My approach with VSL differs depending on the type of piece I'm composing.  I'll outline the main approaches to each below:

For classical compositions intended for human performance, I compose the music in Finale (I stick with the Garritan sounds in Finale), add articulation/dyanmics/tempi, markings as needed, prior to exporting the midi files to Cubase.  I import the file in to to my Cubase template which is organized by orchestral section, followed by tracks for synths, and audio (live instruments/vocals, etc.)  At this point, I'll decide whether or not to actually perform the individual instrumental tracks using the piano, or just add articulations to the midi tracks.  If I perform one or more parts, I'll first duplicate the track and retain the midi file, then play in the part using simply a sustain keyswitch for the whole thing.  This way, depending on the complexity of the part, I can use a combination of the midi notes from Finale and my live playing (often, the slower, more lyrical sections beneft from my live performance).  

Once the parts are in, I play each part back at a slower tempo, and record the keyswitches in. I have set up the lowest octave of the keyboard to accommodate keyswitches from C1-B1, with similar articulations and variations occupying parts of each matrix.  I have ensured (as per Beat Kaufmann's suggestion) that the articulations assigned to various keys is as close as possible throughout the range of orchestral instruments (save for the occasions where certain instruments don't have a specific articulation, at which point, I've got alternate ones assigned to those keys).  This system has worked well for me, but I only have the standard libraries, and have often wondered how I'll adapt things with the additional articulations if I ever am fortunate enough to acquire the full libraries.

I should also mention, my wife, Becky, has created many combination articulations (such as crossfading a szforzando with the legato patch) for more control beyond what the standard articulations offer.  

Now, if I'm composing in the daw, such as my recent posting about my cinematic orchestral album, I'll compose everything using a single sustain keyswitch (but still have my template open with all available articulations).  I find that as a performer, I can often create a fairly convincing performance with simply that one keyswitch, as it seems to "read my mind" and react to the various velocities of a live performance better than the imported midi notes would, if they were played back using only a sustain keyswitch.  I know this is silly, because at the end of the day, note on/note off/velocity are all simply a numeric reference in midi, and it doesn't have the ability to make my live playing any more musical than midi data, but it "seems" like my pieces are more alive when I play them in myself (of course, there are numerous other things like tempo, note length, etc. that a live performance add to the mix).

But I digress... after the piece has been composed via the one sustain patch, I'll play the track back and record my keyswitches (again playing the track back at a slow enough tempo to record my keyswitches in one take).  After that's all done, I'll refine and change articulations as needed.  All of this, of course, neglects to mention the task of creating the tempo track, and a myriad of other things that go in to realizing a performance.

Hopefully, this all makes sense.  I'm typing this quickly as my baby is getting ready to feed, so I apologize if there's anything in here that's incoherent.

Dave

"I was listening to Guy's demos. Its simply impossible for me to believe these were made with a virtual library and not real performers. Even in occasions when a string might border on becoming synthy ot tinny, he hides it masterfully with added expression. Listening to the 'Springtime caper' right now and amazed at the realism, but also the quality and humor of this composition.

And there are like 100 demos like this by him on the VSL site! And not to mention pieces like this ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfNms9kCB0M

Guy, I am not flattering here as I have nothing to gain from it, but simply awed and inspired by your works. Its truly an honor to be able to even communicate with you. I wonder if have you even thought of writing symphonies or tone poems. At the very least please enter Hollywood make better music than what we hear now." - agitato

That puts it exactly how I feel - I have been amazed over and over by Guy's music which takes the routine job of doing demos and turns it into an art. There are pieces among those demos that are true genius. And all of them are brilliantly done. Also the high level orchestral performances he is getting are so hard to obtain these days - it shows that other musicians are realizing how fine his music is. I agree on how people here should realize they are lucky to be conversing directly with such a talent.

Need to focus on the positive anyway!  

Hi Dave,

It is really very interesting to read how others work with VSL and you described it very detailed. This is a great and constructive contribution to the discussion thank your first of all.

@Acclarion said:

This system has worked well for me, but I only have the standard libraries, and have often wondered how I'll adapt things with the additional articulations if I ever am fortunate enough to acquire the full libraries.

This point was exactly what made me completly redesign my usage of VSL, when before I started my hitherto largest project. In fact I am lucky to have collected over the last 12 yers the whole Superpackage, providing  an impressive large variety of different patches for nearly each single orchestral instrument.

If you just take the soloviolin, if I remember well I have loaded more than hundred different patches, it mighrt be less for other instruments but with all sectionsizes we might accumulate for instance for all VSL-Violin-Samples presumably nearly more than 1000 patches.

I understand everyone who say let me just begin with exactly the patch I need and than add only those which seem to be necessary to. This might be defenitly a wway to keep things manageable, but as you consider with good reasons, it is always in danger to exceed the amount of complexity, which stay managable even if you make use of everything which might be for musical reaasons necessary.

