A Faltering VSL Demo

[DG]

As I was so disappointed with the "Falttering" thread title being changed, I thought that I'd start one of my own [H]

Here is a demo that I put together yesterday that demonstrates VSL in it's most faltering light. It is a "quick and dirty" demo, the opposite side of the coin from all these clever VSL bods who can actually be bothered to tweak things until they sound good. Me? Well, there are just far too many things to watch on daytime TV to waste time on making demos sound good.

Anyway, the things to remember:

1) Most of it is performed in real time, although I did add one controller afterwards that I was too slow to do "live".

2) It is on 5 tracks (one for each string section) and there is no layering, as that would have needed more tracks.

3) The reverb is the built in Nuendo one and it all plays through my writing template; no tweaking allowed.

So may I present: [URL=http://darylgriffith.com/production/faltering/Faltering%20-%20Daryl%20Griffith.mp3]A Faltering VSL Demo[/URL]

DG

[hermitage59]

DG,

A delightful example of a 'fattening VSL delmo'!

I'm impressed by the tone of the strings.

Regards,

Alex.

[mech289]

I think it sounds excellent. Nicely done............

[JBacal]

I like the composition quite a bit. Simple, touching.

Best,
Jay

[Rob Elliott]

A veri niece peace, DJ, er, DG [:P]


Seriously - tell us what matrixes you used. I love that it focuses on theme. Sounds like you set the XF to a controller. Very nice.


Rob


(can you render this at 256K - come on buddy - 128K doesn't do this music justice [[;)]] )

[DG]

@Rob Elliott said:

A veri niece peace, DJ, er, DG [:P]


Seriously - tell us what matrixes you used. I love that it focuses on theme. Sounds like you set the XF to a controller. Very nice.


Rob


(can you render this at 256K - come on buddy - 128K doesn't do this music justice [[;)]] )

Well I think that it is cloyingly sentimental pap, but it amused me for a couple of hours. [:D]

Regarding matrices, most was done in Universal Mode using all the perf leg stuff with a Articulation combi as well for the Cello and Bass. I did have a tad of cell xFade in Vln 1 between perf leg and sus fa auto, just to make it sound different from Vln 2. Other than that it was all using controllers (and sounds it...!).

However, to be fair even though it was just about all "performed" I did have a few goes at some phrases as I was unable to get a hole in one [:'(]

DG

[PaulR]

@DG said:

Well I think that it is cloyingly sentimental pap, but it amused me for a couple of hours. [:D]

Regarding matrices, most was done in Universal Mode using all the perf leg stuff with a Articulation combi as well for the Cello and Bass. I did have a tad of cell xFade in Vln 1 between perf leg and sus fa auto, just to make it sound different from Vln 2. Other than that it was all using controllers (and sounds it...!).

However, to be fair even though it was just about all "performed" I did have a few goes at some phrases as I was unable to get a hole in one [:'(]
DG

I think that's a pretty good sound. It's marvellous what you can do with E, A and B.

[hermitage59]

@PaulR said:

It's marvellous what you can do with E, A and B.

Sounds nasty.
Do you get medication for that?


[[:|]]

[ericbrooking]

You know, to make it even more un-Falttering you could add more reverb to get that bathroom sound like the other demos [:D]

[magates]

nice composition and it does sound nice and fairly realistic.

[DG]

@PaulR said:

I think that's a pretty good sound. It's marvellous what you can do with E, A and B.

Yes, it's one more note than I normally bother with. No wonder I was having trouble playing it [:D]

DG

[DG]

@ericbrooking said:

You know, to make it even more un-Falttering you could add more reverb to get that bathroom sound like the other demos [:D]

I knew someone was going to say that, so here you are (and I hate it [8o|] ).

[URL=http://darylgriffith.com/production/faltering/Faltering%20in%20Soup%20-%20Daryl%20Griffith.mp3]A Faltering VSL Demo with far too much Reverb[/URL]

DG

[JWL]

@DG said:

Me? Well, there are just far too many things to watch on daytime TV to waste time on making demos sound good.

DG-- You give Jerry Springer way too much credit.

I liked your patch choices. Interesting to hear how a string player would handle this. Thanks for both versions.

Knowing that some details get lost when transferred to mp3, I'm not so sure under the circumstances that the second version necessarily had "too much" reverb, though there was clearly more than on the first. The .wav or .aiff might be a different story.

Considering the amount of space in the composition, I actually preferred the second version. More reverb, but certainly not what I would call too much more.

[DG]

@JWL said:

Considering the amount of space in the composition, I actually preferred the second version. More reverb, but certainly not what I would call too much more.

Mmmmmmmmmm. I hate reverb, but I guess that you probably realise that by now. The original version could also do with the Dietz/MIR/Room noise special, but I don't really care as it's only a demo [H]

Of course with the huge bucket of echo on the second version it is no longer really "Faltering" [:D]

DG

[JWL]

@JWL said:

Considering the amount of space in the composition, I actually preferred the second version. More reverb, but certainly not what I would call too much more.

