Here's another example with the ensemble legato, what I think refines my notion of where there's a real sweet spot in this library:
Again it's Spitfire flautanos on the Vc + Vl, with the sweet slur Va legato, much the same as the above, but a little less crude as a proof of concept. A few thoughts:
1. The dynamic bowings really add something.
Again, the sweet spot I imagine comes from when an Adagio section comes to the foreground for a particularly lyrical passage. And in this context, I really think the various dynamic arcs (that is, the legato keyswitches, not the separate patch) - in this example short bow, short bow 2, medium arc + heavy vibrato - really do something add something uniquely lovely, if used carefully.
2. You need to have space in the mix to hear the dynamic arcs.
I'm pleased with how it mixes with the softer spitfire flautandos. But it's not just that you need space in the mix in order for the expressive nuances of the dyanamic arcs to be even audible. It's that if you're using all the Adagio sections, the hollywood intensity of all 4 Adagio sections risks overwhelming the detailed nuances of the dynamic arcs, and I tend to feel that it's hard to get much audible benefit from them - in such cases I'd probably go with CSS or some such in that an extra dynamic layer and better quality cross fade would, in practice, probably give you better results than the beautiful, yet in practice, all but imperceptible details of the Adagio arcs.
But as a lyrical foreground on a more subtle background, I'm starting to feel this is a real sweet spot where the Adagio concept really benefits the kind of music I want to write.
(Not saying there's aren't other sweet spots of course, just that this is one that that might suit my own style).
3. Unexpectedly good performability.
There's an example here that might help refine the notion of "performability".
And the key concept here is that the melody here comes from improvising a performance with the arc key switches in real time. For instance the first 4 notes use short bowing. Then as we get more intense move to the medium arc and the heavy vibrato.
And there a real sense in which my ability to improvise such a melody depends on the ability explore the different expressive senses I get from the different arcs. I'm not sure that I think the Loure or the "2 bows exp" are terribly useful. Or that the difference between "short bow 1" and "short bow 2" are consciously audible in context. But in general, you can a very nice short bow effect, and the ability to intensify from Xfade -> medium arc -> and heavy vibrato.
And with a bit of practice, this a real "performability" here that might contribute to actually composition and improvisation, as opposed to just some nice nuances you can slap on afterwards.
4. Other legatos ... as keyswitches?
To get this performability, I'm focusing on using a single legato patch. But in general, I think tweaking the legato type on a second or third pass is perfectly ok. Or at least, I think that focusing on performing with the arc keyswitches adds more to the performability - or the compositionally significant part of the performability - that simply selecting the legatos.
It's such a pity 8dio abandoned this library for the expressively much inferior Anthology. Even by the time they made Adagio, they had much a more practical approach to the legatos worked out.
5. This also explains why Anthology is so disappointing.
I especially dislike the solo legatos in Anthology - and I think this is down to the abandonment of the dynamic arcs, and indeed the central philosophy of the library (if you believe the marketing).
but I also wonder how much of what we see as poor implementation now is at root a product of that analytic, modular comprehensibility that was part of older instrument design that focused on providing a large inventory of possibilities.
I think there's some of this. But wonder if it isn't predominantly just the industry gaining experience in what actually works.
My sense with Anthology is that it responded to some perception that market had spoken and the CSS model was the winner. All the marketing copy about "this is what we wanted all along" was clearly grotesque marketing happy talk. But it also basically announced the abandoning of the whole Adagio concept - or what the marketing had previously claimed was the whole concept, if you happen to be someone who believes 8dio marketing.
So echoing what I said above, I have this sense that the 4 dynamic layers and much smoother crossfade and legato of CSS (and probably also the SSS/SCS performance patches) had become good enough to let you craft the phrase well enough that in most practical cases the additional expressive benefits of the Adagio approach was mostly inaudible. And certain the CSS approach to rebowing is far superior to the fiddly and frustrating Loure approach.
So while CSS delivers superb plonkabilty, it's in some sense also a legitimate side effect of genuinely better performability. And a better understanding of what's actually most important , in practice.
And Century strings confirms that the Adagio approach has been largely abandoned (excepting the separate dynamic arc patches, ).
Which is great pity, as there remains something in the heart of the Adagio approach that I really think is exceptionally lovely.
Still, the "Adagio philosophy" lives on in various places - most obviously in solo string libraries like the Bohemian and Emotional Violin.
But also in the innovations of Light and Sound Chamber strings dynamic arcs. Which are eminently playable and hopefully a proof of concept that it's absolutely possible to execute dynamic arcs both beautiful and practically which I hope the rest of the industry is taking note of (ahem -
@Spitfire Team , how about integrating those Olafur waves into SCS more deeply? Because that would be amazing.)