Originally Posted by: stephen limbaugh

So, in the advanced tab of VIpro's advanced view (the little tab right by edit and stretch) you will have an option for "Start Offset Mode."  Try selecting "leg" in that menu, and then fiddle with the "Start Offset" ms and the "Start Offset Attack" ms.

The "Start" fader located by the "attack" fader can then be used to control how much of that "Start Offset" effects the legato transition between notes.  

With the right settings, and each instrument/passage is different, you can remove that "harsh" or unmusical transition from note to note.

A number of users make multiple legato patches out of the stock legato articulation for each instrument... and each one may have a different Start Offset Mode to be triggered from repetations, the first note only, or even all.

Also by having multiple edited legato patches, different tuning/humanize settings will also help the performance "glide" from note to note in a much more convincing way.

I would begin your experiments with a string portamento, as it is the most obvious to hear when messing with the Start Offset.

Lastly, if you have an adagio passage of whole notes, save yourself the time and energy and do NOT use the legato articulations.... use the sustains and mess with attack/release.

Thank you for that insight-ful information! I will try to play with these (and other settings). Are these also MIDI-controllable? So I don't need (worst case scenario) one cell per phrase so to say?
Also, how do you manage all the variations of patches/cells you create?

Kind regards,
Lukas

Originally Posted by: stephen limbaugh

Legato blur and the VI Pro options that allow you to cut into the sample (the degree to which is determined by the “Start” fader) are helpful.

Do you mean Attack, Release etc?

Any more thoughts and infos on this matter and the questions I raised? :) Any comment, insight and experience/tip is appreciated!

Cheers,
Lukas

Would you mind sharing some basic architecture of your template? Goals and rationale...? I'm working on my template right now, and I'm sure that could be useful. :)

Hello, I finally found some time again to play with my libraries and I stumbled again over an old question bugging me:

What are the most usual ways (since I guess that there's not the way...) to use the sustain, legato and legato-sus patches? (I'm using the special editions.)

I am aware that the legato patches provide 2 velocity layers, the sustains 3 and the legato-sus patches crossfade from the legato transitions into the sustain samples (implying that the end notes will always play the same samples, according to the manual).

I assume that the 2 layers in the legato patches concern the transitions... are the 3 velocity layers of the sustains still used in the legato patch? Or do I have to "decide" between "two legato layers or three velocity layers"?

Furthermore, it quite often happens that the the transition at a desired volume is either too soft or too harsh, thus, the desired volume level can't be reached by the use of vel-x-fade (alone). Do you then use CC11 to make the fine tuning? Or do you switch to the sustain patch for these intervals? (Or put differently "How would you control volume/timbre somewhat differently from the actual transition layer?").

I hope you can follow on my trains of thought and maybe provide some useful hints. :)

Thanks and good night,
Lukas

Hello!

I just wondered while looking through the sample lists of the SE Editions...
Do I see correctly - and if yes, why is it? - that the SE1(+) or SE3 respectively don't feature Orchestral Strings muted legatos? Not owning SE3 makes the Orchestral Strings the most versatile section (for they have sordini samples), but as soon as you own SE3 they stand behind, because it's the only of the four big ensemble sizes in the SE now featuring NO sordini legato...

Cheers,
Lukas

Originally Posted by: FabioA

Ciao Paolo,
You are correct. I think it's better 99% of the time to have velocity to control dynamic for staccato and percussive articulation. But I would'n use a cc to turn on and off the velocity xfade; in VI pro you can go in the advanced panel, select edit and set velocity xfade off (the other possibility is on or global) for every single patch. So you can set the xfade off for every staccato, pizzicato articulations and use cc1 (or cc2) to control dynamic for sustained articulations.

I guess the global option might be useful (in the light of this question) for "long shorts" (talking about sfz or fp patches), which often might be triggered conveniently by velocity, however, sometimes could be further shaped by wiggling the vel-x-fade fader (to produce the faint idea of a sffz for instance)...

-Lukas

Thanks!

