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Hello community.
I had the opportunity to upgrade my hardware. Now I can do symphonic stuff without bouncing.
Glad to share with you my latest orchestral suite, meant to be played with the same instrumentarium as Mozart's Requiem.
Pernegg Klosterkirche brought me closer to where I want to be. Still not satisfied, yet. I need a good mixing engineer.
https://soundcloud.com/st-phane-collin/mozart-aux-enfers
Stéphane Collin.
Hi Stéphane,
Maybe you're not totally satisfied with the mix, but all I can say is that the composition is very much impressing. It has a deep dramatic character with well chosen harmonic constructions and progressions, with a very varied palette of sounds and contrasts, effective use of brass underlined with accentuating percussion. In short, a very good composition. Only the title is a bit strange to me... Mozart aux enfers? Why?
It is a a complementing contrast to Mozart's Requiem. An excellent idea for one concert!
Max
Thanks so much, Max, for the nice comments.
Indeed, this was commissionned for being played together with the Requiem of Mozart, hence the instrumentarium. Premiere is on november 14. It is indeed the very first time, after more than 30 years carreer as a composer, that a composition of mine will be played for real by a real orchestra of some dimension.
As for the title, well, the process is the following : I write the music from left to right, with no other rule than it must be pleasant and thrilling every second; when it is finished, I have to find a title and also write a liner for the concert program; so I let my hand write something that is analog to the music. As the piece is intended to be played directly after the Requiem of Mozart, which he thought was a Requiem for himself, I imagined that after the requiem he went to "les Enfers" which is hell, but not in the christian meaning, in the ancient greek meaning, the place where everybody, good or bad, goes after death.
First movement "Le Passage du Styx", he is with Charon in a small boat rowing down the Styx, and as the heat of the hell rises, so does the heat of the music. Splashing fire etc.
Second movement "Les Plaines d'Asphodèles", he is welcomed by his fellow composers who do a hieratic dance for him. He then arrives in this large landscape with Asphodele flowers, where all souls wander gently. He encounters Eros and Thanatos who are in deep conversation about himself, analysing the deep reasons of his genius (the vocal duo).
Third movement "Le Léthé", before he must go back for another new artistic life, he has to drink that water from that river named Lethe, which will make him forget all about his former life. All, but some excerpts from "Le Passage du Styx" which, he thinks, will be perfect after his Requiem.
If only a Hollywood blockbuster team manager could read this and take care !
Sorry for this long out of topic sequence, but again I can't be grateful enough to the VSL team for making it possible to make music even without a real large orchestra. I must say also that the new Pernegg roompack solved a lot of the mixing problems (mainly a little harshness) I had when using dimension strings in MIR. But apparently, I can't seem to do any EQing without destroying the beauty of the instruments or the reverb.
Again, thank you for the listening and comments.
There are too many notes.. 😃
0k seriously, it's a beautiful composition... indeed. Good luck with the Premiere! May i ask where it will be?
Thank you Francesco.
Here is a link to the flyer :
http://www.sturmundklang.be/agenda/requiem-notre-dame-du-sablon.html
I hope Wolfy will not send me the Commander to punish me.
You're welcome, thanks for sharing the flyer! Looks great. Will you be able to take some video or audio recording? It would be very interesting to compare it with your VSL rendition and it's likely to be a useful reference for your mix...does it make sense?
The synthesizer at 2.49 is amazing, is that a plug-in? What synth will you use on stage?
Thank you
I don't know about the recording. Anyway, I'll take my H4N with me.
The synth is the Arturia mini V plugin, and I'll play that on stage. It runs through the Waves J37 tape emulation, which is, no doubt, what makes the sound. All the rest is VSL in Pernegg. I adore the voices, those really inspire me for composing.
Dear Stéphane,
I can't seem to do any EQing without destroying the beauty of the instruments or the reverb.
