The Sound Board

1gc wrote: ↑Sep 05, 2018 12:23 am But Daryl, not disrepecting you or denying your greater expertice, but with "Shorts" would you define not just Spiccatos and Staccatos , but also Marcatos, Martellatos, Col Legnos, Bart Pizzes the family of detache bowings short Ponts, richochets and so forth. These all have for me differing qualities of sound.

OK, here goes...!

There is no such thing as "shorts", unless you are talking about trousers.

Spiccato is a subset of the set of staccato, so is just one of many staccato bowings.
Both marcato and martellato have nothing to do with the length of the note. They are to do with the attack. However, they can be played in a detatched manner, so are a subset of the set of staccato.
Col legno is not a staccato bowing as such, but unless you try to do the "tratto" nonsense, it is always short, so in effect, it could be part of the staccato set.
Ponticello can be any length, so it is an intersection with the set of staccato.
Detache may be played short, but it is never detatched, in the way a staccato is, so is not part of the staccato set.
Richochet is a staccato bowing

And yes, they all have different qualities of sound.

Hope that helps.

The problem is with names, I think.
When I use samples I don't really compose with articulations in mind but with sounds. So sometimes a super short Spiccato is needed, then a longer one, then a more bouncy one, then a breathy airy one, maybe Staccatos but with vibrato? CSS did this brilliantly by letting my switch betweed 4 types of shorts with the modwheel on the run. But there could be even more.

And short bowings... I would love it if someone sampled a set of 0,2 - 1,0 second short bowings with ~6+ rr. Most of the time the rebowed legato just does not cut it. Mural did 0,5 - 1,0 second bowings, but... they were to slow and soft, a fail imho, because they were not at all what I needed from short bowings so I never used them.

There is also more esoteric stuff, like really short 3 note trills da-di-da with 4+ rr for fast passages.
Symphonic Sphere did try this. I brought this up with other friendly developers a few times, they suggested I just use normal trills and play them short, but it's not the same thing. There is always a decay, and odd start and no rr for fast repetition.

The problem for me is that most classically trained people I suggested things to think in fixed techniques rather then sounds.
It is like talking to brickwalls. ->

Daryl wrote: ↑Sep 05, 2018 3:54 am

1gc wrote: ↑Sep 05, 2018 12:23 am But Daryl, not disrepecting you or denying your greater expertice, but with "Shorts" would you define not just Spiccatos and Staccatos , but also Marcatos, Martellatos, Col Legnos, Bart Pizzes the family of detache bowings short Ponts, richochets and so forth. These all have for me differing qualities of sound.

OK, here goes...!

There is no such thing as "shorts", unless you are talking about trousers.

Spiccato is a subset of the set of staccato, so is just one of many staccato bowings.
Both marcato and martellato have nothing to do with the length of the note. They are to do with the attack. However, they can be played in a detatched manner, so are a subset of the set of staccato.
Col legno is not a staccato bowing as such, but unless you try to do the "tratto" nonsense, it is always short, so in effect, it could be part of the staccato set.
Ponticello can be any length, so it is an intersection with the set of staccato.
Detache may be played short, but it is never detatched, in the way a staccato is, so is not part of the staccato set.
Richochet is a staccato bowing

And yes, they all have different qualities of sound.

Hope that helps.

Well - surely Détaché Lancé is both a Détaché stroke, and is definitely detached, and the Détaché Porté is at least meant to 'feel' detached, even if there's no real separation - although I'm not sure that Détache Lancé is a 'subset' rather than its own unique thing, really. But, anyway...

I'll be honest: I don't really know where you get the "Spiccato is a subset of the set of staccato" from. I'd like to know, though, actually! (Assuming that there's a school or text that you would point to...) I can tell you where I get my idea that Staccato and Spiccato are two relatively discrete entities: Galamian's "Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching," His idea of "Staccato" and "Spiccato" are so unique to each other that he also has the "Flying Staccato" - the difference between his "Flying Staccato" and "Flying Spiccato" being that the Staccato version is the result of a little vertical finger movement, while the flying Spiccato, (from Galamian) "true to its Spiccato nature, is actively thrown onto the string for every note."

