Not real enough - thoughts welcomed! - TOPIC CLOSED!

[onelight24]

Hello, I was just recently returned on this track for its lack of realism: 'too synthy', 'more humanism', I believe were the terms used! Any thoughts on how to improve realism, would be greatly appreciated!

I am using EW S.O. Gold, used much CC11, CC7, dfx patches, & watched velocities!

'Classical Burst'

http://www.taxi.com/vincentpace

Thanks for your time & efforts!

Cheers,
Vincent!

[ottlukk]

Vincent: I thought it really pretty and well done.
Ott

[davewalton]

I am using EW S.O. Gold, used much CC11, CC7, dfx patches, & watched velocities...

... and much reverb.

I'd say that the first thing that struck me is that the reverb seemed way too deep... like the orchestra was way far away. Just the natural ambience of Gold is usually enough or sometimes more than enough. It's possible that the reverb you chose is causing things to thin out. Also... cutting down on the highs might help too.

FWIW,

Dave

[onelight24]

Hi Ott & Dave, thanks for taking the time to listen & share your thoughts! Ott, very kind of you!

Dave, I did use reverb on the master channel to add cohesiveness, so I thought! Clearly too much, as I realize Gold is pretty wet to begin with. If there is anything else that stands out for you, please suggest away!

Thanks again!

Cheers,
Vincent!

[DonaldM]

Hi Ott & Dave, thanks for taking the time to listen & share your thoughts! Ott, very kind of you!

Dave, I did use reverb on the master channel to add cohesiveness, so I thought! Clearly too much, as I realize Gold is pretty wet to begin with. If there is anything else that stands out for you, please suggest away!

Thanks again!

Cheers,
Vincent!

To my ears, the piece sounded good throughout. In trying to figure out what the reviewer meant by lack of realism, the only think that seemed to stick out to me was the velocity attack levels on the string section. It did seem the same throughout. I don't have EWQL (wish I did!!!), but I do find when I am trying to approach a more realistic sounding orchestral string section, that if I play with the velocity settings on my midi controls that it does have an effect on the articulation of the string voices, especially the attack portion. I also play with the envelopes sometimes to get it just right. Don't always succeed, but that's the approach anyway.

Perhaps that's what the reviewer had in mind, because I sure can't hear anything else. I thought the woodwinds and percussion sounded very real, and so did the pizz strings.

[utremifa]

Hi Vincent,

Don't get discouraged. I remember your first version of this track and I can hear that you've come a long way in a very short amount of time. First off, I think that you've tried to tackle one of the hardest tasks in the world of sampling: creating a CD quality mock-up of a Classical style orchestral piece being played in concert. There's no hope of hiding weak points of your library behind dialogue or sound fx or cheap TV speakers, this stuff has to sound like the real thing because it is standing there naked to the listener.

I can hear that you spent a lot of hard work tweaking CC11, CC7, velocities settings and using those Dfx samples. Bravo! Keep doing that! There are a lot of details in this track that are done correctly. Don't allow a return to make you feel like, "Oh, well, those things don't matter because I spent all that time doing it and and I still got a return. What a waste of time." Wrong! You still have to do those little things and you will get better and better at it and eventually, mark my words, you will listen to this track and say: "I can't believe I thought that this was the best mock-up I could do."

Here are a few things I think sank your submission (in the order of importance):

1). Reverb. If this were a Deutsche Grammaphon recording I would think that it were recorded in a giant airplane hangar. Many of the details you worked so hard on are lost in the mid-low frequency soup that your reverb created. As Dave pointed out above, EW Gold has enough ambience that you don't need to add reverb, or if you do, it should be very short and added extremely sparingly. The guys at EW designed these samples to save guys like us a lot of time, so that the library sounds great out of the box and we don't have to mess around with things like getting the reverb right.

If you haven't done so already, do a back to back comparison of your track with a professionally recorded orchestral piece in a similar style and you'll immediately hear that the instruments in your recording don't have enough definition and sound too far back.

