Hey Dave:
Didn't get to work too much more tonight, but I at least got the contrabasses in for the few bars I was working on today. For as much as I would love to go further, I can already see an eternity of expression editing with just the little bit I've done so far.
For the moment, I'm going to stick with the 40 violas and 32 cellos for the div.a4 passages for now,and just turn them down a little. I'm sure that I'll swap them out for the chamber tremolos, but I may retain 1 note of the orchestral 10-vla /8-vc for this just to see what happens. These adjustments won't be made until the rest of the orchestra has been programmed. One thing I've been hearing and reading about VSL is the challenge of creating more cinematic string sounds. It may help fill out the middle a bit to keep the tremolos full. It's not authentic, but as you say: rule 1 of MIDI is do what sounds best. I may even try tucking in some violins from "another sample library" to give some of the altissimo passages a touch more substance without losing VI's sparkle, but that will be a last resort.
I am discovering that there are a lot of patches of the same instrument that don't share the same range extremities. The violins are one example, tapering off for the most part at D7, while other patches go higher. Similarly, the legato contrabass patches I've tried drop off after C1 (and the notes don't sustain in the Unversal patches the way they do in the other string parts). But, one of the 'long note' bass patches does play B0. It's not legato, but perhaps a non-legato patch will help keep things clean on the bottom (so to speak).
It may be necessary to take a day (or two) to go through the matrices to take note of which patches drop off at the extremes. I wonder if this was intentional? Doesn't make sense to force the user into an undesired articulation for a note just because it plays a certain note when the patch you want is missing that note. I also noticed that some of my contrabass notes crop off around D4 or E4. Lots of large Romantic era scores will send the contrabasses up a bit higher. But maybe the VSL Team didn't deem these occurrences necessary.
Oh, yeah: there's the concept of mixing in some solo strings. Ducking them in the mix can emulate those players who are closer to the mic's (or closer to the front of the stage, as the case may be).
So many thoughts at once... (so late, too!)...
I've read Beat Kaufmann's site, and one thing that struck me was the notion of adding the sub-bass, meaning some sort of harmonizer that doubles the bass to some small degree an octave lower as a matter of virtaul resonance rather than of the actual sound. Not sure the best way to go about doing this just yet, but lots of people have been talking about this. Gladly, I have a a sub to handle LFE info. This will help for more accurate monitoring of extreme low end.
Workflow!!
I was thinking about this today, more accurately, I was re-thinking this. I took time to load in several matrices into different consoles to save the trouble of having to fish through the folders, wait for load times every time, dump the matrix or patch, then load another and another and another until the most desired one is found. It did save time to be able to just load an '.aupreset' and to get started with a variety of articulations on hand.
For a while, I would just start playing with one sound until I needed another. Then I'd stop, go hunting for the right sound, add to the matrix and play some more until such time a new articulation was needed. It's probably best for the CPU to work that way, but it wreaks havoc on efficiency and momentum. You can spend 45 minutes just getting 2 notes to sound right.
I can't complain about the matrix and patch list. It's well organized, but it's not the fastest way to work. Having a set of 'mega-consoles' puts most everything commonly used on the table at once. Dumping unused samples aftewards may be more of a habit rather than an option.
Currently, I've got 5 consoles, each with 9 matrices loaded-- pretty hefty. Oddly enough, CPU is hitting at less than 10%. Things are look a lot more promising for loading in more consoles for a full orchestra.
One other thought I had was if the VSL Team could give us one or two sizable percussion matrices with no keyswitches, but with the most common orchestral percussion instruments mapped across the entire range of the keyboard. Dunno-- might be a tall order, but it would be a lot easier to deal with in a pinch. Of course, we would have whatever key mapping method VSL chooses.
LOL!! All of this idle thought was inspired by sequencing 10 measures of music! Such is the plight of the April fool. [:D]
Didn't get to work too much more tonight, but I at least got the contrabasses in for the few bars I was working on today. For as much as I would love to go further, I can already see an eternity of expression editing with just the little bit I've done so far.
For the moment, I'm going to stick with the 40 violas and 32 cellos for the div.a4 passages for now,and just turn them down a little. I'm sure that I'll swap them out for the chamber tremolos, but I may retain 1 note of the orchestral 10-vla /8-vc for this just to see what happens. These adjustments won't be made until the rest of the orchestra has been programmed. One thing I've been hearing and reading about VSL is the challenge of creating more cinematic string sounds. It may help fill out the middle a bit to keep the tremolos full. It's not authentic, but as you say: rule 1 of MIDI is do what sounds best. I may even try tucking in some violins from "another sample library" to give some of the altissimo passages a touch more substance without losing VI's sparkle, but that will be a last resort.
I am discovering that there are a lot of patches of the same instrument that don't share the same range extremities. The violins are one example, tapering off for the most part at D7, while other patches go higher. Similarly, the legato contrabass patches I've tried drop off after C1 (and the notes don't sustain in the Unversal patches the way they do in the other string parts). But, one of the 'long note' bass patches does play B0. It's not legato, but perhaps a non-legato patch will help keep things clean on the bottom (so to speak).
It may be necessary to take a day (or two) to go through the matrices to take note of which patches drop off at the extremes. I wonder if this was intentional? Doesn't make sense to force the user into an undesired articulation for a note just because it plays a certain note when the patch you want is missing that note. I also noticed that some of my contrabass notes crop off around D4 or E4. Lots of large Romantic era scores will send the contrabasses up a bit higher. But maybe the VSL Team didn't deem these occurrences necessary.
Oh, yeah: there's the concept of mixing in some solo strings. Ducking them in the mix can emulate those players who are closer to the mic's (or closer to the front of the stage, as the case may be).
So many thoughts at once... (so late, too!)...
I've read Beat Kaufmann's site, and one thing that struck me was the notion of adding the sub-bass, meaning some sort of harmonizer that doubles the bass to some small degree an octave lower as a matter of virtaul resonance rather than of the actual sound. Not sure the best way to go about doing this just yet, but lots of people have been talking about this. Gladly, I have a a sub to handle LFE info. This will help for more accurate monitoring of extreme low end.
Workflow!!
I was thinking about this today, more accurately, I was re-thinking this. I took time to load in several matrices into different consoles to save the trouble of having to fish through the folders, wait for load times every time, dump the matrix or patch, then load another and another and another until the most desired one is found. It did save time to be able to just load an '.aupreset' and to get started with a variety of articulations on hand.
For a while, I would just start playing with one sound until I needed another. Then I'd stop, go hunting for the right sound, add to the matrix and play some more until such time a new articulation was needed. It's probably best for the CPU to work that way, but it wreaks havoc on efficiency and momentum. You can spend 45 minutes just getting 2 notes to sound right.
I can't complain about the matrix and patch list. It's well organized, but it's not the fastest way to work. Having a set of 'mega-consoles' puts most everything commonly used on the table at once. Dumping unused samples aftewards may be more of a habit rather than an option.
Currently, I've got 5 consoles, each with 9 matrices loaded-- pretty hefty. Oddly enough, CPU is hitting at less than 10%. Things are look a lot more promising for loading in more consoles for a full orchestra.
One other thought I had was if the VSL Team could give us one or two sizable percussion matrices with no keyswitches, but with the most common orchestral percussion instruments mapped across the entire range of the keyboard. Dunno-- might be a tall order, but it would be a lot easier to deal with in a pinch. Of course, we would have whatever key mapping method VSL chooses.
LOL!! All of this idle thought was inspired by sequencing 10 measures of music! Such is the plight of the April fool. [:D]