Those are interesting responses. I do not agree completely with polarbear, in that there are some things that sound completely real with samples now.  For example that Beethoven string quartet by Bacal fooling a violin teacher or as another example a piece for organ or certain combinations of winds or percussion. We can easily fool people.  But I am not interested in the "fooling" - it is more the use of these sounds purely as tools to create expressive performances, no matter what the original is.

I agree on vibrato's point about using the samples in non-traditional ways.  I often think that Ligetti was trying to use samples before samples existed.  His orchestral pieces, even some of the vocal pieces, use sustained or extreme range sounds that are very difficult and non-characteristic playing for a live orchestra, but are perfect for samples especially in how they emphasize timbre.  If you write 50 bars of a sustained low e for live basses they will get very angry with you, but if you do it in your sequencer  and sampler it is a piece of cake.  Or a series of pedal tones in a bass trombone, etc. etc. 

I do think that the sampling of more and more special or even completely new playing styles should be a priority for the most advanced sample library.  In other words, to provide more and more expressive range to the sound that is available and to create new avenues of sound that may not even exist in avant garde music. 

There is orchestral sound and there is performing orchestra to me. We might agree that a good live orchestra in a concert hall performing is always superior to any recording, because the of technical limitations we still encounter with recording techniques, loudspeakers, different listening situations. But we should compare the comparable I think, too. There's always this catch with "fooling" someone... was he aware it could be samples? Even if not, would his opinion still hold true, if he had multiple chances to listen to it and really being able to absorb everything going on in there? Were the listening conditions adequate?

Would the opinion also hold true in an A/B comparison in the same listening situation? Probably some might disagree that this would be necessary... yet the sky is the limit for me: If we listen through a typical monitoring system we might not miss anything until we heard a superior one that has more low end or higher definition, anything else, you name it. The same way we might not miss anything in the mockup (and being fooled therefore) we would hear in a live recording. Isn't that a step backward then?

Besides, we are still limitied to a certain arsenal and combinations of sounds, those that have been recorded in samples. We could not create or recreate anything that has not been recorded yet. We're still at the early stages of rebuilding the instrument interactions (body resonances for pianos, violins, interaction between instrument sections (ringing overtones on drums or the like) and basic expressive representations (different kinds of vibrato's, convincing slurs, emotive intonation etc.) as well as compositional challenges (runs, divisi play, random note stuff). You also need quite some knowledge about samples to pull off a good mockup, simply composing a piece via pen and paper isn't getting you anywhere near a good recording of that... Yes, going forward and being creative with what we already got is a way. But we should not be fooled into thinking the development on the real side would be able to stop because of this.

Best,

PolarBear 

Well I agree with both youse guys to an extent. 

But it is not true that we are "limited" to what has been recorded, because that assumes conventional useage of samples.  I do not do conventional useage (at least necessarily all the time).  Sometimes, sure.  To make some money.  But as Ligetti showed and I was trying to suggest with that allusion to his works, conventional orchestral sounds can create completely new timbres when used in a bizarre way.  Which is almost infinitely possible with VSL, due to the nature of their detailed recording process.  Of course we need to get Herb to  approve more recordings of weirdass playing techniques to increase these possibilities.  However polarbear knows what he is talking about and I do NOT mean to contradict him casually.

I must agree wholeheartedly with Paul on the "peasants" rant.  Quite so old boy.  Load o' rubbish if you ask me. Got to keep those blokes in line. Cheerio and all that rot.

@William said:

But as Ligetti showed and I was trying to suggest with that allusion to his works, conventional orchestral sounds can create completely new timbres when used in a bizarre way.  Which is almost infinitely possible with VSL, due to the nature of their detailed recording process. 

Can I find somewhere more about those new VSL timbres? What feature of VSL makes it possible?

PS. The name is Ligeti, not Ligetti... 

"Using samples is a old as musique concrete or older, I don't see anything new in using samples, or "the next step in the evolution of musical expression " as William suggests".- Angelo Clematide

If you don't see anything new I suggest you  put on some eyeglasses.  

Edgar Varese was using a TAPE RECORDER AND SCISSORS to do musique concrete, specifically on Poeme Electronique. 

Somehow I think Vienna Ensemble is not quite the same old thing...  

And surely there are unthought things like doing a brass legato phrase with the wind transition samples for the in between notes. Or having a piano release sample triggered for a timpani note. Time to free your mind ;) These couldn't be performed in a live situation or recorded in one go and would be a rather unusual, unavantgarde way of making music.

PolarBear

Yeah, I agree with that.  An example of someone doing things with instruments impossible to do with samples is Harry Partch creating all those odd instruments.  I am interested in using tam-tams in many ways in a new piece that would be useless to sample because you might as well just use a real one.  So this reveals a principle maybe - that with samples, we are talking about the "instrument" known as the symphony orchestra, as opposed to any individual one that is part of it.

When the "almost infinite number of new timbres using VSL" was mentioned, my first thought was that VSL has developed some new way of modifying the over tones (number, intensity) for VSL, because that's the only way to get really new timbres electronically. But it is not the case here. Now I understand what was meant. VSL just gives the possibility to combine different instruments easily.

Hey Paul, do you have anything for composers who are no longer budding but have gone to seed?

Trying to cut the "composing for samples" mentality with a budding knife, buddy? ;)

@William said:

Hey Paul, do you have anything for composers who are no longer budding but have gone to seed?

Paul,

do you mean this?

http://futuremusicmag.com/oncd.html

Hannes

Paul, Problem was that I found a lot of sites under the keywords "future music magazine" and thought this would come closest. But obviously the magazine I found does not accept any subscriptions any more, and maybe is not even the right one. Our local music dealer also does not know or have it.

Will try again, but if you find a link to their homepage in the editorial this would be very helpful. Since I am for sure interested in all the topics you mentioned.

Maybe I will even learn how to avoid sampled string chords :-))

Hannes

Great Paul, pm is on the way!

... at NSS because I can not pm here as it seems.