# Timing of brass & strings



## hvarland (Feb 19, 2022)

Hi...

I know quite a few has the habit of shifting the timing of brass and string instruments to achieve a more acurate timing and a tighter sound in their mock ups.

Question is, is it done with both strings and brass? mostly used for staccatos or sustained notes? Is there any "rules of thumb" for how much to shift? (I know this might differ from library to library) 

Im using the Native instrument package for all my strings and brass. I think there is a potential for improving the timing, but havent found a good approach to do so yet.

Appreciate all thoughts on the subject.


----------



## JimDiGritz (Feb 19, 2022)

I have no affliation with, and have not actually signed up for this course: https://digitalcomposing.com/

However the preview lesson provided was on Aligning String Notes, it made a ton of sense to me and should apply to other sections.

I'll probably be signing-up as soon as I've finished my current music theory work.


----------



## liquidlino (Feb 19, 2022)

Negative Track Delay Database / Spreadsheet


Heres a direct link to the database: Link EDIT: Ok, here's a Google sheet I've created. If you're interested in contributing values for some instruments (and know how to use a Spreadsheet), let me know and I can give you write access. ---- Original post: Is there a database anywhere of...




vi-control.net


----------



## Living Fossil (Feb 19, 2022)

hvarland said:


> Question is, is it done with both strings and brass? mostly used for staccatos or sustained notes? Is there any "rules of thumb" for how much to shift? (I know this might differ from library to library)


Activate the metronome, close your eyes and listen to what's going on.
End of story.
If the timing of your track is too late, you have to compensate.
There are no general rules, it's always context/library dependant.

But also: it's really easy. You just have to listen and then correct.


----------



## liquidlino (Feb 19, 2022)

Thats ok. OP is lucky you're here to protect him from my grave error of sharing a database full of comparative timings.


----------



## mybadmemory (Feb 19, 2022)

It’s a 100% case by case. All libraries, patches, and even articulations are different. Some people just listen and drag the midi notes in the piano roll. Others use offset per track but that only works if you only have one articulation per track, since all articulations in a patch often have different delays.

Shorts usually have the least. Longs a bit more. And legatos the most. Though sometimes, not the first note of legato phrases, but just the following connected notes. If you wonder why computers doesn’t handle all of this for us yet, when we’ve been able to leave the earth and visit other planets for a long time, so do I.


----------



## ryans (Feb 19, 2022)

Living Fossil said:


> Activate the metronome, close your eyes and listen to what's going on.
> End of story.
> If the timing of your track is too late, you have to compensate.
> There are no general rules, it's always context/library dependant.
> ...


Exactly this.

Sometimes inconsistent round robins can be troublesome. I often print to audio in this case and then adjust the timing.

For those who want to line things up visually, printing to audio can be a viable solution. You can look at the waveform and align audio with great precision.


----------



## Saxer (Feb 20, 2022)

I record a little musical phrase for each articulation and quantize the MIDI.
Then I listen to the phrase a few times without a click.
After that I activate the click but start the DAW at least two bars before the phrase starts... so I hear the click alone and imagine the phrase in that timing. When the phrase begins I can hear immediately if the music is late or early, much better than listening to click and music together.

It concerns all instruments and all articulations... especially the longs and legatos.


----------



## liquidlino (Feb 20, 2022)

mybadmemory said:


> It’s a 100% case by case. All libraries, patches, and even articulations are different. Some people just listen and drag the midi notes in the piano roll. Others use offset per track but that only works if you only have one articulation per track, since all articulations in a patch often have different delays.
> 
> Shorts usually have the least. Longs a bit more. And legatos the most. Though sometimes, not the first note of legato phrases, but just the following connected notes. If you wonder why computers doesn’t handle all of this for us yet, when we’ve been able to leave the earth and visit other planets for a long time, so do I.


The sad truth is that so called "lookahead" functions aren't even hard to code, I created one for CSS legato on Reaper in a few hours having never coded anything in JS before. I don't know why developers can't include lookahead on all libraries, and save us from having to worry about timings, especially when keyswitching, where you can't change the pre delay of a track on the fly. TSS lookahead looks really well implemented, a template for other Devs to follow. The only downside with lookahead is that you need to set the track to the worst case pre delay (333ms for CSS legato) which does render the instrument pretty much unplayable. But easily overcome, just play in using marcato with no oredelay, and then move to a lookahead track and set all the keyswitches. On the plus side, all the cinematic studio series have precision for shorts, and they're all exactly 60ms across the board, which is fantastic. 

