# My introduction, at last...



## MusicianDesigner (Nov 22, 2004)

Hello all,
I like this place very much. I found there is a good spirit here and I wanted to join for a while.
Some of you had already seen my project on MusicianDesigner.com and had some talk about it. Feel free to ask me if you have any question.
As an introduction, I could say that we are a very small company (nothing compared to VSL QL or other big ones) but our passion to music lead us to bring this crazy project to life.
As you might have seen on the site we planed to release a first product very soon (my challenge would be to ship it for Christmas). Some people have founded it?s a simple product (only ?a? available). I decided to release this version because I think it?s a good instrument, with full expression and I?m sure a lot of composers would like to have it right now and use it just like it is. I?ve seen that on music movies the voice is used as any other instrument in a symphonic orchestra. The words are not essential, sometime not recommended: you must keep concentrate on the movie, and the music must have a non conscious action, for best emotional effects. On the other hand the sound quality, the realism and the musical expression are crucial. 
That?s why our first product provides two essential functionalities that are not yet seen for voice sampling: the legato and nuance modeling.
The legato for voice is almost impossible with the sampling technology. We spent a lot of time to provide something that works. I hope you?ll enjoy it. Even if a professional can hear the sample links (I recognize nearly all samples of my instruments), most people don?t see any difference with real singers. That?s an interesting thing since the ?end user? is the guy that watches the movies or plays the video games: his advice is important. Note also that the results you?ll have will depend of the quality of your reverb. With Gigapulse for example the legato is better than the mp3 provided on our site. Hope I?ll soon update the demos with it.
Nuance modeling is one of the most important researches we made. It allows controlling the nuances in real time (with a MIDI controller) on our Gigastudio instruments. You make any crescendo with your modulation wheel, and it works fine with solo instruments. This is very important to make realistic phrasing.

I hope that with those kinds of instruments, composers will have more opportunity to test ideas with voice. Consequently people will hear more ?opera voices? and will be more sensible to opera. So I hope that composers and arrangers will enjoy the Male Vocalists, it will give them inspiration and will help them to promote the lyrical singing. I?d love to see new popular Operas again, like at the time of Verdi!

Currently I?m looking for partners for developments and/or distribution. As I said, we are a little company and some help would be welcome!
So if a developer is interested in integrating nuance modeling into his already existing library, we could rapidly give it a try. I?m pretty sure that we could have very good results with Diva or with a fine solo violin. This would help us to continue our researches and developments of the big stuff: real-time vowel changes and articulation. This will be great to improve virtual singers (with sample based quality) and also for other instruments with a lot of sound variations (string, woodwind, brass?)

Well, happy to be here. I hope you?ll manage my poor English, and of course, I?m waiting for your questions, comments and suggestions. 

David


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## Edgen (Nov 22, 2004)

hey david! Welcome!

I'm anxious to hear a few of your vocal demos. But, of course you can't beat the real thing. 



/j


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## Herman Witkam (Nov 22, 2004)

Welcome to V.I. David. Sounds like a promising product.


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## TheoKrueger (Nov 22, 2004)

Welcome David ! Very interesting product you have there and i hope to see it go very high one day .

There has already been a thread for your samples so i guess it's a nice start  

Check it out if you want ------->

http://www.sanctusangelis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=382

Enjoy your stay


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## Frederick Russ (Nov 22, 2004)

Hi David! Welcome to V.I. and definitely enjoy your stay. Personally I really love the sound of orchestral operatic chorus so you may find a customer in me - do you offer Kontakt versions?


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## Sid_Barnhoorn (Nov 22, 2004)

Hi David. Welcome to V.I.!


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## MusicianDesigner (Nov 23, 2004)

Thanks for your replies!
Edgen, I think nobody hopes to beat the real thing, and about the voice, we are still far from replacing real singers  . But...
As we seen it for orchestral symphony, virtual instruments can replace real stuff on some purpose... but only for recording! I'm afraid that the only future for artists/interprets is on live show, where we have human contact. That?s why I hope young people will be more and more sensible to opera, a live show with a direct contact to the real thing, a situation where you can?t lie. The virtual and the real are feeding each other.
Frederick, I?d like to propose a Kontakt version. Allow me first propose this Giga version 
I?ve tried importing the Giga version on Kontakt, but there are few bugs during the translation. So you can give it a try but I don?t officially support it yet.
TheoKrueger, I?ve seen the thread, and I?ll go there soon to talk about some technical points. We are still working hard on legal stuff those days but I think I?ll be able to reveal more infos soon.


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## Andy B (Nov 23, 2004)

Hi David,

Welcome to V.I.. Someone posted a link to your website - I think it was on the VSL site - and I was quite impressed with the Male voice choir demos, they sound very promising in a area that's so difficult to reproduce.

Andy.


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## Frederick Russ (Nov 23, 2004)

Here is the Tannhauser demo for anyone who is interested:

http://www.musiciandesigner.com/Products/TannhauserChorus.mp3 (TannhauserChorus)

For the genre I think this product has a lot of promise.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 23, 2004)

Sorry, but I think we still have a lonnnnng way to go.


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## MusicianDesigner (Nov 26, 2004)

Hi Ned,
Could you explain your opinion?
Any suggestion that could improve the instrument is welcome.
Regards,
David


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Nov 26, 2004)

David, I have not yet heard a performance created from samples of a voice library that fooled me into thinking that it could be a live performance. There is, like always, the problem of legato notes, but also in some cases a certain lack of even-ness (sp?) from note to note, which makes certain notes stand out. I can accept this in a clarinet performance, for eg, but, since I (like all of us) am particularly sensitive to the human timbre, not in a vocal part. I think a human singing performance is the hardest thing to re-create using samples.


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## MusicianDesigner (Nov 26, 2004)

I perfectly agree with you.
As I said, we are still far from replacing real singers 
The voice might be one of hardest, may be the hardest "instrument" to synthesize. That's why I like this crazy project. And that's also why I think Male vocalists is currently an instrument, not a virtual singer. We try to makes instruments that can give the feeling of voice. There is a real lack in this area.
In my opinion, improvements on the realism are welcome if they help the composers to make living music even if they don?t have a lot of money. Even if the result of your composition is a mock up with synthetic instruments, you are a real guy, an artist with his own feeling that made it. That?s way I works so hard; to give you tools to express yourself.
On the other hand, I can confirm that today there is already existing technologies to make realistic virtual singer, and it won't take more than a decade to have efficient tools to replace recorded singers. Ten years is an eternity for the technology but it?s a near future for us and our society. That?s why I think we have a mission (composers and developers): throw our ?synthetic music? to make people to love acoustic instruments and real interprets. In a more general way, we have to show our added value against the machine. I have seen lot of talented artists around here and that make me confident for the future.


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