Vivaldi, L'Estate

[PaoloT]

Hi,

The interesting work of another musician on Vivaldi's Summer concerto convinced me to reopen an old project on the same music, and complete my own version. My project was started with an older library, and is now converted to the VSL full library (non-Synchron).

I wanted to test realism and variety of articulations. So, I worked as carefully as possible on each single note and phrase arc. The solo Violin and Violoncello are the seconds, with a gentler sound than the firsts. The orchestra is made up of Chamber Strings (working so well, in my opinion, that I've not yet felt the need to switch to the Dimension Strings for this project).

I used mostly short notes controlled by velocity. Reverb is MIR, with an added hint of Miracle and Logic's Compressor at the end.

I plan to work on the full concerto, but had to start from the final Presto. The Adagio will be as challenging, even if on the opposite scale of speed and loudness.

This is one of those pieces that need continual reworking, since there are so many different ways of playing it. At the moment, I wonder how realistic this first version can be perceived by listeners with ears fresher than mines.

Paolo


Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in MP3)

Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in AIFF)

[PaoloT]

Then, I added the Adagio. Here, the storm is approaching, but still not there. And the solo violin can sing melancholically, while the violins remind a sound of flies in the summer heat.

Lot of work on the attacks and the vibrato recorded in each dynamic layer.

Paolo


Vivaldi, L'Estate, II Adagio (in MP3)

Vivaldi, L'Estate, II Adagio (in AIFF)

[PaoloT]

I don't know if I did something lecit, but I added a bit of compression in the Adagio. What the compressor does is, on the positive side, making the feeble violin come out without losing too much subtleness. On the negative side, it makes the sound a bit harsher, and lose some naturalness. Paolo

[William]

Paolo your performance sounds great, extremely espressivo and beautifully done!  But on the audio there is something wrong in the EQ, it sounds like an old transistor radio!  What is going on there?  Something happened because it is not just MIR - did you use some extreme EQ?  It sounds like all frequencies are gone in certain areas of the spectrum.

[PaoloT]

William, thank you for listening!

Maybe it's the compression? It is very light, but it will for sure color the sound. Do you think it is too bass- or high-heavy?

EDIT: Since you are referring to a transistor radio, I guess it sounds too high-heavy. I wonder if the problem is, more than the audio in general, in the particular sound I chose for the accompanying violins in the Adagio.

EDIT 2: Do you find the problem in the MP3 file only? I hear the MP3 converter in Logic didn't do a good work with the Adagio, and really removed all the subtleties. If it's also in the AIFF, then I messed up with the mix or the sound choice.

Paolo

[William]

Paolo I don't know but maybe try MIR with no other effect and compare them.    

[PaoloT]

Dear William,

If I can steal you some more time, I'll be happy to hear what you find in these excerpts of the Adagio without the effects. Maybe you can point me towards the cause of the problem. With my ears accustomed to the piece's sound, I'm having a hard time finding it. Ugly things become nice after a while with them! 😊

With no compression on the violin, but final compression and MIRacle

With no compression and effects on the final mix

With no effects at all, including MIR on each single track

Paolo

[PaoloT]

Well, I've updated both movements, after further rethinking some passages and following the hints from those fellows that were so kind to point me towards the rustier things. I hope this made things flowing better!

Paolo

Vivaldi, L'Estate, II Adagio (in AIFF)
Vivaldi, L'Estate, II Adagio (in MP3)

Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in AIFF)
Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in MP3)

[William]

Paolo, the Allegro sounds great!  Should that second violin part be a little louder?  A tiny thing though I thought of that since it is answering the first part and seemed much softer.  

On the Adagio it sounds beautiful overall but that accompanying figure still sounds weird to me acoustically - not a musical error, but something in the sound.  I still don't know what would cause that.  But musically it is fantastic, really well done.  I love hearing Vivaldi, so it is fun to listen to what you've done as it sounds really good overall.  

[PaoloT]

William, thank you again for lending me an ear!

I moved Violins II a bit more to the centre (and more in front of the main mics), and slightly increased the volume in MIR. They are still not at the same level of Violins I when these latter play together with the solo violin, due to the notorius sample-library paradox of sections being greatly incresed in size when adding a soloist or a first desk. However, I feel that a bit of difference in volume may be desired, to accentuate the effect of echo that Vivaldi may have demanded to create spatial depth (the storm sounds here, and the echo return there).

