East/West Orchestra Struggles - Mix Help

[fusilierb]

I'm waiting for my Cubase 5 upgrade to come in and have been going back to Cubase 4 to get familiar with it again. I'm seriously struggling with the realism of 3 pieces right now. Here is the first of the 3. The orchestrations are on all 3 that I'm struggling with are THICK, which is the problem I'm struggling with the most. Seems like East/West are great for BIG orchestral things, but for more subtle stuff, I just can't seem to get it all to sit right. I know with a real orchestra, that this writing would work fine, but man...I'm hoping that someone out there with more experience with these samples than me can help me out in saving this thing. The strings just aren't cutting it and when everything comes in for the second section, it just feels like its not filling up the space correctly. I've been playing with velocity and controller changes for weeks now and although its getting better, it still feels like garbage to me.This is just the main mic, I haven't blended the close mics yet, which I find does help the realism a lot, but I still should be able to get better results than this without it. The ending obviously isn't really right, but until everything gets right, no point in fixing it now.Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Lushhttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=2177 ... anfusilier

[wignelson]

Don't get me started, Bryan You're not the only one who struggles with patches, but I'll tell you one thing - you need to work on your attack and especially your delay.The synth sounds I use, which are crappola, have the benefit of a controller which can adjust the attack and the delay as well as two other parameters.When I listen to the strings in Lush as I am doing now, I hear some unnatural cut offs on the strings. Strings just don't sound like that. They have a little tail on them no matter how small the room.You could get away with staccato, but when you are changing notes in like portamento, the cut off sounds really fake.Here let me show you how you can use some tail and delay to fool the ears. Granted, I've only fooled about 30% of them because as I said, my patches suck. But here it is, anyway.http://www.songramp.com/mod/mps/viewtra ... 69050These songs cannot get forwarded here in TAXI because the patches are sub standard.Sounds to me like you have the right stuff in East/West but your strings are too too dry and the the tails are cut off as well.Here's another one. No good to TAXI, but a lesson in synth strings even with crappy patches. Notice the contrabass in this one.http://www.songramp.com/mod/mps/viewtra ... 9050HTHWig

[stevebarden]

Hey Bryan, everything I've heard from you is well written, so I don't think there's any problems there. This is simply an issue of selecting the proper articulations.Until you've mastered this library then the best I can suggest is for you to go through the various articulations - one by one! - until you find the ones that suit the part correctly. It's a tedious task but well worth it. When I got Gold I spent weeks going one by one through each and every articulation and recording a reference track playing what I felt was that the particular articulation was capable of playing. It taught me a ton about the capabilities and limitations of the East West library.It's still not perfect and I still have to tweak every piece as I go. There are so many nuances in playing styles. And don't think that a single articulation will work throughout the entire piece of music. You may be required to have 5 or 6 different articulations (legato, staccato, marcato, etc.) to realize your composition.Steve

[fusilierb]

Hey Wig,The unnatural cuttoff's are a mystery to me right now. These samples have tails built into them, that normally sound very natural. When I solo the midi parts and play the track in real time, the strings don't cuttoff like that. But it seems like when I render them. I'm getting all sorts of weirdness going on. Sometimes I have to render one part 3 or 4 times before the thing comes out right. JUST AWEFUL. I've been having some serious problems with Cubase 4 and the East/West Platinum. They are CONSTANTLY crashing cubase. If I'm in the key editor making velocity changes or drawing expression curves, it just randomly crashes. Even East/West is having trouble helping figure out what the deal is. So maybe, I'm just fighting a bug in the app as well. Thanks for the listen and the posts. I like your writing. B

[fusilierb]

Hey Steve,I was afraid someone was going to tell me that. So say, Cubase 5 if going to make the switching and experimenting with the various articulations much easier. It should come in in about a week, so I think I'm going to wait to see what I can do with that. I have to admit I HATE all this fiddle farting around with the software samples after the writing part is done. Feels like I did something wrong and someone has banished me to the corner to write 400 Hail Mary's till I learn how to be a good boy. SOO boring and so time consuming for such crappy results. Maybe Cubase 5 will help me sort through all this easier. If not I'm going to burn it to a disk, delete this from my hard drive, and hurl the disk into the Mississippi, which is where it feels like it belongs right now. Thanks for the reply!B

[fusilierb]

Oh yeah and by the by,I am switching articulations quite a bit in this, mainly from q-leg to staccato and sometimes to the sustains. Also have the legato scripts working and am using CC11 for expression. I just can't seem to get this one to come together. I can't wait for the day this software comes with a "don't suck" button that I could push somewhere along the way.B

[georginasaint]

Hi Bryan, As usual with your work it's a beautiful piece, loads of promise. The strings just do not sound like E/W samples to my ear!!!!!!!I would probably start over from scratch but I know that doesn't appeal!! Something's gone really wrong with the strings. I have often found that when something is really wrong like that it's best to start a whole new file and redo everything. To my ear it's like there's some effect on the strings or something and rather than spend hours trying to fix it, your time might be better spent redoing. That's really the best advice I can give. I bet Mazz could sort out what's happened but I think he's still in India.Keep me posted. I'd like to hear this piece get finished. Georgie

[orest]

Beautiful piece!! I have experienced the same problem in Logic 8.0.2 with Miroslav and Vienna. The legato strings just cut off, and do not fade the natural way. Why is it like this? Shouldn't that be programmed in a better way? The user shouldn't have to spend hours sorting things out, and using different string settings to make a solo sound great.

[fusilierb]

I'll drink to that Orest! It's unbelievable how much time it takes to make something sound right with these things. Hopefully after fighting it for a period of time it will become second nature and this won't be as huge of a time killer as it is right now. I swear I could triple my writing output if this fiddle farty part didn't take so long.Thanks for the listen!B

[fusilierb]

Hi Georgie,I'm going to do exactly that, and I really don't want to. But this is simply not working out. I've been fighting this thing for so long I've grown to hate the piece. So I have to park it for a while till my attitude towards it resets. Good to hear from you!B