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  • added vibrato (baroque oboe): speakers vs. headphones

    dear all,

    after buying virtually all oboe vst available, I finally might have found a solution to create an oboe sound I can live with (for each vst, including vsl french oboe, I could explain, why it didn't work for me, but that would be beyond the scope of a single thread ;-)).

    I am currently using the new baroque oboe (historic winds) and I am manually adding a little bit of progressive vibrato to it. Now, I know that the philosophy of vsl is to have recorded vibrato and to choose the right sample for each note, but, as said, that didn't work for me for various reasons.

    The vibrato I need is very subtle (I am just obsessive about the right point of time when it starts), so adding vibrato manually doesn't seem impossible (I guess that the baroque oboe demos on the vsl web page also contain a little bit of added vibrato). All I'm doing is to vary pitch and expression at the same time (more expression and higher pitch, then less expression and lower pitch and so forth). I did some experiments about the ratio between pitch amplitude versus expression amplitude, the right frequency (slightly higher frequency for more expressive vibrato) and the right amount of irregularity and I must say that I am really happy with the results.

    The strange thing, however is, that this works only for speakers. Whenever I listen to the same audio file with headphones, the vibrato no longer sounds expressive, instead it creates the subtle impression that the musician has lost control over his instrument and something is weird.

    Has anyone made the same experience?


  • Hi mat123,

    In the past I experimented a little with some artificial added vibrato. And now I'm working on a pianoquintet. In the first note I missed a little vibrato in the first note of the first violin. I used the free Melda vibrato plugin, but just a little, it is very quickly much to much. I worked with monitors until now but checked with my earphones after your question. And that sounded well, even smoother than with the monitors. I understand the policy of VSL to record all vibrato, because artificial vibrato becomes unnatural very fast. But I understand also your need to manipulate vibrato, because the right vibrato in the right time enforces expression so much.