# Do these violins sound okay? (Version 3)



## hbuus (Nov 17, 2010)

Here's a little melody I'm working on, it's 1st violins only:

Version 3 (Nov 20):
http://www.box.net/shared/on1r4mle49

Screenshot of CC1:
http://www.box.net/shared/n0uq8e00g9

*

Version 2 (Nov 19):

Riding CC1 and CC11:
http://www.box.net/shared/27tqnd6xqc

Without riding CC's:
http://www.box.net/shared/qzvqfqv8xr

*

Version 1 (Nov 17):
http://www.box.net/shared/9o82url8iq

Here's a screenshot of the CC1's:
http://www.box.net/shared/bbamss19lr

Does it sound okay?
Or should the CC's be changed somehow to make it sound better?

o/~ 

I don't play the keyboard very well, but am practicing almost daily.
This means, however, that I'm busy trying to hit the right keys and thus cannot use a controller at the same time.
Therefore I have to manually draw the CC curves for the time being.
Small "ramps up" when a note is hit, and then fade a little after a while.
I'm wondering if the above looks and sounds okay.
If so, I can proceed to adding more tracks to the piece.

Thanks for any comment you may have that can make me a better musician.
I'm a hobbyist and appreciate all the advice I can get.

Best,
Henrik


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## synergy543 (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

deleted


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## hbuus (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.
I will try and listen to my piece from a conductor's point of view tomorrow.
I will also take a look at Beat's tutorial tomorrow, thanks for the link.

As for the other thread, which you mention has given you a bad impression of me, I will say in my defense that I am actually a rather nice guy who do help others in here as much as time and my ability allows it. Many times I have not been able to do much other than write that I've listened to the piece and have enjoyed it, while other times I know I have come up with suggestions that have really helped the other person. Judging a person's character based on a single thread on a forum is not a good idea IMO. Anyway, I thank you for your kind response. I appreciate your effort very much.

Best,
Henrik


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## synergy543 (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

deleted


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## Ashermusic (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



synergy543 @ Wed Nov 17 said:


> Henrik, I'm in a similar situation as you are working on improving my technique and trying to make these dead samples come alive. And my keyboard technique sucks so I can relate to that problem as well. So what is one to do? Well for one, I start by seeking good examples of both real music and sample realizations that I admire. And this is why I appreciate so much the great demos that Guy and others post on this forum for not only wonderful compositions, but also wonder demonstrations of what you can do with these instruments. By example, they are showing us what can be done. And this is absolutely wonderful and a great way to learn simply by listening.
> 
> If you're not absorbing a plethora of ideas while listening to a great piece of music, then you're missing something really really big. And this stuff is so much more important that what library someone is using, or what patch, or CC controllers. The gold is in the demonstration of the expression and the sound. You can then study this and learn a tremendous amount.
> 
> ...



Fine from a compositional standpoint but from a MIDI orchestration standpoint do not expect that you will make samples sound like what you study and hear. Accept that the real thing is the real thing and samples are samples and while it is good to understand what the real guys do and be inspired by it, you have to make peace with the strengths and weaknesses of the given sample libraries and write to those rather than some altruistic idea of, "well this is what the real guys would do so I am going to try my mightiest to make my samples do just that."

I would respectfully edit Greg's statement to read, "Try the lines with your samples and listen to the difference and experiment with ideas how to make your own music more expressive. If when you try very hard to make it more like what you are trying to emulate and it does but does not sound better for doing so, then abandon trying to make it sound more like that and go for something else that sounds better." to your ears."


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

I have to disagree Jay and go along with Greg and I'll explain why. Whether we like or not our ONLY reference is the ear, from that you know what it is you're looking for, as long as you don't know that, you're just guessing around with your samples. I know I'm not talking to a newcomer, and I hold a high esteem for you, but I can only talk from my experience, and as my ear got better and better, I became more sensitive to what I needed to focus on, and developed ridiculous tricks to make it work. In other words, someone with a good ear will get better results with average samples than someone with a lesser ear sensitivity, using the latest samples. People don't like to hear that because it's something more abstract, they want to have immediate control over it. Sorry, but some things there are no short cuts.


