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  • Mahler 2nd symphony - 3rd mov

    Another terrific classical mockup by Alex Temple. [:D]
    thanks a lot, Alex

    http://www.vsl.co.at/en-us/67/3920/4526.vsl

  • Truly releastic sounds, and work......My hat is off to you for the excellent work. A wonderful listen.....

  • This is a brilliant job - the "conducting" performance is outstanding and the recording and use of samples is masterful. Mahler is certainly one of most difficult and complex composers to present in any form. One thing that impressed me about this is that the dynamic range and contrasts of size in the ensemble were completely appropriate to the score - which is amazing considering the huge scale of this score. It is striking how several times I had to stop drifting off into the music and get back to listening to a MIDI performance. But that is the whole idea, isn't it? Congratulations on this excellent work, certainly one of the best that's been done to date.

  • Terrific, Alex. Lots of depth and quiet subtlety. The brass work is particularly nice. Can you say a few words about how you got your brass sound.

    Thanks,
    Jay

  • Yes I agree on the brass. The legato trumpet solos/solis are close to perfect, but the contrast with the ff ensemble trumpets entrance is just as good. You can really hear the difference betwen the espressivo sound and the later fanfares. But the woodwinds and strings are excellent as well. It is extremely difficult to get those fast spiccato/detache lines sounding natural. My only question was with a couple clarinet solos - the high eflat clarinet seemed too soft on occasion, though perfectly articulated. But I hesitate to criticize anything on this masterpiece.

  • Jay and William articulated my impressions pretty well.

    Excellent work, and again another example of getting close to live performance.
    Mahler is a favourite of mine, both for listening and studying, so i'm pretty keen to hear a good performance, and study subtie aspects closely.
    Well conducted and performed Alex.

    Regards,

    Alex.

  • Alex - wonderful. Shows off so many of the 'strengths' of VSL. Truly the best orchestral library out there. One issue I had were the fast string lines. Did you use perf patches? Please don't take this as a critique of your work (which is outstanding - particularily on the brass) - but any time I hear a 'high end' (pitch) string lines - particularily the fast lines - I hear 'samples'. The brass and WW's are so real I never once think 'samples'.

    The slower string work is rather convincing. I guess the question is how can we mock of the high fast strings and make them sound more natural? I find myself 'avoiding' writing these parts for my own projects becuase of this issue. Riding a solo violin on top sometimes helps but isn't the answer in most cases.

    Again - Alex, aside from this issue just an outstanding work you have done.

    Rob

  • You did a extraordinary job Aliex. Truly incredible.

    I personnaly think that one of the most impressive aspects of this piece is the realism of the ambience. I'm truly amazed at how convincing the acoustic enviroment sounds. It really is as if you were actually there.

    Alex, would it be to much to ask to share with us the techniques used to achieve such amazing results? I suppose it would include such things as reverb(s) used, mixing, stereo positioning, EQ, other effects used, etc...

    I know that a magician never reveals his secrets, but I'm absolutely convinced that everybody here will keep those secrets for themselves and take them to their graves.

    Hoping to hear from you,

    Louisc

  • Top notch I agree and very musically executed. You really get lost in the piece as intended without being distracted by inferior samples. A brilliant execution of the score with lots of life and feeling. What I really loved was the room sound and would very much like to know how that was achieved.

    The strings now and then didn't quite measure up sound-wise but they often did as well. I think when string sounds are brought to the next level of realism through whatever breakthrough in samples, composers will be able to achieve total satisfaction.

    Absolutely first rate. One of the best ever by anyone. VSL is the premier library with no one else in the same league. In the hands of an expert like Alex we can really hear the difference.

    Dave Connor

  • last edited
    last edited

    @dpcon said:


    I think when string sounds are brought to the next level of realism through whatever breakthrough in samples, composers will be able to achieve total satisfaction.

    Dave Connor



    I wholeheartedly agree with Dave here. We are very close on strings - but a bit farther to go. I reconginze that of all the sections, the strings have the most versatility and long list of articulation options - which makes it so difficult to paste together a realistic performance. It wasn't too many years ago where sampled woodwinds were awful - with VSL, even many woodwind players I know haven't been able to tell [:D]

    Rob

  • Thanks for the compliments, everyone!

    Jay: About the brass - well, mostly about the trumpets and horns, since the tuba and trombones don't really do much until the climax at the end of the movement. I use a couple different techniques depending on what type of sound I wanted to achieve, even though some of these techniques aren't exactly "purist" choices. For the fortissimo parts, I always use the ensemble patches unless the part is specifically written for a solo trumpet. But if it's a 4-part chord for four trumpets, I'll still use the ensemble patch for one or two of the four notes because I want to maintain the characteristic phasing/rattling sound of fortissimo brass. Also, for repeated staccato phrases where the forte repetitions dont cut it, I'll use the first few samples from the rep-dim performance repetitions to start the phrase, and end it with the last few samples from the rep-cre patches.

    For the expressive trumpet parts at the end, I basically used a lot of different dynamic samples, all from the lower velocity layers of course. For the trumpets doing the harmony parts, I used the oV samples, and for the solo melodic trumpet on top I used the mV samples.

    For the horn parts I used Epic Horns since there were several parts where 6 horns were required in unison, and I figure that if a composer writes a piece that uses 10 horns (which this one does, in the last movement), then having a horn section that sounds a little bloated is more in line with their interests than having one that sounds too small.

    William: You're right about the dynamics of some of the clarinet parts. I think that the descending grace note phrase in the beginning would have been better if it had been more sharply accented, but once the english horn comes in I thought it sounded fine.

    Rob: I'm still looking for a way to get the high strings to have a more natural resonance. I'm convinced that the repetition samples can help me a lot here, but unfortunately this piece is a bit too slow to be able to use the staccato performance repetitions for the strings for the parts that it really could have improved.

    Louisc, Dave: To get the room sound, I used a combination of the medium hall in GigaPulse, and just a tiny bit of a cheap reverb on top of the final mix to make things blend a little more. Also, I layered an orchestral ambience track; which helped get rid of some of the dead silences (like after the opening timpani strikes.) I used a different GigaPulse arrangement for each instrument. This would normally be a pain, but because I had to do each instrument separately anyway due to the large number of patches I used, it didn't really make a difference at all in terms of workflow. I'll have to give you all the width and pan settings later, since I won't have access to my main computer for at least a week or so.

  • Thanks Alex for the thorough reply. Using the Rep patches sounds like it might do a better job (I personally have to not be so lazy and start using these patches [:@] ). Too bad tempo didn't allow.

    Perhaps the Symph edition will have more 'ensemble' options for this. Again thanks for all the details.

    Again - wonderful use of VSL.

    Rob

  • Alex, thank you for taking the time to reveal some of your techniques. Based on your wonderful results I will have to give Gigapulse Medium Hall a more complete investigation. I will also have to try using a different Gigapulse arrangment for each instrument. I eagerly await your setting specifics when you return to your computer.

    Best,
    Jay

  • My thanks as well Alex. You obviously worked very hard on that and it really shows. It's one of the most musically talented mockups I've ever heard. It just goes to show that whatever the mediun talent will always outshine other considerations.

    The VSL team must be thrilled with hearing the potential of their library so gloriously revealed.

    Dave Connor

  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on