Smoothening VSL strings with VI Pro in Notion

[ottomc]

Dear fellow Notion users,

As already mentioned in a recent post (http://forum.notionmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3003#p11600), I am definitely a notation-centric guy, but through my work with Notion I have become fascinated by the prospect of closing the gap between the ideal, aural image you perceive within and what you actually hear with your ears. This has made me purchase several orchestral libraries that Notion supports natively. Thus, I recently acquired vol 3 of the VSL SE, i.e. the volume containing the "Apassionata strings".

I know that working with strings generally is considered the most demanding task when you try to approach sonic realism with sample libraries. Myself, I would prefer to do all music making via notation, and if the end result is not supposed to be the audio produced by your samples, Notion's bundled string samples are more than sufficient -- easy to work with, and giving you a good picture of how your ideas will work in the real world. But if you want to come even closer to reality in terms of sonic realism, I realize that VSL offers a lot of possibilities (like EWQL and other libraries).

Upon finishing the download of the Appasionata strings, I immediately sketched a little string sequence for test purposes in N4 (standard string section -- 1st and 2nd vlns, violas, celli and basses). I quickly found out that the "soft attack" articulation did not work -- but I suppose this is one of the things that will be fixed in the reported reworking of the VSL implementation, since the soft attack articulation was working with VSL strings in N3. It works with Notion's bundled samples, though, and also with un-muted strings in EWQL (where the soft attack articulation produces quite a nice swell).

The soft attack articulation generally seems useful as a quick and easy shortcut to avoid the "kickoff" feeling you get with sampled string ensembles, and which is particularly annoying when you let the strings play with mute. The onset of all the six phrases of my Appassionata test-sequence sounded very unnatural -- the rough "vah"-attack being particularly prominent in the phrases played with mute (phrase 2, 4, 5, 6). The soft attack articulation could have brought some smoothening into the picture, but since this shortcut so far is missing in the VSL-implementation of N4, I started to look at the tweaking possibilities in the VI PRO Player (Vienna Instruments PRO 2 sample player), which I -- as a non-techy notation-guy -- have not given very much attention so far. I soon found out that the sound of my little string sequence easily could be smoothened by activating and adjusting the attack and humanize parameters in the VI PRO window. And adding some reverb will also help in this respect, of course. Since my string sequence is moving slowly and is written in a late Romantic and/or cinematic mood, I thought that a very spacious reverb environment would be fitting, and accordingly chose the Cathedral preset from the Hybrid reverb of Vienna Suite.

This is how the sequence sounds after VI Pro-tweaking (and with Cathedral reverb):

http://soundcloud.com/ottomc/vsl-appasionata-with

And this is how it sounded before VI Pro-tweaking (with the same Cathedral reverb, though):

http://soundcloud.com/ottomc/vsl-appasionata-without

On this background, I have the following question to my fellow members of the Notion forum,

Do you have any further tips and tricks when it comes to making sampled strings sound smooth and natural in Notion (VSL or other libraries)?


Best regards,
Otto

[Shelley]

great post!

thanks for doing that.

Shelley

[Surfwhammy]

Nice strategy!

The starts and transitions are very smooth, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous!

[ottomc]

Thanks, guys