Good points DG. Getting back to the playing technique, In practise I find that if I don't deliberately 'play sloppy' I don't get the overlaps. And even when I think I've successfully made each note overlap with the next, I often find some which didn't when I look at the graphic editor.
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@DG said:
Legato in string sections is not totally smooth in the real world. What makes it smoother with live players, is the fact that they don't all necessarily change note at exactly the same time, so unless you layer patches on more than one string with another MIDI performance (i.e. not copy and paste of the original) you will not get the effect you are looking for.This is so true, and the layering of another patch (recorded in a separate pass!) really helps in getting a smoother legato sound. Sometimes, for a thick and smoothy syrup sound, I'll layer up to 3 patches. I've found that for strings, in App. (as well as chamber), the Cres/Decr samples layer beautfully over the legato (or even sustain patches). Those Cres/Decr patches in cresc mode, bring things to life -- if you avoid too much of their repetitive swell by mixing in some other patches, thus breaking up the line.
M.
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Since you are using Logic, open the piano roll editor and select the two notes(or more) where you need the legato, right click and from the popup menu select note force legato(selected /selected) and you are done. You can adjust the velocity of each note until you get smooth transitions. And remember, VSL requires note by note editing for precise results. Emperor
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Anthony,
You might be interested to see this thread where I raised the same issue...
http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/17746.aspx
IMO you're not doing anything wrong. It's my conclusion that VSL's idea of what a legato (slurred) sound is is not the "norm", regardless of how well-intentioned they were with their concept and the programming of these sounds. You shouldn't have to "play sloppy" or expect that the 50ms time threshold is universally suited to work with the character of every possible phrase at any given tempo. (Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the threshold varies from patch to patch. If I'm wrong about that, someone please correct me). On some patches there is excessive "glitching" between half and whole steps! Not only isn't it realistic, but it's certainly not well-suited for producing legato/slurred passages on most instruments where the notes would occur within a single register or position (clarinet, flute, trombone) or string (violin, etc.).
Sometimes the little clarinet and bassoon note-transition "bubbles" or small pitch weirdnesses you'll hear in brass are to be expected when playing difficult passages or wide leaps, particularly when crossing register breaks. Per my training, legato playing implies an avoidance of such breaks or bumps in the tone over the course of a passage. It's hit or miss with VSL legato...
And overlapping notes (or not) will not necessarily solve the problem consistently from one VSL legato patch to another, or even within the same patch on a singular instrument.
My suggestion to you is to either use the reverb approach (where the reverb smoothes the transitions; this commits you to a reverb which may or may not be desirable) or, use other libraries to give you the sound you're looking for. Otherwise you will beat your head against the wall trying to make the majority of VSL legato patches to actually sound legato.
Having said that, I will still occasionally load up VSL legato woodwind patches when my writing calls for legato or slurred passages, just to see if perchance they'll work. Most of the time they don't. Occasionally they will. When they do it's a beautiful thing. But don't beat yourself up if you can't get these patches to sound right all the time. As I see it, they're not programmed to produce the sound you'd ordinarily expect from "legato" out of the box.
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Connecting any keyboard controller to the attackslider (labeled ATK) of the perform page, and varying between values of 50 to 64 gives you a lot of control of the "connecting sound".
This also helps if you have to perform the same intervals in a repetitiv passages to get some randomness.
But important: don't use values below 50 (the default value) with performance legato samples, in most patches this will cause a kind of clicking sound.
Higher values will give you a kind of break which can work for some instruments to give a certain kind of expression.
Much more legato options you will find in the larger collections of the Symphonic Cube. Here you will get "fast-legato patches", "performance trills", and "grace-legato performances".
Don't forget the Special Edition is very versatile but also a stripped down product.
best
Herb
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Hi Peter, I read your post with interest and then listened to a bunch of demos on this (VSL) site. I then listened to a bunch of demos on the competitiors sites as well. I can't find anything that comes anywhere close to the realism that VSL offers. Especially in the area of legato. With my VSL "ears" everything else sounds "synthy". I'm very happy with how my projects turn out and have always found a legato patch the does the trick and sounds great. I'm not sure if thats because I have more choices than whats provided in Special Edition, probably. I'm very impressed with what VSL users are able to achieve especially when I hear concert repetoire being programmed. Thats one thing that I don't hear other library manufacturers do. Most of their demos are user compositions. I think its says something about VSL when a user can re-create with great effect a standard orchestral piece thats not composed to be tailored to the library. Especially pieces for string quartet and chamber works. Thanks, DM
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Hi,
To produce the same realism as VSL demos, I suggest that VSL provide all files needed to produce the demos(including sequencer source files). This will give us good resource of information in how to use various contents.
Regarding SE, it's content is very minimal and most of customers will need more content, for this I suggest to develop upgrade path from SE.
Thanks
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@Emperor said:
To produce the same realism as VSL demos, I suggest that VSL provide all files needed to produce the demos(including sequencer source files). This will give us good resource of information in how to use various contents.
Right, and that's why nearly all the demos produced by Jay Bacal offers midifiles and presetfiles for download,
and also a lot of small tutorial demos by Christain Kardeis (for solostrings, chamber strings, woodwinds I and orchestral strings)
best
Herb
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Herb (and Deitz and DG, if you're reading...), and with apologies for this quasi threadjack, though still on the same subject of legato...
In the thread I posted on this subject...
http://community.vsl.co.at/forums/t/17746.aspx
...you kindly provided two such links for me to check out. I replied referring to the Bassoon Lyrical demo, saying in part:"I downloaded the files per the link Herb pointed me to. Unfortunately the notes in the .mid file don't match those of the associated .mp3. It's a different piece of music. Also, there is an .fxb file in the folder and I have no idea where to put it. I managed to get the AUpreset to load but it produced no sound.... I see that some of the patches called for are trills and other articulations that didn't come with the library I have (which is the VI Special Edition)."
