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La sera sper il lag revisited - CSS vs Light and Sound CS

muk

muk

Senior Member
In the original mockup I posted, Cinematic Studio Strings struggles with the same note rebows leading to an unsatisfactory result. So I wanted to see if I can get a better result with my current setup and with a different tool. I chose Light & Sound Chamber Strings to mockup the piece again from ground up. I think the comparison is quite interesting. Very different tones and playing. Mind you this was created using CSS v1.0. The current v1.7 has a somewhat brighter tone. LuS CS does a much better job at the rebowing than CSS did in my opinion. Anyway, for comparison purposes, here are the two mockups:

Cinematic Studio Strings:

View attachment La sera per il lag - Cinematic Studio Strings.mp3



Light and Sound Chamber Strings:

View attachment La Sera Sper il Lag LuS.mp3


The original OP with a bit of context about the piece below.

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Original post:

Hi guys

Here is another first track with Cinematic Studio Strings that uses the legato rebow quite a lot:

https://app.box.com/s/mrqig9nelfv8hlh0q2d2q180arufjmmz

La sera sper il lag is a swiss choral piece originally, but I mocked up with strings here. The text is Rhaeto-Romanic - the fourth official national language of switzerland, that ever fewer people are speaking sadly. The title means 'The evening at the lake'.

Any comments on the mockup or the mixing? CSS is quick and easy to work with, and the sections blend together very naturally out of the box. When needing fast results and for a studio/Hollywood sound these will definitely be my go to strings.
Click to read more...
 
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sounds beautiful! only the rests sound too clean for me... missing some noize or reverb in the gaps. real musicians are never that quiet :)
 
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Well spotted! I worked on the rests quite a bit already, but it's still not perfect. There is a bit of additional reverb on - obviously we had the same thoughts :) I didn't want to add more because it started to affect the overall ambience, which I like in CSS out of the box. Maybe adding a room tone could help?
 
Very well done... But as you said the dynamic range is very narrow, as if the players suddenly run out of breath at the end of each musical phrase.
 
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Ohhh so beautiful and gentle. Its a lovely choral and sound great with CSS. I just had to listen to it several times.
Thank you for sharing!
 
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@Batrawi I did, I played it with a breath controller :) But it's true, I'm not completely accustomed to CSS's dynamic behaviour, and I guess it shows at phrase ends and rests. I hope I'll get to grips with it eventually.

Thank you very much Ole!
 
Updated the link. The rests are a bit better now, but still not perfect. I guess the dynamic range needs a bit of getting used to. So far I haven't found a natural way to perform phrase ends.
 
The tone and balance is gorgeous, @muk, and your performance is very natural.

There seems to be some excessive "pumping" of the modwheel at the beginning of each note, though. Real strings' attack would be a bit more even. I guess this is the breath controller?

The string sections really glue together amazingly well, especially with the added reverb.
 
All of those who have purchased CSS are making a good case for this new strings library.
And indeed so do you Muk! Sounds real good.

Nothing to add further then what is already being mentioned.

PS: So can we infer from this you are Swiss originated?
Musically one of the gems of Switserland are the Swiss Top Secret Drum Corps.
( sorry to side track, but its a fantastic highly disciplined drum corps)
 
NoamL said:
There seems to be some excessive "pumping" of the modwheel at the beginning of each note, though. Real strings' attack would be a bit more even. I guess this is the breath controller?
Click to expand...
As usual Muk delivers something which sounds good, but I also generally wonder about the pumping heard in various demos - does this pumping exist in the original audio files, or does it come from MP3 or Soundcloud compression?
 
Thank you NoamL. I gues it is not the breath controller - the cc1 curve is smooth - but probably the legato rebow that is used quite often in this piece. I agree that a bit of reverb works nicely on CSS. I like it best if used just for coherence so that it isn't really audible on it's own.

Merci Silence. Indeed I am Swiss. How comes that you know the Top Secret Drum Corps? Have you been to the Military Tattoo in Edinburgh? Top Secret is great, amazing what they deliver in their shows.

Vik, thanks for the compliment. I have the suspicion that the legato rebow might be the culprit for the pumping. If you could give me some time signatures where you hear it the most in my piece I can check what is going on there.
 
Muk, I may actually talk of a different kind of pumping than what Noam wrote about, because I'm not particularly thing of pumping at the beginning of the notes, but about a general kind of artefact which I only hear in compressed demos, but not when using libraries directly. At around 0:19 and 0:28 there's something surprising happening (just around where the new phrases start), and something similar at 0:38 and 1:22 and 1:41 as well - but maybe these have to do with short release times in the presets or automation? Anyway, it generally sounds very good.
 
I see. I guess these are the same thing with the rests that Saxer and ricoderks mentioned. It definitely has to do with the release time of the samples. Somehow these seem to be very short, at least the way I am using the library so far.
 
muk said:
How comes that you know the Top Secret Drum Corps? Have you been to the Military Tattoo in Edinburgh? Top Secret is great, amazing what they deliver in their shows.
Click to expand...
A friend of mine happened to be in Switzerland on holiday when they appeared for the first time (in Basel if I recall) , and he was happily impressed with their appearance.
I haven't seen them live myself, but there are a couple of good video's online that show their skills, discipline and fantastic choreography.
 
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muk said:
I guess these are the same thing with the rests that Saxer and ricoderks mentioned. It definitely has to do with the release time of the samples. Somehow these seem to be very short, at least the way I am using the library so far.
Click to expand...
And, if I should go for CSS - can editing the notes so they are made longer be used as a workaround?
 
EDIT - by PM of course :)

ANOTHER EDIT... I figured it out by copying a different XML over... NEVERMIND. Total waste of time!

---BEGIN HACK OF THIS THREAD---
I wonder if a fellow owner of CSS would be willing to give me the XML file for it. I'm having the classic "library won't stay loaded in Kontakt" issue and in a bit of a pinch to use them. Thanks
---END HACK OF THIS THREAD---
 
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