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## Ashermusic (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



Guy Bacos @ Wed Nov 17 said:


> I have to disagree Jay and go along with Greg and I'll explain why. Whether we like or not our ONLY reference is the ear, from that you know what it is you're looking for, as long as you don't know that, you're just guessing around with your samples. I know I'm not talking to a newcomer, and I hold a high esteem for you, but I can only talk from my experience, and as my ear got better and better, I became more sensitive to what I needed to focus on, and developed ridiculous tricks to make it work. In other words, someone with a good ear will get better results with average samples than someone with a lesser ear sensitivity, using the latest samples. People don't like to hear that because it's something more abstract, they want to have immediate control over it. Sorry, but some things there are no short cuts.



Totally agree with the ear business. My point is that no one's sampled strings can do everything a real section can do and still sound good and at a certain point when it is not working, it is best to forget about the real thing and write something else. 

As good as you mockups are Guy, and they are VERY good, your sampled stings still sound like sampled strings despite your intelligence and knowledge and I do hear moments in them where in my opinion, you would have been better off to have gone another route that maybe a real section would because your attempt to make them sound "real" is at the expense of making them sound better.

As I always say, with samples, it is frequently better to aim for "violin-ish" rather than "violin."

But that is a clearly subjective evaluation and please believe, not meant to be disrespectful to you or your point of view.


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Jay, I don't know about you, but when I write, my main objective is not to sound like the real instrument ONLY, if you look for that, you'll die still looking for the real deal. I have 2 goals, expression and character in a passage, once I achieved those, though hard work, the sample effect starts to fade away. Making a passage sound more idiomatic makes it sound more real, and that is through listening. The more you become sensitive to those little nuances you hear a professional do, the more you will be effective in your programming. People have the wrong focus. Does this sound like real string? Why doesn't this sound like real string? That's doing it backwards. Start to learn about how to achieve expression, interpretation and character in a passage, like any violinist would, and that will connect will people, and a lot of that is learned through listening as Greg said. I know my strings sound ok, even though I can tell from a mile they are not real strings, and the same for HS, Cinematic Strings and all the others. but that's not my sole objective, and I don't think it should be anyone else's either.


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## synergy543 (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Jay in summary, your advice is to "aim low, my boy, aim low". Just because little Johnny only has a plastic toy whistle flute, there is no reason he shouldn't listen to, enjoy, and be inspired by Jean-Pierre Rampal. After all, Schumann used to practice on a dummy keyboard and although that lead toward a finger injury, it certainly didn't hurt him as a composer! 

I would suggest an ammendment to your sentence "My point is that no one's sampled strings can do everything a real section can do and still sound good and at a certain point when it is not working, it is best to forget about the real thing and write something else."

To read as follows:

"My point is that no one's sampled strings can do everything a real section can do and still sound good and at a certain point when it is not working, it is best NOT to forget about the real thing but listen carefully to what's different and... maybe even consider creating a new library yourself to tackle the problem as Hendrik Schwarzer has done."

http://www.orchestraltools.com/

Inspire my boy, be insipred! To infinity and beyond!

Even real instruments are just mechanical tools - hunks of wood and metal to facilitate musical expression. Electronic tools need not be different in the future just because they are not as good as they could be now.


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



synergy543 @ Wed Nov 17 said:


> Inspire my boy, be insipred! To infinity and beyond!


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## Ashermusic (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



synergy543 @ Wed Nov 17 said:


> Jay in summary, your advice is to "aim low, my boy, aim low". Just because little Johnny only has a plastic toy whistle flute, there is no reason he shouldn't listen to, enjoy, and be inspired by Jean-Pierre Rampal. After all, Schumann used to practice on a dummy keyboard and although that lead toward a finger injury, it certainly didn't hurt him as a composer!
> 
> I would suggest an ammendment to your sentence "My point is that no one's sampled strings can do everything a real section can do and still sound good and at a certain point when it is not working, it is best to forget about the real thing and write something else."
> 
> ...



Not at all, I just don't consider trying to be as "real" as possible to be synonymous "aiming high" when writing for samples. Sometimes it is IMHO aiming wrong.

So by all means, listen to great players and orchestras and I bet you I have many more hours doing so than you due to my age, But when writing for samples, I know when I am trying to emulate something that is not working so I write something else.

And my hats off to Hendrik, but personally I have no desire to be a sample developer, just to write as well as I can with the tools they give us. Which I think I do.


