Hi!
How do you compose your songs and arrange instruments? I only had mediocre keyboards back then that played my songs without an offset...I write all my songs in Guitar Pro and have the midis.
Now I recorded my piano parts with my keyboard..but how do you record strings, flutes, brass etc. with different articulations either by playing them live or using midis? Every instrument has a different attack...staccatos are short and fast so they are ok...but legato etc. aren't...and my songs are metal tracks with a lot of keyboards...from 90 to 200 BPM...when writing backing strings, I cannot just play them live or use the midi as the VSL samples are late...but other ones, e.g. brass staccato, work well...
How do you use different instruments? I mean, the problem is not BPM based, but even if you play the piano with fast attack, then have slow strings, you cannot play your strings the same way you play your piano parts...do you use different offsets?
Or do you record or play everything with a fast attack, then bounce midi to audio and manually move recordings so they match the other instruments?
Where to start?
I am new to orchestra libraries and have only used hardware keyboards or libraries that "sound immediately" with no offset required.
Moving a track isn't the problem, but every instrument and articulation is different...so I would like to know where to start and how you do. 😊
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How do you compose and arrange instruments with offsets, different attacks etc.?
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Such are the ironies of what we do. In truth, when real brass players play directly on the beat, they're actually blowing slightly before. And strings playing a slow legato move the bow slightly ahead of time. For contrast, watch them play pizzicato. The timpanist must hit directly in time, and the xylophonist, perhaps even moreso.
So go the physics of sound. We see a MIDI grid. Live music is not on a grid.
Personally, I cannot accommodate my playing live to compensate. It's adjust, adjust, adjust after the fact. I spend a lot of time in Piano Roll (and if you have one of VSL's deeper libraries, you'll be there anyway parsing out the articulation possibilities).So you describe a common challenge.
My live string performances routinely record about a sixteenth too soon at faster tempos.
And there's a compounding issue: if you want a printed score, accommodating an on-time playback by note shifting can compromise the quantization needed for an accurate print-out. That's another real life issue, as the music we hear is simply different from the music we read.
Interestingly, I recently read a thread on another forum that sought a MIDI script for Logic that adjusted the MIDI note playback per articulation, pointing up the very quandary you mention.
To my knowledge, such a script does not exist. And that too might not be real-world, as sometimes the legato strings should lay back, and other times jump the beat... and so it goes. Really, shifting all articulations is just another form of quantizing, and quantizing rarely works all of the time.
My opinion: the MIDI composer should be involved in the track on a per-moment basis.
All of that said, you could tend to faster sounding patches and dial up some slower attacks on the ADSRs as needed. It's less realistic, but perhaps not very noticeable in a faster metal track with a lot going on.
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Thank you!
It sounds like a lot of work and is disappointing. I had several keyboards with built-in sounds....strings, violin, cello, pizzicato...it was just some low or medium quality sounds, but you could play them live and in time.
I don't need scoring. I compose all my songs in Guitar Pro, then export the midis, then add VSTi instruments...and play some instruments on the keyboard or humanize velocities.
Same for drums and bass (Superior Drummer, EZ Bass)...I also have some other ethnic instruments and synths, but all of them don't need an offset.
I bought many VSL libraries such as Synchron Strings, Brass, Woodwinds (and also a small orchestra of another company before), but did not even know that you need offsets and might get the problems I have now.
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@LeanderAT said:
It sounds like a lot of work and is disappointing.I grant you, it can be a lot of work. It's best to embrace it all as a learning experience. There are successes along the way.
Personally, I'd give the triplet runs to a fast legato, leaving a gap between the top and bottom notes for the legato samples to re-trigger (allowing the first note to be non-legato -- with a stronger attack).
The D/A/Eb/A/A/C/G could be a detache (moderately strong), marcato (stronger) or even sffz (strong but usually longer than marcato).
These are subjective choices, of course.
The line under that would work as straight-forward longs, but the D3 and Eb3 could not be played by violins. They would need cellos or violas.
@LeanderAT said:
Same for drums and bass (Superior Drummer, EZ Bass)...I also have some other ethnic instruments and synths, but all of them don't need an offset.Drums are percussive, and electric bass is plucked. So you won't have offset issues there. Suffice to say, any instrument that speaks slowly (and not many in a metal mix do) invites offset MIDI recordings.
Another thought on using a real string sound: even the largest ensemble (with VSL, that would be the Appassionatas) could not be heard over most heavy metal instruments -- as those are boosted well above their actual sound -- like when we trip over the guitar cord and it's pulled out of the amp. That can be a hundred decibel drop.
So it's good to ask how a real violin may approach a sound, and there are techniques to learn. But when it comes to a final print of a heavy metal mix, you've got unequal worlds converging. I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be done. I am saying you become more of a sound designer and mixing engineer right out of the gate.
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Thanks for your suggestions!
I don't know if metal is the problem....maybe you mean the richness of a real (and full) orchestra that cannot be heard? I also listen to many other musical genres including classical music, soundtracks etc....and I don't know much about orchestration.
I grew up with keyboards and just pick the sounds I like. I don't even know if the guitars should be accompanied by one violin and a cello or chamber strings or many violins. I just like the instruments and sound, but don't see much of a difference for my music...if a sound I like consists of one, four or 12 violins does not matter. It is just about the sound.
I buy libraries because of their sound, user interface and articulations. Adding some realistic articulations in quiet parts make VSTis more natural compared to the (my) keyboards with stock sounds and no articulations...there were just slow strings and fast strings...trumpet, brass ensemble, piano and 100 others, but just instruments and not articulations. Legato vs. staccato only depended on you pressing the keys...but it was the same sound.
My music is not complex...because it's not what I like and want to express...the guitars are mostly background heavyness, then there is one lead keyboard and one that accompanies everything.. e.g. guitars, bass, drums, violin and cello...
I bought VSL Strings Pro because it sounded good...then I bought solo cello and violin because of more articulations...I also have cello, violin and bass of another company, but prefer VSL...
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@LeanderAT said:
I don't know if metal is the problem....Certainly not as a genre. The problem, it would seem, is that you're used to sounds -- no matter their source -- that speak more directly than some of the patches with which you're experimenting. And to be sure, this is no problem either. It's just a matter of discovery.
@LeanderAT said:
Adding some realistic articulations in quiet parts make VSTis more natural compared to the (my) keyboards with stock soundsThat's certainly true. Synths offer many advantages and all the veterans here cut their teeth on them. My first synth boasted, "Your personal orchestra." Um, no, not even close. But the seed was planted.
@LeanderAT said:
the guitars are mostly background heavyness, then there is one lead keyboard and one that accompanies everythingYou've defined "homophony," which is nearly every pop/rock/rap/country/metal song ever recorded. It's also the approach of a lot of orchestral music after Bach into the twentieth century.
It's melody, accompaniment, and sustaining material. So you know more about orchestration than you think, as the homophonic approach is common (some say too common) in the symphonic repertoire and soundtrack music.
From here, it's a matter of choosing patches and seeing how they inter-relate.
I have an eighty-plus-year-old orchestration book that decries the advent of amplification in the theater. Well, there's no going back, and we can mix a solo cello with an electric guitar, whether acoustic purists like it or not. Gain and EQ are just the beginning of what we can do.
ELO was mixing strings with rock back in the 1970's.
So in the end, as you have said, the final arbiter is sound, sound, and only sound.