As for the odd sound of the accompanying figure in the Adagio, what I tried to do was to make Vivaldi's indication ("mosche e mosconi", that is "flies and bluebottles") sound as realistic as possible. I wanted a buzzing, insect-like sound, to increase the sense of discomfort of the summer heath. I tried to replace it with a more ordinario position, and it should sound like this:

Vivaldi, L'Estate, II Adagio (ordinario) (in MP3)

Otherwise, with my choices and your corrections in the other points, this could be the result:

Vivaldi, L'Estate, II Adagio (in AIFF)
Vivaldi, L'Estate, II Adagio (in MP3)

Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in AIFF)
Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in MP3)

Paolo

[Paul McGraw]

@PaoloT said:

Hi,

The interesting work of another musician on Vivaldi's Summer concerto convinced me to reopen an old project on the same music, and complete my own version. My project was started with an older library, and is now converted to the VSL full library (non-Synchron).

I wanted to test realism and variety of articulations. So, I worked as carefully as possible on each single note and phrase arc. The solo Violin and Violoncello are the seconds, with a gentler sound than the firsts. The orchestra is made up of Chamber Strings (working so well, in my opinion, that I've not yet felt the need to switch to the Dimension Strings for this project).

I used mostly short notes controlled by velocity. Reverb is MIR, with an added hint of Miracle and Logic's Compressor at the end.

I plan to work on the full concerto, but had to start from the final Presto. The Adagio will be as challenging, even if on the opposite scale of speed and loudness.

This is one of those pieces that need continual reworking, since there are so many different ways of playing it. At the moment, I wonder how realistic this first version can be perceived by listeners with ears fresher than mines.

Paolo


Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in MP3)

Vivaldi, L'Estate, III Presto (in AIFF)

 

What a delight! This proves yet again that VSL is the only library that can really effectively handle the classical and baroque era music. Your solo violin part is simply fabulous. Perfection!

Paul

[PaoloT]

@Paul McGraw said:

What a delight! This proves yet again that VSL is the only library that can really effectively handle the classical and baroque era music. Your solo violin part is simply fabulous. Perfection!

Paul, thank you very much for listening (and for your kind words)!

Doing this piece helped me very much in understanding how this tool called VSL works. After finding my way, I think I can agree that it’s a stunning match, when coming to various styles and epochs of the classical music.

The main goal of virtual libraries being giving the most accurate idea of how a piece could sound when handled to real performers, I think I could discover some tricks on how to go near to it – thanks to the kind forum members who helped me in refining my humble means.

The next step, with the solo violin in the Adagio, is to use time stretch to dynamically vary the trills' speed. I’ve already adjusted my presets to fit those variations in different cells of the matrix!

Paolo

[Beat Kaufmann]

Dear PaoloT

Thanks for your Vivaldi contribution. It's great to hear that it helped you get to know the Vienna Libraries better.

Although, like my predecessors, I highly appreciate your work, But I want to be honest and tell you that the result doesn't really sound musical yet. There is still a lot of potential. You have tried to work out the dynamics. You did it very seriously but the accents stick unnaturally in the ear, so you don't hear much in between.

Well, I don't just want to complain, but offer you some help. Since it is mainly about 16ths, I recommend you to watch this video first (Nr. 37) first and perhaps the contribution under No. 33.

It's not just a matter of changing the velocity of each note a little bit, but at the same time to leave the note on "down stroke" a little louder.

The way I judge it, you also used "staccato" for the accents. This articulation is sometimes extreme in sound when you use the loudest step (Velocity 110-127). Try "sfz" as well. Combinations with stacc and sfz sound very natural when used correctly.

Remember, you can shorten tones like staccato per midi so that the staccato is not played completely. You can achieve something similar to spiccato. You can also play with it.

If you apply the above it can sound like this:

• Estate-Presto just Orchestra (mp3)
• Estate-Presto Orchestra + sViol + Harpsi (mp3)

If you want my midi file, let me know. Sometimes studying the midi helps to understand things even better. Hope you got my post the right way. The aim is to help you for making even better music with the samples of VSL.

Beat

[PaoloT]

Dear Beat, thank you very much for listening and for your detailed analysis!

I'm looking at my file, and oddly I see that I never used staccato for accents. I alternated (depending on the intensity required and the context) harsh repetition, marcato, sfz/sffz. Why I didn't use staccato or spiccato I don't know, but it's probably because I was looking for more extreme dynamics. To smoothen things a bit I had to lower velocity in some of the accented notes.

Note lenght adjustment has been one of the most time consuming operations I did. Probably, I can say I manually edited each single note. Argh. But, judging from your impressions, it is not yet a completed work.

I'll be back at this piece later, when my ears will have dried enough from working on it. One of the things I will have to do is to replace the complicated assembling of prerecorded trills with performed trills in the Adagio, to make speed variations more natural.

In the meantime, it will be an opportunity to return to your precious tutorials, probably the first references I've ever studied when first learning VSL (and for which I want to thank you)!

Best,
Paolo