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My process for building realistic instrumental sections with SWAM and Sample Modeling instruments.

Hello. Yes that’s how my Escapades mock-up happened.

I copied and pasted midi note data which I randomised using Logic’s midi transform, and then Re performed all the controller data for every track. Much faster than playing everything multiple times.

Just a re-reply since I’m back here. I’m now just tracking a few instances and doing a midi transform which varies the controller and note data ever so slightly.

I’m also working on scripting the execution of all these transforms.

I’ll do a video with more specifics soon.
 
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Hi Rohan, are you using the TEC Breath Controller, or the Breath and Bite Controller? Any thoughts on whether it's worthwhile shelling out the extra cash for the breath and bite model? I'll probably pick up a Leap Motion controller first since it's inexpensive, but I wouldn't mind grabbing a TEC controller later on.

Yes the original. I’d say go for the extra control, you never know, you could map it to something useful. The BC is my cc11 expr controller the Leap does everything else.

Doing cc11 with a Leap never worked for me. Midi expression is the most complex input and best done with a BC.

If you’re staggering your purchases, I would say get a bc first even.
 
The way to humanise a synthetic performance is to permute the data from an existing real performance rather than randomise using an arbitrary distribution. I've been using that method for years and it gives better results. If you want to use a random distribution, equal is probably the worst yet seems to be what everyone uses. I imagine that is because the people writing the code are coders rather than psychologists and musicians
I'll have to get out my dictionary.
Personally, I just play it a bunch of times till it sounds good.
LOL
 
Yes the original. I’d say go for the extra control, you never know, you could map it to something useful. The BC is my cc11 expr controller the Leap does everything else.

Doing cc11 with a Leap never worked for me. Midi expression is the most complex input and best done with a BC.

If you’re staggering your purchases, I would say get a bc first even.
The extra controls, bite and tilt, obvously can't hurt. Big difference in cost though between the two. I'm no professional, so budget is always something to take into consieration. Thanks for the reply though.
 
The extra controls, bite and tilt, obvously can't hurt. Big difference in cost though between the two. I'm no professional, so budget is always something to take into consieration. Thanks for the reply though.

I think if you possibly can, even if you have to save and wait a bit longer, go for the bite/tilt model. It really is a great device and very versatile. I suck at making videos but there are some seriously good ones

 
I think if you possibly can, even if you have to save and wait a bit longer, go for the bite/tilt model. It really is a great device and very versatile. I suck at making videos but there are some seriously good ones


I'll see if I can scrape together the funds for the bite/tilt model.
I just picked up a used Leap Motion. Any suggestions you'd be willing to share for setup? I'm trying to figure out how to map pitch control to hand rotation. Also want to see how the heck side motion can be used to control the bipolar mode. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
I'll see if I can scrape together the funds for the bite/tilt model.
I just picked up a used Leap Motion. Any suggestions you'd be willing to share for setup? I'm trying to figure out how to map pitch control to hand rotation. Also want to see how the heck side motion can be used to control the bipolar mode. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I just got a Leap Motion and have spent a bit of time this afternoon playing with it. I'm using GECO to produce the MIDI output, which requires that you install the older V2 of the Leap software rather than the newer Orion Beta. For the SWAM violin, the best results I've found so far are mapping left/right to expression (with bow gesture in expression mode and expression curve set to Ln 0.2) and up/down to bow pressure with bow pressure clamped between 25 and 116 in the SWAM MIDI config window.

An insight that I've only just now had after playing the SWAM violin set up as described above is that it seems like you generally want to keep expression and bow pressure in the lower halves of their ranges and only go into the upper halves for momentary spikes, mostly at the starts and ends of notes. This helps avoid the strained, strident sound that I've heard in so many demos of the SWAM strings. There's a particular gesture, almost like a quick grab, that moves you through the upper expression and pressure ranges down to an appropriate sustain range and gives you a fantastically natural note attack that sounds more like a proper violin than anything else I've been able to achieve to this point.

I've gotten mixed results with bow gesture in bowing mode, but I could see it possibly working well with a little practice. The biggest problem is that the CC range doesn't really give you much room to sustain long notes. I guess rebowing is a real technique, though, and vibrato seems to make rebowing less noticeable. Definitely would take some practice.

I have a breath controller, too, but I haven't tried it in conjunction with the Leap Motion yet. I've used it for expression on the SWAM strings in the past, but I can't see continuing to do that anymore, because controlling expression in conjunction with pressure by hand motion feels much more natural and responsive to me, at least for a violin.
 
Rohan you do wonderfull things with audio modeling libaries, I love them too and I'm studying to use them at their best.
 
I wonder if anyone would like to post examples of controller data for different types of string articulations, e.g. staccato, marcato, sfz, etc. (and audio of the results).

In Rohan's interpretation of the Tchaikovsky piece (awesome!--so expressive), I saw just a little clip in the legato passages showing Mod (I think this is vibrato intensity), Pitchbend (? is this just to prevent phasing with other instruments in unison?), Vib Speed, Expression, bow pressure, bow position (interesting that it changes within each note--I thought this would be used only for special articulations like Sul Pont or Sul tasto) and port (portamento speed, I suppose).

