My goodness, Alex, what a thorough reply! Thanks for reading my post so carefully. Some of the stuff I wrote was meant in jest, at least partly. I've only played in a few orchestral or chamber settings, and we never worried about the resonance of our surroundings. (the "liveness' or reverb traits of the room, of course are a very different story) I'm not a professional performer, however, so i'll take your word for it. Maybe the preferred recording location for small ensembles should be inside furniture stores!! [:)]
The point of referencing all the things that USERs don't do well is this: resonance modelling won't fix any of those user problems. When you listen to user demos, the range of quality is stunningly huge. Some are amazingly unrealistic, others are very realistic. The demos that are exceedingly realistic, to me anyway, don't scream out "except for the lack of resonance modelling." They sound great period. So I'm not blaming orchestral libraries at all, rather pointing out that user error is the biggest factor in fake sounding orchestrations.
And Alex, I LOVE the fact that we have so many articulations! Back in 1988 I spent so much energy trying to make my new Korg M1 sound like an orchestra. The tools we have now are simply jaw-dropping in comparison. But with 129GB of VSL sample data comes new problems. I believe the future is going to be software-assisted articulation selection. It won't make your music any better, but it will make the lines you write sound natural with less effort. Of course, underneath it all, you'll always have the ability to go in and edit individual articulations. Having software help won't make it sound any more canned than a violinist who's spent years studying "proper technique" sounds canned. But we'll see - the proof will be in the hearing!
My automated mixing suggestion was mostly a joke. That probably wouldn't provide much more of a solution than a Finalizer, as mixing/mastering really is an art that can't be automated. MIR promises to be some sort of front end for a mixing environment, so who knows what might become a lot easier in the future.
And yes, my comment about my ear was also a joke!! I'm not really asking for VSL to fix my judgement in composition! The underlying point is, however, that a good ear can make almost any set of tools sound great. Just listening to Jay Bacal's example of the chamber strings was amazing. (the thread where the new user is complaining about the chamber strings) It sounded so good, and of course, it was done without any of my fantasy software help. VSL is simply stunning.
Anyway, Alex, thanks for an entertaining discussion...
The point of referencing all the things that USERs don't do well is this: resonance modelling won't fix any of those user problems. When you listen to user demos, the range of quality is stunningly huge. Some are amazingly unrealistic, others are very realistic. The demos that are exceedingly realistic, to me anyway, don't scream out "except for the lack of resonance modelling." They sound great period. So I'm not blaming orchestral libraries at all, rather pointing out that user error is the biggest factor in fake sounding orchestrations.
And Alex, I LOVE the fact that we have so many articulations! Back in 1988 I spent so much energy trying to make my new Korg M1 sound like an orchestra. The tools we have now are simply jaw-dropping in comparison. But with 129GB of VSL sample data comes new problems. I believe the future is going to be software-assisted articulation selection. It won't make your music any better, but it will make the lines you write sound natural with less effort. Of course, underneath it all, you'll always have the ability to go in and edit individual articulations. Having software help won't make it sound any more canned than a violinist who's spent years studying "proper technique" sounds canned. But we'll see - the proof will be in the hearing!
My automated mixing suggestion was mostly a joke. That probably wouldn't provide much more of a solution than a Finalizer, as mixing/mastering really is an art that can't be automated. MIR promises to be some sort of front end for a mixing environment, so who knows what might become a lot easier in the future.
And yes, my comment about my ear was also a joke!! I'm not really asking for VSL to fix my judgement in composition! The underlying point is, however, that a good ear can make almost any set of tools sound great. Just listening to Jay Bacal's example of the chamber strings was amazing. (the thread where the new user is complaining about the chamber strings) It sounded so good, and of course, it was done without any of my fantasy software help. VSL is simply stunning.
Anyway, Alex, thanks for an entertaining discussion...
