Synchron/Orchestral Strings Hybrid

[Acclarion]

I'm pleased to share my latest orchestral work, "What Will Become of Us?" featuring all VSL, including a blend of Synchron and Orchestral Strings. Disclaimer: the following piece requires a 9 minute commitment. Listener discretion is advised. 😉 [url=https://soundcloud.com/dearvillain/what-will-become-of-us]What Will Become of Us? PLAY[/url] An orchestral tone poem inspired by "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Since our dawn to inevitable duskA question implanted in our mindA question of legacy Prompting a quest to find meaning when there may be none. So we seek the answer in our journey... Unveiling itself through riddles of gaiety, pain, elation and despair.As we try to fulfill our hopes, desires,The question haunts our dreams: When our ashes are finally blown away, Our dust scattered in wind...What will become of us? (Poem by: Rebecca Carovillano) Looking forward to your comments and thanks for listening! David Carovillano

[Jos Wylin]

WOW, Dave, this is quite an accomplishment with very difficult underlying thoughts. It is hard not to exaggerate in dramatising the subject through heavy or stormy musical language, but you didn't. The whole piece has something contemplative and soothing, a serenity in movement, brilliantly orchestrated. Thanks to the extreme transparency every detail is manifestly present and strikes the listener (my experience anyway) and the orchestral balance is nearly perfect.
The 'real' wind coming in at 6.30' could be a little more noisy in order to make the transition to the instrumental wind imitation more effective; it would augment the poetic effect even more.

I have to say that I ended the listening with some kind of esoteric and confronting feel at the same time and that has of course to do with the accompanying text. It is so contemplative and reflecting, confronting and direct; it brings us back to the less poetic reality after the last major chord, so peacefully.

A big applause as well for Becky's beautiful words. They catch in some phrases so well the relativeness of our strive and struggle in our brief terrestrial passage. Only a bit of ashes blown away in the wind... And the open final question leaves more than comfortable room for interpretation. I wouldn't call it a poem strictu sensu, but rather a very well written and thought through piece of poetic prose. 

Together they build a fine piece of artwork! Congratulations.

Jos

[Acclarion]

Thank you very much, Jos, for your extensive and well-considered comments. We all want to communicate to a receptive audience with our music, and when a listener "gets it" like you do, it makes the effort worthwhile. I recognize that lengthier pieces are less likely to get a listen, so I am grateful this one didn't go completely unnoticed as I did put a lot of effort in to it. All the best, Dave

[Jos Wylin]

Hi Dave,

The 3 minutes limit... Sad to say so, but I guess you're right and honestly I don't understand it. I guess most of the forum members here are 'classical' composers or at least classically trained/educated ones. So one would expect that longer pieces, which are so common in our style of music, are no problem. Or is it a consequence of our hasty, nervous life style nowadays?

Anyway, good music needs the necessary time for its exposition. It's not always possible to tell the whole musical story within the bounderies of a pop song...

Jos

[MMKA]

Hi Dave,

A late reaction... listening to the SYNCHRON-ized chamberstrings to make a decision to buy or not to buy I encountered your piece and the Synchron/Orchestral Strings blending caught my attention. So I took the time to listen to your piece. After listening my reaction was: I want to react to Dave. I'm enthusiastic about this piece. Concerning the music: it kept my attention until the end in a positive way. But for me the most positive thing were the strings. This is a very beautiful use of the Synchron and Orchestral Strings library. They both have there good, very good and some little less qualities (but I like both and I shouldn't want to miss one of them), but with this combination you made a really wonderful sound, living, real, warm, intense. I looks like you took the best of both of them and created a beautiful ensemble sound. I enjoyed it very much. 

[Acclarion]

Hi MMKA,

As always, so nice to hear from you.  Thank you for such positive comments on "What Will Become of Us?"  Maybe by bringing it up again, it will get a few more listens before I move it from my Soundcloud page.