No one replied to this post, and the conversation went off in a different direction. That's fine, it happens. But in an effort to better understand this "legato situation" I would be interested in getting these files to work in my system.
Can you please offer some advice on how to get these to work?- Where do I place the .fxp file? (Other than the .fxp that came with the tutorial download I have zero .fxp files on my system)
- Where specifically does the .aupreset file go?
- Why doesn't the .mp3 match the notes in the .mid file?
- Having only the Special Edition (with recently added Extended Library), what to do about the missing articulations?
Running Mac PPC with Logic 7.1.1
With Kind Regards,
Peter
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The midifile do match with the audiofile
but there are three different bassoon pieces placed in one midifile to keep the amount of files low,
and I think the middle part of the midifile belongs to the audiofile you are searching,
If you listen to the music and look at the midifile it should be obvious
fxp files have to be placed in your custom folder, and than you should see this preset files on preset select page in your VI
in the folder structure on the right
if you want to have special edition demos and midifiles you have to go to the special edition demo section
for example Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man"
http://vsl.co.at/Player2.aspx?Lang=1&DemoId=5014
and Faure's "Pavane"
http://vsl.co.at/Player2.aspx?Lang=1&DemoId=5011
both pieces are good examples what's possible with the Special Edition
best
Herb
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You shouldn't have to "play sloppy" or expect that the 50ms time threshold is universally suited to work with the character of every possible phrase at any given tempo. (Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the threshold varies from patch to patch. If I'm wrong about that, someone please correct me).
If you don't play joined-up notes you can't expect the Vienna Instrument to produce a joined-up line - if you lift your fingers beween notes the note will stop playing and the line is no longer legato. As far as I know the sub-50ms threshold is a constant for all VSL legatos and portamentos, but since you can't gauge 50ms while you're playing, it's better to aim for overlapping notes.
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They may not be perfect, but at least they prevent legato notes from sounding obviously disconnected.
But that's precisely the problem --- they DO sound disconnected. Listen to the Pavanne demo. Yes, it's beautifully executed (and my compliments to Jay!). It's making the best of the VSL library. But what bothers me tremendously (and this has nothing to do with Jay's work) is the constant stream of "bumps" on the attacks of the slurred phrases. In particular, listen to the homophonic section around 2:15. Every note starts with a "bump". That's not legato. Listen to the bassoon at 4:37. I highly doubt that the score indicates, "play with funny pitch bend on the attack of each note in this phrase". Same with the descending flute + basson line at around 4:26. Again, not a reflection of the beautiful job that Jay did. It's about the samples...
My purpose in posting here was to offer some "relief" to the OP who seemed to be struggling with the legato samples as myself, not to rehash my original point. But hearing what I hear in Pavanne and other demos, at least I can rule out some kind of playback problem with my copy of VI. I'm not saying that to be smarmy. It was a concern at one point, because, despite the documentation I was also able to get legato patches to play polyphonically under certain conditions...
Finally, regarding the 50 ms time threshold, I double-checked the documentation and you are correct.
@ Herb,
Thanks for your reply. But honestly, when I hear C-->B as I do at the top of the .mp3 and I don't see those notes in the score, the last thing I'd think to do is to look halfway into the score to see if those notes occur. In any event, thanks for clarifying where the files go. I suggest that the documentation be made clearer for these tutorials.
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hm i wonder, does that also work for the older cube and horizon products?
or is there a difference in the way the sample attacks are edited in the VI versions as opposed to the older ones, that calls for the need to have a attack envelope active?
I did try it out though, and it seem like a very good idea for strings especialy :D
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Hi,
as Conquer wrote: "I was just trying to emphasize how important it is to make the notes overlap to trigger the legato intervals."
Being a classically trained professional pianist but now more towards pop/jazz, I find no problem at all to execute the overlapping playing technique. The trick is to play "deep" legato, where your fingers are kind of glued to the keys so that you release the previous key "late."
Then the VSL approach towards legato makes sense.
I don't mean to be mean, but just a notion that it is possible to play it well.
All the best,
Hannu
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Yeah... I have to say, Peter, that I thoroughly disagree with your criticisms of the legato instruments. To me they produce more realism than any other library out there, and by a very long shot. But the reason they produce this is not because they are perfectly smooth, but rather because they aren't perfectly smooth. Really, the "smoothest" transition you could get between two sampled notes would be to simply extend the release time of the first note, and have it bleed over into the next note. That's what a lot of libraries do. But the reason this sounds fake is that there's no transition sound. I mean, I appreciate your training, and all, but what's great about the VSL legato is that it's actually retaining the messiness of a real legato - not because the player isn't playing it properly, but because there are physical imperatives within the instrument itself that make a perfectly smooth transition impossible. Even the transition of a fingered ascending major 2nd on violin produces some noise, because you're instantaneously changing the length of the string - there are artefacts introduced into the sound as a result, and VSL's technique captures these. The same is true for the winds and brass... I'm not trying to discredit your experience, or your ears for that matter, but I just don't hear it the way you do, obviously.
Now, I do think that the legato sampling technique is not ideal for large ensembles, like tutti strings. I think this is probably because, although the real legato transition is still being sampled, the nature of the sampler still requires that the transition be realized as a single event - i.e., the transition from one discrete midi note to another. This, of course, is not the case with a real string section, but it can't really be avoided with a single sampler instrument. And I don't honestly think there's any way around this, except for the layering techniques people have already mentioned... Maybe they could internally duplicate the sound a few times, "humanize" the midi events, then mix them all in the output... dunno... something like that...
Anyway, that really is just my 2 cents. Personally, I find very little fault with the legato instruments.
J.
