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How do you deal with legato/live orchestra ease of use

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alfred tapscott

Member
Hi all!

I've got a couple of small issues that I'm sure some of you guys have solved well. I'm on cubase 9.5, btw.

I found myself using very different approaches when I know I'm gonna record live than when I need to do a realistic mockup that will stay. Anyway, lately I have to try to achieve both, and quick. So I've got a couple of questions workflow-wise that maybe some of you will have clever answers for.

I write everything quantized and automatically quantize ends to make life easy for the orchestrator. But when using libraries like CSS, If I want to use legato patches they need to overlap a tiny bit. Using the legato options won't work cause some notes might not be tied together in the melody. So I guess I need to program something that will add a few ticks to the notes so they overlap but not too much that will show wrong when the orchestrator opens the midi in sib or finale?. Maybe the logical editor?

And another stupid thing. All these legato libraries need a huge negative delay for the legatos to sound in place, but then the begginings of phrases with no legato triggering sound too soon. Yes, I know I can move the beggining to the right but then, again, my orchestrator won't have things quantized. Has anybody found a good solution for this??.

I know some things might sound a bit stupid, but for me having to work quick and efficient these things do make a big difference.

Thanks very much!!

Alfred
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Honestly, I would have two different versions. Keep one for the mockup; make one for the orchestrator.

In my opinion, it takes less time for you to go in and quantize midi than it does to adjust it to make a convincing mock. I would spend the time on the mockup, save a new version, and then blaze through quantizing it however you need.
 
Piano Pete said:
Honestly, I would have two different versions. Keep one for the mockup; make one for the orchestrator.

In my opinion, it takes less time for you to go in and quantize midi than it does to adjust it to make a convincing mock. I would spend the time on the mockup, save a new version, and then blaze through quantizing it however you need.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I do. I have two versions and quantize starts/ends accordingly while saving the file under a new name. (Usually called " Name_Score Prep"

Makes it a breeze when inporting into your Notation software!
 
Perhaps I'm in the wrong here, but I think cleaning up MIDI is part of the orchestrator's job.

I've orchestrated for several composers and almost never received "clean" perfect MIDI that's ready to go into Sibelius. I always import their MIDI into Logic, clean it up instrument by instrument (having bound & memorized all the relevant shortcuts, like the "trim to next note" function) and then export new MIDI to bring into Sibelius.

What you can do to make his/her life easier is to bounce out the mockup and stems. And, when you begin a project with your orchestrator, write them a note to highlight instruments that will need careful attention, like Cinematic Studio Strings. And of course, label your MIDI tracks as clearly as possible.

It's not a problem if you want to take care of MIDI cleanup yourself, but I've rarely worked with a composer who has the time for that. In fact the last orchestration job I had, we had to finish a whole feature in 2 days. The composer had no time to clean up their sessions, he was shooting each of sessions as soon as they got approved.

As for keeping 2 versions of the cue? That's a great way to get into trouble... the mockup needs to serve the purpose of a mockup - to get approval - and any orchestrator should understand that their job is to adapt that to the final sheet music.
 
NoamL said:
Perhaps I'm in the wrong here, but I think cleaning up MIDI is part of the orchestrator's job.
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Most will do this, I will do this, but when I am composing, it does not take too long for me to go in and make someone's life a little easier. It is also a bit of quality control on my part. It is another pass to make sure everything is what I want it to be.
 
I usually do a mockup version using my normal libraries, then go back in and play in the parts again with General MIDI instruments (easy to hear quantizing errors) and quantize them for import into Finale where I do notation.
 
NoamL said:
Perhaps I'm in the wrong here, but I think cleaning up MIDI is part of the orchestrator's job.
Click to expand...

Be sure to charge for the time it takes to do this in addition to your page rate for orchestrating. This is an additional job. While an orchestrator can do it, not all will. Busy orchestrators even demand that files be cleaned up or they send them out to someone to do it and pass the expense back to the production. They see their job as orchestrating and meeting deadlines. Cleaning up files only slows them down and wastes energy that could be put into orchestrating.

Most people don't want to pay an orchestrator for their time for a task that can be done at less cost by an assistant, tech, or copyist. (Some copy houses do offer this service.)
 
At Sofia Session Orchestra we usually quantize along with orchestration - on tight deadlines (for instance The Crown S02) there is one guy cleaning up the MIDI while someone is orchestrating in Sibelius.

However, Cubase has a built-in negative offset delay, so that everything seems more like on the grid.
 
Piano Pete said:
Honestly, I would have two different versions. Keep one for the mockup; make one for the orchestrator.

In my opinion, it takes less time for you to go in and quantize midi than it does to adjust it to make a convincing mock. I would spend the time on the mockup, save a new version, and then blaze through quantizing it however you need.
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Thanks very much!. I used to do that, but we don't have time to deal with several versions, and with the customization of software possible nowadays I don't see the need for it.
 
Thanks everybody for your responses!.
Of course I know doing versions is possible, but won't work for me. We sometimes write a feature in 3 days, and the orchestrator will do the parts in 1 or 2 days. It's a small team, we work very closely and make life easy to each other. It takes me no time to wirte in a clean midi way, it`s hitting 1 key on my ipad to get things quantized and lengths quantized.

So, does anybody do something similar to what I said of adding a few ticks to every note so they get legatos without the exported midi noticing when you open in the notation soft?.

And I guess also nobody has an answer for ho to deal with the start note and in-legatos notes delay differences besides obviously moving the midi starts.

Thanks very much all for your kind responses!

Alfred
 
Hello Alfred,
not sure which DAW you're using, but Cubase has the option to add delay compensation on an instrument or MIDI channel. You can adjust this in your template depending on sample library and instrument patch (some are with more legato interval "baked" in than others). Hope this helps! G.
 

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Strezov said:
Hello Alfred,
not sure which DAW you're using, but Cubase has the option to add delay compensation on an instrument or MIDI channel. You can adjust this in your template depending on sample library and instrument patch (some are with more legato interval "baked" in than others). Hope this helps! G.
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Thanks very much George. yes, I know, and use it all the time!. But, as I stated, the problem is that legato libraries have delay in the legato transition, but usually not in the first note of the melody, so the setting is less useful. We'd need to program something like a macro that detects starting notes and moves them to the right to match the legato delay but then they would not be correctly quantize, so, I guess there is no solution unless somebody thought of something brilliant :)
 
Unfortunately, even if you make a macro to account for the transition time of your legato sample, I believe you would still run into the same problem of overlapping notes. Maybe if you were to figure out how small of an overlap you could get away with, see if you could account for that in the resolution of your notation program when you import?
 
Piano Pete said:
Unfortunately, even if you make a macro to account for the transition time of your legato sample, I believe you would still run into the same problem of overlapping notes. Maybe if you were to figure out how small of an overlap you could get away with, see if you could account for that in the resolution of your notation program when you import?
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yes, that's my idea, even though I'd run into note on/off problems on repeating notes in a melody...thanks all for your time!.
 
If you use the Classic Legato patches of CSS the legato latency is steady and can be compensated with negative track delay.
 
I use midi delay compensation in Digital Performer to "slide" tracks around. I have a pretty large template and nearly every instrument has some amount of it. That way, when you quantize to a downbeat, the notation is accurate and the note sounds in the correct spot. I assume most / all DAWs, including Cubase, have this feature.

It takes a long time to get it right and, if you are using a lot of keyswitch patches, you may have some difficulties.
 
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