Sample Modeling / French Horn & Tuba v3

[Daryl]

tack, having heard my demo are you still feeling that the distance knob does nothing?

I didn't say it did nothing, I just said I couldn't hear a difference with respect to the breathy sound at the lower dynamics, which finds its way through my reverb, compared to a straight volume adjustment.

Ah, I see. To me this sounds no different from having a close microphone in as well as the room microphones. For me the distance thing certainly sounds more distant and turning the volume up and down is a very different sound. The huge advantage over a close mic, of course, is that you can improve definition without the instrument moving forward in the mix.

[tack]

Sascha, this is superb. Thanks for sharing.

[Piet De Ridder]

Wow, Sasha!

_

[Guy Rowland]

Yes sounds terrific - thanks Sasha. Forgive if I missed this earlier on in the thread, but what instrument combination are you using there, and what spatial tools?

[The Saxer]

Beautifully done!

[Guy Rowland]

Guy, its a standard orchestral setup: 4331 all SM v3

Spatial is a combination of custom IRs for every instrument and a reverb tail from the Bricasti. The rest is a hell of EQing.

Thanks - so that's effectively the brass bundle of Trumpet, Bone, F Horn and Tuba, with instances for each individual instrument, or are you using this new unison mode?

I'd kinda zoned out of this thread for some reason, but it's about time I really started paying attention to SM (as Piet told me to some time ago I seem to remember). One thing that's always been offputting is the sheer number of CCs and keyswitches - open question - how manageable is this now in v3?

[Ashermusic]

Here is my question on this overall, Sascha:

First of all, terrific, really fine.

BUT... and you knew there was a but coming right?

When I composed for real players, I could compose and orchestrate roughly 3 minutes of "busy" music a day and I have the same guideline for sampled/virtual instruments. If it takes longer than that, I am not willing to do it, no matter how good the result, because with the stuff I use, I can and I can live with the result.

So given that I tried but could not make friends with a breath controller, is it possible with the Sample Modeling instruments in your opinion?

[Hannes_F]

I also gave the Samplemodeling Brass Band v3 a try.

Thanks for sharing, great work.

[Daryl]

One thing that's always been offputting is the sheer number of CCs and keyswitches - open question - how manageable is this now in v3?

I don't use any KS at all. The main CC that you need to tweak all the time is the Expression, be it CC2 or CC11. You don't really need to do anything else at all. All the others are optional, and in most cases it's fire and forget.

[Guy Rowland]

One thing that's always been offputting is the sheer number of CCs and keyswitches - open question - how manageable is this now in v3?

I don't use any KS at all. The main CC that you need to tweak all the time is the Expression, be it CC2 or CC11. You don't really need to do anything else at all. All the others are optional, and in most cases it's fire and forget.

Huh, is that so? That's encouraging. But how about CC1? That's my brain-hardwired velocity control (by which I mean intensity of playing, not volume), while Expression I always have equated purely to volume. Is the terminology different in Sample Modelling land?

[Ashermusic]

Really? For me, cc1 is usually controlling vibrato.

[Daryl]

Huh, is that so? That's encouraging. But how about CC1? That's my brain-hardwired velocity control (by which I mean intensity of playing, not volume), while Expression I always have equated purely to volume. Is the terminology different in Sample Modelling land?

Intensity of playing and volume are exactly the same thing. If you blow a horn harder, it gets louder and more intense at the same time. If you want to set that to CC1, help yourself.

[Daryl]

Really? For me, cc1 is usually controlling vibrato.

I think that SM is also set up that way, but you can re-map the CC to any that you prefer.

[tack]

Yes, with SM, CC1 is vibrato by default, maddeningly.

All my SM tracks have inserts before Kontakt to remap CCs, so that CC1 and CC11 both remap to CC2 (breath), and CC21 maps to CC1. My SM instances have breath controller enabled.

This lets me either use a breath controller or not (such as when I'm just noodling around), and CC1 and CC11 do the things my brain expects for those cases when I'm not using a breath controller. CC21 is what SF libraries use for vibrato and that's just standardized in my template.

