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  • My God to Thee

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    As I am getting the layout of Synchron player figured out, I wanted to take a simple piece and create an arrangement. I decided to use the song, Nearer, My God to Thee, as made popular by the Titanic theme (the song played by the quartet as the boat is sinking). The result is very similar to what was played in Titanic, and since, the soundtrack does not have a clean version of this without all the sound effects, its brilliant! I can listen to this beautiful piece without all the yelling and crowd noise.

    I set about listening note for note until I faithfully recreated the original piece using a Violin, a Viola, and a Cello.

    I thought it sounded just a hair empty, so I decided to add a simple piano track using the Steinway lite that is included in the Synchron Special Edition in the beginning of the track, and then, in the second half, I added a double bass that doubles the cello line but an octave lower for the second half, after the piano falls away.

    The result is, well, judge for yourself, but, I think its simple and beautiful.

    Nearer, My God to Thee


  • I love the old hymns. This one, in particular, has increased in meaning for me as I draw closer to my time to kneel at the feet of my blessed savior. Your arrangement is very sensitive and musical. The sound is extremely convincing. Thank you for such a lovely creation.

    I was not a fan of Synchron Strings initially. Over time, as I continued to work with them, I became more and more of a fan. I completely changed my mind and started using them consistently when I did an A/B test of a passage from a CD that I mocked up for several string libraries. Synchron Strings were very close to the sound of the CD And with a little, EQ cut at around 2.5khz extremely close to the sound of real strings.


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    @Paul McGraw said:

    I love the old hymns. This one, in particular, has increased in meaning for me as I draw closer to my time to kneel at the feet of my blessed savior. Your arrangement is very sensitive and musical. The sound is extremely convincing. Thank you for such a lovely creation.

    I was not a fan of Synchron Strings initially. Over time, as I continued to work with them, I became more and more of a fan. I completely changed my mind and started using them consistently when I did an A/B test of a passage from a CD that I mocked up for several string libraries. Synchron Strings were very close to the sound of the CD And with a little, EQ cut at around 2.5khz extremely close to the sound of real strings.

    This means alot, thank you for the kind words...  ❤️


  • Hello littlewierdo
    The music is beautiful and played and interpreted thousands of times. You have - perhaps without noticing it - chosen one of the most difficult tasks a sample musician can face: With "Nearer, My God to Thee" you have chosen a very slow piece, which is still very well known to everybody.

    At first your version sounds like played with a real violin. The beautiful sound of the VSL samples and of course the beautiful melody will help you.
    But soon you realize that the violin is a sample violin after all. Why?
    If you would give this piece to a real violin player to play, he would shape the long held notes a bit. He would probably breathe at the end of each "melody bow" and would not simply continue to play without a pause. Probably he would also have greater fluctuations in tempo...

    Please don't misunderstand me. I don't want to make your recording bad at all. But at the moment I still don't feel much of the "making music", but rather the notes are simply played back with nice samples. (I'm talking about the violin)

    If you want to take my text as an opportunity to make your piece even more musical, then topics like "xVelocity" and tempo variation are certainly important.

    When I was at the beginning with samples, I always looked for a "real recording" of my chosen piece of music and put it over my sample version as an audio track. Then I tried to copy the real instrument as good as possible with all my tricks - from the swelling and decay of the notes to the ritardando and the tempo fluctuations... The goal was simply to get as close as possible to the original. In other words: To transform the actually dead and always the same samples into music.

    Once again: I hope you can take my words positively to make your piece even more beautiful and musical. But this additional work is not easy. Often it also shows the limits of the samples.

    I wish you a lot of success.

    Beat



     


    - Tips & Tricks while using Samples of VSL.. see at: https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/vitutorials/ - Tutorial "Mixing an Orchestra": https://www.beat-kaufmann.com/mixing-an-orchestra/
  • Completely understand.


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    @littlewierdo said:

    I think its simple and beautiful.

    I think I agree😊 

    Yeah this sounds very nice indeed.  However, if I may suggest, maybe speed up and slow down the tempo a little especially slow down toward the end of the melody lines.  For some reason this sounded like it was played at a single tempo all the way through which wouldn't be natural.

    But a fine piece overall. 


  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on