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



Ashermusic @ Wed Nov 17 said:


> ...your sampled stings still sound like sampled strings despite your intelligence and knowledge and I do hear moments in them where in my opinion, you would have been better off to have gone another route that maybe a real section would because your attempt to make them sound "real" is at the expense of making them sound better.



About that comment, I think you could take it as a personal opinion, cause if I look at the feedback I got in the last year about my string sound, I must admit it was actually very positive regularly, and I personally was very happy with it. I'd be happy to post you examples. But it's no reason to knock it because your bionic ear can make the difference with real strings, lots of people can. I find it strange you'd say that Jay, since I consider so many aspects in the string programming, which are very "violin-ish" to me, and what you call "violin-ish" is also critical to me, so don't assume anything. Maybe you put the focus on only one very particular aspect? Perhaps, it was time Jay showed us his violin-ish sampled strings


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## Ashermusic (Nov 17, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



Guy Bacos @ Wed Nov 17 said:


> Ashermusic @ Wed Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> > ...your sampled stings still sound like sampled strings despite your intelligence and knowledge and I do hear moments in them where in my opinion, you would have been better off to have gone another route that maybe a real section would because your attempt to make them sound "real" is at the expense of making them sound better.
> ...



Who's knocking it? A I said, you are VERY good. There were moments where I would have made different choices because it sounded to me that you were trying to make the samples do things I do not think they do well, but that is true of almost every mockup I hear and if I posted mine no doubt you would say the same.

In fact, if I were to post a couple of my recent ones that my client said made their eyes moist, I am reasonably certain at least someone here would probably come on and say, "Well IMHO overall or at bar such and such the strings sound synthy." And my response would be, I don't give a big rat's hiney whether they do or do not sound synthy, I like the way they sound and my client was moved and we both thought it worked well with the film.

I don't write for other composers. I write for my clients and their projects and, of course, myself. So I don't post on forums because it is not relevant to me but I will go through some of my cues that I have done recently and email you a couple if you like.


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## nikolas (Nov 17, 2010)

Henrik,

I will have to sincerely say that I don't think the string line you posted sounds very good. I'm sorry but this is the plain truth right now, for me, at least.

Naked as it is, the lack of portamento/glissando/legato makes things very hard to hear. The dynamics stay, mostly on the same level, with little variation, and what work you did on the CC, remains above 110 (or 105?). 

The sample patch you picked up, seems to have a relatively slow attack, which makes things even harder. Not sure what library it is, but I'd suggest you try other articulations. 

The expression is also set aside pretty much, with no real phrasing, despite the technical issues. A string section would low the dynamics of a low sound and then take it up, towards reaching the end of the bow to rebow for the next one (for example). There are various places that your instructions on the CC seem to contradict what a real string sectio would do.

Now, it's not your aim to be realistic, but to sound as close I imagine, since you are using 'real sounding strings'. It makes sense to attempt to do that, even if we all know it's a mockup. Sometimes mockups are just that, but other times they are the end products! This is how life is...


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## Lex (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Which sample lib is this?

aLex


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Jay, this is why you should, at least sometimes, post comments in the "composition review section", you are not helping people if you have an opinion and keeping it to yourself, and I never got a pm from you about this :? And I doubt I'll send you an invitation on pm every time I post something, this is a community forum, and take the good with the bad, (God knows I do! :wink: )I say that cause I know you have reserves about this. Never-the-less, I would of loved to hear your comments at the time I posted a string demo or emphasizing strings more. Believe it or not, most of my improvements were the result of criticisms and sometimes harsh comments. But if you say it now, like this, it's so vague to me.

At some point Greg (Synergie543) was making me aware of some things when he heard my demos, and making suggestions, and i'd fix them until I understood what he meant and it made so much sense to me, this elevated a lot the level of my programming and musicality, and I'm so appreciative of his help. We might not hear his music too often, but he's a damn good critic (and honest, not just to critic for the sake of it).

If you're that determined to not post any comments in the composition review section, fine, next I'll pm you, and we'll have a secret underground meeting, and i'll look forward hearing your comments and improving my strings.


