Attention:

Welcome to the old forum. While it is no longer updated, there is a wealth of information here that you may search and learn from.

To partake in the current forum discussion, please visit https://forums.presonus.com

East West Symphonic Choirs

A Forum to Discuss NOTION

East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby GaryExo » Thu Jan 09, 2014 11:53 am

I was wondering if anyone could report on what it's like using EWQLSC with Notion now. I did read through everything I could find on here but it all dates back a little way now and I wondered if things are perhaps somewhat improved these days. The library seems to sound very good indeed and contains true, full, discrete sections for SATB.

I'm very tempted to buy it just now because of another of East West's generous half-price sales!
User avatar
GaryExo
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:28 am
Location: UK

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby DaddyO » Thu Jan 09, 2014 3:57 pm

Irrespective of how EW Symphonic Choirs works with Notion (something I haven't tried), be absolutely sure before you buy it that you understand all the work you are in for to produce anything that sounds decent. I don't mean the sampled sounds, I mean the use of Word Builder to create words that sound anything like what you might want. And once you learn the rocket science of that process, then you have to live within it's systemic limitations for properly connecting the words to their appropriate notes, a very frustrating process.

Oh, it can all be done, and you will hear demos that prove it. But you will spend 90%-plus of your time fighting Word-Builder and 10% of your time composing for choir, and that's probably too generous an estimate. There always seem to be people around who are either especially gifted at such things or enjoy the process. All I'm saying is half price (which I excitedly paid for Symphonic Choirs several years ago) becomes not such a good deal if you can't actually use the product the way you thought you could.
________________
SacredSymphonics
DaddyO
 
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:44 pm

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby GaryExo » Fri Jan 10, 2014 8:56 am

Thanks for sharing your experience, DaddyO. That's quite depressing though. Is it really that difficult? Might it be easier to handle in a DAW? I also use Ableton Live.

What are the presets in WordBuilder? I have in mind a Miserere which I want to get down on paper. The majority of the work will feature just that one word, "Miserere".

Anyone else have any thoughts?
User avatar
GaryExo
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:28 am
Location: UK

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby DaddyO » Fri Jan 10, 2014 2:43 pm

GaryExo wrote: Might it be easier to handle in a DAW?


Wasn't for me, that's where I used it. The difficulties are inherent in the EWQL Symphonic Choirs Word Builder interface.

What are the presets in WordBuilder? I have in mind a Miserere which I want to get down on paper. The majority of the work will feature just that one word, "Miserere".


Well, if all you want to do is one word, it would become much less total work. But you should be aware that it's not a couple of clicks and away you go with a word. You have to learn the available phonemes, learn how to mix, match and combine them with just the right curves and tweaks to get them to sound plausible.

Then, you get to the difficulties of matching that word in your note sequences over the extent of your piece. It is NOT user friendly in this regard. The samples are great. The interface is daunting to get words to sound the way you want.
________________
SacredSymphonics
DaddyO
 
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:44 pm

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby Surfwhammy » Fri Jan 10, 2014 8:25 pm

These vocal products are intriguing . . .

Image

Voices of Prague (Virharmonic)

Image

Soloists of Prague (Virharmonic)

Lots of FUN! :)
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
Surfwhammy
 
Posts: 1137
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:45 am

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby DaddyO » Sat Jan 11, 2014 1:32 pm

Yes, people seem to like this much more up-to-date library, Surfwhammy. They have produced video overviews of their product as well.
________________
SacredSymphonics
DaddyO
 
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2010 12:44 pm

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby GaryExo » Sat Jan 11, 2014 3:03 pm

Interesting, Surfwhammy. Thanks. I didn't know of this library at all. I have to say the demos don't sound good to me but I suspect it's the fault of the use of a terrible reverb which gives everything an almost metallic sheen. Very unrealistic. I also hate the GUI. I can appreciate what they're trying to do with it but I don't like the look. It also looks to me as if it would be just as tricky to use as EWQLSC. Do you use this, Surfwhammy?
User avatar
GaryExo
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:28 am
Location: UK

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby Surfwhammy » Sun Jan 12, 2014 8:21 am

DaddyO wrote:Yes, people seem to like this much more up-to-date library, Surfwhammy. They have produced video overviews of their product as well.


The videos and audio clips are intriguing and, as explained below, I like the phonetic keyboard strategy, but at present this software is not something I can afford, so I check on it every so often and ponder the idea of using it sometime . . .

GaryExo wrote:Interesting, Surfwhammy. Thanks. I didn't know of this library at all. I have to say the demos don't sound good to me but I suspect it's the fault of the use of a terrible reverb which gives everything an almost metallic sheen. Very unrealistic. I also hate the GUI. I can appreciate what they're trying to do with it but I don't like the look. It also looks to me as if it would be just as tricky to use as EWQLSC. Do you use this, Surfwhammy?


[NOTE: I do not have these products, but I have been pondering them for a while, and I like the information I have found. They are a bit outside of my current budget, but "Soloists of Prague" is not so expensive . . . ]

THOUGHTS

I have been doing research for a long time on various systems for transcribing vocal sounds, where "stenography" is the more formal name and "shorthand" is the colloquial name, with the general idea being to use a set of phonemes and corresponding symbols to represent vocalizations very rapidly, essentially recording on paper with pencil at the same speed as the vocalizations are uttered, and in most systems this is done using different types of symbols, acronyms, abbreviations, and so forth, some of which are called "speed graphs" . . .

Texting is a type of stenography, as is Morse Code, although more so when enhanced with special codes, acronyms, and abbreviations . . .

