The Sound Board

Musical Sampling has released another woodwind, the Gabrielle Flute. Intro price $49, from December 12th the price will rise to $79.
The demos make a convincing case for the Gabrielle, as well as for not-just-developer-but-also-composer Aaron Sapp. Nice piece by Jean-Gabriel Raynaud as well.



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Man, this sounds excellent.

very good, although I feel a certain "rigidity" in the sound and connections, don't have a better term to describe it

Leandro’s presentation sounds stunning to me, to be honest

it is, though for orchestral I think I'd rather still use vsl flute 1, the old vi version. It's highly subjective (and can't be more subjective for someone whose name is Soggetti). Example (I've also played a bit further on the Prokofiev score):

I only have the SE winds, but they’ve been my go to winds and I still think they sound great. Still, the Gabrielle for that price… (sigh)

Lawrence wrote: ↑Nov 22, 2022 3:02 pm I only have the SE winds, but they’ve been my go to winds and I still think they sound great. Still, the Gabrielle for that price… (sigh)

yes I understand, I bought it too, and I'll find a use for it. But honestly, with all affection and respect for Aaron, the vsl is superior in many respects, and at the same price if I'm not wrong. The tone is more natural, at least for an European who has studied classical flute. There are places where the MS flute sounds almost like a clarinet or a recorder... the legato is very fast, which is good for fast lines, but not expressive in slow singing melodies (not as the vsl anyway). The delayed vibrato has the non vib portion too long, which results in an almost constantly non vib sound. Again, not the best for expressive paying. The sustains are rather short, about 7 sec, and may cause problems in sustained melodies. The vsl has 9 GB of content installed, with stacc, sfz, portato, sus with and without vibrato, flatterzunge, two legatos, trills, repetitions...


EDIT: and last minute addition of 22% vat raises the price to more than 60 € for us Italians

Sometimes I forget that you’re a flautist, Rob! Thanks for the review.

by manipulating the sample start and assign it to cc2 I was able to (kind of) get a more immediate vibrato and consequently a more pleasant phrasing, with the collateral effect of having still shortened the durations of samples... also made the transitions slightly longer, tomorrow I'll post an example of this improved (to me) patch.

so here is the patch, based on the "workhorse tuned". The vibrato arriving sooner makes it more in line with what I'd have played on the real instrument... the orchestral arrangement is rather clumsy, found it on the net, had to correct some of the notes and added some horns to beef it up a bit. The sound of the flute though now I like better and almost makes me make peace with the instrument:

edit: some pops in the audio, gonna correct and re-upload

Sounds nice, Rob.
(“Sounds nice, Rob” has become a sentence with distinctly pleonasmic qualities, hasn’t it? The ‘nice’ being completely superfluous when the sentence begins with “Sounds” and ends with your name. Can’t be anything other than ‘nice’ in between. Or it should be: ‘very nice’.)

I must say, I don’t share your apprehension of the Gabrielle as it is being sold. I quite like it as it is. But then I’m not a flutist and I would also not use it for slow, dreamy material like “Clair de lune” — over the past years, I encountered two people who believed this music was written specifically for “Ocean’s Eleven”, ain’t that sad? — or something similar. I think of it more as a butterfly-type of flute. The Barker clarinet is also an instrument which works best, to my ears, in agile phrases that steer clear of long sustained notes.

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damn I may well be imagining things... this morning I tried a direct comparison with the stock patch and can't hear a noticeable difference. I feel ashamed everytime I realize how variable is my perception. Can't trust myself

I'm not completely imagining things though... so, even if this thread has become my solitary therapy corner, here is a direct comparison between the unaltered patch and my customized one. Trills are better in the original, but for the rest I like the customized better...

I agree, Rob. So, no, you're certainly not imagining things. For certain things (in this particular example), your edited patch sounds better, at other moments, the original delivers a more fitting performance. Keep, use and combine both, it seems to me, it's a convincing combination.

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Piet De Ridder wrote: ↑Nov 26, 2022 4:39 am I agree, Rob. So, no, you're certainly not imagining things. For certain things (in this particular example), your edited patch sounds better, at other moments, the original delivers a more fitting performance. Keep, use and combine both, it seems to me, it's a convincing combination.

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true, it seems that when notes move fast the original works better, as in trills... my search for the perfect patch will continue. (but I'll stop posting here as it only seems to matter to me )