Yeah - there a couple of things on my list... ;-)
Still waiting to get from "I'd like to have it" to "I need it" concerning this one. 

Cheers,
Lukas

Hello!

Thank you for your answer - it exactly what I thought and feared to be the case. :D

I see the benefits of the Pro version, however, in my case, the full version is still over the top, sadly.

Just one other important question: VEP Server does not demand a slave PC for this process, right? So I could do all this stuff happily on just one computer...

Thank you,
Lukas

Maybe a non-Reaper-specific, general answer about this issue would shed some light on that issue as well...?

-Lukas

Hello!

One big advantage of the use of VE(P) is removing strain from the DAW (in my case reaper) by outsourcing the sample library management to VE(P) instances which run as a separate process managed by VE Service/Server.
What comes with that is the additional advantage of loading the whole template of VE(P) instances at the start of the day and then working through one's projects without having to unload and load the samples with every closed and reopend project.

The latter point is where I want to cue in with my question: How do I set up my reaper project(s) or VE template respectively to profit from the second advantage? I'm using VE (not pro!) at the moment in my reaper template and after opening a project, it shows three instances of VE in the VE Service window. But when I close the project, the VE Service quits as well.

It feels like it's actually quite simple, but I don't really see through it and the manual didn't help me so far...

Thanks and good night,
Lukas

I think, the repititon-legato patches are used without the sustain pedal...

Thanks for the insight!

I'm deeply ashamed to admit that I did not yet discovered that problem.  I never did, so far, more than one rebowing with this technique, where the stacking is not obvious, even less so in conjuction with a moving vel-x-fade controller and so on...

So, I'll sit down next to you and wait for some of the savvies to come by... 

If you're owning the plus version - wouldn't that be a proper situation to use the repetition legatos?

-Lukas

To my fellow Reapers!

I was just tinkering about my VSL (SE) stuff template in Reaper and was "pimping" the MIDI editor. I just wanted to point out to those who might not know already that one can (1) save and restore displayed CC lanes and (2) name piano roll notes and CC lanes.

(1) In the action list of the MIDI editor search for "displayed CC lanes" and you will find (if you have the SWS/S&M extensions installed, which is highly recommended) the actions "Restore displayed CC lanes" 1-9 and "Save displayed CC lanes" 1-9. When you run one of the former actions, Reaper will save the current displayed CC lanes in the editor (and their hight) in the respective slot number. The corresponding restore action will ... tadaaa! restore the setup. Now, I mapped the restore actions to the 1, 2, 3, ... keys on the keyboard and saved configurations like:

1: CC1 ModWheel, CC2 VelXfade (breath), CC20 SlotXF
2: Velocity, CC2 VelXfade (breath), CC11 Expression
3: CC15 Reverb on/off, CC14 AlgoWet, CC31 MIRx wet
etc...

... which is extremly quick to change between different controllers!

(2) By double right-clicking a note on the piano roll, one can name the clicked note. So you can label your assigned keyswitches (this will also show the name next to MIDI events on this note, which is pretty useful, when the screen is cluttered with keyswitches). This can be assigned for every track; even every MIDI channel!

Under File->note names->..., the settings of the current track can be saved to a simple text file in the default location C:\Users\XXX\AppData\Roaming\REAPER\MIDINoteNames\

Opening it allows you to make changes directly in the file and of course, the file can be loaded for every track.

Bonus cool thing:
Adding lines like "CC01 Hakuna Matata" will label the CC lanes as well! So I printed this list in all of my note name files...

CC1 Articulation (Mod Wheel)
CC2 Velocity XF (Breath)
CC14 Algo Wet
CC15 Reverb on/off
CC20 Slot XF
CC21 Start Scaler
CC22 Master Attack
CC23 Start Scaler
CC25 Delay Scaler
CC26 Tuning Scaler
CC27 Humanize
CC28 Vel. XF on/off
CC30 Dyn. Range Scaler
CC31 MIRx wet

...so all my custom CC lane settings (see (1) are even labeled correctly! :)

*Reaper-Fanboyship-over*

cheers,
Lukas :)

I have a question about this... Since the time stretching is no real time operation, I assume you "prepare" a time-stretched version of a sustain/legato patch, put it into a free slot in the "normal" sustain/legato cell and Slot-X-fade in between them?