This aspect is important when one is considering systems for music vocalizations, because in contrast to musical instruments, voices have not only (a) the standard qualities of musical instruments (pitch, duration, and so forth) but also (b) the additional set of language qualities, and the latter requires a vocabulary, which is the way vocalizing musical software and stenography are related . . .

In other words, vocalizing musical software needs to have a language, and I like the phonetic language provided by the VIRHARMONIC products, which is more of a phonetic alphabet than a language, per se . . .

No matter how it is done, you need to know how things sound, where an example is the Latin word "eccelsis", which when sung literally is virtually indecipherable in a cathedral that has vast reverberation, hence the strategy to sing "egg-shell-sea-us", even though the "-us" part makes no obvious phonetic sense . . .

[NOTE: If you listen carefully starting at approximately 1:48 in the following YouTube music video, the purpose of the "-us" part is easier to understand, where the key bit of information is that it is sung very rapidly. . . ]

"Gloria in Eccelsis Deo" (Mozart) ~ YouTube music video

In some respects, vocalists tend to sing phonemes, but instead of working directly with phonemes I think it is easier and more logical to work with the primitive units provided by a phonetic alphabet, which is where the phonetic alphabet of the VIRHARMONIC products becomes intriguing, since it provides a tailored keyboard style metaphor for creating phonemes, where the key design aspect is avoiding abstractions, which explained another way maps to everything sounding accurate in the sense of "what you see is what you hear" . . .

The difficult aspect is that words do not always sound the way they are written in formal English, and this aspect requires devoting a bit of attention to discovering how to write words the way they are heard, which is where the phonetic alphabet of the VIRHARMONIC products becomes very important . . .

It might be a bit slow at first, but (a) music notation is a bit slow at first and (b) the reality is that specifying stuff accurately requires attention to detail . . .

My perspective on the various videos and audio samples at the VIRHARMONIC website is that they were not done with a calibrated full-range studio monitor system, so unless you have the same studio monitor system, the singing will not sound so clear, but I think this is a matter of producing, mixing, and mastering rather than a problem with the actual sampled sounds and engine . . .

I think everything is there, but you need to be able to hear it accurately when producing, mixing, and mastering to get it to sound realistic; and there also is the matter of styles and the ways certain types of singing are "expected" to be heard, where as a general rule nearly all digitally sampled choral stuff basically sounds to me like "blah, blah, blah . . . " with respect to being even remotely clear and easy to understand as a mapping to actual words, although this is strongly dependent upon genres and how familiar or unfamiliar they might be, where part of the problem with some types of choral music is that the language is Latin, which will not make a lot of sense when it is an unfamiliar language . . .

[NOTE: This is a stellar example of things sounding different from the way they are written . . . ]

"Bo Peep" (T-ARA) ~ YouTube music video

As noted, I do not have the Virharmonic products, but I know a good bit about stenographic systems, music production software, and so forth; and I am intrigued by the Virharmonic products, because the things that I consider to be important appear to be present, which is fabulous . . .

Fabulous! :)
The Surf Whammys

Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution!
User avatar
Surfwhammy
 
Posts: 1137
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 4:45 am

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby ottomc » Sun Jan 12, 2014 5:59 pm

DaddyO wrote:
you will spend 90%-plus of your time fighting Word-Builder and 10% of your time composing for choir, and that's probably too generous an estimate.


I definitely agree :(

GaryExo wrote:
I also hate the GUI. I can appreciate what they're trying to do with it but I don't like the look. It also looks to me as if it would be just as tricky to use as EWQLSC.


I find the GUI rather functional -- and the VOP is a breeze to use compared to EWCLSC. I agree with Surfwhammy's comments on the phonetic approach of the Virharmonic products. It makes sense when you try to set music to lyrics in various languages. And there are many ways to tweak the phonetic units (volume, attack, delay and release) and lots of other useful (and intuitive) settings. The UVI engine is a stable and easy to use platform -- and The Prague Philharmonic Choir is a professional, first class ensemble, which seems to have been sampled in a decent way. At least this is the best choral library I have come across that makes it possible to let Notion sing a cappella in an appropriate way. If choral elements are used only in orchestral settings, there are many libraries that will do the job, I suppose, but a cappella writing with real lyrics (and not only vowels) is the real test for the quality of a choral library, as I see it. And VOP is my preferred tool in that respect. So I would recommend VOP rather than EWQLSC, as you understand. I have posted an cappella piece I recently made with VOP + SOP + Notion in the "Share Notion files" forum,

http://forum.notionmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5636

Best regards,
Otto
Otto Martin Christensen
www.faidros.no
ottomc
 
Posts: 75
Joined: Sat Apr 10, 2010 6:14 pm
Location: Norway

Re: East West Symphonic Choirs

Postby GaryExo » Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:38 pm

Thanks for your input, Otto, and thank you for posting the choral piece too.

I think I have too many doubts to sink any money into any of the choir libraries at the moment.

Regarding EWQLSC, I found a series of videos on YouTube and thought that working in WordBuilder looked rather easy. I've done much more complicated manipulation of audio and effects processing for my electronic projects, Voym and Urvux. So, I don't see that as a problem but I'm very unsure how well it works in conjunction with a sequencer.

Voices Of Prague does not sound convincing at all to me, rather artificial.

I think my favourite just now might be Requiem Professional although it looks as if it doesn't contain discrete SATB sections. It does sound superb and seems very intuitive with a lovely interface too.
User avatar
GaryExo
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Wed Oct 17, 2012 8:28 am
Location: UK


Return to NOTION

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 21 guests