The mixing in this first example is pretty fantastic, or it is to my ears. Would you care to share what you did to get this kind of sound out of a StaffPad file?
Hi Jett, I'm sorry for not getting back to you sooner, life/work has been hectic. Last time I opened that score was back in April, so I don't remember specific settings, but I usually start with tempo mapping and volume matching, going back and forth with the reference track, trying to get the overall balance and panning right. Then I obsessively work on individual dynamics and articulations, paying close attention to the sound instead of notation. i.e. a violin accent by default may not have all the desired grit and raspiness, so you may want to layer several instruments: one with a filter to highlight the 1-3kHz range (the Sparkle effect is great for that); maybe a charango to add a little pluck (or any random noise); etc. Oftentimes a short articulation will not be short enough, so you may want to literally write a 32nd note and automate the release/decay to shorten the playback even further (use the volume lane for that).
Now you will understand why I pretty much rage quit StaffPad haha The lack of precise control over the volume lane is impractical. If I want an automation point of -5.3dB, I want it to be -5.3dB, not -5.5, -5.2, -5.0, or other random approximation that StaffPad will "stick" to. When you have dozens of tracks to automate, it's very time consuming to slowly drag the pen and hope for the best. To add insult to injury, many instruments default to a custom volume value that is NOT reflected in the volume lane. The volume lane will always show 0dB at first, even if you load an instrument like Spitfire Chamber Violas that defaults to -2db. So, if I automate the vol down by 1dB, I'm actually moving the line to -1dB and effectively raising the volume of everything else that came before that point, which is stupid and irksome. In sum, automation points should 1) reflect the initial state of an instrument; 2) behave as jump points, like every DAW in the universe; 3) have precise control over values. For the latter, I requested a simple text box input, many moons ago. Perhaps a long press to edit? Here are the main editing features that I sorely miss in StaffPad:
- Jump points ffs
- Text box input for automation points
- Visibility panel, hiding staves; for mockup purposes - this would be a game changer
- Master Volume and Tuning Frequency per project, instead of global
- Pitch automation lane, for humanization purposes
- Keyboard shortcuts for all symbols. I don't mind modifiers, as long as we can quickly access all symbols
- Lasso noteheads, instead of the clunky notehead+beam; Add to selection
Don't want to come across as negative, just pointing out some real-life scenarios where StaffPad will stumble for serious mockups.
I wish I had more time to expand on the mixing, but hopefully you got the general gist of it. Since you also own the entire StaffPad catalogue, I'm attaching the stf file in case you want to dig in a little further, solo tracks, etc. I also included the custom xml files where I enabled a few unused articulations like blurred and exposed spicc in Berlin Strings, and Tense FX in Chamber Strings. I don't know where you have to put those on a Mac computer, though. The "OG" variants are the original untouched files. For the Tense effect to sound right, you have to play the track from the very beginning, due to the sample start point.
Phew, I hope this helps! Pinging
@OstrovskyiComposer as well.