I don't mean to employ any kind of "Gotcha" moment, Daryl - far from it, in fact. Ultimately, the point of all the nomenclature ends at the sheet of music, because virtually none of it is written directly on the page! All of the methods and taxonomies are a means to that end. It just strikes me that the pedagogical concerns of actually getting someone to a sound technique can be very different from the concerns of a non-string-playing composer, which are also very different from the needs of a sample developer. I don't know if you'd consider the Sautillé to be a discrete "articulation," but wouldn't it be useful to have sampled Sautillé iterations? You could even have a Sautillé script that would insert "normal" Spiccato samples at beginnings of phrases and after leaps to a new string, or after so much time had passed, with subsequent notes using the Sautillé? Or what about a Fouetté sample, that detects velocity above a certain level in fast legato playing and gives a little lifted, whipped bowing sample at that point? None of these are things that a composer would write into a score, but ultimately, if players see something like the double-stops over the open string from the finale of the Beethoven concerto, or more importantly, if I want to write something vaguely like it in my DAW, wouldn't they be fantastically useful for sample developers?

All of which is a way of saying: a player doesn't have to think of the difference between a Flying Staccato, a Sautillé, and a Flying Spiccato at any given moment, but if sample developers thought that way, I'd probably have fewer absurd "Super Sul Tasto" samples of 4 people sitting in a room producing ghastly sounds, and more varied and active right-hand techniques that I might be able to actually put to use?

MA-Simon wrote: ↑Sep 05, 2018 8:30 am The problem is with names, I think.
When I use samples I don't really compose with articulations in mind but with sounds. So sometimes a super short Spiccato is needed, then a longer one, then a more bouncy one, then a breathy airy one, maybe Staccatos but with vibrato? CSS did this brilliantly by letting my switch betweed 4 types of shorts with the modwheel on the run. But there could be even more.

And short bowings... I would love it if someone sampled a set of 0,2 - 1,0 second short bowings with ~6+ rr. Most of the time the rebowed legato just does not cut it. Mural did 0,5 - 1,0 second bowings, but... they were to slow and soft, a fail imho, because they were not at all what I needed from short bowings so I never used them.

There is also more esoteric stuff, like really short 3 note trills da-di-da with 4+ rr for fast passages.
Symphonic Sphere did try this. I brought this up with other friendly developers a few times, they suggested I just use normal trills and play them short, but it's not the same thing. There is always a decay, and odd start and no rr for fast repetition.

The problem for me is that most classically trained people I suggested things to think in fixed techniques rather then sounds.
It is like talking to brickwalls. ->

Well, I'd probably call the Staccatos with vibrato either the Détaché Lancé or the Détaché Porté, depending on how separated they are. The bouncy one I'd call Sautillé, the breathy airy one probably a Spiccato at the point, or a piano Flying Spiccato. Honestly, what a lot of people are probably thinking of as a 'short Spiccato' is probably a Collé, which is a super-pinched Martelé.

What kills me is that I have never used a single Flautando, Sul Tasto, Super Sul Tasto, or any other novelty screeching long. And as unviable as a prolonged Spiccato at the point is in an orchestral setting, it would be 1000% more useful to me than another Sul Tasto.

I mostly hang out at “the other forum”, but this was a very interesting read. Sad that my suspicions about studio strings where right, I so wanted it to be a perfect library. It sounds to me like there are not enough people on Spitfire’s team who have substantial experience in working with the real thing.

The one thing I don’t understand hasn’t been sampled at all is on-the-string detaché. It’s the mother of all bowings, and literally what we (string players) play the most. I guess it’s what some developers call “bowed legato” but it just never sounds right. I would pay a boatload of money for a library that could switch seamlessly between detache and slurred legato - something that could belt out Kreutzer No 2 at great speed, with all the different bowing variations every poor violin student has had to suffer through.

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 05, 2018 7:32 pm(...)The one thing I don’t understand hasn’t been sampled at all is on-the-string detaché. It’s the mother of all bowings, and literally what we (string players) play the most. I guess it’s what some developers call “bowed legato” but it just never sounds right. I would pay a boatload of money for a library that could switch seamlessly between detache and slurred legato - something that could belt out Kreutzer No 2 at great speed, with all the different bowing variations every poor violin student has had to suffer through.

Fully agree. Why 'detaché' (in at least a minimum of its many variations) — that corest of core bowings — remains so neglected in most libraries, has always been a mystery to me too (and an endless source of frustration). And another absence which makes virtual strings performances always sound very unsatisfactory to me is that of 'martellé'. (If, that is, I'm correct in thinking that 'martellé' is that medium-length stroke which has a pointed attack followed by a slightly more relaxed sustain.)

