Thanks for bringing that up again, Nick. I read a good thought today on the NS-forum:

"Do you want to be the player or the conductor?"

... most of the time both, I would say, but in case of an virtual _orchestra_, my preference would distinctively tend to "conductor".

/Dietz

"Do you want to be the player or the conductor?"

hey, that was me! (scroll down a bit, 3rd from the bottom)

To me, VSL is the best library out there. It's strings, brass, and woodwinds are unbeatable. But in the discussion of solo instruments, this argument that samples somehow contain the "artistry of the performer" are silly. When I listen to most VSL solo violin demos, it's this contrived Frankenstein performance that is completely unmusical. And mind you, VSL's solo violin is the best out there. Try EWQL's violin. much worse! Even Garritan's new "violin" is awful. But even with VSL, the phrasing is very much like a honking accordion. It's literally like someone took a real violin performance audio file, chopped up all the individual notes, and then rearranged them into a new melody. But wait - that's what sampling is! When I hear VSL solo violin, It's like I've turned schizophrenic and all these random passages come out of nowhere, disconnected, and artificial with the same ones triggered over and over. Where's the artistry of that?? It's like saying a beautiful woman is just as beautiful chopped up into hunks and resown together in the wrong order.

I don't know why woodwinds and brass solo instruments don't suffer the same problem. Probably because of the bowing which is impossible to duplicate. Solo stringed instruments simply don't lend themselves to traditional sample techniques.

And for the record, Synful, which I find to be the most amazing jaw-droppingly good plugin ever, does contain samples for the "artistry" addicts out there. It simply slops them all together in a way that is musically viable. I want the algorithm to create the phrasing for me cuz pure samples will never get you there.

Anyway, thx for letting me rant. I don't want to piss anyone off here, cuz I'll need your help once I purchase my VSL set up! [:P] Btw, I'm a violinist, played in symphony orchestras in school, and have Opus1 on my must-have wishlist.

This statement -

"this argument that samples somehow contain the "artistry of the performer" are silly."

- besides being ungrammatical is absolute, unadulterated bullshit.

These samples contain NOTHING BUT the artistry of the players!!!

This kind of crap drives me crazy! What the hell do you think these sounds contain? Synthetic waveforms? Dull monotones? Are you kidding? You don't want to piss someone off? You just did bigtime. This is an utterly stupid statement. And don't try to impress anyone with the fact you are a violin player. I am a professional horn player and am blown away by the pure musicality of the horn samples. These samples contain NOTHING BUT the artistry of the players!!! To call the violin solo demos "frankenstein" is a stupid insult that demands an immediate retraction and apology. And to say anything Dietz posts is "silly" - is lame in the extreme. If you've paid any attention to this Forum you would know damn well Dietz doesn't do "silly."

Sorry sir! Don't want to piss you off! Have a nice day! (If only there was an "insipid bullshit" emoticon here.

BTW To all my admirers here: I didn't commit suicide yet! ("Damn it!" thought Evan, lunging for his Prozac and the number of his own suicide prevention counselor.)

@Another User said:

And for the record, Synful, which I find to be the most amazing jaw-droppingly good plugin ever, does contain samples for the "artistry" addicts out there.

It started with samples, but they're incorporated into his additive synthesis engine. That was one of my questions of him: are you at the mercy of the original samples? And the answer was yes.

Now, I'm certainly not a sampling purist. What I hear is very musical, but there's something flat about it. In other words, the order in which I arrived at my previous post - even though it happened within a second [:)] - was 1. ears 2. aha.

I think Synful has a lot of potential - as one more tool in our arsenal.

quote:

I think Synful has a lot of potential - as one more tool in our arsenal.

Obviouly Synful is a musical quite intresting plugin. For me it appears really like a breakthrough of synthezising technology. And I hope it may help to establish the potential of aditive synthesys in electronic music.

