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JLocke View Drop Down
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Virtual Instruments?
    Posted: March 28 2009 at 16:04
Hello, all.
 
I'm not sure how many people know about my musical project, but I'm desperate to find help anywhere I can. So far I've gotten about three or four really cool musicians to help me record my musical ideas, and even write some additions of their own!
 
However, my vision of the final product is still miles away, and I'm needing to find as many different resources as possible.
 
I only play guitar, and a little piano. However, the music I am writing includes violins, cellos, many different types of percussion, etc. and I'm afraid that despite the help I have (and it is greatly appreciated guys, truly. And I hope our contributions will continue), I still won't be able to fulfill what I have in my head musically without the abilty to have virtually any instrument at my disposal.
 
So of course, I'm looking into virtual instrument programs. So far I have found this one, and the samples offered on their site are nothing short of extraordinary:
 
But I wanted to know if anyone else here has heard about or uses similar programs at better prices, and if so, could you please help me out by listing them here, and perhaps directing me to some audio samples as well?
 
Thank you so much to whoever responds to this. I am completely new to this whole thing, so I need help in knowing what to use and for what reasons, etc.
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cobb2 View Drop Down
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Points: 415 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 17:41
The price looks to be a bit over the top, but I am sure the sounds would be brilliant if you want to write symphonies. However, the VST's (Vitual Synth plug-ins) that come with most Recording Suites (Sonar, Ableton, etc), are quite adequate for adding these type of sounds, and you just write them out on a staff as you would with guitar pro. The purpose of these VST's is to get away from using your crappy sound card to generate the synth sounds. I use Sonar, as you know, and it has quite a few VST's available out of the box. I used to be quite happy with the Cakewalk TTS-1 plug-in synth (made by Roland) and it did quite a good job of producing digitally generated instrument sounds. After all, most string sounds you hear on record are not recorded orchestra, but synth generated. I used the TTS-1 as a soft synth plug-in before I purchased the Roland SonicCell, which I now use as a hardware plug-in and sound card.

The trick to using these synth plug-ins is to write the tracks as midi, then record that to another track as a wav (true audio), then you have access to all the wonderful audio effects plug-ins.

What you need to do is get away from audacity and move to a real music suite. If money is a problem- t*rr***ts.
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JLocke View Drop Down
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 17:45
^ Would turning my Guitar Pro files into midis, then running them through one of the plugins you are talking about work well enough without sounding 'fake'?
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cobb2 View Drop Down
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Points: 415 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 19:08
Once you get a decent music studio, you will probably never use Guitar pro again to write. Guitar pro is a midi system, it just uses the guitar pro engine to generate the sounds. This is much the same as using VST's to generate the sound, but they do it better.

But yes- export out of Guitar Pro as midi, import into a studio (your individual tracks still remain as individual midi tracks when you import into a studio), record each track onto an audio track individually and use the effects filters on each of the audio tracks. This is what I did to your drums. It also gives you the opportunity, before dumping to audio, to change the instrument patch on the midi track (which I did to your drums).

But like I said, get a decent studio package and you will be doing all your writing there as midi. You will have access to a larger number of instrument patches, not just the standard 128 midi allocations, and they will sound better via the VST.

Some things will still sound fake- in particular guitars and drums, but all the keyboard sounds will be true- this is, afterall, how a keyboard (read synth) works.

The only downside is that they are professional tools and there will be a rather steep learning curve involved before you are comfortable using them.


Edited by cobb2 - March 28 2009 at 19:19
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JLocke View Drop Down
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 19:19
All I'm concerned about are the violin sounds. If they can sound real this way, that is how I go about getting those sounds.
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 19:20
Which recording suite would you recommend I look into?
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Dean View Drop Down
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 19:25

Imported midi files playing out-of-the-box samples will sound fake - you will have to work at them to make them sound natural. The best way to do this is by experimentation.

When creating strings I will build up several cellos, violins and violas using multiple VST plug-in instruments to give the depth I want - and will avoid playing chords on them because that is unnatural for the instrument. I will also use different samplers with different patches for each way a note is played - for example I'll have a sampler with vibrato and one without so I can add vibrato to individual notes in a bar, and have another for pizzicato etc.