The basic idea is to press the sustain pedal (CC64 up) before the note transition and let it go afterwards (CC64 down). The sustain pedal trick will let the sample sound on, while a new attack is triggered on the same note. Without a note-off signal or the CC64 going down, the note would sound on "indefinitely". If you hear different notes stacking, could it be, that other notes (e.g. on the same track) are affected by the pedalling?

Cheers

In the Edit tab of the respective cell you can set the Velocity XF to on, off and global for every loaded patch. Global means that the value corresponds to the general XF on/off status, to which Fabio referred. Independent from that you can set the XF option on a patch by patch basis as mentioned above.

If you're talking about different XF settings within one patch (like in the Special Edition's Drum patch), then it's not possible apart from globally switching XF on and off as Fabio pointed out.

If you don't want to think about CC controlling that global XF option, then you could work around it by creating a matrix with two cells, both holding the same patch, however in one, you turn the XF option in the Edit tab to off, in the other to on - the former being your "velocity controlled snare hit patch" and the latter being the "Vel XF controlled snare roll patch". Now, you use keyswitching to change between the two cells. This, however, is just a cosmetic thing, since turning on/off the global Vel XF involves the same number of steps as keyswitching.

Wow, then I really got you right... Sounds interesting (and tedious). Just out of curiosity, why don't you just mute the instruments in your pallet, you're not working on currently - why interrupt your work with setup-things after each instrument?

You are saying that you only have one instance of VEP with one instrument loaded at a time, do its whole rendition, export audio and then do the next one?! I think, there is a misunderstanding here...?

Then you should quickly go and see your doctor...!   

But seriously... can some percussionist explain to me what happens or how this sound is produced (or how this technique is called)?

Thanks,
Lukas

This sounds reasonable and like a good way to go. Thank you for your input!
I will try to layer one legato or sustain patch of the Orchestral Strings with a slot overlay of a corresponding solo instrument, in order to "add some vibrato" at certain places - this is the only thing I'm really missing in the Special Editions: A way to control vibrato to some extent, which would be really essential in some places. Maybe this is somewhat of a workaround.

@bold text: How many instances of VEP do you have active at same time, roughly? I, at the moment, have 3 (one for winds, one for strings and harp and one for keys, perc and misc. I'm thinking about creating smaller "modules", though...

Thanks for your time. :) Other thoughts are also appreciated of course.

Kind regards,
Lukas

Whaaaaaat is happening here...? 

https://youtu.be/AWqHCNdV-j0?t=346

(it's a link to one of the videos above)

Hello!

Often, one reads about layering different libraries, most commonly for the strings. Imagine I want to layer the Orchestral with the Solo Strings, just to get a more detailed sound. Do you add the corresponding patches to the matrices of the Orchestral Strings, so that they are automatically used as well (and adjust volume in the matrix mixer) or have you dedicated Solo Strings Tracks which are layered "audio-wise" so to say (so when exporting MIDI, they would appear as a distinct voice in the score?)

kind regards,
Lukas

Oh, thank you guys for your input. :)

I also got recommended the books by Bob Katz...

Cheers!

I love these kind of posts - thank you - they lead forward on one's own tracks of research!

About literature: Following the link some Amazon reviews stated that it doesn't really cover the orchestral side of music/mixing - can you verify this? Skimming through the list, I stumbled over these two books which have formidable reviews by the same author (who has taken his time to explain why he thinks so highly of them). I haven't read them, since I found them right now, but maybe you wanna look into them (review author "sylva").

Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio

Acoustic and MIDI Orchestration for the Contemporary Composer: A Practical Guide to Writing and Sequencing for the Studio Orchestra (take care to read the edit of his review as well).

Kind regards,
Lukas

Nice! Reaper go! :D