As I indicated, this was the Reason why I tried to split the programming of articulationchange in multiple decisions. Since You can not simply use 100 Keyswitches to controle all available Patches for the Soloviolin. And in VI and its Matrices this is not necessary (I confess I am lucky not to use any Keyswitches in my Keyeditor anymore since Cubase has the Expression-map feature to do that) So my three decision inside one Instrumenttype are

1) Which fundamental articulationtyype (legato, Sustain, Short, ect.) programmed via Expressionmap that choses a certain Matrix in my Instrumentpreset for a certain Articulationtype

2) which sectionsize (f.i. Solo, Dim-Strings 2,4,6,8, Chmaberstrings, Orchestral Strings, Appasionata) Y-Axis of a Matrix controled by one CC

3) which variant of a certain Articulationtype which is available in a certain Sectionsize (f.i. legato: mV, nV, Marcato, SulG, etc.) controled by another CC

I am very hopeful about the organization of Synchronstrings to be developped exactly in that direction when I read: "Play short notes, long notes with various attacks, legatos, scalable vibrato intensities and note repetitions with a minimal need to switch articulations, and by moving just one or two preconfigured controllers."

I expect that this will make things easier for us all (provided our Hardware will come along with the demands of Synchronstrings, since Patches like that would have to load not only much more variants to be controleable by CC, but since they are recorded in the Synchron-Stage multiple Microphone-Setup, each singe samplewould be loaded up to 8 times to keep all microphonepositions ready to be mixed.

@agitato said:

Totally agree, William. Sorry one more link with Guys work....variations on Ode to Joy. This is simply amazing. [url=

@agitato said:

Totally agree, William.

Sorry one more link with Guys work....variations on Ode to Joy. This is simply amazing.

Well, are you sure you are kidding? Sorry I find this is very insulting.

I receivied a pm from fahl5, I am very tempted to post it here, maybe I should, I'll think about it, but since it's a pm and would be far too embarrassing for fahl5, I'll respect the privacy. So I'll ask fahl5, why didn't you post this message here? Or are you too embarrased of what others and the moderators would say? You feel safer giving me your psycho-analysis 101 in pm and attributing to me things like "narcissistic injury" and me "contaminating the discussion of the VSL form?" As Shania Twain says: "That don't impress me much". But go ahead, if you are so confident about what you say, post it here, please. I don't mind.

But bassically, fahl5 decided to twist things around and give the impression that others (me I guess) have an inferiority complex by cherry picking comments here and there.

Fahl5, keep your preaching to yourself, and let the moderators decide what is appropriate and what isn't.

The mere fact that you won't even accept that, says a lot.... by trying to overrule their comments such as:

@fahl5 said:

A moderator who is not able or willing to keep such pure personal aggressions out of his forum deserves severe requests to care for his own duties. I still hope it would be not necessary to solve this imho blatant breach of existing laws more formal.

and as final resort you pm me playing Freud.

If you want a job with the police or behavioural psychology expert, this is not the place for it, and if I want advice on behaviour, I will ask a professional on the matter, not fahl5, stick to Bartok.

Steff, you do very good work with VSL, and I applaude you for this and you are a knowleadgble and prolific musician, and that's what should be the main focus, however, you won't take responsibily for ANY awkward dismissing statements you make (no matter how YOU perceive them), and keep constantly criticising others behaviours bringing it back to them, your constant, and I do mean constant lecturing, (give it up man, it's become tiresome) and contradict constructive comments offered by others.

How's that working out for you?

@fahl5 said:

A moderator who is not able or willing to keep such pure personal aggressions out of his forum deserves severe requests to care for his own duties. I still hope it would be not necessary to solve this imho blatant breach of existing laws more formal.

Ha ha ha ha🎉 Are you still there Dietz or have you been fired? Or sent somewhere for moderation re-education? How fahlshistic a comment... Needless to say I retract what was a 'provisional' apology I had offered in that other thread. This is exactly the language that was used in the past as a hint about me - to be banned.

But I'm not angry; I don't understand how everyone is getting angry. Guy, how can you get entrapped into a fight by this fellow? Why don't you let him preach to his heart's content? You know by now it's sheer hilarity.

To be serious: Is there any greater source of laughs in this forum?

@Errikos said:

 Guy, how can you get entrapped into a fight by this fellow? 

Ah! No big deal. I know the guy now....

"To be serious: Is there any greater source of laughs in this forum?" - Errikos

I love it.  To create savage, precise irony in a language other than your native tongue is an accomplishment almost no people on the planet are capable of.  Let alone, on top of that, being a great composer.  Errikos has accomplished both.   