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## Ashermusic (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



Guy Bacos @ Thu Nov 18 said:


> Jay, this is why you should, at least sometimes, post comments in the "composition review section", you are not helping people if you have an opinion and keeping it to yourself, and I never got a pm from you about this :? And I doubt I'll send you an invitation on pm every time I post something, this is a community forum, and take the good with the bad, (God knows I do! :wink: )I say that cause I know you have reserves about this. Never-the-less, I would of loved to hear your comments at the time I posted a string demo or emphasizing strings more. Believe it or not, most of my improvements were the result of criticisms and sometimes harsh comments. But if you say it now, like this, it's so vague to me.
> 
> At some point Greg (Synergie543) was making me aware of some things when he heard my demos, and making suggestions, and i'd fix them until I understood what he meant and it made so much sense to me, this elevated a lot the level of my programming and musicality, and I'm so appreciative of his help. We might not hear his music too often, but he's a damn good critic (and honest, not just to critic for the sake of it).
> 
> If you're that determined to not post any comments in the composition review section, fine, next I'll pm you, and we'll have a secret underground meeting, and i'll look forward hearing your comments and improving my strings.



Guy, look,I don't want to argue as I like and respect you. I am not prepared to get involved in critiquing people's work publicly. I was just trying to give the OP some general advice which can be summed up as saying that while studying the real instruments and knowing how they work is essential, don't get too hung up when writing for samples with what the real instruments can do and cannot do as samples simply are not the real instruments and will not always sound good by strictly using the real instruments as a paradigm.

That is what I believe, it is supported to me by what I hear, and so that is what I advise. I fully expect others to not necessarily agree or agree to a lesser degree and that is fine. The OP can make up his own mind based on all the advice he gets.


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



Ashermusic @ Thu Nov 18 said:


> while studying the real instruments and knowing how they work is essential, don't get too hung up when writing for samples with what the real instruments can do and cannot do as samples simply are not the real instruments and will not always sound good by strictly using the real instruments as a paradigm.



Who said anything about "strictly"?


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## Frederick Russ (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Hi Henrik,

Nice melody - thanks for sharing. Several things however. 

First, you really need to get your mock-up chops and ears up to par with the newer generation of libraries available. Bear with me. 

Let's talk about note transitions - what is actually happening between one note to the next. This was one of the big things that put VSL on the map back in 2003 and what both LASS & Hollywood Strings rely upon today - recorded legato intervals which were expertly programmed to listen to your performance and insert the appropriate note transition in time.

Listen very closely to your piece as is. You may notice that the notes are fairly isolated from one another. An empty space between the notes exist where some kind of note transition tying together the notes should be. If the library you're using is an older generation library, chances are it was put together before the recorded legato interval boom in 2003. Interestingly, some newer libraries rely upon the older technology as well. James Newton Howard mentioned in an article dated back in the 90s where he would slightly overlap the notes to compensate for the dead space between the notes. Not perfect but heading in a better direction. 

That said, no amount of expression curve can help notes which are not connected either by overlapping or the liberal use of later generation note transitions. If I were you (I'm not obviously) I would focus first on the getting the note transitions working better. Then begin to focus on the expression curves by listening to real violinists and string sections both live and through recordings. Think of the modwheel or cc11 fader as how much pressure a string player applies to the bow onto the string.

Hope this helps some. Perhaps one of our more experienced members can take your melody and demonstrate? Musicians helping musicians?


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## hbuus (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Dear everybody,

I am completely overwhelmed by the response to this thread.
Thank you very, very much!
It's a lot of stuff for me to take in but that is okay; I will start with smaller things and proceed from there.
Already I am experimenting with switching between up and down-bow articulations while using SIPS to handle note transitions, and it definitely does something positive for the piece.
Picking a different articulation with a faster attack also worked well - thanks Nikolas.

CC1 movement will be the most difficult for me to get a handle of, but of course, things aren't always meant to be easy. Sometimes things take practice, and that is okay.
If it was easy, it would not be such a challenge to get it right, or simply, better than what I can achieve today.

Lex, you ask which sample lib this is - it is Sonivox.

Jay and Guy (thanks, appreciate it), it's an interesting discussion you two have going on here. Especially, Jay, I like the way you nearly always chime in with respect to real vs. real'ish.
To me, your discussion reminds me of a while back where I played a piece I was working on to my big brother and his kids.
They liked it very much, in fact his 6 year old son flat out loved it, saying it sounded very much like a "pirate song" :D
Yet I'm sure people in here would've thought the piece sounded badly. You know what I mean?
Sometimes I think I should take suggestions in here with a grain of salt, because "ordinary people" will be happy with a lesser degree of perfection.

