Bach Two Part Invention No. 8 - Solo Violin/Viola

[Leslie Sanford]

This is a realization of Bach's Two Part Invention No. 8 using VSL's Solo Violin and Solo Viola:

https://soundcloud.com/leslie-sanford/bach-two-part-invention-no-8

[stephen limbaugh]

This is pretty damn good!

[Gukas Pogosyan]

Hi Leslie,

Sounds so beautiful and transparent. I’d like to have more technical details, if possible. Recently I’v made a record of my “Perpetual Mobile” for Violin solo but in sounds much heavier. Thanks for sharing. 

[Gukas Pogosyan]

Hi Leslie,

Sounds so beautiful and transparent. I’d like to have more technical details, if possible. Recently I’v made a record of my “Perpetuum Mobile” for Violin solo but in sounds much heavier. Thanks for sharing. 

[Leslie Sanford]

@Gukas Pogosyan said:

Sounds so beautiful and transparent. I’d like to have more technical details, if possible. Recently I’v made a record of my “Perpetuum Mobile” for Violin solo but in sounds much heavier. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Gukas,

Thank you so much for your comments.

For this recording, I used following articulations for the violin:

VI_perf-spiccato, VI_detache_short, VI_sfz_Vib, VI_detache_long_Vib, and VI_staccato.

For the viola, I used:

VA_perf-spiccato, VA_detache_short, VA_perf-marcato, VA_staccato, and VA_detache_long.

I tried to switch up articulations as often as possible to help avoid the "machine gun effect." Other than that, the recording is pretty straight forward. There's no EQing or compression or anything like that. I panned the violin left a little and the viola right a little, added a third party impulse response reverb (I don't own MIR yet). And that's about it.

[stephen limbaugh]

Leslie do you have an EQ that does "Match EQ" or similar function?  If you import the audio of a Youtube performance of it into Logic X, you can use match EQ to get some of that detail.  I've found that extremely helpful!  FabFilter also makes an EQ that does match EQ.

[Leslie Sanford]

@stephen limbaugh said:

Leslie do you have an EQ that does "Match EQ" or similar function?  If you import the audio of a Youtube performance of it into Logic X, you can use match EQ to get some of that detail.  I've found that extremely helpful!  FabFilter also makes an EQ that does match EQ.

Wow, I'd never heard of that function before. I will have to check it out. I could see how it could be useful if you're trying to match the overall tonality of a recording of an actual performance.

[Gukas Pogosyan]

Hi Leslie,

Thanks for articulation detales.   I'm alwaise remembering to avoid the "machine gun effect" as you said. Some days ago I had downloaded Beethoven's String Quartet Op.59/3 by Jay Bacal. It also sounds so nice. Are you using Logic or other sequencer? Sorry for not beeing more specific. I'm so happy with my brass and woodwind setups but realy I need to improve my violins and  strings in general. How about Soft Pedal, Note Velocity, Volume  an so on? Sorry! Too meny questions. 

[Jos Wylin]

Very beautiful and clear. The interpretation does it all and the choice of (the limited number) of articulations proves again the richness and the quality of the VSL samples. You did a terrific job.

Jos

[Leslie Sanford]

@Gukas Pogosyan said:

Are you using Logic or other sequencer? Sorry for not beeing more specific. I'm so happy with my brass and woodwind setups but realy I need to improve my violins and  strings in general. How about Soft Pedal, Note Velocity, Volume  an so on?

Hi, Gukas.

I first entered the piece into Finale, a notation program. Then I exported it as a standard MIDI file and imported it into Reaper. This is where the real work begins. I adjust the velocity and length of the notes, assign articulations, and add tempo changes.

I'm very much a fan of Beat Kaufmann's tutorials, and one of his guiding principles is to change articulations often. Also, it can help to begin the first note of a phrase with one articulation and then switch to another articulation. the sfz/staccato articulations seem to compliment each other well in this regard for 16th note runs and arpeggios (see Beat's YouTube video on this subject).

Somtimes there's some serendipity in that you forget to change an articulation or change to the wrong one, but the results sound so good till you don't correct your "mistake." A lesson here is to experiment a lot with things you're not sure will work. Sometimes you discover something new.

Having said all of that, I've got a long ways to go. I consider myself a student of realization and greatly admire the authors of the demos you find here at VSL (Jay Bacal's Beethoven quartet you mentioned is amazing). 

[Leslie Sanford]

@Jos Wylin said:

Very beautiful and clear. The interpretation does it all and the choice of (the limited number) of articulations proves again the richness and the quality of the VSL samples. You did a terrific job.

Thank you so much, Jos!

And thank you VSL for providing such great sample libraries. 😊

[Paul McGraw]

@Leslie Sanford said:

This is a realization of Bach's Two Part Invention No. 8 using VSL's Solo Violin and Solo Viola:

https://soundcloud.com/leslie-sanford/bach-two-part-invention-no-8

Well done! Great sound, and you did a very good job with the midi-performance.