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Hi VSL Fam,
In the Synchron player, is there a way to adjust the Vel XF to start from no sound? For clarity, when the Vel XF slider is at zero, there is literally zero sound?
I appreciate things can be adjusted with the expression, but for simplicity and consistent results, would be great to fade some of these lines to nothing.
Thanks as always for any help you can offer.
Kind Regards,
Lee
[ Caution: if you write your post and then click the disclaimer, you lose what you wrote. Yipes.]
What you're describing is called a niente attack. @Bastiaan has the only answer I know, but you indicate that you don't want to use Expression. I too have sought that sound using VelXF alone, and I don't think it can be done. Even at its lowest setting, the beginning of the sound is heard.
Other than a sampled niente attack, you cannot get the truest real-world sound anyway (and if somewhere in VSL's compendious library they've got it, so much the better.)
Unimaginatively, if CC 22 has a slow enough attack and you fiddle with track volume, you get a version of the sound without CC 11 Expression.
Oddly, a sampled diminuendo to niente may be as or more useful. But such sounds are better revealed in solo and chamber work. I don't think, for example, we need Appassionata niente attacks or releases.
You know, my spell checker really hates the word niente.
Hello Nessein
I think the VI player was the way you want it...?
But actually, the VEL XF controller is mainly used to cycle through the various sample layers, which doesn't necessarily mean changing the volume (down to 0).
One possibility, if you don't want to draw an extra expression curve, would be to set the same controller for Expression (normally CC11) as for VEL XF (i believe CC02 or CC01). Then the VelXF curve also controls the expression curve at the same time.
Perhaps it makes sense to set the Expression range so that it does not control the volume completely to 0 volume, but still leaves a very small amount of volume (ppp)... You would have to try it out.
All the best
Beat
Hi Beat,
Yes - VI did have the ability to adjust the range of Vel.XF so you could get it to go to no sound.
It's not such a big issue and an expression curve can take care of the fade to silence. Moreover anything to make programming quicker / easier is the goal because the cues I am writing at the moment have many sustained long notes that continually fade to nothing.
On balance I am really enjoying the Synchron player, the Synchron brass, winds, percussion and Duality Strings. To the point that if I were forced to do the same amount of film cues in VEP with VI instruments, honestly, I do not think I would have the technical skills to get to the finish line.
Kudos to VSL on the Synchron player and Duality concept. Its truly game-changing for me.
Kind Regards,
Lee
@Beat-Kaufmann said:
Hello Nessein
I think the VI player was the way you want it...?
But actually, the VEL XF controller is mainly used to cycle through the various sample layers, which doesn't necessarily mean changing the volume (down to 0).
One possibility, if you don't want to draw an extra expression curve, would be to set the same controller for Expression (normally CC11) as for VEL XF (i believe CC02 or CC01). Then the VelXF curve also controls the expression curve at the same time.
Perhaps it makes sense to set the Expression range so that it does not control the volume completely to 0 volume, but still leaves a very small amount of volume (ppp)... You would have to try it out.
All the best
Beat
Yes, setting Vel XF and Expression both to CC1 actually works fine, and is very easy to setup in the Synchron Player (probably for VI as well, not sure as I dont have it).
But after having used this type of setup for some time, I have to say its a bit of a double edged sword. Yes it works, but the resulting volume/dynamics curve you get from merging the two means that below 50% everything tends to be quite low in volume. Then you go a bit higher, and things get louder very quickly as both CC1 and CC11 are increasing at the same time.
This will make you tinker around with your curves/instrument balance quite a lot, as the smallest increase or decrease results in an audible change, and its hard (but not impossible of course) to find the right balance.
So for me, in the end its not worth it. You will actually spend less time managing two CC controllers then trying to implement this short cut.
I agree with @Bastiaan and would personally like to a separate "Niente" option that could be turned on or off where you could have a range of velocity or velXF where it begins to fade to niente, at the bottom of the range, separate from expression control. Like a switch they could put in the right area of synchron player, with the Legato mode (Poly vs Mono) and other such options. Other vendors have such a thing (Orchestral Tools for instance has this in SINE), and I think it's a very nice feature. It only affects the bottom part of the range so most of your writing should be unaffected if they were to implement something like this.
I don't like hijacking expression to do this because often I need to do CC11 shaping as well in some places of the music and would lose this ability if it is stuck joined to the CC1 controller.
I've asked for this before, but they didn't seem too interested. Maybe if more people were to ask, it would help with this.
