Hmmm, thanks for response, I don't really buy that at all. With my experience of recording film scores the best engineers rely more on room mics than they do the spots (exceptions can be found, i.e. in Gregson Williams' score for Narnia where the reverse is true) the sound of an orchestra is not just the air resonating from the instruments but it resonating a room and everything within it, and this is quite different to reverb. If you rely just on spots, or have a situation where there are no reflections you don't have the interplay between the strings, sound boards, air, room and back again. You simply don't. Nor can you rectify this, even with a ten thousand quid Lex or TC.
I recently recorded another string session in London, at Air lyndhurst, in the hall, just a small group of 35 string players, but the room gave it a gorgeous live and large sound with a tale of seconds which is not verb, but simply the instruments and the room "coming to rest". Then of course when mixing we added reverbs to give it expanse, all the things one likes a film score to sound like.
So in conclusion I think this approach is a bit dubious, they are recording in a way that you would never hear in real life, so therefore it is cold and lifeless, unfamiliar almost (certainly in the case of the guitar, which in my opinion doesn't really sound like any guitar I've heard). I find it odd that they have created a stage with no impulse response and then bothered to create patches with release triggers! Of what!?
I think this library (intrigue, and it being a sunday has led me to load in the solo and chamber strings) has a sound very similar to that of Garritan alongside a very very muddled way that the patches are organized. Hooray for choice, but pooh bah for the searching one has to do! I have had the pleasure of writing a lot of orchestral stuff , and working with some great composers on big scores, and nine times out of ten they will be relying on some key usable patches, legato with a mod wheel expression switch, I always find it excruciating that libraries bury these key files in jargoned folders.
OK rant over, I feel it's amazing how much work has gone into this, and whilst it lays a bench mark for such recordings I feel it is misguided and really lacks the life which is after all the key reason you would want to spend so much time programming orchestral samples in the first place, we'd still be on our Sound Canvas strings if we didn't. We are fighting a battle with directors to represent what an orchestra may sound like, and I think VSL doesn't allow the user to hit the ground running in this respect.
Any other thoughts would be great. Also, does anyone have the time or inclination to tell me the patch names for all the looped long strings which have an expression control triggered by the mod wheel in both solo strings and the chamber package. Also, am I blind, but is there any con sord patches aswell?
All the best.
Christian.
hensonmusic.com
I recently recorded another string session in London, at Air lyndhurst, in the hall, just a small group of 35 string players, but the room gave it a gorgeous live and large sound with a tale of seconds which is not verb, but simply the instruments and the room "coming to rest". Then of course when mixing we added reverbs to give it expanse, all the things one likes a film score to sound like.
So in conclusion I think this approach is a bit dubious, they are recording in a way that you would never hear in real life, so therefore it is cold and lifeless, unfamiliar almost (certainly in the case of the guitar, which in my opinion doesn't really sound like any guitar I've heard). I find it odd that they have created a stage with no impulse response and then bothered to create patches with release triggers! Of what!?
I think this library (intrigue, and it being a sunday has led me to load in the solo and chamber strings) has a sound very similar to that of Garritan alongside a very very muddled way that the patches are organized. Hooray for choice, but pooh bah for the searching one has to do! I have had the pleasure of writing a lot of orchestral stuff , and working with some great composers on big scores, and nine times out of ten they will be relying on some key usable patches, legato with a mod wheel expression switch, I always find it excruciating that libraries bury these key files in jargoned folders.
OK rant over, I feel it's amazing how much work has gone into this, and whilst it lays a bench mark for such recordings I feel it is misguided and really lacks the life which is after all the key reason you would want to spend so much time programming orchestral samples in the first place, we'd still be on our Sound Canvas strings if we didn't. We are fighting a battle with directors to represent what an orchestra may sound like, and I think VSL doesn't allow the user to hit the ground running in this respect.
Any other thoughts would be great. Also, does anyone have the time or inclination to tell me the patch names for all the looped long strings which have an expression control triggered by the mod wheel in both solo strings and the chamber package. Also, am I blind, but is there any con sord patches aswell?
All the best.
Christian.
hensonmusic.com