I do agree with you, the VSL products are wonderful and so versatile once you got the skills to use them properly. (And they are still improving!). Far from having said that I'm some kind of expert, I'm certainly not in a position to give whatever advice to you. Indeed, EQing is very dangerous because the instruments are so carefully recorded in a natural environment, as pure as possible. Adding or distracting harmonics can ruine them. That's why I prefer not to do a lot of EQing on the instruments or groups, but rather on the master (nothing much, only killing some disturbing harmonics if there are any and manipulating the overall sound of the orchestra (bright, soft, punchy...). Nothing more. But so far, I didn't do any big orchestral works. with detailed articulations.
Your story is equally fantastic. Is there a text for the voices?
Two of my works for choir and orchestra (Running Waters and Bude Vece) will be performed next week. This is not the first time, but the first time with a Czech choir and orchestra.
I hope that the performance of your work will get the splendor it deserves.
Max
Stephane
Congratulations on that upcoming performance - not an easy thing to get these days. The composition is really complex and interesting. There are some things that need adjusting on this mix, maybe more depth the the space or wet signal? I am not sure. It may not matter much since you will have a live performance, though it will be interesting to compare them. best wishes for the performance!
Max,
thanks for the clever advise.
Any chance that we hear "Running waters" and "Bude Vece" ? Did you make mock ups of those ? Will they be recorded in Czechia ?
William,
thanks also for the comment. I also agree with you : I myself would tend to put more wet, as it gives (in MIR) the depth that we all like. But then, some mud appears and calls for EQing, and there I am lost, because the EQing either solves the mud problem and cuts the truth of the instruments and space, either doesn't solve anything. Less wet does solve some problems, but reduces all the interest of MIR. I still don't understand how the best demos here in the forum (including yours) are done. This winter, I promised myself to transform my garage into a decent listening studio. Hopefully it will help.
Did you have the opportunity to compare your mockups with a real performance ?
I have and on all of the performances, the VSL ones were better. I know that goes counter to what everyone else here believes - that live performance is the Holy Grail that samples only aspire to - but I have never had a live performance that was anywhere near as good as VSL. I guess the London Symphony or Berlin Philharmonic or Philadelphia Orchestra might be, but somehow they weren't interested in my work.
Bonjour Stéphane
Bude Večer and Running Waters are on this forum (a while ago). I have no idea whether they will be recorded. The first performance will be in Flanders on Friday 6 November. There will be a concert in the Czech Republic as well, but only next year.
Unfortunately, Running Waters has been programmed in VSL SE. The room setting was in MIR Pro. I should make a better mockup, the main goal was the live performance. A little explanation on my website. The choir is the Kontakt 5 mixed choir. Both scores directly recorded from Notion.
Kindly,
Max
I don't know about the recording. Anyway, I'll take my H4N with me.
The synth is the Arturia mini V plugin, and I'll play that on stage. It runs through the Waves J37 tape emulation, which is, no doubt, what makes the sound. All the rest is VSL in Pernegg. I adore the voices, those really inspire me for composing.
Very good, thanks for sharing this precious info. Look forward to hearing the recording whether you upload it on your website.
All the very best.
This was commissionned for being played together with the Requiem of Mozart, hence the instrumentarium.
The synth is the Arturia mini V plugin
Hi Stephane, community,
would you mind to share how was the live performance? Hope it was fine! Did you manage to make some useful changes to the VSL rendition after you had a listen to the H4N recording? 😊
All the best
Hello Francesco, community.
The Mozart concert was really great and the orchestra played my piece really well.
That being said, I must second William when he says that common live performances hardly come close to a good mockup. Alas, for some reasons, I didn't install my H4N to make a live recording. But I payed extra attention to what I was hearing.
First and biggest problem is : the orchestra had only two rehearsals before D day. Apparently, more is practically impossible (at least in small Belgium). I heard clearly the piece increase in quality at every iteration, the conducter was really fine, understood everything (ar... nearly) at once and was giving nice directions. Yet, the day before the concert, there were still bugs. So the real spirit potential of the piece (if it has some) never came out until the very concert, and then, I can only dream about how much better it would have been with only two more rehearsals. Funny, at this stage, to hear that when they play the Mozart Requiem, the orchestra immediately sounds like 5 times better. Of course, all the musicians know the music of Mozart, know the Requiem by heart, and know perfectly how to play it, and the difference in SOUND is tremendous.
