My submission (see attachment)

What I did...

Performance:

• Played off the grid.  
• Performed cello first, then played along with it in the basses.

Rode these CCs:

• Velocity Xfade.
• Slot Xfade.
• Expression.

Increased these CCs (no automation):

• Legato Blur
• Release
• Dynamic Range

Odd things that seemed to help:

• Removed Repetitions in A slot, kept them in B slot.
• Humanize settings varied in different mic positions.
• Lots of Roomtone
• Added FX --> Ambient Noises from Dimension Strings

Martix/Patches:

• Leg-Soft-Vib <-->SlotX<--> Leg-Soft-noV
• Lo-soft-Vib <-->SlotX<--> Lo-soft-noV
• Leg-slur-LyV <-->SlotX<--> Leg-slur-noVxLyV
• Leg-slur-Vib <-->SlotX<--> Leg-slur-noV
• All in the Soft Matrix

Main Performance Issues...

The main problem to overcome seemed to be the A, E, and D repeated notes.  The transitions between those if the long patches (which are meant for repeated legato notes) seemed to harsh and couldn't be remedied with Attack automation.  The soft legato patch works kind of well, but again the attack of the note was too much.  

My solution for this was to removed the repetition bubbles on the vibrato patch in the A slot, while leaving them in the no vibrato patch in the B slot.  This allowed me to soften the attack with the slot Xfade.

The approach for me comports with the Youtube videos/recordings referenced in the initial post.  For the basses, the passage is played on the D string and each open D doesn't have vibrato (obviously).  And while it is marked with a single p in the score, most orchestras seem to play it softer, which means the lyrical vibrato patch doesn't work (except for the two crecendo in bars 103/111).

A second issue is with the overall tone.  I started with the multi mic template, then brought back in some center mic in the cello.  I felt like compared to the Youtube examples, some low end needed to be boosted, so EQ and multiband comp was used.  Another thing that helped was Logic X's Match EQ.  I imported the Muti recording and ran it through on the mix bus, then matched it to my mockup.  Definitely help the "vibe."

Final touches...

I put in a lot of room tone because I have yet to find a recording where there isn't a lot of floor noise... plus, in the spirit of realism, musicians can have a hard time sitting still, even when recording or in a live setting ;)

File Attachment(s):

BeethovenU00209U0020OdeToJoy.mp3 (1,222kb) downloaded 105 time(s).

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Here is another attempt.  Most of the methods above are the same, though I incorporated the "Start Offset" features.  Maybe this is a little better?

File Attachment(s):

Beethoven9U0020OdeToJoy-M3.mp3 (1,195kb) downloaded 43 time(s).

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