So to answer some questions I said I would reply to:

When composing with VI, rarely will I compose 100% of the ideas that pops into my head, because I know that's not realistic and I'll end up fighting with the samples, so I prefer to work WITH the samples, and my ideas will revolve around what is available and sound most pleasing to me in a particular library. It could happen that a single articulation I like will trigger an entire piece because I know I can develop on that articulation without having to worry about it sounding good. Perhaps this kind of thing comes easier to me, I have no idea, but I am comfortable working like this. This would be similar to Beethoven using the harmonic notes of the french horn in his symphonies, he had a very limited amount of notes to work with, however, made great use of them as we know.

Often I'll have fun just trying things out in a library, just anything, like improvising between articulations instead of on a piano, and suddenly this sound is cool, or a combination or articulations I really dig, ok, we'll go with that, as silly as this. It's kind of working backwards maybe, but for me it works just as well, just a different order, and once you get going, the inspiration starts to pour in. As I said in another post, for me the most important aspect when writing with VSL is knowing your library, the better you know it the more enjoyable it will be for you, simply because it is like chess, there are over 9 million different possible positions after three moves each. There are over 288 billion different possible positions after four moves each. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the observable universe. This is also why I said, I could be using the same library and in 5 years will make better use of it simply because I experimented more with it. Another side of this is that you come up with ideas you would never have thought of from your head, and I guess that's where I can be more innovative sometimes. We aren't living in the 19th cent. anymore, so we need to adapt our inspirations with the tools available today to make the most of it. Sadly, there is a trend of this "out of the box" wish, and perhaps we are getting closer to this, especially with synchron, but I'd still work WITH the library for now or in part combination..

So that's one side.

I also sometimes will work with very specific ideas I have and figure out what articulations works best afterwards, like doing a mock up, which is a complete different way of working compared to the first way I described. For instant, I recently wrote a fairly long piece for which I completely did a 2 piano version first, unfortunatelly I temporarilly had to abandon it during the orchestration to work on synchron string demos, but during the orchestration I probably would of looked at what works best in the library. So it doesn't hurt to have some flexibilty and more importantly, not to get too attached to what you write.

Works with live orchestra.

I must confess that all of the pieces I've had played by real orchestras were done in VI first, some as VSL demos (like Mourning), some not, just for my pleasure, and always worked out very well making a score for the orchestra. It has never been a hurdle since I use the instruments in a pretty idiomatic way and if what you write is musical for each instrument and section, it will very likely be playable, of course some instruments like the harp, you can't write anything you want. But I've written some pretty wild demos over the years, and I know they would be very playable live, it's just a question of figuring out how to divide the parts to make it playable for each musician, that has never worried me, Ravel is my reference for this.

A few years ago I was asked by a Roumanian pianist to write a sort of concert piece for piano and orchestra based on a Roumanian folk theme, Rhapsodic Variations on Lie Ciocarlie For this I went more with a traditional approach, mainly because the piece revolved around playful passages and had enough material in my head.

I could probably go on about this for several pages, but this is just a glimps of how I like to work. Hope that it can be interesting or useful to some.

Off-topicish, I just finished watching Murder, My Sweet. What a great score by Roy Webb; meaty music - as was the fashion back then, but not overtly thrillery or saccharine. Movie not bad also, although I would've preferred Bogart for the lead.

Thanks for the hyperbolical praise Bill, "see" you on private e-mail.

Thanks Guy. Very interesting. 

I would have thought you took to pencil and paper first and later sequenced everything but good to know you start with playing the samples on the keyboard and not the the sheet music first  (if I understand right).

Anyways, the piano + orchestra peice is a truly masterful work at the level of Lizst or Rachmaninov. Thank you for sharing. 

@Another User said:

You have utterly poisoned this Forum and are in fact a sociopath who cares nothing about anyone except yourself.  

Is this really the way you prefer to comunicat in the VSL-Forum and do you really believe it is necessary to blame those like me who do prefer a respectful and well founded argumentation?? (Even if you seem to criticise well founded argumentation as "constant lecturing"). It is a pitty I thought we could keep private discussion about private misunderstandings a matter of private messages. I still do not believe this Form will make any profit of discussing your private problems publicly like you does.

@ errikos,

If you believe you should withdraw your apologyy for your infamous lie I would ever had done anything to get you out of this forum, than you should simply become concrete, if you are not able to, you know that blaming something for anything not true is nothing what might help any comunication at all. It is simply a lie and the one who pretends things like that is simply a liar. This is neither inappropriate nor insulting to say but just a matter of fact.

Gentlemen, 

We are shocked to see what this "Appreciation for VSL" has turned into. 

Sample development is also about freedom, and we want you to enjoy this freedom. There are many ways to live in freedom.

Fighting each other is probably not the best way to use it. 

This thread is now closed.

Peace. 

Paul