I know this is configurable within the SM instances but I prefer to do it outside. For some reason I just find I prefer to fuss less with the VI itself, in case I find myself needing to reconfigure it from a stock instance.

[Guy Rowland]

Intensity of playing and volume are exactly the same thing. If you blow a horn harder, it gets louder and more intense at the same time.

Yes, but not with samples it's not. The vast majority of libraries emulate playing intensity on CC1, with Expression on CC11 for volume. I agree with your ethos though, and your reasoning - I only want to control one thing when composing (leaving aside vibrato if necessary), just leaving any volume riding for the mix stage (and then using audio faders not CC - I don't go near CC7 or CC11). So if that's how SM rolls, I'm delighted.

(Jay - EW libraries are very much the exception for me with the CC1 vibrato thing, though I think Embertone has theirs set differently to the convention too. I remap in Cubase if neeeded for Play).

[Daryl]

I only want to control one thing when composing (leaving aside vibrato if necessary), just leaving any volume riding for the mix stage (and then using audio faders not CC - I don't go near CC7 or CC11). So if that's how SM rolls, I'm delighted.

The remapping of CC11 is very easy, will take around 5 clicks and then save as new instrument. For the Brass I play vibrato (used occasionally on trumpet) with the Breath Controller. However, again you can use a CC and map it to anything you like. Do remember to map both depth and speed though, as if you start using vibrato, you'll want control of both. The only other controller you might want to use in the short term is the mutes.

[Lawrence]

Beautiful job Sascha, especially in the spatialization.

Guy, Jay- if you're at all comfortable with foot controllers, they are brilliant for controlling SM's expression.

[Guy Rowland]

Guy, Jay- if you're at all comfortable with foot controllers, they are brilliant for controlling SM's expression.

I have the Boss FV 500, and I'm not great with it to be honest. I don't know if its me or the pedal, but it's hard to be really fluid. I use it for two-handed scenarios pretty exclusively really. Honestly, if most of the heavy lifting is done by one controller, I'll be very happy with the modwheel.

Appreciate everyone's input here, really useful thread - ta.

[Lawrence]

You might find it easier with the way SM's curve is set up. I find the default throw of an expression pedal better suited to SM's instruments (of which you don't own any if I recall) than any others I own.

[Lawrence]

Sascha, once you have a set of EQ curves that work and a template that includes the space that sounds best to you, won't you be most of the way there?

What sort of mixing did you do for your example?

[Ashermusic]

If you want to hear my view on this: Forget about all that crap with keyswitches, CC1, drawing curves and modifying parameters when it comes to Samplemodeling. Get yourself a breath controller or a wind controller like an EWI. This is the only way to get real benefits from the Samplemodeling instruments.

Deal breaker for me. It would take me months of practice. I tried to use the TEC breath controller for a while and I just hated it.

[ZeeCount]

Stunning work Sascha! Did you try adjusting the harmonics to reduce some of those overtones? That's my biggest complaint about the SM Flutes, which to my ears have too much of the 1st harmonic and not enough of the higher order ones, making them sound wooden. I've mentioned this to SM, and they say that they will be adding harmonic control to SWAM in a future update, but I don't know when this will be happening.

[Lawrence]

Thanks for the comprehensive answer, Sascha.

It seems the results you achieved were very well received, though they apparently didn't satisfy you and the process sounds pretty dreadful. For pop horns (which is what I use SM for mainly) I don't find the process that arduous.

[Guy Rowland]

That's very interesting Sasha, and naturally somewhat off-putting. I've always said though that SM excell at solos, but the unisons are usually far less convincing. I've heard it done well, but tales such as yours seem to accompany the good ones funnily enough.

You'd think this was solvable though, eh? Their spatialisation tools sounded like the right idea, so disappointing to hear they don't work well. Is it the same story with unison mode?

[Guy Rowland]

I haven't tried Unison mode Guy. I would not use it, because even if I want the instruments to play unison, I would always perform them individually. Makes not sense to me so route 4 Horn patches to the same midi.

Oh, it has no intelligent separation of chords? Shame.

Hey, we expect miracles these days. When it's only partially miraculous, it disappoints. What an age to live in.