Mmmmmmmmmm. I hate reverb, but I guess that you probably realise that by now. The original version could also do with the Dietz/MIR/Room noise special, but I don't really care as it's only a demo [H]

Of course with the huge bucket of echo on the second version it is no longer really "Faltering" [:D]

DG

That's "falTTering" to you, sir!! [:D]

[ericbrooking]

Hmm, with that extra note, and all that reverb, I think that's definitely too many notes for the royal ear. [:D]

The first one actually sounds real, but I guess in this world people don't want real? I like it though.

[JWL]

Curious comment, eric.

As a conductor, the first mix is probably closer to what I here from where I stand, but few others in a concert hall experience it that way. The first mix also might be more appealing if an engineer using it for film wants more general ambience than reverb tail-- but I really don't mind a little tail now and again....................

[DG]

@ericbrooking said:

The first one actually sounds real, but I guess in this world people don't want real?

Interesting; this mirrors my own thoughts in many ways.

DG

[ericbrooking]

You know, it's an interesting thing but I believe that the ear (brain) can seperate the direct (incident) wave from the reflections of the room. This is why a real violin played in my living room sounds like a violin in my living room and a real violin played in my kitchen still sounds like a real violin but this time in my kitchen. When you add reberb to recordings I think this muddies up the sound coming from the point source, reflections are now not coming from the surroundings but are accompanying the incident wave, destroying the realism.

I did several experiments years ago when I was concerned why excellent recordings of pianos never sounded like real pianos in my listening room. Then one day I played a synth module through my home system dry with no reverb, the only reverb was the real room that it was being played in. And guess what, it sounded more like a real piano than the recording of a real piano. I work in the Los Angeles area, in the audio business so I was able to go to several studios and get rough mixes of acoustic instruments with vocals, small trios etc. with absolutely no reverb. I came home and played them and WOW it really sounded great. The sound is very "forward" in the mix of course but you know, it was so forward that it was like it was actually in my living room.

I believe your brain uses your eyes and expects to get those reflections that are in your real enviroment but when you combine reflections of a different room (add reverb) and push it through two single point sources (your speakers) and then let the room do it's natural thing, it never, never can sound real. If you record instruments dry and play them into your room it may not sound like an engineered artsy project but it will sound like those instruments are in your room, just what your brain expected to hear.

My opinions only, no flames please. [:)]

P.S. You notice in my signature that I do use convolution, but I put it all in the surrounds. A very interesting effect.

[JWL]

eric-- thanks for the thoughts. I was on a Digital Performer forum just yesterday where there was a discussion about convolution vs high-end hardware reverbs. Someone made a point that seems to support your thoughts from a whole different angle... With the understanding that the user brings many variables to the table (taste, ability, experience, or lack of the above) that software reverbs tend to just "layer" ambience on top of sound rather than truly interact with the sound. It's that interaction which the brain and ears recognize or fail to recognize, as the case may be. Granted, the discussion is being taken out of one context and inserted into another, so there may be all sorts of arguments with this that I'd like to avoid.

The point is that you've made some extrememly keen observations, the vesitges of which I'm hearing repeatedly in other conversations about reverb behavior in general. I know that some of this discussion is probably better suited for the "post production" forum, but this psycho-acoustical issue has never been more important than it is now.

The brain indeed "knows" the difference between a bathroom, kitchen, livingroom, or even an outdoor environment. Sometimes we make the error of listening with our brains and not our ears in the same way we mix with our eyes and not our ears. There is a fatigue factor to boot-- deadlines mean long hours, and what we "think" we hear at the end of harrowing day sometimes is not accurate, even if it's the best we can do under the circumstances.

I love mixing and I hate mixing. For as complex as VSL has become to set up for sequencing, actual note entry (which was once the most time consuming part of the process) has become the easiest and fastest thing to do. For every hour of programming and sequencing I seem to spend at least half again as much time with the mix.

Much of this time is spent trying to translate from acoustical experience why and how samples and *some* convolution reverbs behave differently than sampled sounds with outboard reverbs, acoustic sounds in reverberant spaces, synthetic sounds with reverbs of all types, etc., etc. Add to this the fact that some mp3 compression can squeeze the "air" out of a good recording and the necessity to ('over-'?) compensate for this occasional anomaly only complicates the process (for me, anyway).

I put this epistle here because I have just heard a third mix of DG's "Faltering" string demo with a different reverb setting which splits the difference between the first two versions. I like it because most of my work tends to be in the concert hall and that "in your face" orchestral sound tends to be more typical of certain film soundtracks-- or experienced only by the players and not the audience. I suppose it depends again on taste, context, and need which approach to take with environmental ambience.

Well, all this verbage probably has a ways to go before it draws any definitive conclusions, but somehow I feel a step closer to defining something which has been much more visceral and elusive in the way of removing or avoiding elements of a mix that distract the listener from the music itself.

Thanks for making me think-- and listen!