestra, and of its instruments, than anything electronic, even though the eletronic instruments may produce some very interesting sounds. So it's not strictly about the sound. It's about the whole world of orchestral instruments, and the challenge of finding something new to say with them.

J.

I can see that from a practical point of view.

I remember reading a sci-fi book by the astronomer Fred Hoyle, about a composer in the future who did what was normal then - he took his written-out orchestral score, fed it into the side of a machine, and it played it perfectly. This "magical" quality is obviously what people want.

I like the fact that the notes in samples are actually played rather than synthesized, but the problem ultimately is that there is never enough of them, whether one is trying to find the ideal expression needed by a composition, or having each note played be an alternate sample. And this is even with the hundreds of thousands being recorded by the VSL. Ideally perhaps - to me - it would not be synthesis, but a fantastically enlarged sampler with a database of maybe twenty notes or articulations for every note or articulation, all arranged intelligently and automatically by the computer, so that nothing ever repeated, including long notes and legato transitions, and yet everything was an originally performed note. Unfortunately to truly capture absolutely everything an orchestra does in individual recordings would take probably several billion samples. So in your practical sense synthesis may be a necessary compromise in some music.

@Another User said:

I guess that means "the music irritated the hell out of me, but the performance was convincing"

Why would you assume that? I meant the exact opposite: the performance irritated the hell out of me but the music was convincing.

[:)]

Just kidding. I did like it. It reminds me of the percussion ensemble music I used to play in college. The only reason I side-stepped my opinion - not that I expect or even want anyone to give a $#!+ what my personal musical opinions are - is that I'm usually interested in more tightly structured music. And note that I didn't say "easier-listening," I said more structured.

That doesn't make your composition bad, either objectively or in my personal opinion. On the contrary.

***

William, I wasn't aware that I had a habit of hijacking threads to make my points. But in this case I think what I'm saying is very much to the point: the VL1 is a synthesizer that does attempt to imitate "real" instruments (that's not all it does, but it does do that).

Most of the emulations end up having the same effect as the real instrument but sounding off, i.e you're not going to fool a [insert instrument] player that this is really a [insert instrument]. However, it responds to the EWI (which is what I use to play it) like an acoustic instrument - only you can cheat by keeping it in tune automatically, etc.

The point is that it has the nuances and expressive control of an acoustic instrument, it's trying and coming very close to succeeding as an imitation in many instances, and by your standard this is vulgar.

And, as you've gathered, I disagree. Editing sampled performances together piece by piece is one of several great techniques; I say 'sall good.

I also don't agree that just because you're playing parts in real time means that you're merely noodling and/or creating non-[insert instrument] parts. Maybe you are, maybe you're not. What if you write the part first and then play it?

Besides, what's wrong with improvising as a way of composing? Bach did it! Michael Kamen sure did it, although what those guys did was composing in real time.

Anyway, my ideal orchestral instrument would be VSL with a performance interface that's more suited to real time playing. It's already quite playable (using keyswitches, volume-riding, and the Legato and Alternation tools), but as I've said too many times, this is where sampling has room to grow.

By the way, I'd be happy to explain the VL1 in more detail if anyone's interested. It's the best synthesizer ever created, in my opinion.