How's BBCSO in terms of variable pre delay timings? It's next on my buy list, hoping to get in next 40 percent sale that comes up.


----------



## mybadmemory (Feb 20, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> The sad truth is that so called "lookahead" functions aren't even hard to code, I created one for CSS legato on Reaper in a few hours having never coded anything in JS before. I don't know why developers can't include lookahead on all libraries, and save us from having to worry about timings, especially when keyswitching, where you can't change the pre delay of a track on the fly. TSS lookahead looks really well implemented, a template for other Devs to follow. The only downside with lookahead is that you need to set the track to the worst case pre delay (333ms for CSS legato) which does render the instrument pretty much unplayable. But easily overcome, just play in using marcato with no oredelay, and then move to a lookahead track and set all the keyswitches. On the plus side, all the cinematic studio series have precision for shorts, and they're all exactly 60ms across the board, which is fantastic.
> 
> How's BBCSO in terms of variable pre delay timings? It's next on my buy list, hoping to get in next 40 percent sale that comes up.


Yeah I have a hard time understanding why this isn’t solved and handled automatically by now. Even with the few libraries that do have lookahead features, that only solves half of the UX problem since you still have to manually switch it on and off for recording and playback.

Shouldn’t the computer and software know if you’re playing something in live or if the computer is playing back a previously recorded track, and just turn the entire delay off when playing something in and back on when playing it back? It really should be all automatic with zero delay at playing and maximum delay when playing back.

BBCSO is as most other things from spitfire. Very playable but perhaps not super consistent if you’re picky about it. Programmers will probably be annoyed since it’s not 100% tight and will require some nudging here and there. Players will probably like how fast it responds and how versatile the extended legato patches are.


----------



## liquidlino (Feb 20, 2022)

mybadmemory said:


> Yeah I have a hard time understanding why this isn’t solved and handled automatically by now. Even with the few libraries that do have lookahead features, that only solves half of the UX problem since you still have to manually switch it on and off for recording and playback.
> 
> Shouldn’t the computer and software know if you’re playing something in live or if the computer is playing back a previously recorded track, and just turn the entire delay off when playing something in and back on when playing it back? It really should be all automatic with zero delay at playing and maximum delay when playing back.
> 
> BBCSO is as most other things from spitfire. Very playable but perhaps not super consistent if you’re picky about it. Programmers will probably be annoyed since it’s not 100% tight and will require some nudging here and there. Players will probably like how fast it responds and how versatile the extended legato patches are.


I'm pretty sure the recording status is already reported by the daw to the vst, so this is on the Devs to implement auto turn on/off in the instrument scripting.


----------



## mybadmemory (Feb 20, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> I'm pretty sure the recording status is already reported by the daw to the vst, so this is on the Devs to implement auto turn on/off in the instrument scripting.


From what I’ve understood it actually isn’t and that’s what currently makes it impossible for instrument devs to implement without collaborating with the DAW-developers. I’m just surprised they don’t try to solve this together.

The technicalities of doing it should be elementary but the UX implications would be substantial. If one library developer managed to collaborate with one DAW-developer to just solve this (automatic switching between zero delay playing and automatically compensated maximum delay playback based on DAW recording state) once and for all, it would surely set the standard for everyone else to follow.


----------



## liquidlino (Feb 20, 2022)

Ah yes, there's no vst control to be able to change the pre-delay on the DAW. But that can be done via a custom action in Reaper, for sure - disable pre-delay when recording is armed, that bit is dead easy... (I use the media playback offset for pre-delay in Reaper):


----------



## mybadmemory (Feb 20, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> Ah yes, there's no vst control to be able to change the pre-delay on the DAW. But that can be done via a custom action in Reaper, for sure - disable pre-delay when recording is armed, that bit is dead easy... (I use the media playback offset for pre-delay in Reaper):


Imagine if a few developers just agreed on solving it though some kind of standardized protocol like NKS for example. Something that other developers and DAWs could adhere to and support.


----------



## hvarland (Feb 20, 2022)

Thanks for all the input. Most helpfull!

Now i have a few tools in the kit for the job, for me and my purposes i think the dump to audio will be the easiest. I have consulted the manual and the only reference to timing from Native's side is that there might be a need to adjust the timing... Im unable to cinda hear what is off, and how much in relation to a click, so the visual approach will have to do.

Thanks a lot!


----------