Warmest of welcomes, by the way, Steelydane.

_

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 05, 2018 7:32 pm

The one thing I don’t understand hasn’t been sampled at all is on-the-string detaché. It’s the mother of all bowings, and literally what we (string players) play the most. I guess it’s what some developers call “bowed legato” but it just never sounds right. I would pay a boatload of money for a library that could switch seamlessly between detache and slurred legato - something that could belt out Kreutzer No 2 at great speed, with all the different bowing variations every poor violin student has had to suffer through.

Agreed. I did my own little version of detaché as a test, but never had the time to take it further.

I believe that there's a "marketing" problem about that. I suspect that many libraries have pure detachè bowings, but for some reason they are called legato. Because Legato in the sampling world means "a sampled transition between two notes" while in the actual musical world is a bowing technique. That's why we also started to call them "transitions" than "legatos" when we sample, because in some occasion like when we sampled the Cornetto of Rinascimento, the musician performed a legato (which is actually quite tricky to do) on an instrumennt that is usually performed with retongued notes.

When we release a product we actually call them all legatos with different kind of adjectives like "fingered legato" "slurred legato" "detaché legato or bow legato". It's a mess I agree, but I'm sure that many string libraries that have legato they actually have detachè.

Also, actual detachè should be a change between notes mid-arc and as far as I know the Bohemian series is the only one who sampled this (with round robins).

Yes, most developers call detaché “bowed legato” but I have yet to hear one that sounds like actual detaché and is as agile as the real thing. I have most of the big string libraries, and it just doesn’t exist in any of them.

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 11:45 am Yes, most developers call detaché “bowed legato” but I have yet to hear one that sounds like actual detaché and is as agile as the real thing. I have most of the big string libraries, and it just doesn’t exist in any of them.

Agreed, and although my example sounds pretty good to my ears, I can't replicate that, with the libraries that I have,

Daryl wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 11:48 am

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 11:45 am Yes, most developers call detaché “bowed legato” but I have yet to hear one that sounds like actual detaché and is as agile as the real thing. I have most of the big string libraries, and it just doesn’t exist in any of them.

Agreed, and although my example sounds pretty good to my ears, I can't replicate that, with the libraries that I have,

I was gonna say, your example sounds excellent! How did you sample that?

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 12:19 pm I was gonna say, your example sounds excellent! How did you sample that?

Trade secret.

Daryl wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 12:21 pm

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 12:19 pm I was gonna say, your example sounds excellent! How did you sample that?

Trade secret.

Release date/eta? Price?

Daryl wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 12:21 pm

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 12:19 pm I was gonna say, your example sounds excellent! How did you sample that?

Trade secret.

Right, I’ll do my own experiments, but topping yours will be difficult.

givemenoughrope wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 2:10 pm

Daryl wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 12:21 pm

thesteelydane wrote: ↑Sep 06, 2018 12:19 pm I was gonna say, your example sounds excellent! How did you sample that?

Trade secret.

Release date/eta? Price?

I'm afraid that this project all got shelved, due to lack of time. I don't see myself doing any more on it in the near future. Besides, it is not just about the samples. It's also about the software that makes it all work, and so far, being an experiment, it is really clunky. Hopefully one of the other developers will come up with something.

As an aside, this "lack of time" seems to be a theme with a lot of people I speak to these days, even though composers are talking about their incomes continually falling, despite writing more tracks than ever before. On a sampling related subject, I have some samples recorded at Abbey Road that have been sitting on my hard drive for 4 years, yet I've had no time to do anything about those either.

Ohhhhh we got the dane in here

I haven't kept up with your little sample library adventure, how is that going/turn out?

my humble opinion is that there ARE very nuanced articulations for "short" notes. Less in the classical realm, but many of these things can/are articulated by the composer/conductor - and there are essentially a near infinite number of possibilities extending articulation outside traditional western playing techniques.


if a composer writes 8th note staccato "played with baby rattle instead of bow" then that's a real articulation. To pretend that these variations don't exist is silly, and to pretend that these cant be notated, is also silly, and last but not least to assume that anything that isn't commonly notated has no place in a sample library is just as silly.


Infact one of the benefits I see working with live musicians rather than sample libraries is that you can do just that - things that are simple. I think we all agree a large variation of short samples is needed to create convincing passages - no reason to argue over the language.

