A Little Something..

[DMJ]

I picked up the Special Edition bundle and Appassionata Strings recently, my first VSL products. This is a little something I came up with that uses just those libs. I've been spending quite some time mocking up sections of various works (Mahler, Holst etc..) to try and get everything balanced. I thought I'd put this piece up and get some feedback.

Mortus(Updated - thanks for the feedback guys!)

Mortus(Original)

Cheers,
Dave

[Mahlon]

 Very nice. The second phrase (or part) especially sounds good, and the brass seems well balanced towards the end. The only thing I hear that could use some massaging might be the strings in the first phrase at the beginning. They sound a bit to forward and dry in the mix. Would it be possible to add second violins to these (by using a different patch) to get a thicker texture? Your use of controller 11 expression to make the strings breath is nice. Anyway, just some thoughts on an already well laid out piece.

Mahlon

[ct1961]

Very nice +1. As Mahlon suggests, it's only the strings that stand out too much. Sounds promising..

Colin

[DMJ]

Mahlon,

Thanks for having a listen. I was worried about making the strings too wet :) Coming from using mostly EWQLSO(wet samples) I'm finding it a great learning experience working with VSL, while its more work initially I think the end result is better.

After listening to my piece again, and comparing with some well known VSL demos I find my track to be lacking some 'sheen' in the higher frequencies. Hmm..

[DMJ]

Thanks for the listen Colin.

I did a quick update and pushed the strings back a little futher, I like (link in the original post) :)

I thought I would elaborate a little bit on how I'm handling the CC11 and crossfades a little as Mahlon commented on that in his post. First I turn on the velocity crossfade option for all instruments. I then insert a SONAR plugin (I'm sure other sequencers have midi transform options) that maps the same controller I'm using for the crossfade to CC11 while still passing on the crossfade CC. So one knob/slider what have you is sending out two CCs to VE/VI. This alone yields bad results as you would never hear the pp samples and the dynamic range is too large, obviously. The key is setting a bottom end on the cc11 signal, so that it can never be reduced beyond x value. You can do this on a per instrument basis (in Sonar anyway..) to better represent the characteristics of that instruments range to volume ratios.

By the way, I think that being able to specify a lower/higher limit on midi CC's would be a great feature addition to VI

[ct1961]

Hi Dave.

Can hear a subtle difference. On headphones I didn't think the strings were too upfront, just when I listened with monitors. It's a very nice piece and hopefully you'll treat us to a little more at a later date, if appropriate.

I'll give your controller set-up a try in Logic to see if it works-I imagine it should.

Good luck

Colin

[Mahlon]

 Dave,

Thanks for the explanation. I haven't used that technique in Sonar yet. So far, I think I prefer keeping CC11 and Crossfading (CC1)  separate processes. I'm a big ' controller drawer', so being able to go in and adjust each of them individually allows me flexibility in how the sound fades or swells. I'm going to give your way a shot though.

Mahlon