William—
Thank you again for your insightful comments. I agree with them all.
Taking the “edge” off strings without losing their “aliveness” and “texture” remains an elusive goal for me. I actually did EQ them with a gentle low pass filter, but I was afraid to attenuate too many of the top frequencies, so maybe I didn’t go far enough. Everyone always says “use your ears” and this is good advice, but I’d also love to hear about some specific solutions and EQ settings people are using.
The reverb here is the Lexicon Pantheon Medium Hall that comes with Sonar 3. I tried to simulate depth by making the horns “wetter” and the strings somewhat “dryer.” But how does one create a “darker” reverb sound? Which reverb settings do I fiddle with?
I was indeed obsessed with making the solos stand out and probably went overboard. And because I wasn’t totally happy with the timbre of the strings I probably subconsciously tried to “hide” them by bringing them down too much in the mix and thus further exposing the solo woodwinds and horns. Also maybe I should have placed the instruments in a larger hall, but Ravel states this piece is “pour petit orchestre” so I thought that maybe I should strive for a somewhat smaller and more intimate sound. But unfortunately the Pantheon Medium Hall reverb that I did use is a little “metallic” for my taste.
I spent gobs of time on the dynamic shading, so I’m glad you noticed it. I’m using a combination of modwheel crossfading between dynamic layers (including the custom MONO modwheel crossfade performance patches I posted in the Mother Goose thread) and further shaping of the sound (and volume) with expression controller #11. Every phrase (and almost every note) is shaped in some way. I have found that for most samples unless they are moving dynamically in some direction, they almost immediately start sounding extremely artificial. This is doubly true for ensemble strings, especially at the beginning and ending of phrases and during all longer sustains. When I get lazy and don’t do this, my wife inevitably says the samples start sounding like a “squeezebox.” Or she’s says it’s as if she can “hear my fingers pressing down the keys and triggering the samples.”
If anyone’s interested I can post the midi (or Cakewalk) file so they can see exactly what’s going on.
Thanks again for taking the time to give your feedback.
Best,
Jay
Thank you again for your insightful comments. I agree with them all.
Taking the “edge” off strings without losing their “aliveness” and “texture” remains an elusive goal for me. I actually did EQ them with a gentle low pass filter, but I was afraid to attenuate too many of the top frequencies, so maybe I didn’t go far enough. Everyone always says “use your ears” and this is good advice, but I’d also love to hear about some specific solutions and EQ settings people are using.
The reverb here is the Lexicon Pantheon Medium Hall that comes with Sonar 3. I tried to simulate depth by making the horns “wetter” and the strings somewhat “dryer.” But how does one create a “darker” reverb sound? Which reverb settings do I fiddle with?
I was indeed obsessed with making the solos stand out and probably went overboard. And because I wasn’t totally happy with the timbre of the strings I probably subconsciously tried to “hide” them by bringing them down too much in the mix and thus further exposing the solo woodwinds and horns. Also maybe I should have placed the instruments in a larger hall, but Ravel states this piece is “pour petit orchestre” so I thought that maybe I should strive for a somewhat smaller and more intimate sound. But unfortunately the Pantheon Medium Hall reverb that I did use is a little “metallic” for my taste.
I spent gobs of time on the dynamic shading, so I’m glad you noticed it. I’m using a combination of modwheel crossfading between dynamic layers (including the custom MONO modwheel crossfade performance patches I posted in the Mother Goose thread) and further shaping of the sound (and volume) with expression controller #11. Every phrase (and almost every note) is shaped in some way. I have found that for most samples unless they are moving dynamically in some direction, they almost immediately start sounding extremely artificial. This is doubly true for ensemble strings, especially at the beginning and ending of phrases and during all longer sustains. When I get lazy and don’t do this, my wife inevitably says the samples start sounding like a “squeezebox.” Or she’s says it’s as if she can “hear my fingers pressing down the keys and triggering the samples.”
If anyone’s interested I can post the midi (or Cakewalk) file so they can see exactly what’s going on.
Thanks again for taking the time to give your feedback.
Best,
Jay
