I recently started sequencing Mahler's 5th symphony using VSL. The purpose of this exercise was familiarize myself with VSL while also learning Mahlers orchestration style. Within a few hours of score reading I was simply amazed at the sophistication in the orchestral writing. I understood this will take me a long while! Mahler is a colossal genius. In fact Ive been walkign dazed the last few days.
It took me an entire week to sequency just the first 2 minutes. I wanted to share two versions of this. One of them is with VSL and the other with mostly VSL+ 2 instruments replaced from another library.I was wondering if people have a preference. As a hint, all the difference is only the first 40 seconds or so.
[url=https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/mahler5a-ver1]https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/mahler5a-ver1[/url]
[url=https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/mahler5a-ver2]https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/mahler5a-ver2[/url]
This is still nowhere near what I want this to sound like, but VSL is truly remarkable in that it enabled me to come this close to rendering one of the hardest pieces of music. So THANK YOU. VSL!
I would also like to get feedback on how to improve the sound quality of the strings. I find these the least convincing. As you can hear, starting with the slow theme around 1:06, the strings, especiialy the orchestral Cellis sound a bit "tinny". This is especially bad if I play it on speakers as oppsied to using headphones where it is tolerable. I am doing nothing to the samples, just using them raw, and adding dyanimcs and appropriate articulations.
Also if someone is up to it, I'd like to throw a challenge if they are also willing to render this piece. We will surely learn from each other in the process.
I will get back to this crazy obsession after my two week vacation. Until them IT will be all pencil and paper.
Cheers
Anand
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Mahler's 5th symphony with VSL
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This sounds very good! You are right about Mahler being very difficult to do. He has to be the greatest orchestrator. I didn't notice a problem with cellos. I thought maybe the overall sound might need to be bigger. Also the brass - not the solo trumpet, but the other brass - sound a couple times a little too long with either releases or articulations? I often notice how simply making notes shorter and more humanized on non-legato brass or winds improves the overall sound. Anyway this seems like a great start on this huge work.
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Thanks William, for listening and for the comments, I see your pint about the release. I find this to be the greatest challenge for realism. Will work more on it. Also I did feel the lack of a big sound....and somehow my mix doesn't feel together. The brass seems to come in abruptly and dominates the strings towards the end. Will work on these in 2 weeks, Any thoughts about the tone of the trumpets in 1 vs 2? the trumpets in ver 2 sounds at times like made by toy truck, especially when forming chords. As for Mahler we can probably spend a lifetime learning from him. I surely intend to. His sound is so grand and so powerful yet so devoid of any cliche. And it's not just the orchestration...the counterpoint is woven with intricate orchestral textures. This is what is so unique about him compared to any other composer other than Stravinsky who liberated all instruments in the orchestra! Anand
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Mahler is very, very tough. Your midi-performance is obviously very intense and you put a lot of labor into it. I wish I could suggest something to help, but I also am struggling with learning to do midi performances as well as I would like to do. The one thing I think I can safely suggest is much, much more rubato. I hope you keep working with the classical masterworks. To me, it is the only way to know if we are getting better, since we can compare to a real performance.
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Anand,
First, thank you for sharing your work. It is indeed ambitious tackling a Mahler Symphony with virtual instruments. Better you doing it than me :)
You have already attained a high level of realism. In my estimation, the timbral qualities of the instruments, the attacks/releases, etc. are where they're at, which is to say, with your highly sensitive ears and desire for realism, you've worked the midi as far as it will go. What I think lends that final sense of realism is as much to do with the human element of ensemble playing, where everyone is just a smidge "off" the beat so to speak. Assuming you're working with an imported midi file in a daw, everything is quantized. Even if you start playing around with the quantization (iterative quantizing using percentages, etc.) you'll find that nothing can rival playing all the parts in yourself. That natural "rubato" and then a brass chord attack, where each instrument is a fraction off from the other...these are the things that lend that missing dimension to the performance. Unfortunately, with such a large scale ensemble, playing in each part would be a very long/arduous process, and would invite a lot of imprecision in terms of rhythmic accuracy as you started "overdubbing" each subsequent track.
