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  4. B.Smetana: Prodana nevestra Ouverture with Synchron-Player Strings

  • B.Smetana: Prodana nevestra Ouverture with Synchron-Player Strings

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    Ok this piece is nothing what I would ever do with any other Library, and probably most of the l.ocal orchestras in the area of most of us here would have some difficulties with this for his brilliance known and feared Piece of music.

    However still a good test to explore how much more is under the hood of a good library than the dreamy minor chord swells and alledged "lush hollywoodian" slow melodiues and deep staccato ostinati we always here when the Samplelibraries producer try to sell their products.

    So for this piece you definitly need more than that.

    Still I do not pretend or discuss nor dispute any "opinion" I just do what I like to and yes I confess I still like to do that. Thank You and congrats to VSL for providing such great tools to do so.

    So here comes Smetanas Overture of Prodana nevestra (The bartered Bride)

    I hope at least those interested in Classical music done with VSL might have some fun with.
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    Hi Steffen,

    let me first say congratulations for your website and for the evident experience and good taste you have for Classical music rendering.

    On the other side I find in this new demo again the main issues I noticed already in my personal works, and your previous works:

    - during short notes and expressive melodies at low velocity, the sound is realistic and superb. But...

    - Something wrong with legatos and crescendos: the overlapping created by legatos and x-fading are generating an innatural "build-up" of density and ambience, that beside the too evident manipulation of sustain samples to generate detachè or medium lenght notes, make suddenly the sound synthish/MIDIsh despite the wonderful and musical phrasing you programmed.

    - Something wrong with the reverb. It's hard to explain but I try: the dynamic of a real room reverb are not linear, and don't follow directly the dynamic of the instruments sounds, but the tails obviously are longer when the volume is higher. With synchron wet samples I feel almost the opposite: similar tails and variating wetness producing unpleasent and unnatural effect (while MIR was keeping the effect still artificial, but very natural and convincing).

    Anyway thank you very much for sharing your interesting and competent work. Did you also enjoy and appreciated the very consistent dynamic across articulation and sections? It was for me one of the highlight of Synchron, and a real time saver for the first quick rendering.
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    Thankl you fatis for your as friendly as honest reaction.

    I must confess, that you listen very attentive on several acoutsic details which do not detain me personally that much from working with great pleasure.

    when it comes to the reverb, as the VSL seem to suggest with integrating an additional reverb to the synchronplayer I added for the Semtana a bit additional VSL hybrid Reverb since even the Synchron-Stage is with all its natural ambnience not a concert hall, bat still a studio acoustic (and that is very good since it is imho easier to ad reverb, than to reduce it) however, I confess even if this is alreadys my second Synchronplayer Project, I still would appreaciate an informatiove Tutorial about the main principals to handle the wealth of microphone positions so I am sure I still can improve my usage of those new options.

    - I consent that I tro have the impression, that the Synchron-Samples of the different sections are very good balanced and this is of course one among several impoertant improvements of Synchron strings, which makes it way more comfortable to work with than with any other previous Sample library I know..

    Let me thank you again for your very interesting contribution here.
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    I strongly agree that this kind of material requires a lot more than "lush" slow legato and tightly edited spiccato, which is often already sufficient for contemporary "cinematic" music. But that's also why this example exactly confirms my criticism of the libraries' extremely basic range of articulations.

    The fast passages are very tough to get right, with any string library. But this particular example sounds extremely synthy and unmusical, and part of that is because there's too little variation. A greater choice of different short note variants would be helpful to make this sound a bit more lively.

    The other thing is that to me it sounds as if little care was put into the actual sequencing of the parts. It sounds as if the MIDI notes were all 100% on the grid and played with a very uniform, possilbly unchanging velocity. It can't sound good that way.

    As the piece progresses, it becomes obvious why it would have been better if the library was as huge as it is because it included a more extensive range of true recorded different types of attacks and various note lengths. Music like this truly requires genuinely recorded articulations like detache, marcato, sforzando etc. 

    So, while I certainly applaud the effort - mocking up pieces like this is some of the most difficult things to attempt and I wouldn't have had the patience while having only "shorts" and "longs" to work with - the result only show that the library itself is not up to the task.
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    Hi Jimmy,

    intersting point of view. But imho people judging about digital interpretation are in one verty big danger:

    They tend to assume, that "digital" must be in any way more or in general always to "mechanical" however less "real" or less "authentic".

