# Elegy for Strings



## Fer (Aug 4, 2017)

Hi everyone, i composed this elegy recently. I tried to eq the strings to match the desired tone for this particular composition but without much success... so at the end i removed all the eqs...except for the low end of basses... anyway i hope you enjoy this
cheers.


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## patrick76 (Aug 4, 2017)

Nice! Reminds me a little of Arvo Part's "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten", so, I like it very much.


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## ctsai89 (Aug 4, 2017)

I wish there was a "wow" react on this forum where I can "wow" to your composition.

My soul felt something from it


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## ctsai89 (Aug 4, 2017)

And I do think your track deserves far more plays than 18 plays.


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## g.c. (Aug 4, 2017)

Very nice piece Fer.
Not as an suggestion regarding this piece, just an aside to the problem with eq'ing the strings. Any changes you make in the overall track, i.e. the a little air you employ for the upper 1st violin register will impact the midrange and lower registers. Have you considered multing out your audio tracks and isolating tracks by either note or freqency ranges. Theoretically at least, the "air" frequency boosts or cuts that you employ will effect only the isolated high end in that section of the mult and shouldn't effect the midrange and low freqs. Makes mixing far less uphill.
Also,check your cables.
If the bandwidth and transient resolutions are mucked up by cheap cables then its always going to be an uphill, mostly unwinnable battle. Also, are your Nearfields "ported" or non ported. Bass freqs with ported speakers can be a real issue to overcome. Note the Mike Senior "Mixing Secrets for the small studio" for much more sufficient explanations about this.
Liked your piece and your construction in playing it out. Good stuff!
g.c.


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## Fer (Aug 5, 2017)

patrick76 said:


> Nice! Reminds me a little of Arvo Part's "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten", so, I like it very much.


Hi Patrick, thanks, in the middle of the composition i started to notice that similarity with the Cantus in MBB of Arvo Part too… and then i could not resist to add tubular bells.. 

@ctsai89 , hey thanks for listening, it means a lot if this is telling something! thats the goal at the end (btw im another Scriabin fan  )
@g.c. thanks for suggesting that book, i searched for some reviews and it seems very nice; im gonna try for sure your suggestion...but some mixing questions are comming to my mind (im far from being an expert)... i will pm you later if you dont mind. Im glad you enjoyed the piece!


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 5, 2017)

What a beautiful piece! Gave me goosebumps, well done. Love the orchestration.


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## E.Heart (Aug 6, 2017)

Fer said:


> Hi everyone, i composed this elegy recently. I tried to eq the strings to match the desired tone for this particular composition but without much success... so at the end i removed all the eqs...except for the low end of basses... anyway i hope you enjoy this
> cheers.



Yes, very nice and atmospherical.


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## Fer (Aug 7, 2017)

Hey @Wolfie2112 and @E.Heart , im glad you enjoyed it! cheers.


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Aug 7, 2017)

@Fer Your compositions are getting better and better, man  Please give me some time to catch up !


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## Dave Connor (Aug 7, 2017)

Very nice and well handled. What strings are those?


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## Fer (Aug 7, 2017)

@whitewasteland hey, thanks! yes.. i have been posting a lot here lately..
Dave strings are CSS.


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## Dave Connor (Aug 7, 2017)

Fer said:


> @whitewasteland
> Dave strings are CSS.


I've been thinking of getting those. They have a very natural sound. There was a couple too many slides in your mockup imho which gave things away but that was the only drawback I thought as far as realism. Are those controllable? The almost portamento connections? Are those regular legato patches? It seems the legato transitions get talked about a lot with CSS as a bit of an issue. Do you find the library fairly easy to use or labor intensive to get what you achieved on your very nice piece.


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## Cătălin Popescu (Aug 7, 2017)

Wow!
Extremely well written, I would love to see what instruments and synths you used for this. I loved the string sound, what library was that?
If I'm to critique anything, sometimes the master compressor seems to get overloaded, like at 2 41, with the low boom.


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## Fer (Aug 7, 2017)

Hi Dave,
The mockup process was nothing special for this piece. In fact i was more than satisfied with these results considering the time that i used for the whole composition/edition really… I used the advanced legato mode for the whole piece, which contains four legato transitions (one is portamento) just for the sustains. They are controlable via velocity.

In my opinion one thing that helps a lot is the consistence across the whole library (at the performance of the notes level and at the programming level). To me having that amount of different legatos to choose from and having everything at your fingertips using 4GB of memory is equal to composing faster. So if i think that the connection of two notes is not working i just rise or decrease a bit the velocity of the note and i get a different variation. In those cases i might want to adjust a bit the starting point of the note (depending on the velocity of the piece) and this is a little waste of time, but otoh you will not be wasting time searching and loading different patches or spliting a midi part into different midi tracks.

There is a richness in the legato that is very special; the slow legato is great becase in the slow transitions you can hear all the preparation for the next note. The inherent “problem” to this is the fact that there is a 300 ms lag until you hear the note that you triggered. That is annoying at the beggining if you are used to input the notes with a keyboard; but i think it can be tamed after some usage. i think that having the hability to tweak the velocity thershold for the different legatos would help a lot. Some users are saying that this is making the library very complicated because you need to adjust the starting of the notes a lot by hand; i find difficult to get the fast legato transitions just by playing the keyboard, because the thershold is very hight for these; that means editing. But i think that the time you waste in this has been saved for a lot of other reasons. Hope that helps.


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## Fer (Aug 7, 2017)

Cătălin Popescu said:


> Wow!
> Extremely well written, I would love to see what instruments and synths you used for this. I loved the string sound, what library was that?
> If I'm to critique anything, sometimes the master compressor seems to get overloaded, like at 2 41, with the low boom.


Hi Catalin, strings are CSS and the synths are just two omnisphere patches. Yes, i limited a lot the piece... perhaps i should cut the low end a bit more.


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## Guy Bacos (Aug 7, 2017)

Bravo! Awesome track.


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## Dave Connor (Aug 7, 2017)

Fer said:


> Hi Dave,
> The mockup process was nothing special for this piece. In fact i was more than satisfied with these results considering the time that i used for the whole composition/edition really… I used the advanced legato mode for the whole piece, which contains four legato transitions (one is portamento) just for the sustains. They are controlable via velocity.
> 
> In my opinion one thing that helps a lot is the consistence across the whole library (at the performance of the notes level and at the programming level). To me having that amount of different legatos to choose from and having everything at your fingertips using 4GB of memory is equal to composing faster. So if i think that the connection of two notes is not working i just rise or decrease a bit the velocity of the note and i get a different variation. In those cases i might want to adjust a bit the starting point of the note (depending on the velocity of the piece) and this is a little waste of time, but otoh you will not be wasting time searching and loading different patches or spliting a midi part into different midi tracks.
> ...


Fer, 

That is the most informative, succinct post on CSS I have ever read by far! You really cleared things up for me. I didn't know many of the features you pointed out and it sounds like their application is very straight forward. All libraries need a little sliding around for timings particularly with latency combined with slower speaking samples so that's not a problem. Thank you so much for taking the time. The reason people are gathered here and talking about all this is your excellent writing and expert use of CSS on your wonderful piece!


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## Fer (Aug 8, 2017)

Hey Guy, thanks! 
Dave, good to know that you clarified some points..


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