I suppose these are parameters that must be continuously in motion for a realistic performance. Fascinating to see in operation, but hard to wrap my head around for the multiple continuously changing parameters, as opposed to expression, note on velocity, and few keyswitches that are all that seem necessary for the Sample Modeling brass.
 
I wonder if anyone would like to post examples of controller data for different types of string articulations, e.g. staccato, marcato, sfz, etc. (and audio of the results).

In Rohan's interpretation of the Tchaikovsky piece (awesome!--so expressive), I saw just a little clip in the legato passages showing Mod (I think this is vibrato intensity), Pitchbend (? is this just to prevent phasing with other instruments in unison?), Vib Speed, Expression, bow pressure, bow position (interesting that it changes within each note--I thought this would be used only for special articulations like Sul Pont or Sul tasto) and port (portamento speed, I suppose).

I suppose these are parameters that must be continuously in motion for a realistic performance. Fascinating to see in operation, but hard to wrap my head around for the multiple continuously changing parameters, as opposed to expression, note on velocity, and few keyswitches that are all that seem necessary for the Sample Modeling brass.

Well, if you want realistic strings you have to control many things like a strings player does. I find myself lost at the beginning, too much controls...but after some time I loved it, you can control nearly everything and this is a very good thing. I personally tend to follow this steps:

1) Composition part, I don't care about color and expression (regarding controls).
2) Control part 1, I program the most important controls, expression and vibrato.
3) Control part 2, when I'm at a very advanced stage on my track I take what I thinked about in the step 1) and I polish everything by adding more controls and details.

Working like this is useful because you don't loose yourself in too many activities at once.
 
I thought I would note here that Logic Pro X has a bunch of MIDI plugins that can introduce randomness and modulations into incoming MIDI CC data. This way you could create ensembles that have differing degrees of CC dynamics, including the pitch variations, starting from one source MIDI clip (i.e. the first violin chair). Together with the transformer post-processing schemes applied to note positions, these things might work out in the end to not phase. I have yet to try it all out. Also, one way to introduce some degree of offset in the pitch of each instrument is to modulate the pitch at lower frequencies in all ensemble members.

LPX has also some neat Java scripting features that were mentioned I think earlier in this thread. Has anyone made any progress with that by any chance and is willing to share?
 
Very good work! You and I think in a similar fashion. All of my woodwinds and solo strings are individual audio modeling instruments. The same goes for my brass sections which are comprised of individual sample modeling instruments. My percussion comes from a hodgepodge of library’s and my string sections - Hollywood strings. Except for the strings, all other instruments including solo strings each have an instance of virtual sound stage for positioning. After reading your article I may try a mix with less instances of virtual soundstage. I would be very excited to see a video in which you show your virtual sound stage and mixer set up. I also use the tecontrol breath controller and about seven or eight sliders worth of cc data!
 
I also have a great interest in how you interface the leap motion vr with audio and sample modeling instruments. Is there a piece of software that translates the hand motion into cc control? I went to their website and it seemed like it was only PC compatible? Can you elaborate on this?
 
I also have a great interest in how you interface the leap motion vr with audio and sample modeling instruments. Is there a piece of software that translates the hand motion into cc control? I went to their website and it seemed like it was only PC compatible? Can you elaborate on this?

This article explains how to use the Geco MIDI interface with a Leap Motion controller. I have used this setup on a Mac. It should work fine with SWAM instruments.

https://blog.leapmotion.com/playing-a-virtual-violin-with-serenade-geco-midi/
 
Very good work! You and I think in a similar fashion. All of my woodwinds and solo strings are individual audio modeling instruments. The same goes for my brass sections which are comprised of individual sample modeling instruments. My percussion comes from a hodgepodge of library’s and my string sections - Hollywood strings. Except for the strings, all other instruments including solo strings each have an instance of virtual sound stage for positioning. After reading your article I may try a mix with less instances of virtual soundstage. I would be very excited to see a video in which you show your virtual sound stage and mixer set up. I also use the tecontrol breath controller and about seven or eight sliders worth of cc data!

Give also a try at Aaron Venture - Infinite Brass. Great library!!
 
I also have a great interest in how you interface the leap motion vr with audio and sample modeling instruments. Is there a piece of software that translates the hand motion into cc control? I went to their website and it seemed like it was only PC compatible? Can you elaborate on this?

Leap works with Mac, I use Geco Midi to translate gestures to MidiCC
 
The problem is the limited resolution of current MIDI. The "bowing" gesture computes the derivative of the input expression (i.e. the position of the bow), which has just 128 values (0 to 127). With so limited resolution, it is like having a bow 5 cm long or even less.
We could increase the sensitivity, i.e. like having a longer bow, but the lowest dynamics sound so bad! It is like having a saw-bow!
There is no solution with the current standard MIDI, using a single 7-bit byte. We are still working on the next major release which will support high-resolution MIDI (i.e. 14-bit: 16384 values).
The problem is that the majority of controllers out there does not support it.

That's why I've pointed to Pen2Bow: finally a controller that exploits the "Bipolar" bowing gesture, and overcomes to the limited length of the "Bowing" gesture.

Best,
Emanuele

Any news on this?
 
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