Alex Niedt
Senior Member
All sounds are from the Spitfire Solo Strings library
Thanks for the heads up on the work involved in achieving results you like. It’s too bad it couldn’t be a more straightforward process.
I’m still on the fence. @ism has made a bunch of really nice demos too.
As a general observation, whenever I have to try really hard to convince myself about a library, I usually end up regretting the purchase.
I like the “artisanal” articulations but it seems like OA Evo grid has some of that covered.
Well my demos are the opposite of Alex's (brilliant) composition in that they're more or less just noodled in with generally no tweaking at all.
I find them wonderfully expressive, and wonderfully playable. Or rather wonderfully performable, in that you can really craft a phrase as you play.
The caveat is that I use a logic script to control the vibrato - you *have* to keep the vibrato moving in this library it's absolutely not optional (with the exception of the new virtuosic violin, which has a lot more going on). But I've found a simple script can do about ~98% of the work in controlling the vibrato, saying you from messing about with cc21 entirely.
I've actually been tweaking the script this afternoon, so I'll try to share it tonight if I can get it documented.
Mixing the Olafur chamber evo with the Spitfire Solo strings is one of my favourite things in this world.
I'm sure Ism will chime in with more information. In my experience, you have to move CC21 in and out of vibrato, shaping the note with vibrato the way a player would. I've found this to be particularly the case when playing exposed passages but less of a concern within the context of an orchestral setting where keeping the vibrato on and riding the modwheel for dynamics in usual fashion is often enough (though it may still bug some people). If you are just using the solo strings as first chair players, I find I don't really need to do much with the vibrato at all (except follow the section) as the solo player and section vibratos match well. I haven't worked with the solo strings much as first chair players though, so it's possible I've missed inconsistencies that would show up with more use.Hello @ism - When you say you have to keep the vibrato moving in the legato patches (and thus why you created a script to automatically do this work on cc21) I am a bit unclear as I thought the vibrato was only on or off. If this is the case what effect would cc21 have on the vibrato other than on or off? I'm trying to understand the full requirements of getting these legato patches to sound realistic (and thank you @Alex Niedt for your excellent demo and input) so I can make an informed decision as to whether to purchase this library or not. Thank you very much for your input!
Hello @ism - When you say you have to keep the vibrato moving in the legato patches (and thus why you created a script to automatically do this work on cc21) I am a bit unclear as I thought the vibrato was only on or off. If this is the case what effect would cc21 have on the vibrato other than on or off? I'm trying to understand the full requirements of getting these legato patches to sound realistic (and thank you @Alex Niedt for your excellent demo and input) so I can make an informed decision as to whether to purchase this library or not. Thank you very much for your input!
There’s a couple of things to unpack here.
First a small caveat that with the new virtuosic voiln you have a much, much more sophisicated treatment of the vibrato, in that:
a) you can set it to use progressive legato, and if that’s the style you’re going for then this mean you don’t really just don’t have to think about vibrato anymore (much like CSSS and other libs that bake in a progressive vibrato). Only the virtuosic violing has this the moment, but all the instruments have progressive vibrato longs, so its reasonable to hope that future updates will also include scripting of progressive vibrato in the legato for the other instruments.
b) The new Vl also does some very clever scripting using time machine so that you can actually alter the speed of the vibrato, to some extent, once you’re playing vibrato.
That said, what I meant in terms of keeping the vibrato moving, well its easier to hear in these noodlings ( ... with the caveat that its a little embarassing to share them on the same thread as Alex’s vastly superior compostion, and also apologies to anyon getting tired of hearing them as my sharing them is getting old - but the question keeps coming up in new forms, so here we go ...)
What you hear in these is my attempts to learn how to craft a certain type of idiomatic phrasing, in a particular, expressive sytyle, in which both the dynamics and the precice timing of the shift to vibrato are central to the shape of the phrase.
There’s a few things going on here:
So out of the box, if you just play non-vibrato, it can sound very harsh, which is maybe an effect you sometimes want (Homay uses it to good effect in here demo), but not always. Smilarly if you play with vibrato always on, there’s a knind of harshness, or something, as well - especially since the vibratos are quite wide,.
But when you craft a phrase useing both non-vib and vib, while carefully controlling the moments of shifing from non-vib to vib (in general, coordinaing this with the dynamics of the arc of each note), you can use he ‘harshness’ of non-vib if you want, of the effect of the vibrato. But the whole is much more than the sum of its parst - and there’s also a kind of ‘sweetness’ that comes from using both in a carefuly crafted way.
I’m not completely sure how to describe the effect, but it feels like a kind of ‘sweetness’ that you can emphasize or downplay as you craft the phrase, and it’s very different from the baked in progressive vibratos of things like CSSS or the Joshua Bell (recorded) vibratos. Its not that I don’t like the sweetness-by-default of a nice progessive vibrato, its just that I realy love the expressve dimensions that more conroll of the vibrato opens up.
And as a bit of an aside - I think there’s another effect at play here also. The moment of shifting from vib to non-vib like this also plays an important part in the subtley and nuances of how instruments coordinate in an ensemble. I’d argue it’s not just a question of stylistic flourish, but a percepual effect. One of the things that makes solo string ensembles so amazing and distinct is the combination that you have both a very homogenous sound that blends harmonically quite wonderfully, and yet at the same time, with a bit of attention to the voice leading, the individual voices can soar off as distinct lines - which depends on our mind’s abiliy to separate sound into distinct perceptual streams. Even small details, in the coordination or offestting of the dynamics or the vibrato can have a significant effect in igniting what I’ve started calling the ‘string quartet effect’ - that moment when the voices both cohere seamlessly harmonically yet also form their own gloriously independent perceptual streams. (There’s a fun story in evolutionary psychology that suggests some underlying mechanism for why human perception is so uniqely suited for the string quartets, how they’re differnt from jazz quartets, and which maybe also help explain why string quartets are so *#%$^#$ hard to write).