But as a provider of acoustic instrument sounds I'de rather preferred for it the name "Chamberensemble" instead of "orchestra" because, meanwhile it has undeniable strength in the behaviour of the Soloinstruments I have'nt heard any real "synful" orchestral Ensemblesounds in their userdemos.

It's true that an easy handling of that brilliant solophrasing would be very attractive for a VSL Performance Tool 3 too. Maybe the soundanalysys and morphing via additive Synthesis can contribute here to make important musical aspects easyer and more intuitive to use.

But even if Synful is not that pricy to prevent using it beside the VSL, I don't feel quite comfortable with the Idea of mixing the actual existing Synful and VSL Solosamples, for me only the latter still have this decisive moment warmth of the tone which makes a sound not just beeing brilliant but musicaly speaking.

fahl5

Dear William - easy, please, easy! [:)]

Thanks for raising your voice, but I'm sure that "Metrobot" wasn't about to insult anybody. At least I didn't feel offended (and I have no problem if someone would _really_ call me "silly" - my sarcasm should be well-known on these pages by now [+o(] ). Metrobot's comment was controversial, maybe, but most certainly interesting and very welcome.

All the best,

/Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library

@William said:

To call the violin solo demos "frankenstein" is a stupid insult that demands an immediate retraction and apology.

William, much as I respect you as a composer and musician, why do you always get your knickers in a twist about the solo violin sound?

Now I agree that calling it a "frankenstein" is rather harsh, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It may be that others can hear things that you can't, or maybe they are listening for different things. I still would never use it as solo instrument... [:)]

DG

Luckily, quite a few of our customers don't share your opinion! [H]

/Dietz

Sorry, I don't mean to alienate Metrobot - that came out harsher than I meant to write. (I guess because I hadn't posted anything in a while since I was considering whether to use razor blades, barbiturates or carbon monoxide. Which do you favor Evan?)

However I would go so far to say that Metrobot is correct on one thing - it is very difficult to get a sample solo violin to sound natural, perhaps more difficult than SOME (not all) of the other instruments, and the reason is that the violin naturally makes so many instantaneous tiny changes in the entire basis of the tone. For example, to a large extent, a really great clarinet player will strive to obtain a beautifully clear, constant, even tone much of the time. Also a horn. I know that for sure on horn, because most of the time I cannot do it. [:O]ops: Whereas (and I am only generalizing so violinists please don't start frothing rabidly) a violinist usually strives to do the opposite - to shade the dynamics, the vibrato, the bowing on a moment by moment basis exactly relative to the phrasing of the music.

This is incredibly hard to do with samples. I only tried it a little on my Andante for Violin and Piano on the user demos. I don't know how musically valid that performance is. But the ultimate approach to using the solo violin and other solo strings is potentially very expressive in an actual solo performance, due to all the dynamic and performance legato/detache/spiccato samples. If one really did it right one could actually program all the bowings and every single nuance of dynamics without compromise. This might take weeks or months to fully use in a performance the expressive potential of these samples on even a simple piece.

@Dietz said:

Luckily, quite a few of our customers don't share your opinion! [H]

/Dietz

As is their perogative..

DG

@William said:

For example, to a large extent, a really great clarinet player will strive to obtain a beautifully clear, constant, even tone much of the time. Also a horn. I know that for sure on horn, because most of the time I cannot do it. [:O]ops: Whereas (and I am only generalizing so violinists please don't start frothing rabidly) a violinist usually strives to do the opposite - to shade the dynamics, the vibrato, the bowing on a moment by moment basis exactly relative to the phrasing of the music.

I think that you've hit the nail on the head here; this is what playing a string instrument is all about. Sure, one should be able to achieve a constant sound, but that is not where the greatest characteristics of the instrument lie. The answer? I don't know, but if I figure it out I'll be sure to patent it and make a fortune... [:D]

DG

You see, I think we agree more than not, William! [:)] Please take my frankenstein comment as a bit of hyperbole. I suppose if you really love something (VLS), it seems more fair-game to point out things that work less well.