Even when faking a guitar I will use six plug-ins, one for each string and adjust the tone of each accordingly - that way when I program a strum or even a raked chord it sounds more natural than just hitting a chord on the one sampler. I will also check that a particular run of notes is physically possible to play on that instrument - eg not leaping from 2nd fret on the A string to 17th fret on the B string in quater notes.
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cobb2 View Drop Down
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Points: 415 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 19:33
You will get violin sounds that sound like the are generated by a synth- as an indvidual instrument ie setting the patch to violin, you will run into the same problem as a guitar sound, but as any of the myriad full string sections it will sound just like any other recording you have heard where an actual orchestra hasn't been used.

I use Sonar (cakewalk), but the choice is yours. Progfreak uses Ableton, Sony's Acid also has a good rep.

Most offer demo versions on their sites.

However, I will also mention that you need a decent system to run them- once you start dealing with VST plug-ins, effect plug-ins you are looking at high CPU usage. Also, if you don't have a high end speaker system plugged into your computer, everything is gonna sound like crap anyway.
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 19:51
two VST plug-ins playing the same patch will not sound like two instruments - it will sound like one instrument played louder - the second instrument's patch will have to be tweaked to sound slightly different to the first, or better still, use a different set of samples.
 
Also, to make an instrument sound more natural it is necessary to listen to how a real instrument is played and attempt to mimick that in midi using automation to adjust the patch through out the bar for each note if necessary.
 
I agree that the full string section patches will never sound like an orchestra, so should only really be used as pads.
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 28 2009 at 21:54
Well, I love the Violin. It's a beautiful instrument. Maybe I should just find an actual Violin player to help me with the recording. It may take longer, but at least it will sound right.
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Dean View Drop Down
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2009 at 05:01
^ there is no harm in trying to use virtual violin to approximate what you want so to give the violinist an idea of what you are after.
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Mr ProgFreak View Drop Down
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2009 at 09:45
I recently read a review of the Vienna symphonic instruments ... they are expensive, but worth the money. But for smaller projects they're kind of overkill ...

Last year I purchased Ableton Live 7 Suite, which contains a nice collection of (multi)sampled instruments:

http://www.ableton.com/eic

They also have a collection that specialises in orchestra instruments:

http://www.ableton.com/oic

I think that you should try to find instruments like that ... simulated instruments (like Vienna) are really cool but *very* expensive if done properly.
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Points: 67381 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 29 2009 at 14:00
I recently found this site with free orchestral instrument samples.
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JLocke View Drop Down
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 30 2009 at 19:04
^ I guess I'm a total idiot, but what are .aiff files? Would I be able to utilize them to play virtualyl any melody I need, and in what program can they be used?
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 30 2009 at 19:20
.aiff files are lossless audio files, like wav files - they are used to store the instrument samples as high-quality sources (rather than low quality mp3's for example) that can be loaded into the VST sampler. .aiff is more common on Apple based systems, but most PC based systems can handle them.
 
While most VST samplers can take a single wave and transpose it to produce the full range of the instrument that sounds really fake - it is more common to have a multiple samples across the range so the VST instrument interpolates fewer notes to give a more realistic sound.
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JLocke View Drop Down
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 30 2009 at 20:30

Would Sonar be able to deal with these types of files?
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Mr ProgFreak View Drop Down
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Points: 5195 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2009 at 02:04
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

 
While most VST samplers can take a single wave and transpose it to produce the full range of the instrument that sounds really fake - it is more common to have a multiple samples across the range so the VST instrument interpolates fewer notes to give a more realistic sound.


Indeed. In fact, modern high quality samples not only use one dedicated sample per note, but even several samples for different velocities/articulations. No matter how well a sample was recorded, if it's always the same the brain will notice that and it will sound unrealistic/artificial, especially for drum sounds.


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cobb2 View Drop Down
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Points: 415 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 31 2009 at 05:52
This is one of the reasons I purchased the Roland SonicCell as my  VST plug-in for Sonar.

The SonicCell also has two expansion slots for SRX cards to be plugged in. Go here to listen to what they produce. 


Try the drum card and tell me in a recording that you would pick up that these are not real.

The sounds the SonicCell produces for keys are standard Roland perfection. I am about to add the drum and studio srx's to the two expansion slots and it will be the perfect tool for backing up me and my guitar.
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Points: 67 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 01 2009 at 12:17
Steinberg's Halion Symphonic Orchestra has a good reputation of its strings sounds. A lot of music technology brands have very good samples of various kind of instruments on the markets but the secret lies the way you use them. You must work accurately on every bit of the song when you really want a real sounding track thats why articulations are very important.


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