annother try to approach a real orchestra

[jovan]

Below you'll find annother try to approach a real orchestra

Joaquin Rodrigo: Concerto Aranjuez for Guitar & Orchestra
3rd movement - Allegro gentile

http://music.v4m.net/productions/rodrigo/3_RoPe_A_Allegro.mp3

Orchestration:

Guitar --- Gabriel Guillén, artist from Venzuela performing on a real Classical Guitar (guitar maker Ignatio Fleta, Spain)

Flute 1,2....................\\
Piccolo........................|
Oboe 1,2.....................|
Clarinet 1,2.................|
Bassoon 1,2................|
French Horn 1,2...........> 19 instances of Vienna Insrument
Trumpet 1,2................| (Symhonic Cube) in a forte rack driven by
Violin 1,2....................| Geniesoft Overture 4
Viola 1,2.....................|
Violoncello..................|
Doublebass................/


My personnal feeling is I achieved about 90% of the goal.
But there is still some humanizing necessary.

I hope, you enjoy the piece and give some feedback.
[:)]Jovan

[drew buchan]

Both the guitar and orchestral perfromances are wonderful .. but they don't sound like they are in the same room.

Really enjoyed it never-the-less.

[jovan]

@drew buchan said:

Both the guitar and orchestral perfromances are wonderful .. but they don't sound like they are in the same room.

Really enjoyed it never-the-less.

Your comment fits exactly my feeling. Thank you.
The orchestra part was exported to Sonar 6 PE. The solist (Gabriel) got the part by earphones and his Fleta guitar was recorded bonedry in my studio in Vienna.
Then I mixed all together using Silverspike's reverb R2 for each instrument and each position.
I think this will work allways good as you use only VSL samples allone recorded in the silent stage.
As soon yo start mixing real instruments - recorded in another studio - the troubles with the reverb begin.
May be MIR will solve the problem - but in the meantime I will be thankful for each hint of you which help me to solve this problem.

[:)] Jovan

[JWL]

I agree-- the performance is truly fantastic.

It just sounds as if the guitar is a tad "big" compared to the orchestra, especially on the forte chord cadences. The orchestra could envelope the guitar a little more for greater sonic interaction.

I would either bring the orchestra up a couple of dB and then bring the whole mix down by the same amount--- or-- pull the guitar down by a couple of dB and then raise the orverall mix by half that amount.

But that performance could trick an unsuspecting ear! Very impressive.

[jovan]

@JWL said:

I agree-- the performance is truly fantastic.

It just sounds as if the guitar is a tad "big" compared to the orchestra, especially on the forte chord cadences. The orchestra could envelope the guitar a little more for greater sonic interaction.

I would either bring the orchestra up a couple of dB and then bring the whole mix down by the same amount--- or-- pull the guitar down by a couple of dB and then raise the orverall mix by half that amount.

But that performance could trick an unsuspecting ear! Very impressive.

Thank you, I'll try your recommendation.

For my personnal feeling the guitar is a little bit to close to the auditors ear.
But all my experiments to move it more to the backgraund (with the reverb) failed.
Any suggestions?

[:)] Jovan

[JWL]

@JWL said:

I agree-- the performance is truly fantastic.

It just sounds as if the guitar is a tad "big" compared to the orchestra, especially on the forte chord cadences. The orchestra could envelope the guitar a little more for greater sonic interaction.

I would either bring the orchestra up a couple of dB and then bring the whole mix down by the same amount--- or-- pull the guitar down by a couple of dB and then raise the orverall mix by half that amount.

But that performance could trick an unsuspecting ear! Very impressive.

Thank you, I'll try your recommendation.

For my personnal feeling the guitar is a little bit to close to the auditors ear.
But all my experiments to move it more to the backgraund (with the reverb) failed.
Any suggestions?

[:)] Jovan

Hmm.

It would take some experimentation with the ratio of wet-to-dry signal; guitar to reverb.

