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Woodwind trills

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Woodwind trills

Postby thorrild » Sun Jun 15, 2014 6:22 pm

I promised in another post aimed at johnny and wilhoit that I would go over emails sent to Notion tech support to see if there is something worth posting for other forum participants. This is my first stab at it — an email dated May 13, 2013; let's see if it sounds informative to anyone else:

I just had occasion to wrestle with the woodwind trills in Notion 4 (Mac). They turn out to be all over the map as far as playback is concerned:

I made a simple test file (attached) to demonstrate the variety of trill playback in most of the woodwind samples. The same generic trill figure is played by a succession of samples for comparison:

Flute: Some delay before trill starts. Trill begins on base note (modern style).
Flute Duo: No discernable delay before trill starts. Trill starts on upper trill note (Baroque style trill)
Flute Section: No delay before trill starts. Baroque style trill. Faster (and, to me, better) trill speed.

Oboe: Ample delay before trill starts. Modern style trill.
Oboe Duo: Slight delay before trill starts. Baroque style trill.

Clarinet: Way too much delay before trill starts. (four-beat trill added just to demonstrate that it actually works). Modern style trill.
Clarinet Duo: Slight or no delay before trill starts. Modern style trill (as opposed to all other Duo samples so far).
Clarinet Section: No delay before trill starts. Impossible for me to hear if this is Modern or Baroque style trill.

Bassoon: Some delay before trill starts. Modern style trill.
Bassoon Duo: No delay before trill starts. Baroque style trill. (Btw, the sample sounds really woolly and wimpy compared to the solo Bsn.)

I did not test the rest of the woodwind section, but I would imagine you'll find similar strange variations.

I understand that it may be desirable not to have every sample in the section trilling in the same fashion, but shouldn't they be just a little closer in stylistic approach, speed and amount of delay?

For the future, I'd like to advocate for user-adjustable trills, similar to what fermatas and caesuras are now. You would double-click on a trill to determine delay, speed and starting pitch; maybe you could also set whether the trill should have a flat, sharp or natural next to its symbol, instead of making them three distinct, un-editable symbols as they are now.
Woodwind trills.notion
(134.17 KiB) Downloaded 414 times



Please bear in mind that this is not something intended as a demand for change immediately, or by next Monday. I have no illusions that Notion is going back to the LSO anytime soon to have those players re-record trills just because I point out some inconsistencies. I just wanted to make a record of it so that at least Notion knows what their users contend with — and that they notice.

Best,
Thorrild
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Re: Woodwind trills

Postby wilhoit » Sun Jun 15, 2014 6:41 pm

Most likely, all of this has to do with how the sample is looped (defined with the loop attributes in the XML). What we don't know is when that metadata is loaded and where or how durably it is cached; that, in turn, would determine how easy or safe it would be to make the parms adjustable on the fly.

...and what I want to know about ALL of these trills, plus the ones on the strings, is where's the Nachschlag ? That's one thing Sibelius gave me.
Frank Wilhoit
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Re: Woodwind trills

Postby Johnny » Sun Jun 15, 2014 10:57 pm

thorrild wrote:I understand that it may be desirable not to have every sample in the section trilling in the same fashion, but shouldn't they be just a little closer in stylistic approach, speed and amount of delay?

For the future, I'd like to advocate for user-adjustable trills, similar to what fermatas and caesuras are now. You would double-click on a trill to determine delay, speed and starting pitch; maybe you could also set whether the trill should have a flat, sharp or natural next to its symbol, instead of making them three distinct, un-editable symbols as they are now.


All good points Thorrild. You've described your observations well.
_Attention and changes are needed to make more realistic "Ornamentations" they seem anemic. (Editable "Ornamentation Parameters") as you have suggested would be a dream come true.

Without going over the deep-end with my own user requests;
I'd like to add a few to trill control;

----The "Turn" to the list (again!) for vst's if not internal sounds.
----Better grace note slur velocity and timing control.
----A better documented and expanded "Custom Rules Library".

----Add more conditional statements and commands like :

<if note-head = "green" then "xxxx" />

<---____or include an editable number to the note-head----/>
<if note-head-number = "2525" then "xxxx" /> <---(to trigger some action)---/>

<---____External MIDI pitch control---/>
<if MIDI pitch-bend = "up" then pitch-bend = 64+1, repeat 63x each .01 sec. />
<---***(or something like that).---/>


******Similar means of testing for conditions and more directives for actions.********

-----Also add to the wish list:
Diligent attempts to address needed feature updates and bug fixes ie. (piano x-staff, harp techniques, guitar neck chord editor, drum note input and editing, more overall staff notation editing features).

I'm just rambling on now so I'll stop.

I'm sure Notion Software has some great ideas and could make big changes if they had the go-ahead.
There is obviously lots of potential in Notion software.
I'm not a developer. I have gone to school for and worked with multi-media software (Shockwave & Flash) for years and really enjoy the power of there scripting languages. That's why I like the custom rules in Notion software.

And yes, I think we always want more. Rare if we are satisfied with stasis.
Being thankful however, I have to remind myself that as for notation software Notion is light years beyond what I had in my early years using "Deluxe Music Construction Set" on the Amiga Platform. And before that "Scoretrack" for Commodore 64
which was created by developer Dr. Gerhard Lengeling who today is well none for his creation of "Garage Band" "Logic Pro X" and other popular software and presently is (Sr. Director, Software Engineering Music Apps. Apple Computers). I loved Scoretrack back in the day. It's was quite cleverly designed for efficiency.

Anyway, I believe Notion is close and has the potential to become a "quasi" complete music notation, composition and playback performance software. It's great.
I'm not sure where the competition is ie. "Overture 5?, Sibelius ?, Finale ?, Cubase ?, Sonar ? etc. etc.

***I'm glad I chose Notion when I got back into notation software and started using vst's more often back in 2009-2010.
( I was stuck with piano-roll, MIDI/Audio using Cakewalk 3.x>>Sonar-x2 before getting into vst's). I've sold most of my old MIDI gear.
***I'm also glad to have Studio One Pro. Together they are the best of both worlds for me.

*******************
So then, I hope Notion will aggressively address the issues and suggestions we all mention in this web forum.

,Johnny

P.s. Thorrild, I do like the concise way you described your point and observations about trill's. There are inconsistencies and latency issues that need more user input to shape there projection.
I've avoided addressing there limitations for years by thinking that they will get some attention sooner or later. They've gotten some updating but need more as you've described.
I really think the points you've clearly mentioned could be logically and easily changed once and for all.
Again, let's hope Presonus/Notion will make good and useful changes soon.


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