    So they tend to just imagine based on this assumption kind of idealistic fantasy antipode what so ever one might or should demand from an interpretation, without being enough aware, how "realistic" this assumption ever could be.

    No imho it is definitly not neither realistic, nor real at all. In reality Music never has been ever "perfect" in any way, But that never kept "good" musicians from trying as hard as they are able to make the music as good as they can with exactly those instruments they could get .And how ever imperfect that ever and always was, that obviously was always fun enough for them and their audience. 

    Dont be afraid to do the same thing with the musical instruments of our time. They are as good as they could be at least the VSL stuff definitly is. I personalkly dont havew any doubt, that especially they realy strugfgle hard to do the best.

    So it io our chance now to use them as good as possible. So if you are interested in music keep your eyes and ears open for what is realy possible instead of closing your mind and ears with complains and demands of which no one benefits in any way. As it seems to me, to complain was all over music history always the part of those who were left behind.

    In fact, the reality of music made by manucaturer with their oldfashion wooden boxes and tautend strings, bows, etc. do have more than enough difficulties to achieve any satisfying result. Just take the minute to listen how it in realitry sounded, when Toscanini conducted that piece with his NBC Symphony Orchestra.

    I fear you soon might wish Toscanini would have had a bit more sophisticated controle on dynamic subtleties more Velocitylayer and more differenciated CC11 editing applied to a greater variety of phrasing details. But that was of course not that much available for him since just to keep this high tempo (today, no problem for my DAW 😎) was kind of a pretty heroic task for the brilliant musicians of his time. And for his contemporaries this was breathtaking enough, they ( at least enough) didn't complain about his rigid concentration on the controle over the for his orchestra ambitious tempo. It was his ingenius way to try as hard what he can.

    Let us better follow their example and try with our means the best we can achieve. So if there would in reality anything one might improve, dont just stay on the side of those who are left behind with their complains, but simply take the opportunit,y go the step ahaed and just do it better. This will be very inspiring for the whole comunity here. Since we all only learn from good and better real examples what is realy possible. That is imho what only can make music authentic. So keep us struggle together for the greatest and most brilliant use of the incredible tools VSL contribute.
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    @fahl5 said:

    In fact, the reality of music made by manucaturer with their oldfashion wooden boxes and tautend strings, bows, etc. do have more than enough difficulties to achieve any satisfying result. Just take the minute to listen how it in realitry sounded, when Toscanini conducted that piece with his NBC Symphony Orchestra.

    I fear you soon might wish Toscanini would have had a bit more sophisticated controle on dynamic subtleties more Velocitylayer and more differenciated CC11 editing applied to a greater variety of phrasing details. But that was of course not that much available for him since just to keep this high tempo (today, no problem for my DAW 😎

    Hummm... well actually I don't think so. I think it's not about the orchestra and Toscanini, but about recording and playback devices of 1938... 😃  I wish he had a digital recorder instead...
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    Of course there are much older historic Recordings of other classical compositions which still let you hear not only much more dynamic variety but also much differentiated phrasing long befor 38.

    It is kind of a dognma of digital-Skeptizsm, that allegedly every hand made music would be per se not "mechanical".

    This is absolutly not at all the case. The opposit is often enough more than true. Mechanical precision was and still is for a long time such a technical challenge for traditional instrumentalists especially in demanding pieces, that the major attention of manufacturing musicians for mechanical precision is quite often result of the virtuos ambitionms of traditional musicians often enough even at the expense of more detailed and diligent phrtasing.

    The Toscanini-Recording is a very good exsample for exactly this fact. Even the Pianissimo for instance which the Score demands for the accompagning voices in the beginning fugato in Toscanins Recording simply not at all respected not to mention how much more than just Toscaninis high tempo might be done with this interesting figuration and this is for sure not simply the problem of the recording technic from 38.

    Still how ever imperfect even Toscanis Interpretation might be I like and appreciate his ingenius attitude. More important what one might criticise anywhere ( and everyone can find always every wghere something) is for me what one achieved to do. And Toscanin of course has done great things. Being open for what nevertheless is good is imho the best prerequisite to benefit from what other do.