It may be necessary to program shifts in wet-dry signal in real time to make adjustments where the guitar plays alone and where it plays with the orchestra. Virtual reality is not quite reality, so this sort of "cheat" is necessary at times.

The other thing you may want to do is to study various recordings of this work to get a sense of how real instruments behave in the ambience-- and how an engineer might have cheated to balance wet-dry signals while maintaining the integrity of the guitar-to-orchestra balance. Those p and f samples may not be as dynamically far apart as they "seem". The changes of articulations tend to take care of themselves as far as dynamics go, even at times where the dB level might appear to be rather close sonically speaking where p and f samples are used. You might want to lower the actual dB level of the f samples on the guitar first a little bit at a time.

No matter jovan-- I believe very strongly that you have mastered the most difficult part of this virtual realization. Fine tuning the guitar and orchestra plus reverb balance is not difficult in itself-- it's only difficult to *find*. Once you find it, everything will fall into place quite nicely.

Keep in mind also that recordings aren't necessarily pure recreations of reality, either. A stereo recording of a real orchestra is itself an illusion and quite a different listening experience than being at a live concert. Of late, I've opted to emulate recordings rather than my concerpt of reailty and have had better success.

[jovan]

@JWL said:

[quote=jovan][quote=JWL]Keep in mind also that recordings aren't necessarily pure recreations of reality, either. A stereo recording of a real orchestra is itself an illusion and quite a different listening experience than being at a live concert. Of late, I've opted to emulate recordings rather than my concerpt of reailty and have had better success.

A really interresting point.
Last week I started an experiment.
I took 30 seconds of 3 different recordings of this movement of the Concerto de Aranjuez and burned it together with the same 30 seconds of my virtual version on a CD and gave these recordings to different friends of mine (all normal consumers of classical music) with the task to find out the track with the virtual orchestra.
The could not really find out it.
So I think we all which we work with virtual instruments we have got a special ear which a normal consumer connot follow. (If the quality of the virtual track is high enough).

At the moment I have a project in my studio to record all important classical guitar concerts (originals & transcriptions) with real guitar & virtual orchestra.
The Ceoncerto de Aranjuez is "the" concerto of the classical guitar players.
If I solve the problems regarding this concert, I'm sure I'll solve the problems with the other concerts (Vivaldi, Marcello, Albinoni, Giuliani, Tedesco & Pesec) too.

[:)] Jovan

[dpcon]

I agree that once the guitar is placed properly in the mix this will be very good since the charm and expression of the piece are captured quite well. The only thing I would add to the astute observations (and maybe this was in fact mentioned) is to narrow the stereo image of the guitar since it is currently as wide as the orchestra. There are plugins that can do this very well such as Waves S1 or probably something in your DAW already.

Very good work on that. One of the most musical sample based works I've heard.

[jovan]

@dpcon said:

I agree that once the guitar is placed properly in the mix this will be very good since the charm and expression of the piece are captured quite well. The only thing I would add to the asture observations (and maybe this was i fact mentioned) is to narrow the stereo image of the guitar since it is currently as wide as the orchestra. There are plugins that can do this very well such as Waves S1 or probably something in your DAW already.

Very good work on that. One of the most musical sample based works I've heard.

Many thanks for your comment.
I aggree,I feel to that the stereo angle of the live guitar should be narrowed. I'll try it, I have got a program which can do this job.

[:)] Jovan

[Guy Bacos]

Very interesting experiment, I can't wait to do something like that myself.

I thought the guitar had a bit to much presence in relation to the orchestra. The ways to solve this are numerous because it unfortunately looses some credibility.

[PoppaJOL]

Jovan:

Good work!

This question is for my own information. Is it possible to record the guitar from a greater distance and/or with a different microphone? Would that make it easier to get the right sound or is that wrong? To me it just sounds like I'm hearing a totally diferent mic on the guitar from that of the orchestra. Especially since I can't hear any bleed from the orchestra on the guitar mic. As others have said, it definitely seems that I'm listening to the orchestra from further back in the hall than the guitar. Maybe if you used a mic that is closer in sound to those used for the VSL recordings and placed them at a greater distance from the guitar then, when you found the right reverb or hall, it might be easier to place it correctly in the mix. I don't know enough about recording to know if that would work or not so I'd like to hear what others think?