So to sum it all up: you are achieving a very credible performance with virtual instruments on a very ambitious work. At the end of the day, individuals such as yourself are encouraging the further development of virtual instruments by showcasing known works and the potential limitations still in place with regards to midi orchestration. That said, to think we're this close, and that 90% of people would never be able to tell the difference is a testament to those that create the instruments/software we all enjoy using.
Enjoy your vacation!
Dave
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HI. Dave, Thank you for listening and the feedback. It is so comforting to have this community to appreciate this kind of music. Almost no one on the street cares about Mahler! I really appreciate advice from professional musicians like you and William. I am an amateur at the end of the day with practically no direct experience with an orchestra or live musicians, although I am mildly proficient in some instruments,I also live in Boston so have the previlege of listening to amazing performances at BSO and the NEC. Playing each instrument would indeed be the best way to achieve natural rubato. Funnily my current rendition is all directly from Sibelius, so I don't even edit this note by note, All The midi control is through hairpins and dynamics notations. I do go through a lot of pains to notate as much as possible. But to your point I should go back and play at least some of the instruments using the keyboard. This should help in the legato phrases. My vacation starts in a few hours but am already missing VSL. As I said before this is a good time for counterpoint exercises on pencil and paper :) Best Anand
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Hi Anand,
Both versions seem pretty acceptible to me. I wouldn't really know which one to prefer. In version 2 the brass seems a little better, but I like both of them.
Together with a lot of us here on the forum, we all try to improve the realism and the orchesral transparant sound, always with trial and error. To people unaware of the technical part behind a good rendition, it seems so simple: putting in some notes and the computer plays them perfectly (no errors). But we all know better what it takes to deliver a couple of minutes of fine orchestral music. And it may even be more delicate with solo instruments, because so to speak we are with our ears on top of the instruments...
Therefore, your efforts and result will be highly appreciated and with such a huge score with the difficult interactions the degree of difficulty is a lot bigger. Rapidly change an articulation here and there won't make much difference. The total ensemble must fit in the sound pattern you're after (dynamically, spacially, balance, room...). Good audio references are absolutely necessary, because almost everyone falls in love with the produced sound, which causes the loss of self-criticism. It happens to everyone.
Thanks to the fantastic samples of VSL, we're able to go search the best possible in our capabilities. The instruments are never to blame for a dubious sound. Our ears and technical skills are.
Playing in all parts can help buidling the so wanted realism, but it can end up in a clumsy orchestra as well (as Dave mentioned). I would never do that with Mahler, not even with a smaller baroque ensemble. To me it seems the best way for solos and small sections in counterpoint, but for the rest I only use a little humanisation and tonal inaccuracy. (See the bugle call near the end of my concert ouverture The Last Post-1918 on my website. That example is not perfect, but I'm satisfied with the overall result. Here I used a combination of cornet and trumpet in unison.) And you're right about the strings. They don't sound that bad, but we've all experienced that they are perhaps the most difficult to tame and to build a convincing sound with. EQing can help a bit, but they are recorded so extremely precise, that you can ruin them more than improving. Again, trial and error. I aware that this isn't much of a practical advise, but it is my best shot for now.
All the best,
Max
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Hi Max, Thanks for the listen and detailed thoughts. Certainly my next step would be to add rubato and more human touch. But I also have to reiterate to myself that my purpose in this exercise is to learn orchestration techniques (given I never went to conservatory and am a professional in another field) and I am not imagining that people would ever want to listen to this as opposed to the 100s of recordings out there. So I only intend to go as far as I feel I've learnt as many textures as possible. Best Anand
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I recently started sequencing Mahler's 5th symphony using VSL. The purpose of this exercise was familiarize myself with VSL while also learning Mahlers orchestration style. Within a few hours of score reading I was simply amazed at the sophistication in the orchestral writing. I understood this will take me a long while! Mahler is a colossal genius. In fact Ive been walkign dazed the last few days.
It took me an entire week to sequency just the first 2 minutes. I wanted to share two versions of this. One of them is with VSL and the other with mostly VSL+ 2 instruments replaced from another library.I was wondering if people have a preference. As a hint, all the difference is only the first 40 seconds or so.
https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/mahler5a-ver1
https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/mahler5a-ver2
This is still nowhere near what I want this to sound like, but VSL is truly remarkable in that it enabled me to come this close to rendering one of the hardest pieces of music. So THANK YOU. VSL!
