I am happy that such an addition to the violin library will be added.

FWIW, as a conductor I chuckle at the different descriptive terms over which some are fencing. The words "epic", "romantic", "expressive", etc. should never be considered apart from their behavior over the ENTIRE dynamic range. Romantic or expressive playing is not limited to the much-needed p-mp-mf range. Little good it would do to have only these dynamics to use if a composition called for a respectable forte, as with dunk187's example of Princess Leia's Theme.

One thing I miss from a lot of electronic realizations of orchestral scores in the strings is an awareness of when and where a string player will be forced to use one-finger portamento, especially when playing larger intervals in altissimo passages. Granted, the need for a fatter, warmer violin section is not to be overlooked, but there are so many other elements to creating a convincing violin track which aren't always employed.

I do agree that having access and control over varying degrees of vibrato are crucial, something I really enjoyed seeing demonstrated with VI solo violin earlier this week.

I'm all for using a larger section-- large sections CAN play softly as well-- it's not *always* about loud playing, but there are plenty of times when I miss a good expressive f-ff as much as I do a convincing espr. p-mp-mf.

I say, bring it ALL on-- and don't hold back.

...and when the violins are done, how about those violas and cellos?

Romantic celli - mmmmmmm - me like

@Christian Marcussen said:

Romantic celli - mmmmmmm - me like

YES! Imagine having these new romantic violini and celli doubling each other two octaves apart. Juicy!!

..and hey-- violins playing entire passages on the G string. I miss that a lot. It's not the same as creating the same part on an extra viola track.

@Christian Marcussen said:

Romantic celli - mmmmmmm - me like

YES! Imagine having these new romantic violini and celli doubling each other two octaves apart. Juicy!!

..and hey-- violins playing entire passages on the G string. I miss that a lot. It's not the same as creating the same part on an extra viola track.

Think JW's 'minority report - Sean's Theme'. Personnally if I had that sound -- [[:|]] [:D]


Rob

@Rob Elliott said:

[quote=JWL]Think JW's 'minority report - Sean's Theme'. Personnally if I had that sound -- [[:|]] [:D]


Rob

Absolutly, but don't forget those are the best player in the wold, London Symphonic Orchestrta…

@Laurent said:

Absolutly, but don't forget those are the best player in the wold, London Symphonic Orchestrta…

The excellence of certain soundtracks-- the care and level of detail put into the production and performances all serve to spoil us. Despite the fact most of us don't have easy access to the LSO to play our scores, we can only sit patiently pining to reach some semblance of the same level of accomplishment with VSL.

Consequently, we VSL users make life very difficult for the VSL team-- but as long as they're up for the challenge they have my support!

Hmm. The LSO.

It doesn't hurt to dream--- or does it?

SCREW THE LSO.

Long ago I decided that performers and conductors would not not be permitted to SHIT on my compositions any more. The entire idea of using samples is an attempt at getting away from the stupidity and wretchedness of live performance and all the compromises it entails.

You can dream all you want, of having the "wonderful" LSO give you the ultimate compliment of lowering themselves to play your music, but I spit on your dreams. I do not view sampling as a part-time substitute for being screwed over by a conductor or music director or groups of stuck-up classical performers. It is an art of purity and no-compromise (to the few individuals - not you - who view it that way) that is far higher than the LSO or any lousy stinking orchestra/conductor/music director that lives to put down composers and their work.

Uh...OK..William...just don't spin your head completely around or begin levitating and everything should be fine...

TH

@William said:

SCREW THE LSO.

Long ago I decided that performers and conductors would not not be permitted to SHIT on my compositions any more. The entire idea of using samples is an attempt at getting away from the stupidity and wretchedness of live performance and all the compromises it entails.

You can dream all you want, of having the "wonderful" LSO give you the ultimate compliment of lowering themselves to play your music, but I spit on your dreams. I do not view sampling as a part-time substitute for being screwed over by a conductor or music director or groups of stuck-up classical performers. It is an art of purity and no-compromise (to the few individuals - not you - who view it that way) that is far higher than the LSO or any lousy stinking orchestra/conductor/music director that lives to put down composers and their work.

Hey William, no offense here, but don't blame our dreams for your unfortunate experiences. We all have horror stories. And try not to let the politics and corruption of the real world turn you so far off that you'll prejudge a conductor and an orchestra who would otherwise be big fans of yours. That is, unless you've given up entirely on live performances of your works for the sake of art itself rather than for the lousy ways the music industry is run.

I am a conductor-- and have worked with the LSO among many others. My career has thrived on being what Eric Leinsdorf called "the composer's advocate" by standing up for worthy composers who's works would otherwise not stand a chance in what is clearly overall a narrow-minded, short-sighted industry.

I concur with the cruelty of the business, but even as a conductor who had no interest in anything but live performances I am well acquainted with composers being treated badly. Hence I've turned to VSL and my optimism returned as a medium for getting my own works heard in advance of being booked.

Many conductors fail to realize that composers are their most cherished resource. Orchestral players can be snobbish, conductors can be stuck in their own ego-driven worlds, but I've proven that I know my audiences well-- and when the audiences respond favorably to a new work, EVERYBODY shuts up and pays attention because that translates into new listeners and new ticket sales.

As a conductor, I realize that I am in very bad company-- there are a lot of "sphincters" out there, and the past 25 years of my career have been mostly a process of proving myself to be as much unlike the others as possible.

God bless composers who live and thrive on the edge of creativity. This is sorely underrated in orchestra world where preserving the older relics seems to be the extent of their interest; and if today's orchestras (especially in the US) don't wake up to this fact, we'll see more and more and more of them folding.

Whatever it takes to keep yourself creative, do it. Your works WILL find the respect they deserve and the right conductor who will fight for you and do the right thing, if that window of hope remains open-- just a little...