Also, narrowing the stereo field of the guitar makes sense to me. At a live concert, even if I am sitting far back in the hall, there still is a definite sense of placement for the various instruments, especially soloists.

In general, I'm more oriented toward not trying to use samples to sound like a "live concert" but more like a studio mix. My comments here are in response to what I think you are trying to achieve which is to sound like a "real orchestra" in a concert setting. I hope I have that right.

Anyway, well done!

Be Well,

Poppa

[jovan]

Hi PoppaJOL,

the distance between the stereo mics & the guitar was 2 meters.
Fort the recording of the guitar (that's my experience) I use 3 mics, 2 stereo mics placed in front of the player & and one pickup mic placed near the bridge of the guitar (a special dynamic mic manufactured in Swiss).
Then I remove all reverb of the recording by software and use the same reverb for the guitar like I use for the orchestra.

I tried a lot in the meantime, because I got very helpful hints in the in this forum. The best results at the moments I got by narrowing the stereo angle of the guitar recording and than in SONAR 6 I reduced the gain level of the guitar track to the half of its original level and increased the gain level of the guitar bus (which holds the original guitar signal & the signal whith the guitar reverb by the same level.

In the meantime I made the orchestration of movement 1 & 2 and the guitar recording in my studio. I'll publish it as soon as it is finished. But - with respect to my other work - it will take some weeks.

I'm started a co-operation with a conductor in Vienna. He has no idea how samplers work but a lot of orchestra work.
This brought me a big step further.

[:)] Jovan

[jovan]

@Guy said:

Very interesting experiment, I can't wait to do something like that myself.

I thought the guitar had a bit to much presence in relation to the orchestra. The ways to solve this are numerous because it unfortunately looses some credibility.

Thank you, Guy. I aggree.
I'm working on it & I found a solution.
It is allways helpful to listen what ohter musicians say.
Because first I thought it cannot be done better.
But now I know it is good - but the job can be made excellent.
And I will do it & it will help me regarding my other projects.

[:)] Jovan

[Angelo Clematide]

Unfortunately you chosed to record the Guitar with a microphone technique where the sound is "wandering." That means, the Guitar is not stable in position in the stereo image.

.

[jovan]

@Angelo Clematide said:

Unfortunately you chosed to record the Guitar with a microphone technique where the sound is "wandering." That means, the Guitar is not stable in position in the stereo image.

.

That is a good point. I have to improove it.

[:)] Jovan

[DM33]

Hi Jovan,

If you want to "move" the guitar back a little in the mix you should remove some low frequncies via an eq. I know that sounds crazy but the further a sound is the less low frequencies you hear.

Therefore, if you want a recording to sound distant then you should remove the low's.

Try experimenting with a hi-pass filter on the guitar track, I think you will find this to be a good solution.

good luck!

Dragon

@drew buchan said:

Both the guitar and orchestral perfromances are wonderful .. but they don't sound like they are in the same room.

Really enjoyed it never-the-less.

Your comment fits exactly my feeling. Thank you.
The orchestra part was exported to Sonar 6 PE. The solist (Gabriel) got the part by earphones and his Fleta guitar was recorded bonedry in my studio in Vienna.
Then I mixed all together using Silverspike's reverb R2 for each instrument and each position.
I think this will work allways good as you use only VSL samples allone recorded in the silent stage.
As soon yo start mixing real instruments - recorded in another studio - the troubles with the reverb begin.
May be MIR will solve the problem - but in the meantime I will be thankful for each hint of you which help me to solve this problem.

[:)] Jovan

[jovan]

Hi Dragon33,

thanks four the hint.
I'll try it as soon I'm back in my studio.
I'll keep you informed.

[:)] Jovan