I would also like to get feedback on how to improve the sound quality of the strings. I find these the least convincing. As you can hear, starting with the slow theme around 1:06, the strings, especiialy the orchestral Cellis sound a bit "tinny". This is especially bad if I play it on speakers as oppsied to using headphones where it is tolerable. I am doing nothing to the samples, just using them raw, and adding dyanimcs and appropriate articulations.
Also if someone is up to it, I'd like to throw a challenge if they are also willing to render this piece. We will surely learn from each other in the process.
I will get back to this crazy obsession after my two week vacation. Until them IT will be all pencil and paper.
Cheers
AnandNice! Good interpretation, I listened to version 1. The tuttis are difficult, sometimes harmonic distortion gets into the mix very easily, the sound goes from round, loud and powerful to thin, too loud and harsh, it's a very thin line with samples. I'd work over the tuttis for balance and beauty of tone. Keep up the good work!
Jerry
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Good audio references are absolutely necessary, because almost everyone falls in love with the produced sound, which causes the loss of self-criticism. It happens to everyone.
So true, sound is powerful and it seduces us particularly when you combine high-end audio, self-love and volume. That's why I always compose now very softly, it helps to overcome the all-too-human tendency to be seduced by the sound.
The instruments are never to blame for a dubious sound. Our ears and technical skills are.
This has been true for a good number of years now, but it wasn't always. Sometimes the sound itself was very limiting in one way or another. for example a sampled violin consisting of 4 samples.
And you're right about the strings. They don't sound that bad, but we've all experienced that they are perhaps the most difficult to tame and to build a convincing sound with.
I've always had more problems with brass than strings, in terms of getting them to sound the way I want. For years I wouldn't use a sample-set of 4 horns or 8 horns to play anything but a monophonic line, believing that it wouldn't be "realistic" if I had, say, a sample-set of 4 horns playing 4 part counterpoint because than I have 16 horns (theoretically)! But my ear told me differently than my logic and adherence to tradition, my ear told me that 4 horns playing 4 notes sounds more full and brassy than 4 solo horns playing those notes (of course!) even when applying some detuning and slight movements away from the beat. Another possibility is to have 4 different solo-horn sample sets and they'd of course work better than using the same sample-set for two or more simultaneous melodic lines. But again, it's quite doable with the right techniques, panning, tuning, and location relative to the beat (to offset phase cancellation when pitches are too exact).
I might add, that there are people like me, who don't believe or aspire to a virtual ensemble to sound exactly like a recording of an orchestra for several reasons. There is no one "orchestra" sound. A Mahler symphony, a Haydn symphony, two very different approaches compositionally, (harmony, scalular resources, cadences, structure, rhythm, meter, orchestration), number of players, length of movments, etc. Very different sound. I hold the sound of a great orchestra, as many do, as the pinnacle of musical achievement, so yes, how could one not want and try to make their computer compositions sound as good or sound the same? But how is this really possible? I write to the medium itself, because I am dedicated to the medium. If I were truly after a "real orchestral sound" I'd write for live orchestra! The problem is that we are using a different medium, it's not an orchestra, not a collection of sentient human beings in a fine hall. Every artistic medium has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. It's just as important to me that a virtual orchestration sounds musical, interesting, sonically pleasing, even if it doesn't sound exactly like a recording of a live ensemble. There are things that synths and even samples can do that live players cannot do as well, or do at all. We should remember this is a different medium, as photography and painting or theater and film are different mediums, it calls for different techniques and, to some degree, a different aesthetic. With original composition it gets even more experimental as there is really very little tradition behind computer-based orchestration and we don't have many live performances and recordings to compare it to as we do with a composer who lived in another century and whose music has been interpreted and recorded many times.
In any event, it's all about experience, learning, growing, and deepening one's knowledge and understanding of music. Frankly, I think because we are all human, we are all beginners, and very lucky ones to have such amazing musical instruments to enjoy.
All the best,
Max
Best,
Jerry
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