(Sorry to go OT...)

Thanks for the thoughtful response to my rather obnoxious post.

I know this goes against the philosophy a bit, but recording a violin section in a smaller dry space will never sound the same as with some natural ambience, however good the reverb. EWQL is over teh top to the other extreme but Sonic Implants have it about right. So....


A lyrical legato p/mf and f half way between your normal perf legato and portamento is what's required.

Recorded in a more ambient space using a decca tree

Very fast runs up and down

Stacatissimo p, mf and f

Sounds like a great idea

And what VSL products do you have? I only ask, because if you haven't tried them you don't really know what you're talking about [8-)]

DG

Thanks for your input, flashman. Let me just comment this part of your message:

@Another User said:

[...] If we would record our samples with lots of reverb like old-school sampling libraries, we would run into major problems with the realisation of all our advanced Performance-concepts, like true legato, repetitions, free placement on a virtual stage and so on. The reverb inherent to the recordings would be extremely damaging in all these cases. Our release-samples are not meant to be a cheap reverb, they are part of the instrument's own sound. - For Reverbation, we are working on a dedicated solution with multi-sampled orchestral venues.

Apart from that, I kindly invite you to visit our Silent Stage, and you will see that this orchestra stage is far from "dry" (... would be hard to achieve in a room about 7 metres high, BTW). Due to our concept, we had this studio designed to be free of _reverb_, but with lots of controlled ambience.
[...]

So - if you look at the pictures on our main site, you will see that the Silent Stage _has_ to be "full of natural ambience", as you put it.

-> http://vsl.co.at/en-us/65/72/19.vsl
-> http://vsl.co.at/en-us/65/72/20.vsl# (... there's a Quicktime VR for a detailed look)

HTH,

I think VSL are absolutely right in their approach. You cannot remove reverb once it's there but you can always add it to your own taste and with modern convolution plug-ins this can be very effective.

The only usable alternative to a dryish sound would be to record in an ambient hall with a large acoustic and make phase related 4 channel samples where the reverb vs dry mix was controllable. Apart from the complexity and cost and computer resources to run this would be much more prone to error in use by less experienced users.

When a complete orchestra plays together there is no denying that remote pick up of, say, things like the horns on the violin mics add to the realism of the recording but this sort of "reverb" could never be achieved with samples and what VSL currently does with its ambient approach is definately the best for samples.

Julian

@julian said:

[...] The only usable alternative to a dryish sound would be to record in an ambient hall with a large acoustic and make phase related 4 channel samples where the reverb vs dry mix was controllable. Apart from the complexity and cost and computer resources to run this would be much more prone to error in use by less experienced users. [...]

The main drawback would be that you again would have a fixed stage-position of the player or ensemble. You can't simply "pan" the reflections without losing the most important acoustic cues (and thus: realism) for the position of their original source. It gets worse as soon as we want to take multiple individual sources from different positions into account.

A fixed position like this may be what you want in _some_ situations, but most certainly not in all cases.

@julian said:

[...] The only usable alternative to a dryish sound would be to record in an ambient hall with a large acoustic and make phase related 4 channel samples where the reverb vs dry mix was controllable. Apart from the complexity and cost and computer resources to run this would be much more prone to error in use by less experienced users. [...]

The main drawback would be that you again would have a fixed stage-position of the player or ensemble. You can't simply "pan" the reflections without losing the most important acoustic cues (and thus: realism) for the position of their original source. It gets worse as soon as we want to take multiple individual sources from different positions into account.

A fixed position like this may be what you want in _some_ situations, but most certainly not in all cases.


Yea baby - bring on MIR!!!!!!!



Rob

[:D] We work on it, believe me.

I also appreciate VSL's approach. Not everything in the library is used for large orchestra. Works using smaller ensembles benefit from having greater control over the reverb later rather than dealing with it embedded in the samples themselves. Wind ensembles, string quartets, smaller brass ensembles, etc., even different types of compositional styles gain much from not having the exact same long reverb tails on every project. I *echo*, so to speak, Dietz's comment about fixed positions and restrictived panning.... what if I want the second violins on the right or the French horns left of center? It's much easier to do decently in "post".

Having VSL's Silent Stage ambience saves a lot of initial pre-delay programming. Secondary pre-delays are easier to apply with VSL's ambience already in place.

Some audio engineers who receive sampled orchestral projects often have their own ideas about how it ought to be mixed and what type of reverb might be added. Whether I might agree or disagree is apart from the notion that I might be paid to deliver a specific product that meets their specs. That requires maximum flexibility. Ironically, I even had one engineer reject a flute solo done in VSL because he didn't even want the "natural" ambience. I thought it sounded great, but I wasn't being paid to argue with the production team.

Altiverb 5 is my mainstay reverb, at least until MIR is ready. I love Altiverb and really haven't used anything else for VSL, but it will be nice to have MIR as an option or even a replacement.

On this specifically, concerning flashman's suggestion of adding more hall to make it a little like Silicon Implants, I totally disagree. The VSL approach is perfection sonically, and simply needs to be added to (though they are overburdened already, I know) with more articulations to satisfy all the slavering-composers demand for MORE, MORE, MORE.

Of course VSL should not complain too much about this demand. Some businesses get LESS, LESS, LESS as a response to what they do... [[;)]]

So true, William. It is quite a compliment to VSL in disguise.

I know we were discussing "epic" or "expressive" violins, but just today I was wandering around deep in VSL thought and it hit me--- "I miss the low B extension on the contrabass!!"

Here we are in the middle of a generous offer for violins and I confess to be guilty of the "more-more-more" disease!

Just can't get enough of a good thing!! [:P]