Damn, Darryl, samples like that, trade secret, but no time to develop them? What a let down.

It's reminiscent of the intellectual property rules of my current employer. We have to submit just any idea we come up with even peripherally related to the business (even if on our own time) to a committee to evaluate for patentability or general commercial viability. The vast majority of the time they say "not interested in pursuing at this time" which is code for "we're not going to do anything with it and you can't either."

So you end up with piles of great ideas that go nowhere. Just like your trade secrets.

For me the sound of the violas (I guess...?) I heard in the demo "Candlelight Seduction" (beginning) was very unappealing - kinda screamish... "meeehhhuuwww..." and the legato seemed off.
https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/ ... fessional/
Later in the track it sounds better - might be good for mystery scores in the vein of Psycho.

Overall from the demos it sounds like it's too small for a symphonic section and too big for a chamber section - and emotionally neutral. Not a sound I'd use very often. Perhaps tweakable with the mic positions.

Desmond Prod wrote: ↑Sep 08, 2018 7:13 pm For me the sound of the violas (I guess...?) I heard in the demo "Candlelight Seduction" (beginning) was very unappealing - kinda screamish... "meeehhhuuwww..." and the legato seemed off.

That second note is just cringeworthy, isn't it? I wonder what the internal dialogue at Spitfire is like. Do they actually like the way this library sounds, and they're proud of it overall? Or is it more that they've already sunk so much investment into they don't have a choice but to release it to market and try to recoup some of that investment?

I truly hope they've learned from this project and the brass and woodwinds come out much better.

Oh, and welcome to The Sound Board, Desmond!

Thanks for the welcome tack!

Yea, I also wonder if they really like that sound and the library overall... sound is more subjective, so it could be. But they can't think that the legato is even near the same level as Cinematic Studio Strings for example. They invite that comparison with their name, lol!
It sounds just about "usable". Inconsistent. In places it sounds good, in others it sounds strange - all from the demos.

I give up. The sales pitch isn't just cringeworthy (Santana, really?...and if he says 'Scandi' one more time I'm reaching for a drink...) but actually a hindrance. I can't even really figure out what this library IS or sounds like completely. What I CAN hear tells me that my previous notion that SF strings were basically about the sound/Air lyndhurst (as opposed to legatos, which CH doesn't even use) and Evos was correct, for my uses anyway. CH's demos actually sound good to me...but honestly I just don't care anymore at the moment. I think for a closer, studio-ish sound a combo of Sable C mics/EVOs, 8dio/LASS w/ SPAT is good enough for me right now.

You appear to have winced at the exact same moment as I did. (Although that wasn't too difficult, as I winced more or less all the way through: I can listen for hours to Paul, but for some reason Christian talks and talks and talks and handwhisks his way to my saturation point in under 30 seconds.)
But yeah, the piece does indeed highlight, in very skilfull way, what the Studio Strings are quite good at. Maybe I should start doing Scandi too.

_

I have no problem with the sound of the 'Scandi-style' at all really. Sounds great. But it's a lot like many other 'popular' styles (post rock, doom metal, this new strain of left field techno played via modular systems) in that it seems full of possibilities but usually leaves me cold musically. And if he likes Santana, hey, great.

And I don't dislike CH or even find this demo unhelpful. No string library can do everything (within the tiny range that libraries can do) and many SF libraries like the evos or Tundra are advertised as JUST doing the one or two things they do. Fine. But as far as I can tell this was meant to be 'Sable in a studio' and from here it seems like they haven't gotten it there yet. What I'm tired of is the detective work while wading through the sales pitch. But I guess that's also my fault since I want to be excited for a new SF release.

I guess that's the point. If it can do Scandi Noir (along with about 10 of their other libs?) then that's wonderful. But if it isn't up to the basics because of missing core articulations, it seems a stretch to call it a versatile and professional library.

I honestly think that the Scandi thing has been flogged to death, and I find it difficult to listen to unless accompanied with something interesting going on in the video. Everything sounds like the detective has just arrived at the crime scene where body was found. Perhaps I'm just pining for melody.

I think it's about time we moved on, at least in a geographic sense, perhaps to something that a bit more challenging than long, scratchy, stringy sounds. How about Salsa Strings, or Yodelling Strings. Now that I'd love to listen too. At least I think I might.