hi seraz

tbe reason i don´t use VE and MIDI-tracks, but the instrument tracks, is, that i prefer having all the instruments within the mixer of cubase. i don´t need another mixer before that. it´s just the way i prefer to work.

cheers

s.

just a little addon:

i like the idea of a plugin tuning the orchestra for me. right now i do it manually, which is really exhausting. yet i´d like to have two main features added:

a) why stop at 7-limit? i understand that 7-limit is more than enough for most users, yet if you write contemporary music and like to tune your instruments even more (i just wrote an orchestra-piece utilizing 29-limit tuning. but not just "art"-music could need that. right now i am writing a fiilm-score in which i use 13-limit-tuning, to be able to get a specific sound) or if you are into spectral music, then tuning your orchestra even further is essential. at least 11-limit  or 13-limit should be implemented.

yet point a) i guess requires point

b) finally i´d like an option, for example within an enhanced expression map of cubase, to individually assign tunings to specific notes (that individual "correction" overrides hermode tuning´s calculation for that specific pitch), using preferrably helmholtz-ellis accidentals, which very precisely show, how a note is to be tuned within a chord.

a good way of achieving that would be to have hermode analyse the whole piece and create a "tuning file" for each instrument. that tuning file then can be edited using the helmholtz-ellis-accidentals. the whole thing would be sort of an addon to the expression maps, like the dynamic maps are now in cubase 6.

cheers

s.

are you using a MIDI-track in cubase or an instrument track?

if you use a MIDI-track and the rack, i guess cubase will send CC7-values once you touch the MIDI-fader. just a guess here, since i usually don´t work with MIDI-tracks that much

hi seraz

by default the volume slider is assigned to CC7. i guess it receives some messages there. you have to go to perform - map control. then scroll down to "volume" and select as controller "none". or have you already done that?

cheers

s.

yep, everythning is fine again, thanks

hi dietz

i just found what what the problem is:

i have to check both the vst2 and vst3 versions of the plugins. in cubase5 that was not necessary.

all software being used is the most recent

cheers

s.

hi there

i just upgraded to cubase 6 and due to compatibility issues with other 3rd-party software i have to use the 32 bit-version of it.

now the problem is the following:

everytime i reopen cubase6, the VSL-plugins are not available anymore. i have to check them in cubase´s plugin-information-dialogue on every open. i could even deal with it, but once a VSL-plugin (the VST3-version, btw) is in use in the project, i cannot check it in the information-box.

anyone else having the same problem? how can this be solved?

cheers

s.

the update is very disappointing. the basic model just a tad faster, but not really a difference... 3GB Ram standard??? give me a break!!! that is ridiculous...

the only thing apple did well concerning this update is that airport is now built in by default... it was about time...

if you only have money for a quad, you better go for the imac... more bang for the buck there...

how should that validate what you say?

there are professors of biology who deny evolution despite all the evidence in favour for it. you seem to be the "intelligent designer" of composition...

well, the reason you should go to uni is that you learn what has already been done, so that you don´t think you are origininal and a genius, because you wrote something that has been done better 50 years ago. if you want to be original and make something new, you have to know what has been there before you. there is not one single influential composer in the history of music that has not been through thoroughly studying his predecessors.

 that of course does not have to be at a university. you can study with great teachers privately. but without that step, you will never become as good as you think you already are. man, you really sound like a 13year old kid who thinks he knows everything without studying it... probably you are...

thanks for proving my point. i am outta here.

that shows that you have neither a clue about filmmusic, nor about contemporary composition. the horror genre actually does copy contemporary composers (also from dead composers, btw.) like crazy. without the likes of ligeti, lachenmann, zimmermann, boulez, xenakis, stockhausen (i don´t want to start with namedropping here, but i guess you get my point), the horror genre would sound completely different.

sorry, man, but you have not the slightest clue what you are talking about. no matter how strongly you insist on it: the color of snow is not green!!!

