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  • Performance trills in Appasionata strings 1

    Hi, 

    I own and have had much fun with the full Pro (discontinued) edition.

     I've just bought myself the full Appassionata Strings 1 (and am anticipating the arrival tomorrow of the con sordino strings extension). These will be the first libraries I have from the Vienna Instruments range. I'm really enjoying how easy it is to get to grips with and use the VI strings. I've followed the video tutorials that specifically mention (in the main string library) the function of the performance trills which cover up to major third intervals without the "machine gun" effect. However, so far I'm finding that I'm not hearing new notes during a trill, but the same ones repeated. Further, if I hold a note and then press and release another, I still get the "machine gun" trill. More surprising, holding a note and then playing and releasing any other note (up to and beyond an octave apart!) I still get this machine gun repeat.  My question then. What might I be doing wrong, or not understanding about the function of these trills? As far as I can see I am using the strings as demonstrated in the video tutorial, but still getting a machine gun trill. Thank you in anticipation. Alistair 

  • The best thing to do is post a MIDI file together with the patch nameyou're using, and then other people can test it out on their systems.

    DG

  • All performance trills (for all instruments) offers six different up and down intervalls for all listed interval steps.  

    But for technical reasons performance trills offers no repetitions on the same key.

    One important thing is, that you don't have to hold one key and only altering the next key, here you will trigger always the same intervall sample,

    and you will get the machine gun effect, because the software  will interpret this as a repetition. 

    You have to perform a trill the same way you would do on a real piano - always alternating both notes.   

    best

    Herb


  • Hi,

    and thanks for responding so quickly!

    >You have to perform a trill the same way you would do on a real piano - always alternating both notes. 

    Of course. That makes perfect sense. I got stuck thinking, "why would you want to play such huge intervals as a trill when no-one would play like that anyway."

    I've just been playing again, recording a simple midi file as DG suggested.

    I think it comes down to my lousy playing technique! Some of the notes seemed to trigger late, which I'm thinking is more to my "playing" than any deficiency in the sample. Funnily enough, the midi file seemed to sound better when played back than when I recorded it.

    Where might I post this midi demo trill? I don't have a website, so the only other place I can think of is on my Facebook page.

    (I've always said that I'm not much of a player, I just have a very patient sequencer!)

    Regards,

    Alistair

    p.s. I hope it's OK to point to a site hosting an audio project that I did the music for, using the VSL Pro library...

    http://player26.narrowstep.tv/nsp.aspx?player=SciFi_Channel&idxtab=25192

    It'll take while to test your connection speed, and the chapters are listed on the pane on the right in reverse order..


  • Fact is, I get what I believe to be a better result holding a note and playing another, which is exactly what should not happen.  Is this one of those situations where you have to go back an massage every note with respect to velocity and duration afterwards? 


  • Hi all. With the perf trill patches, I find that holding down one note while rapidly reiterating another gives a reasonable facsimile of a trill. The fact that the held note gives the same sample each time doesn't ruin the effect. Playing a trill the normal way (i.e rapidly alternating two pitches) sounds better but occasionally requires editing to make sure there are no gaps between notes. Dynamics aren't normally an issue. Generally speaking the normal rule applies: the better you play it, the better it sounds!


  • If you hold down a key only only moving the second key you won't get all the alternations, you will here always the same interval sample.

    So you get more or less the same result as you would use a normal legato patch.

    The performance trill patch needs a retriggering of each key to work properly.

    best

    Herb


  • Thanks for clarifying that Herb. Point taken, but thanks to the legato smoothing the effect is still very far from the dreaded 'machine gun effect'.