Living Fossil
Senior Member
And you think it's faster to search for a pattern that fits instead of just programming the things as you want them?
I definitely don't think so, at least not if we are speaking about people who know their craft.
Ólafur Arnalds Stratus — Available To Pre-order
- Thread starter Spitfire Team
- Start date
And you think it's faster to search for a pattern that fits instead of just programming the things as you want them?
I definitely don't think so, at least not if we are speaking about people who know their craft.
I've done lots of messing around with midi effects and delay effects. And I do quite like the kinds of sound-designy effects that you can get with Noir and the Heaviocity hybrid piano.
Fundamentally though, there is a completely different musicality at work here.
Sure, if you're looking for sound-designy effect-chainy styles of hybrid music, then this is a nice, though not especially flexibly companion to sit alongside Noir and such, especially with the synth patches (which I personally would probably never use).
But if you're looking to do ... whatever it is that this does, which I don't quite know how to describe, but I emphatically feel is well beyond sound-designy-effect-chainy-tinkly-piano-as-usual and into a fundamental musicality that has only superficial similarities to sound-designy-hybrid-pianos-as-usual ... then this really does feel different.
As indeed did the first track of re:member. I really felt I was hearing something new. But, sure, it's a bit niche.
A the library is a touch niche to be sure. And not remotely everyone's cup of tea. But in terms of the kinds of musicality I'm looking for, there's nothing remotely like this available.
So I have no problem with the term "game changing". So long as we remember that we're all playing very different games, none of them the same, and only a certain tiny niche of these games are going to be impacted but this instrument one way or the other
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khollister
Senior Member
Personally, I feel the Noire particle engine is more deterministic and repetitive than OAS. While that makes it easier to integrate in a traditional compositional style, it comes across as more "ARP'y" and mechanical than the Stratus effect. OAS has a far more stochastic flavor to it along with far more control. This makes it more interesting & unique as well as possibly more challenging to incorporate - the learning curve is a bit higher than Noire particles.
I think it would be very difficult to replicate Stratus with delays and ARP's. An individual "cell" in the OAS matrix sounds similar to particles, but the time evolving matrix patterns yields a vastly different effect than what I have gotten with Noire.
I think Noire, Ascend and Fracture Sounds Midnight Grand & Woodchester Piano are great and useful, but they are not replacements for OAS nor is OAS a replacement for them.
Actually the synth swarm matrix may be worth the whole cost for me - it is an amazing sound.
I think maybe the library aims at those who at a particular time do not entirely know what they want, even when they do know their craft. I think its first and foremost meant to be an inspirational library, just because you never know what you are gonna get, when you play. A different approach to music making. I am not sure yet if its something for me, though. I am contemplating completing the OA bundle, but I also have an eye on the Arturia V7 collection sale, and doing both purchases will be a bit too much, I fear, financially as well as in terms of stuff to dive into afterwards...
idematoa
Senior Member
01 - SA - OAS - Dream Station - Matrix - Swarms
02 - SA - Aperture Strings - Ensemble - Long Flautando
03 - SA - Aperture Strings - Refractions - Tremolo - OACE - Chamber Grid
04 - SA - Aperture Strings - Spiccato
05 - SA - OPW - Oliver Piano
06 - Sonuscore - The Orchestra Complete - Viola Staccato - Grand piano Lid Closed - Grand piano Lid Open - Cello Pizzicato - Double Bass - pizzicato
===> Crystal Water
02 - SA - Aperture Strings - Ensemble - Long Flautando
03 - SA - Aperture Strings - Refractions - Tremolo - OACE - Chamber Grid
04 - SA - Aperture Strings - Spiccato
05 - SA - OPW - Oliver Piano
06 - Sonuscore - The Orchestra Complete - Viola Staccato - Grand piano Lid Closed - Grand piano Lid Open - Cello Pizzicato - Double Bass - pizzicato
===> Crystal Water
Short way to say the above - this isn't just garden variety messing about with effect chains. There's real artistry in the design of how it gets all tinkly (if you like that sort of thing).
Which you can really *feel* that on the re:member record (if you like that sort of thing). And although it's niche, the artistry in the collaboration of Olafur with the technology really creates a musical space expansive enough to merit sharing it with the world.
But this applies only - needless to say - if you actually happen to like that sort of thing.
Which you can really *feel* that on the re:member record (if you like that sort of thing). And although it's niche, the artistry in the collaboration of Olafur with the technology really creates a musical space expansive enough to merit sharing it with the world.
But this applies only - needless to say - if you actually happen to like that sort of thing.
Harry
Active Member
Yes. You are missing something. Missing a lot.
Living Fossil
Senior Member
Harry
Active Member
Aimed at people who do not know what they want?! You have never seen Olafur live I take it?
Totally ok if you're just not feeling it.Indeed. What I'm missing most are maybe demos that would show something i'm missing
Living Fossil
Senior Member
It's not that much a matter of what i'm feeling (there are extremely few demos at all - from all libs - that speak to me "emotionally"), but rather of hearing.