i strongly advise you to go to uni and take some courses in contemporary composition and analysis...

yes, indeed.

what people also forget ist the fact that filmcomposition involves a tremendous craft as a musician. since i know both sides, i can say that it is far easier to write something abstract (you can´t do that much wrong when you´re abstract... if people don´t like it or if it´s crap, you simply can say: "it is art!"... it´s actually pretty easy to behave as if you are contemporary... postmodernism allows for anything to happen...) than something "concrete".

you really have to know both sides... as a filmcomposer, you have to be accustomed to all sorts of styles and write in those styles within a splitsecond... the fact is, that the really great filmcomposers also do write contemporary music (actually incredibly well, but hardly anyone will ever have the chance to hear such pieces) and you can hear it in their filmscoring that they are experienced in post WW2-music (does mr.C actually really think that for filmcomposers the musical history ends with mahler and stravinsky???)... it is just a huge difference... (actually all filmcomposers i know personally do also write contemporary concert music at a very advanced level... yet all straight edge, arrogantly behaving contemporary music composers i know are not able to score for film... and if they try, they come up with something like a lachenmann-string-quartet (which by itself sounds very good, tbh) in a kissing-scene, because they could not ever forgive themselves if they wrote something tonal... so... there must be something wrong here, right???) but people like mr. C. just know the abstract world... believe me... being "original" in that realm is really simple... just do something that a composer would never do... and whoom... there you go... academics will love you for being unconventional when you write a concerto for a derailing train.... in contemporary music "arbitrariness" is often confused with "originality" (as in filmcomposition or any style for that matter)

again: i am neither dissing filmmusic, nor contemporary concert music... i am just saying that it is not a black or white issue... there is good and bad in both sides...

the fact that i do not diss filmmusic does not imply that i don´t intend to write unheard material or that i don´t take the freedom to write what i like... i actually really do that... the difference is just that i am not as pretentious as you.

btw: you could also accuse stravinsky of not being original... just take the rite of spring... do you know how many folkmelodies there are in that piece? these melodies are not even altered... they are quoted literally... so... by your definition, stravinsky must be a lame composer, because he did not come up with one single original melody in the probably most groundbreaking piece of the early 20th century.

no, i am not. i compose contemporary music. the way you respond just shows that ignorance often goes along with arrogance. nobody is ever fully original. the great masters did copy from others like crazy. i already said: it is in the way you do it.

well, filmcomposers "stole" from stravinsky... so what... stravinsky himself stole from other great composers... just an example: his idea of bitonality that is very explicitely elaborated in the rite of spring... he stole it from maurice ravel. but guess what: he made it his own. that is what a great composer does... he steals and makes it his own... stravinsky himself said: a good composer does not borrow, he steals.... there is nothing wrong with stealing or ripping off... it is in the way you do it. sure, there is a lot of bad filmmusic out there, maybe even the vast majority (just like in concert music, btw), but saying in general, that filmmusic ist just a huge rip-off, shows that you don´t know that much about the people who are being ripped off... go back to uni...

@ william: thanks for that post... it was one of the wittiest i´ve ever read here...

p.s.: the way you are dissing "functional" music is inherently stupid. stravinsky himself wrote a lot of functional music (i.e. ballets). opera music is also functional (many film composers do also steal from operas). actually you could say that opera is the predecessor of film in a way (200 years ago, star wars would have been an opera, not a movie!). it is just a different medium... there have been many bad operas in the last 400 years and there have been many bad filmscores in the past 80 years... but the best did and will survive... it has always been like that.

concerning your complaint about the lack of originality in filmscoring: do you know that there is not even one single original idea in the plays of shakespeare? all of his plays have been written before, more than 1000 years before his time, but noone wrote them like he did... there are also filmcomposers who can do a similar thing, but you will only find it if you are openminded enough...

good to know it´s already solved... thanks a lot...

hi there.