For me, blending the Synchron strings with Orchestral is the only way I can currently make use of Synchron in a satisfying way.  On their own, I have struggled with many of the same issues others have reported.  Their positives, as you say, compliment the orchestral positives and create a fresh, inviting sound, although having to completely edit separately, two sets of strings, is time consuming, tedious, and not what I originally envisioned with the promise of Synchron delivering a streamlined workflow.

Cheers!

Dave

[crusoe]

Hi Dave,

I liked the piece, the small parts of this little trilogy are relatively independent, so it's easy to grasp depsite the length (just commenting your initial message). I liked the bass clarinet, in fact :) It doesn't play often, but when it did, it was so... I don't know... assertive? Given the subject, to the extent that I'm able to understand it, I expected something more minor, but no, the overall mood is hopeful and "light".  

Did you layer the samples from the two libraries in this piece often? It doesn't seem to be the case. You "blended" them by using different samples for different parts, am I right? When (and if) you did layer the samples, you did this very well, the string sections always sound defined.

I don't have any substantial criticism of the technical side of things - there are small bits here and there that could be made better, but quite likely only with the out-of-proportion effort. I know very well what it means sometimes to get a single phrase sound right. It's not easy to re-instantiate life into a musical body that was shredded into the dead pieces.

Cheers, Crusoe.

[Acclarion]

@crusoe said:

Hi Dave,

I liked the piece, the small parts of this little trilogy are relatively independent, so it's easy to grasp depsite the length (just commenting your initial message). I liked the bass clarinet, in fact 😊 It doesn't play often, but when it did, it was so... I don't know... assertive? Given the subject, to the extent that I'm able to understand it, I expected something more minor, but no, the overall mood is hopeful and "light".  

Did you layer the samples from the two libraries in this piece often? It doesn't seem to be the case. You "blended" them by using different samples for different parts, am I right? When (and if) you did layer the samples, you did this very well, the string sections always sound defined.

I don't have any substantial criticism of the technical side of things - there are small bits here and there that could be made better, but quite likely only with the out-of-proportion effort. I know very well what it means sometimes to get a single phrase sound right. It's not easy to re-instantiate life into a musical body that was shredded into the dead pieces.

Cheers, Crusoe.

Thanks for your critique, Crusoe.  Based on your posting history, you seem to derive great joy from guessing how productions are put together (instrumentation/blending, etc.)  In this case, they're consistently blended throughout the entire piece.  Both sets of samples were independently edited, which is necessary both due to articulation inconsistencies between the libraries, and because of the wildly different behaviour of the samples (the extra velocity layers being an obvious example).

I appreciate your taking the time to comment and listen.  You should consider also sharing your own productions on this forum:  as you seem to have a perceptive awareness of what you like, it would be interesting to hear some of your music (no, not to be critical, but to see if we may learn new/different possibilities with samples).

Cheers!

Dave

[crusoe]

@Another User said:

you seem to derive great joy from guessing how productions are put together (instrumentation/blending, etc.)

Not only that, but yes 😊 just trying to get better with my own productions, and what would be a better way to learn? My composing vs. putting MIDI together ratio is so poor that I simply must concentrate on this aspect.

I'm in the process of re-doing an old piece of mine with the new samples, when it's completed I will surely post it. It has plenty of short notes, so it seems to be working out well with Synchron. 

[Acclarion]

@Another User said:

you seem to derive great joy from guessing how productions are put together (instrumentation/blending, etc.)

Not only that, but yes 😊 just trying to get better with my own productions, and what would be a better way to learn? My composing vs. putting MIDI together ratio is so poor that I simply must concentrate on this aspect.

I'm in the process of re-doing an old piece of mine with the new samples, when it's completed I will surely post it. It has plenty of short notes, so it seems to be working out well with Synchron. 

That's great!  Looking forward to hearing it!  The Synchron shorts are well-documented as being quite impressive.  Why not challenge yourself to create the ultimate legato phrase; one that will awaken the desire of all Synchron users to explore it further.  If you achieve it, it might even be named "the Crusoe Legato" (that has a nice ring to it!)  Come on, you know you want to 😈

Cheers!

Dave