Solo Strings - Vivaldi Estro Armonico RV 549

[Philippe BAYLAC]

Hi,

Back to the fundamental libraries ... Here is the first mouvement of Antonio Vivalvi's concerto RV 549 - L'Estro Armonico - performed with just solo strings (4 violins, 2 violas, cello, bass) and harpsichord.

Enjoy !

Vivalvi Estro Armonico RV 549

Best.

Philippe

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hi Philippe

I admire your immense effort to produce music with VSL and so I had a also a great fun with the Vivaldi.

Here a short feedback:

These points I like:

Lively, with a drive, baroque stile nice implemented, mix and room-selection fits well to the music and is my taste as well

This could be even better in my opinion:

There are a lot of parts with the machin-gun-effect which appears when the same sample is used twice ore more.

Seen over the whole piece: It gives a bit the impression of a static machine production.

How to improve? Use same tones with different levels. Take the beginning of the piece as an example.

You have the theme "daaa, daa - ta - ta - ta - ta - taaaa..."

Why not make a crescendo with these "for-same-notes" (staccatos)? "daaa, da - ta - ta - ta - ta - taaaa..."

So more changes with the dynamic could make the race.

BTW I remember the Partita in E of Bach which I performed in 2003 with the Orchestra-Strings and the new (at that time) Solo-Strings.

I had the same problem: Thousands of staccatos. A consistently dynamic treatment solved the problem.

http://www.vsl.co.at/Player2.aspx?Lang=2&DemoID=3953 

(the machine effect could be reduced to a minimum)

As always Philippe...

I hope you can take my "improving point" as a chance and not as a critique. Maybe you can't hear any "machine-effect" - then it's Ok as well.

Here a look back: When we started in 2002/3 in this forum we gave us a lot of such "helps" from musician to musician. Because we all where new with samples and we where gratful about every hint for getting even closer results to the reality. Nowadays I miss these hints a bit here. So take my proposal in the sense of 2003.

All the best

Beat

[William]

Beat, the Preludium you did is excellent, but the already present dynamic contrasts - one phrase piano, the repetition forte - that are notated within that modern arrangement of Bach allowed more variation than this Vivaldi piece.  Also, the Preludium has the figure DEE-AH-DA-DA which already has within it a set of articulations that have variation between legato and staccato that is much easier to make sound realistic and avoid the "machine gun" effect which is always caused by simple repetitions.  Actually I don't think any "machine gun" effect was audible here, it was more a somewhat too uniform sound overall.

This piece by Vivalid is difficult because it is all uniform fast notes and very intense.  So I would say that what needs to be done on this is not some special trick but rather to simply increase the humanize level and introduce into the music some more dynamics.     Even if those are not notated.  The Bach piece already benefitted from the notated dynamics of that rather elaborate modern arrangement, but a pure Baroque piece like Vivladi can use a conductor-like interpretation of dynamics that would bring out the phrases and thereby avoid the mechanical sound.

BTW the overall sound of this is great and the articulations are perfectly selected, it just needs to be more natural sounding and humanized - which is basically something that is fun to do - make a mess!

[Beat Kaufmann]

@Another User said:

that are notated within that modern arrangement of Bach allowed more variation than this Vivaldi piece

OK, I had not the time yesterday to show you my suggestion with a good example.

Maybe the Vivaldi is more difficult to play than my E-Partita. Infact, all pieces are difficult to play with samples.

Today I'm back now with a more difficult piece than the one of vivaldi: Why do the nations from Handel.

This piece comes with lots of same notes in a row.This piece should be done with repetition samples.

But in 2004 I hadn't no repetition samples...

So what to do with only single staccatos? Vary the velocity - no following notes may have the same velocity than the one before.

And of course: You need to take every other effort which can help to avoid the machine-feeling.

As William mentioned... use the humanizing functions, little tempo variations etc.

I've prepared a little tutorial here: "Tips and Tricks 4" - Choose No 33

And here is the result of varying the velocities in each section Violins, Violas, Basses.. : Why do the nations (PlayAlong)

There are some parts which I wasn't able to suppress the "machine" but viewing the whole piece: It got a lot of life and musicality just with this variation of the velocity.

Varying parameters as often as possible is a good recipe in general - either by yourself or by humanizers of a DAW or sample players.

Hope this answer showed my suggestion and its result in a better way.

All the best

Beat