As someone said on another thread of latter of the above demos, ‘I can almost hear the players watching each other’s wrists’ - which I think is probably referring not them playing in perfect timing (which they’re not), but to the way the phrasing of each line is crafted (ie with the mod wheel) while listening carefully to how they interact with each other. I don’t think you could get quite this effect this - or at least not nearly so well - with a baked in progressive vibrato or dynamic arc.
It was actually in part from listening carefully (and repeatedly) to Alex’s composition when he first shared it - specifically trying to get a sense of how he uses vibrato to such great effect - that got me thinking about how to better approach the vibrato (my early attempts where I just set vibrato to ‘on’ having been, in retrosepct, quite terrible). And whihc ultimately led to write the little script used in the above that frees you up from having to think about cc21 (I have a whole rant on why, in general, I think that cc21 is just profoundly, conceptually, wrong).
For instance - I did a rough estimate of the number of times the instruments shifts between vib and non vib in he above noodles, and its something like 450 times for < 3 minutes of not especially sophisticated noodling. And the script handles all of these changes automatically, with the exception of maybe half a dozen notes where I touched the sustain pedal to inform the script to not apply go with its first guess of when to change the vibrato. And with that small caveat, I’d argue that each of those 400 shifts of vibrato improve the expressiveness of lines.
So I guess the short answer to your question is, that you need to keep the vibrato moving to craft you idiomatic phrasing in a way that has maybe on the sufrace appears to be ‘adding your own progressive vibrato by hand’, but in practice gives you a fabulous expressive dimension that goes far beyond a baked in progressive vibrato in the musicality of its effect. (Or a least, I really like it, and don’t know of any other sample instruments where you can get quite his effect).
(I’m just finishing a few tweaks to the script incidenally, I’ll make an effort to publish it later today.)
Hope that helps.
I haven't seen Ism's script, but I'm guessing the script attempts to emulate the feel of progressive vibrato. I know what I do when I'm working with it on a long note is to set the vibrato just under the crossover point and then move it in and out of vibrato before settling into the vibrato and then usually backing off it near the end of the note. It's also best if dynamics and vibrato move somewhat in concert but getting the coordination just right has been tricky. I believe Ism's script does some coordination between vibrato and dynamics as well. I've also tried attaching vibrato to aftertouch and had some success with that though I need to play around a bit with the scaling and practice more to control the aftertouch to see if that is viable.But this seems contradictory, as rationally it seems the automated script would decide for you when to transition the vibrato and would thus defeat its own purpose, as where it transitions may not be the optimal spot. Does it somehow make an educated guess that the vast majority of the time is correct and in the cases it is not you simply apply the sustain pedal to override it?
I haven't seen Ism's script, but I'm guessing the script attempts to emulate the feel of progressive vibrato. I know what I do when I'm working with it on a long note is to set the vibrato just under the crossover point and then move it in and out of vibrato before settling into the vibrato and then usually backing off it near the end of the note. It's also best if dynamics and vibrato move somewhat in concert but getting the coordination just right has been tricky. I believe Ism's script does some coordination between vibrato and dynamics as well. I've also tried attaching vibrato to aftertouch and had some success with that though I need to play around a bit with the scaling and practice more to control the aftertouch to see if that is viable.
@ism - Yes, that helps a lot (and @jbuhler thank you for your response too, it made perfect sense). I appreciate your depth of explanation. One question...my understanding from what you (and @jbuhler) state above is that to create realism within the phrase you need to be able to control where the non-vib to vib occurs. And, my understanding is that you created your script to automate this behavior. But this seems contradictory, as rationally it seems the automated script would decide for you when to transition the vibrato and would thus defeat its own purpose, as where it transitions may not be the optimal spot. Does it somehow make an educated guess that the vast majority of the time is correct and in the cases it is not you simply apply the sustain pedal to override it? I very well may not be understanding and so thank you for explaining. I love the tone of the Spitfire library, however, I am ultimately trying to discern how much work is required for realism and, as such, whether it's a realistic purchase for me. If your script can handle the vast majority of this work with realism then that makes the decision a lot easier. Also to note, my immediate need is for a solo cello and so the primary importance is the ability to handle vibrato transitions within the instruments besides the virtuosic violin.
Thank you again for your assistance here. Very much appreciated.
Not sure to be honest as it is more a set of wiggles with the initial vibrato set close to the threshold. But you have to do it for every note, and in coordination with dynamics, which is the difficulty and that's where I think @ism's script will be quite useful. I hope we will be seeing that script soon.@jbuhler - Thanks for the information. This makes perfect sense. Out of curiosity, to obtain realism how many times do you typically move CC21 in and out of vibrato on a note before settling in? It sounds like ism's script does this a lot so curious what you find is manually required for proper realism.
@jbuhler - Thanks for the information. This makes perfect sense. Out of curiosity, to obtain realism how many times do you typically move CC21 in and out of vibrato on a note before settling in? It sounds like ism's script does this a lot so curious what you find is manually required for proper realism.
So interested in seeing your script, so I can get a better sense of the mechanics of it all.From what I hear, the dynamics of these phrases tends to be kind 'U-shaped', in which case my script might, at least conceivably, have given much the same effect (I would speculate).