But William's comment about consistency of tone are exactly on, I would think. Most other instruments have more easily defined "events" that make sampling them easier, whereas violin, sonically, is probably best divided up in bowstrokes, not notes. But the fact that the fingers are completely independent of the bowing makes the possible sampling scenarios almost infinitely higher in number. (and this is why i disagree that artistry helps much with this problem.)

Another thing that has always baffled me is, why does sampling work for string sections so much better? I suppose the modulation effect blends the individual nuance away. And then a section does what a soloist doesn't - strives much more for tone consistency as a section. But it's still strange...

Thanks Metrobot for not getting mad at my own hyperbole. (BTW I like that name. You're actually an android that lives in the city, right? As opposed to a Ruralbot.)

One thing you said contradicts your argument though -

"But the fact that the fingers are completely independent of the bowing makes the possible sampling scenarios almost infinitely higher in number. and this is why i disagree that artistry helps much with this problem."

You're right about the nearly infinite numbers, however the fact that the instrument's expressiveness in this case can, to an extent, be reduced TO NUMBERS indicates how with sufficient sampling power it can be done. To a degree this has already be done with the VSL solo violin (and the other strings) because if you look at the number of permutations and possibilities of combinations with the samples that already exist - it is huge. As I said the bowings can essentially be duplicated, but you have to work at it (to put it mildly).

I've also thought about this question of section vs. solo sounds being more easily represented, and have come to the tentative conclusion it is because of the fact that string players in a section are more "locked down" and restricted to doing something uniform - whether with steadier dynamics, unified (and therefore less obvious) bowing, etc - and this corresponds to what samples can do much more easily than a solo instrument, which is free to play to the limits of expressiveness. AFter all, why do string players enjoy much more chamber or quartet playing, and often consider symphonic playing a "chore"? Because they are grunts in the symphonic infantry, doing as they are told in unison, whereas they can be generals in a solo or chamber performance.

you got my name right!

I think the solo violin solution you suggest would probably only be usable with an intelligent, realtime articulation search engine for the sample database. (Maybe that'd be Performance Tool Mark II?) Otherwise it would be unwieldy. But the results would certainly be interesting. VSL's sample rate (ha ha!) for the other instruments seems to work just fine, but not so well with the violin. Which implies additional violin samples are still necessary. I'm only guessing, but suspect the creation of such a new sample-intense library might possibly collapse under it's own weight and drive the developers insane. Which makes other kind of algorithmic solutions interesting (forgive the heresy.)

If you are William Kersten, your user demos rock! (figuratively, of course...) What great string section performances. I don't think any other library can approach that level of expression and realism. And the allegro (violin & piano) is a lovely piece of music. [:P]

I am guilty as charged of being William Kersten. Thanks a lot, Metrobot.

(Sorry, didn't mean that to be poetic.)

You're right on the number of samples that would be required - maybe 1.5 million for solo violin ALONE (Herb is feeling queasy right now). Maybe it would drive people insane (as well as bankrupt) but it would be a great database. This brings up the often discussed question of the ultimate end of sampling, which obviously will include algorhythmic or somehow automated ways of selecting and using samples. If sampling continues as it is now going, without converting to a "processed" sound, a hugely musically intelligent program will be needed. Since this CAN be done, it probably WILL be done. Though right now, people are doing all this manually. We are still in the Stone Age of Sampling compared to what could be done. Though Herb is the leader of our tribe since he has the biggest club.

@William said:

[...] Since this CAN be done, it probably WILL be done. [...]

You bet! [H]

/Dietz

How would *you* know that, Dietz?

[6]

... uh ... just a wild guess ... ;-]

/Dietz

@William said:

For some reason, if this technology develops and is successful, I feel I may not want to do orchestral recordings with it. ....
So this seems to be a fundamentally different approach that could be considered an artistic divide.

That technology could be interesting if used for creating "real" synth sounds with being close to human expressiveness.
I imagine the expressiveness of a solo violin to be combined with all my solo synth sounds. [[:|]]
Well, that's not for recreating classical music, that's obvious...

tele