i just updated my vienna suite and to my disappointment must say that the vst-3-versions of the plugins do not have a bypass-button. i am using cubase 5.1.1. it´s really annoying if you want to try some EQ-settings and compare it to the unprocessed audio, you have to switch the plugin off, which results in dropouts...

does anyone else have that problem?

since you mentioned nuendo again:

the difference between nuendo and cubase is that nuendo offers a lot of features that postproduction needs, but are superfluous for composition. like extended surround features (cubase also gives you the option to produce surround (up to 8 channel-surround i think) but not quite as many. nuendo offers sampling rates up to 384kHz (or was it "just" 192, i don´t remember) (you won´t need that for composition or music production in general), and more of the like... it also has extended features of synching to tape-machines, film-projectors (these are all things that cubase also does, but not to the extent that nuendo does it).

since i don´t know what you are after exactly, i hesitate to say "you will not need nuendo", i would rather suggest you try both nuendo and cubase and look for yourself if you really need to spend 3 times as much as for cubase. i guess, unless you are planning to produce a dolby surround mix haveing to synch to 70mm film-projectors while also handling 384kHz-files, you will bite your a+* because of the extra 800 or something euros spent.

cheers

s.

well, i think the worrying thing about selfassembling orchestral music (if that should happen in the future) is not the professional realm, but the amateur, student, low budget, no budget area... these areas for almost all composers are the starting point in their career. very often such movies are produced by people who don´t have a clue about music, but thanks to modern technology know a friend of a friend´s friend who happens to be a "composer" of some sort. instead of looking for a proper composer, many people will opt for hiring a douche, because he will be able to some extent to come up with something.

i see this happen quite a lot even as of now. technology right now allows many people to produce professionally to some extent, even if the music is crap. that could have been the first of many gigs for a talented composer.

now i am not saying that technology is bad, because after all without it i too would be out of work... i guess it´s just a problem we have to live with somehow.

looking through the sample content of the strings libraries there is quite something important missing in my opinion: the option to choose open strings or to force the vienna player to use an open string when appropriate. are there any plans of doing so in the near future?

cheers

s.

you were talking about nuendo before and mentioning its price...

i suggest you go for cubase... it´s basically the same program for not even half the cost... has great midi-editors and because of the vst-expression-maps it has a huge advantage on other sequencers...cubase also has quite a good score-editor. it can´t compete with sibelius of course, but depending on what you want to do, it will be sufficient.

i actually suggest you get both a decent sequencer AND a good engraving program, because in the long run you may find out that neither program can complete both tasks to a satisfying level. so my tip is: cubase + sibelius (which summed up is still cheaper than nuendo)

i don´t know the GUI of vienna imperial, but the "normal" VI-players enable you to immunize against volumechanges. in the settings, you can choose if main volume is being controlled by a controller or not. by default that is turned on i guess to CC7.

hi there.

i am not sure if it has already been brought up, but i think it might not be such a bad thing to add a board where VSL-users can resell libraries they wont use anymore. i think that would be beneficial for all involved (buyer, seller and also VSL maybe).

any thoughts about that?

for me it differs, depending on the genre of music i write. sometimes i merely use the computer and sometimes the computer is only the final step in the compositional process, or not even involved in composition at all, just in the realization of music.

the great thing about writing on paper first and then programming it, is the fact that this procedure implies great ear training. if you program the piece, you immediately find out if the music sounds the way you imagine it in your head. if not, try to find out why and fix it... not that long ago, you needed a real orchestra at your disposal to go through that learning process. i admit: a real orchestra is still something different from a virtual one and in the long run, you can´t really do without that process, but still: you really learn a lot about instrumentation, composition, etc...

i perfectly understand what you mean. composing orchestral music directly on the computer seems very unorganic to me. when i compose for orchestra, i usually write the music on paper first (or at least a reduction) and then program it. when i see the music on the paper i can relate to what i write more and my writing is also faster... the programming afterwards is also faster, because i already know what i want the music to sound like.