Here is the right place to say that this is, in my opinion, the limitation of mockup performance. Even if you, daw programmer, do have some knowledge about how exactly a single instrument performance should be, you nevertheless are stuck with what was recorded in the library, no matter how finely precise that work was done. This is clearly a limitation. And one positive side would be to, as a composer, to compose intentionnally with exactly no more than what your libraries can do. This is a nice matter of discussion : libraries considered as a musical instrument per se. But that was not the meaning.
To say it shortly : a good library well programmed can not beat a bunch of dedicated top musicians well prepared and giving their full education in an inspired performance, but it outperforms easily an average third sight reading.
I payed tight attention to the mixing engineer point of view (hearing rather), and I was surprised how, in a large church orchestral live concert, there is WAY more wet reverb than what you would consider decent in a stereo mix. Even I who do like lots of wet (I am often told I put too much reverb on my mixes) I clearly noticed that there was an enormous amount of very long reverb at the concert. Curiously, at the same time, the direct sound from the musicians was WAY more sparkling and precise, and with a kind of intimacy that makes you feel very close to them. And finally, the stereo stage is nearly inexistant : you don't hear clearly first violins 5 meters left of the celli.
That being said, I am convinced that the ideal audiophile listening experience in one's living room is NOT mimicking the live conditions of the concert. Human brain adapts really well and really immediately to a whole range of situations, and the feeling "this is right and nice" depends on many factors, some of them not strictly related to the acoustics.
Sorry for being long, but that was the opportunity. The day of this concert of Mozart Requiem and Mozart aux Enfers (my piece) was the day after the Paris terrorist attacks. The church was full of people full of compassionnal feelings and terrible fears. The harmony was nearly touchable. This you don't get behind a computer monitor.
Anyway, as I said, this kind of experience will not be given many times to me. So I'll say it again, thanks to VSL (and all other producers) for making all this possible.
Stéphane.
Hi Stéphane,
You mentioned a few things that I can confirm fully. Lately I had a concersation with a befriended composer about the stereo image of our mockups (such a strange word). We all tend to think in left and right because we have two ears, but in reality our brain melts all the input audio signals together to one spacial sound, without distinct left and right. That means that a virtual stereo image should concentrate on the amount of sound that passes in all directions, even of the reflections. Moreover, the instruments send a serious amount of direct sound into the room (without being processed through dry/wet applications). That is why a performance in a long reverb tail hall still sounds so clear. The reflection always come later. The first violins (usually to the left) are always clearly audible to the right, be it in diminishing volume and their reflections come from all directions with different reflection times. Programs like MIR and Vienna Suite have impulse responses to create that sort of environment and with large orchestras they succeed rather well in composing a true hearing image. With small ensembles (like my version of Beethoven's Serenata in D), there are only 3 players centered on the stage. Then what is left and what is right...? And we do want to create space in stereo... don't we?
Second, you said that the orchestra only took 2 rehearsals. That is not OK, certainly not for a professional orchestra performing an entirely new piece. But again, time is money and the audience 'won't hear the difference'. I must add here that the live performances of my two works (Bude Vecer and Running Waters) suffered from the very same disease and even worse. The symphony orchestra that came from Prague sent 18 musicians (only 6 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello 1 bass and not all the necessary winds were present, and a harp that was a digital piano and ways too loud). The double choir had about 80 voices. Do you see the imbalance? And it still gets worse: the musicians didn't have any rehearsal for Bude Vecer. At the very spot, they noticed that they simply couldn't play the score (it has numerous composite time signatures to imitate the rubato feel of the original folk song). That seemed to be a huge problem. So the conductor simply decided to do only the choir parts (the choirs being amatuers, the orchestra being pros..., what a shame!). There was a recording of the pieces, but I didn't want to hear it. The organisers wrere so disappointed about the performance. The church was filled to the very last seat. And that was not a Belgian orchestra.
So I do feel the same pain. In many cases, this a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity.
Let's get back to our mockups. They only disappoint us when we fail 😉 .
Max
Nice to read you, Max, and nice to see that your experience is close to mine. So far, as I understand it, as long as you are not "bankable", you can't expect any better.
Stéphane.