This things i'm hearing in the demos/walkthroughs could easily be done with normal effect chains
(as long as "normal" does include some granular tools. However, plug ins like Melda's MBGranular are available since ages).
Poor choice of words, I guess. I meant that you're never sure of what you get when you play this lib. At least - that's my impression of it.
You're hearing granular effect chains in this? (Genuinely interested)
I'm sure there are effect that can be added here, but it's precisely the lack of granular and other sound-designy elements that I'm feeling here. Quick listen to some MBGranular demos - not interesting to me at all, unless I was doing something hybrid, which I lots interest in a long time ago. Only a very superficial similarly to OAS.
Existing midi effects and signal change can sound sonically pretty. But stratus is doing something very different.
Living Fossil
Senior Member
Yes, i'm hearing things that can be done very well with granular effects.
However, listening to demos of MBGranular is maybe not the best way to get familiar with its possibilities.
(I have no idea how they really are, but usually demos for granular effects aren't on the subtle side.)
But don't get me wrong: You don't get this sounds with just one granular plugin.
It's more complex than that and would involve reverbs and delays [and especially delays that can reverse the sound].
Fair enough. I'm hearing things that are wholly organic and perhaps even physically impossible (as per my mathematical understanding of the nature of sound) to replicate through granular effects.
I can defiantly see how delay effect chains or granular effects might get sort of close - yet always, necessarily, and worse, uncannily wrong for this musicality. In the way that hybrid can be very pretty and organic, but never properly orchestral. Always, and best and at worst uncannily wrong.
Fun thought though - this echos some of the very interesting discussion that went on the initial LCO thread - the one where Christian insisted it was game changing, was excoriated for it, and though a long and very interesting discussion, and lots of really amazing user demos, some people saw it as game changing immediately, some people never did, and some people, including myself, heard something, but really took a long time in really understanding what exactly what was the nature of the new musicality we were hearing sampled for the first time.
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Living Fossil
Senior Member
"Granular" per se only means that it deals with fractions of a specific sound. Depending on how big or small that is and how the crossfades are set the results will completely differ. They can even sound extremely organic, btw. Yamaha had a synthesizer about 20 years ago that was a monster for sound morphing (its prize was around 80'000 bucks and i think they only sold extremely few units) which utilized among others granular processes.
Granular has also nothing to do with "organic" vs "hybrid" vs synthetic.
I used granular techniques in orchestral scores where probably nobody would think of "granular", but rather of "old and blurred recording".
However, of course i didn't write that everything i was hearing in this SA-toolkit would be characterised as granular, or replicated with granular effects.
But i think we can agree that libraries often come down to a matter of taste and personal workflow.
When i bought Albion Tundra i spent some hours with that evo-grid stuff (or similar) and realized it's something i will never touch again. That whole bricolage stuff is just not for me.
So would Orchestral Swarm count as "granular". I would think of it as pointalistic. Granular to me means a mathematical technique in sound manipulation and not an orchestration technique. So maybe we have our terms crosses.
I'd be interested I any references or examples of granular techniques in orchestration you could suggest. That sounds quite interesting.
Living Fossil
Senior Member
No, you just misunderstood what i wrote.
I meant that i applied granular techniques on material that was originally played by an orchestra, with results that sounded extremely organic.
"Granular" in audio only means (i try to write it down in a way that's easier to understand)
that it deals with fractions of an audio file. In its core it's an extremely simple technique.
I give you an example: you have a cymbal sound that is 10 seconds long.
Now, you cut slices of 1 second which give you ten slices. That's the core of granular synthesis.
Now, imagine you have those ten slices and repeat each slice, with a crossfade of 0.25 secs between two snippets.
No your resulting file would be around 15 seconds long.
This would be a very simple case of granular time stretching.
Now, in real life, you usually deal with much smaller grains (between 5-50 ms, but this may vary).
And in addition you often change the speed of these grains (which is pitch shifting), you sometimes reverse grains and quite often randomize several aspects.
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Ah, I see. That does sound like fun.
redlester
Senior Member
I see what you mean re. Kepler. TBH I hadn't noticed because I rarely use the KK hardware to browse for patches, I'm an old fashioned mouse-clicker by nature. My main uses of NKS are for the audio previews (via selecting patches with the mouse or arrow keys in the KK software browser) and for the light guide.
Using the KK hardware browser I can see discrepancies in many manufacturers instruments, Diva and Repro, and Softube Modular for example don't list the banks of sounds as you get within the software patch browser. Spitfire do list the banks for some instruments and not for others.
My impression is that Spitfire are far from alone in terms of inconsistent or unintuitive NKS implementation. I find the "Types" and "Characters" selectors on the hardware pretty much useless, they are obviously picking up on metadata tags within each patch, but I'd rather just see the patches laid out as they are in the Kontakt browser.
For Stratus you get banks listed in the KK hardware as "Individuals", "Matrix" and "Warps".
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