Anyway, thanks again. I'm back to experimenting - will post a new mp3 when I feel I have something new for you guys to listen to.
What a luxury to be able to post in here and get this kind of feedback.

Best,
Henrik


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

Good, hopefully you will focus on music in the future rather than personal vendetta threads.


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



Ashermusic @ Thu Nov 18 said:


> Guy Bacos @ Wed Nov 17 said:
> 
> 
> > Ashermusic @ Wed Nov 17 said:
> ...



Thanks so much Jay, I received your tracks and gave me an idea of what you're after.

Here are my comments:

What I liked:

-You have a regular warm sound, enjoyable enough, sounds great for these type of tracks, mainly in the background. The emphasis is on the lush side, which I semi-like, but I'm sure your clients must be happy with that since it does the job very well.


What I didn't like:

-All your examples were pretty one dimensional, with only long note values, this is only 5% in my book of what strings can do. I might do one lush string type demo every 2 months, but the rest of the time, I'm interested in other types of articulations, which I didn't see here.

-Although your strings are lush-ish, they seem to lack motion, I don't get a sense of direction with dynamics and timbre changes, even though the connection between the notes is smooth enough. You do cover one aspect of the strings very well, but it gets redundant to me after a while. I feel I'm sitting in a sauna... But for the style you sent me, it was probably appropriate what you did, and with some top notch qualities.

If you have examples of string writing going a little more crazy, as an instrumental piece, I would like to hear that.


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## Ashermusic (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*



Guy Bacos @ Thu Nov 18 said:


> Ashermusic @ Thu Nov 18 said:
> 
> 
> > Guy Bacos @ Wed Nov 17 said:
> ...



All fair enough. As I told you, these are for a documentary so it is under pretty much constant dialog and one learns very quickly in the film world, if you compete with the dialog, you lose the cue. 

I have more active stuff, but mostly it is real strings. 

At any rate, as I said, much as I respect you and many others here, the only opinions that matter to me are the client's and my own so I do not post on forums.

I will say however, if I were to get hired for an action score, that I had to do almost exclusively with samples, I might indeed privately send it to people of your caliber for comments.


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## Guy Bacos (Nov 18, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay?*

And if I do this kind of work, I'll now know who to go to.


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## hbuus (Nov 19, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay? (Version 2)*

Here's a new version:
http://www.box.net/shared/qzvqfqv8xr

Changes:
- Tempo increased a little
- A patch with a faster attack is used
- Notes now overlap to create illusion of legato
(I have not used SIPS as doing so made no difference at all to how it sounded.)
- Notes now switch between two different articulations: Up and down-bow
- CC1 is held at a constant level at this point
(As to not interfere with the other experiments, i.e. note overlap etc.
I will experiment with CC1 later)

What do you guys think about this?
It's a step in the right direction, or?

Thanks.

Best,
Henrik


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## hbuus (Nov 19, 2010)

*Re: Do these violins sound okay? (Version 2)*

Here's my first attempt at riding CC 1 and CC 11 at the same time, using my Korg Nanocontrol:
http://www.box.net/shared/27tqnd6xqc

I have made little "ramps-up" at the start of notes, which is how I've heard others in here do with their strings.

How does it sound?

(I know it's not perfect; I'm experimenting and learning.)

Thanks.

Best,
Henrik


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## hbuus (Nov 20, 2010)

I think I have learnt something right now by listening to various demos done by you guys using strings (Adagio for Strings on VSL's homepage; some of Guy Bacos' stuff and more), plus by checking out Greg's link to the free Master Class from LSO:

When riding the CC's, think of it as a landscape with highs and lows.
Don't just jam the CC's up and down mechanically; make a plan for it.
Make it emotional.

Simple example with my melody:
http://www.box.net/shared/on1r4mle49

Screenshot of CC1:
http://www.box.net/shared/n0uq8e00g9

It can of course be made much more detailled, with more highs and lows and more feeling involved, but this ain't half bad for starters, I think! 

Best,
Henrik


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