East/West Orchestra Library - user tips/tricks/etc

[anne]

I've had EWQLSO (with Kontakt 3 on my mac pro) for over a year, and still haven't been able to spend the time I need to really learn it. I bought it from soundsonline, but it was a bundled package with no manuals or instructions (other than how to install it). Since I'm so enamored with Kontakt and Stylus, which I'm still just learning to use, I really appreciate your post on the EWQLSO tips to help me get my butt in gear to learn that program Thanks for starting this thread and I hope to see more posts on it!

[flood]

This is an incredibly good thread, thank you all for sharing your tips.I just got EWQL, so these are invaluable pieces of advice.One other thought, for anyone just starting on orchestration. Pick up a couple basic books, they will help. I bought the Idiot's Guide To Composing Orchestral Pieces. (Title may be inexact). It has been very helpful for setting the instruments in the expected place on the soundstage.Thanks again for all the tips!

[mazz]

The beautiful thing about EWQL is that the instruments are already panned in "standard" orchestral seating.One tip: If you use the 18 VLNS as the firsts and 11 VLNS as the seconds is to pan the 11 VLNS slightly to the right. Both sections are panned the same which puts all the violins to the left and it doesn't sound quite realistic. By putting the 11 VLNS just a tad to the right, it shifts them away from the firsts enough to spread the VLNS out a bit more.Cheers!!Mazz

[fusilierb]

A huge thanks to all who have replied so far. I've learned a lot from each of you. The last post made me realize that there could be some of us who have never been exposed to the fundamentals of orchestrating. I feel that in order to create a convincing "fake" orchestra performance, you have to approach the project as if you you are writing for a real orchestra. In other words you should be familiar with the ranges of the various instruments, how they blend together and support each other sonically, and how the various sections are laid out on stage and all the different articulations that each instrument is capable of producing in the real world. Good solid orchestra writing is the best first step in creating a believable "mock up" performance. One of the books I was taught with is called "Principles or Orchestration" by Rimsky-Korsakov. It's a very clear and approachable book and has an unbelievable amount of great info on which instruments combine well with other instruments. The great news is that there is a free online version of this book available. And what makes this better than the real book is that you can "hear" all the examples he cites through nice audio files. I would highly recommend checking this out, no matter what your skill level is with orchestrating. You can find that book here:http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... php?f=77So if your orchestrations are well constructed, you've already won half the battle in nailing the realism. Now you have to get your "virtual" orchestra to perform your piece correctly.Here are some things that I do to get make my midi performances more realistic sounding. These first few are important no matter what sample library you use. I'll talk about some other techniques that are specific to East/West in another post soon.1) It is impossible for a group of humans to play anything at exactly the same time, so smear the start times of all of your instrument's phrases forwards and/or backwards by a few milliseconds. You don't want any two instruments beginning at exactly the same time - even if they are playing the exact same line. In fact, especially if they are playing the exact same line. If you orchestrate in a notation program or if you step input your lines into a sequencer your midi performance will sound mechanical and lifeless. If you visualize two trumpet players playing the exact same note at the same time - each will begin to blow at a slightly different time than the other and the build up of the air inside the horn will blossom at a slightly different time than the other. Same goes for bows arcing across strings and absolutely everything else in a real orchestra. That's a huge part of what gives it its life. You need to put that randomness back into your midi instruments performance. 2) Give your wind players a chance to take a breath. With electronic instruments its easy to forget that human wind players need to breath. Take a good look at your wind lines. Better yet sing them, if you run out of air, so will your players. So get into your midi notes and make sure there is a gap at the end of your phrases. This is especially important when they are playing long lines of repeating patterns. It will literally breath new life into the sound of the sample's performance.3) Number 3 is really just another aspect of 1 and 2, which when taken all together basically say, No sound ever stays static. Not even long sustained notes. Every sound of an orchestra is always moving either dynamically (loud/soft), or changing from one articulation to another (staccato to legato), or warbling through various strengths of vibrato, etc. etc. And this gets extended out by the number of different players playing together at any one time. It's kind of a big swarming ball of energy, even when it's directed at playing something soft and sweet. This is where the true realism lives. And you control that realism through a combination of articulation patches and midi controllers. The articulation patches provide the playing technique, ie staccato or legato, etc. And the midi controllers provide the timbre changes over time that happen as musical line is performed.Each sample library handles this last part differently. I'll post everything I currently know about how the East/West library utilizes these controllers. But don't get too excited as I just bought this library and everything I know is liable to be a very short post.

[mazz]

Listen to really good recordings of really great orchestral music. If you can get a chance to hear a live orchestra, go!!Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Tschaikovsky, Ravel, Debussy, Strauss.............and so on. I'm also a fan of John Adams, Arvo Part and Gorecki for modern composers.Composing is not orchestrating but they tend to go hand in hand. If your composition is solid ahead of time, it can make it easier to get a very clear orchestration. Many times with commercial music deadlines, there's just not time to sit down and write a piece out and take the time to orchestrate it, etc. In those situations, I'll improvise on the piano as MIDI into my sequencer until I get pretty close to the feeling and vibe that I want. Then I'll display that on the screen as notation and orchestrate from there. I'll decide who is going to play the melody when and build the flow around that and then go back and design the accompaniments based on the chord progression I improvised. Oftentimes the original piano part will not be a part of the final mix. Sometimes a new piano part will be played that has a completely different function from the original. Also, the piece could change from the original as the orchestration is being fleshed out.Cool,Mazz

[fusilierb]

Using East/West ControllersVolumeThe overall volume of the instrument can be manipulated using MIDI controller 7 (CC7). I would recommend resisting the urge to use this controller to manipulate volume during the course of a piece. The manual recommends that you only use this to set the initial volume of the overall track. East/West really wants you to use note velocity to control the dynamics of your piece.Note VelocityThe note velocity’s are probably the most realistic way to control volume level’s. Each instrument was sampled playing at the various degrees of loudness. The Play engine is looking at note velocity to determine which sample is played back. The arrangement is a bit arbitrary so use your ears to make final decisions, but I think these are fairly good generalizations:Dynamic Note Velocitiespp 1-23p 24-47mp 48-71mf 72-95f 96-119 ff 119-127ExpressionNote velocity will only control the loudness and timbre of a sample as it is initially played (note on). It will not control the timbre and loudness of the sustained portion of a sound. In other words, once a note is played the sound of the sample will no longer change as the note is held. If you want to simulate “swells” or crescendo’s of sustained notes, you can use MIDI Expression (CC11) to manipulate the sound of the sustained portion of the sample.Using ScriptsOne thing that I find really helps is to use the built-in scripts that East/West has integrated into the new Play engine. In the PLAY engine, each instrument has 3 scripts that you can turn on for each sample (Articulation) that you have loaded. The 3 scripts are :PortamentoRepetitionLegatoEach one of these scripts programatically alters the playback of the sample to more realistically simulate one of those 3 playing techniques. They really do help the realism. For example the Repetition script will automatically alter various elements of the notes to avoid the machine gun effect that happens when sampled instruments play repeated notes.Once the script is turned on, it will effect the playback of that instrument continuously. What is really nice, is that you can turn these scripts on and off with controller changes as the piece plays, which allows you to keep legato and repeated passages in the same track and to simply apply the scripts only when you come to passages where they are needed.In order to do this, you have to have the script turned on in the PLAY engine and then you control when it is actually applied to the track using the following controllers:Code 65 Portamento On/OffCode 68 Legato On/OffCode 69 Repetition On/OffThat’s about all I’ve managed to figure out by now. Hope that helps.