2). Your sample library is not appropriate to the style of music you were tying to create. EW libraries were developed to recreate the epic Hollywood studio orchestra sound, not a classical orchestra. If I remember correctly, the woodwinds in EW Gold are all doubled as are most of the brass (this simply would not be done in a real orchestra concert performance where you have one part-one player) and the string samples were made with having a "big sound" in mind. This would translate into the wrong style of bowing for a classical style piece. A more suitable library for your task would be the VSL, which has solo woodwinds and brass and has string patches that are more suited toward concert hall orchestral playing. I'm not saying that you should go out and buy that library which is pricey, but by using EW Gold for a task it wasn't really designed for made your job all the more difficult.

Another obstacle you face with EW Gold is that you don't have the close mic position. Often that is not a problem, depending on the type of music you are creating, but for this style it is really helpful to have the close micing in order to get the kind of definition and detail of articulation you need for the style.

3). This is a generality which I think might apply to places in your mock-up: orchestrating with samples is not the same as orchestrating for live orchestra. Samples, esp. with EW Gold, sound much fuller and bigger than orchestral instruments in a live orchestra. So a very popular doubling in a real orchestra setting, French horns, viola, and cello, might sound very muddy and heavy with a sampled orchestra. I've found that typical wind tutti passages in orchestral writing, where all the players are playing a line in octaves say, sound very electronic when translated in the sampled world and I often leave out say clarinets or oboes on a run.

I hope I don't come off as professorial or insult your intelligence here. I think you've done a great job with the means at your disposal. Like I said before, trying to recreate a symphony orchestra in concert is incredibly difficult, because even with great programming. It can expose any weaknesses of your library. And believe me, they all have weaknesses. I've been fortunate enough to be able to afford several excellent libraries and I use them in combination, so where one is weak I use another in its place, but even doing that there are still pitfalls. It's best to compose according to the strengths of your libraries.

I'd like to hear this piece again without the extra reverb and then I could point out some specifics if you wanted.

Your on the right track and I hope some of this was helpful.

Best,

Vince

[fusilierb]

Vincent, repost a version of the track without the reverb. It will be easier to help you out once the sound is a bit clearer. It's a really nice piece so don't give up on it!
B

[Len911]

Well Vince, I understand what everyone is saying about the reverb, but I sorta cheated, I recorded your stream into cubase and wavelab and played around with it a little. First of all, I don't know a darn thing about articulations and orchestration per se, only if it sounds "real " or something sounds out of place. There were a couple of minor issues, bass rolled off or just lacking, and there was a flute @ 1.6 khz that was overwhelmingly loud, although I could't hear those by listening to the stream. I am theorizing that since the flute was so loud it kept you from increasing the master buss compressor/limiter which the reverb really needed to make it more present and not so distant sounding. I thought the reverb was actually really well done, it doesn't seem so distant after you tame the flute and increase compression.

[onelight24]

Hello Donald, Vince, Bryan, & Len, thanks for taking the time to listen as well as share your thoughts!

Donald, thanks for sharing your approach, I will consider an attempt at it!

Len, your suggesting a remix with the wwds at a lower level, especially the flute, I will give it a shot!

Bryan, I have uploaded a version here below without the reverb, thanks for your kind thoughts!

Vince, I am grateful for all the feedback you offer here on this post! I am not taken aback by it at all, it is what I am asking for. I realized that EW Gold certainly has its limitations, and to that end I've purchased the upgrade & now have EW Platinum Plus, which should rectify some of the limitations. I have VSL on my wish list, however! Classical, Baroque, 20th Century, sort of music is really what I enjoy the most, & the music I enjoy composing the most, so it behooves me to get this stuff as right as possible!

So, I've uploaded a version without reverb, and please do suggest away!

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/3089009


Thanks to all of you, your input is truly appreciated!

Cheers,
Vincent!

[fusilierb]

I recorded your stream into cubase and wavelab and played around with it a little.

How did you do that?