What Other Instruments Will You Do?
I'm currently using your amazing Gofriller Cello and to some extent find your Stradivarius violin useful (the problem is that the violin is so much better in ensembles that it's a bit too thin to be useful for me!), and although I'm amazed by your trumpet and sax demos I haven't needed those instruments just yet. As soon as I do I'll be buying them.
Well anyway I'm writing to ask what you're planning. For me it would just amazing to have flute, oboe, clarinet... And then why stop there....? Electric and acoustic guitars, duduk, bass guitar... Your approach is so much more realistic and expressive than everyone elses that you could dominate the market with a full collection of expressive instruments.
Then the big thing would be to have like 12 different violins, all separately being intelligently played back with the variety of a real string section, all reacting to a single MIDI performance with the nuances of your existing instruments.
And a choir...
I mean.. all you would need to run this is a computer with lots of cpu and memory right? And now there's 64 bit octocore Xeons and macs that's all possible isn't it?
I have the EWQL symphony orchestra and the entire Vienna Intruments collection and its fine for mockups and loud scary staccato bits but to bring the music to life I have to get a well edited Gofriller Cello sound and turn it up in the mix, and because it knows what I'm trying to do (because I played it!) it often sounds better than a real cellist. Your products are that much more expressive than everyone else's.
Well sorry to go on but it does seem like you're the saviours of future virtual music! I suspect that you're the only ones who can bring the virtual orchestra dream to its proper colourful, expressive fruition, so all my hopes are on your shoulders!
Employ yourself 100 staff and hurry up!
Well anyway I'm writing to ask what you're planning. For me it would just amazing to have flute, oboe, clarinet... And then why stop there....? Electric and acoustic guitars, duduk, bass guitar... Your approach is so much more realistic and expressive than everyone elses that you could dominate the market with a full collection of expressive instruments.
Then the big thing would be to have like 12 different violins, all separately being intelligently played back with the variety of a real string section, all reacting to a single MIDI performance with the nuances of your existing instruments.
And a choir...
I mean.. all you would need to run this is a computer with lots of cpu and memory right? And now there's 64 bit octocore Xeons and macs that's all possible isn't it?
I have the EWQL symphony orchestra and the entire Vienna Intruments collection and its fine for mockups and loud scary staccato bits but to bring the music to life I have to get a well edited Gofriller Cello sound and turn it up in the mix, and because it knows what I'm trying to do (because I played it!) it often sounds better than a real cellist. Your products are that much more expressive than everyone else's.
Well sorry to go on but it does seem like you're the saviours of future virtual music! I suspect that you're the only ones who can bring the virtual orchestra dream to its proper colourful, expressive fruition, so all my hopes are on your shoulders!
Employ yourself 100 staff and hurry up!
Comments
Thanks,
Pat
I cannot properly answer. Mr. Garritan is not entitled to distribute the Stradivari or the Gofriller as a different product than the K2 version we developed.
Best,
Giorgio
So far this approach hasn't work on sampled instruments, even with samplemodeling.
Yes I love samplemodeling, but to me the 3 different trumpets when played together don't sound quite right.
What seems to work, at least in my opinion, is to layer the samplemodeling instruments with the ensembles and sections we all have already from other libraries that you mentioned.
Samplemodeling provides the expression and the other libraries - the body. The result is amazing.
People have been doing this for years, layering sampled solo instruments with ensembles and it seems to work much better than the approach of building an entire section/ensemble out of just sampled solo instruments.
A good violin and cello made by samplemodeling layered with the sampled ensembles from other libraries is going to make my day.
Having said that I am not trying to discourage anything I think the idea of having different violins is great, but probably 3 is enough. And probably samplemodeling has alreayd new ideas and figured out a new way to overcome this so who knows.
I personally can't wait for having samplemodeling solo strings so I can do some proper string quartets.
Choir...
Choir is very interesting but I think the same applies here, if samplemodeling did solo voices and if they sounded as great as their instruments do, then we're in for a ride people.
like chaim said lots of luck for your future instruments
Pat
And politically speaking, maybe the team would prefer us not to talk about their previous marriage :-)
Plus, these are great and all that but they don't sound good and the reason for that is that they were made with garritan. The sound just isn't good for alot of garritan products, the new piano being an expection though.
Samplemodeling with Peter S. (which has made some of the most beautifully sounding libraries in the past) have all the conditions to make a violin and a cello that will blow our minds.
Regards,
Pat
Regards,
Pat
exactly :-)
It seems like Trumpet and Trombone instruments would be a no-brainer pairing good for both orchestral and jazz. In fact Trombone with Bass Trombone would be a killer instrument, where saxes are used very little today in scoring. (for better or worse) The fact is that almost nobody has been able to get really good solo Trombone smears (slide effects) integrated in a sample instrument yet and it seems that this would be much more in demand than a solo sax instrument.
Anyone else agree?
Apart from that I would really, really, REALLY, like a French Horn!
:-)
If you go to the garittan's listening area you will find some user's songs using these two wonderful instruments.
I admit that some are not very good at all (even the best real instrument will not sound nice with bad musician) and some are really amazing (i will try to find for you some tonight...)
Have you tried yourself this instrument ?
Like the new vsti using this technology (The trumpet and Mr Sax T) you have to consider them like musical instruments and not like vsti. So like real instruments you need to pratice to reveal the best of them but after this it's great because you are free.
With some very nice librairies, like VSL, you have "out of the box" wonderful sound that able you to reproduce perfectly a well known piece of music but you have to prepare (program will i say) everything in advance.
You are not free to play live like a real instrument.
This is the fondamental difference between the two concepts (aside from the cost of money and disk space ...). The two methods aim the same goal (reaching the holy graal of perfectly imitate real instruments) but use differents ways.
The garritan violin and cello are great tools but they simply sound awful.
I mean sure I guess with alot of work you can make it do a half-job for some applications which require a graspy/harsh sound like that. EQ and other guimicks can only take you so far, if the sound isn't there in the first place then it just isn't there.
I mean you can be the best musician and midi performance and producer it doesn't matter, some of the best works done with that violin and cello couldn't even convince my mom.
Clearly this is not the case for Samplemodeling in which The Trumpet and The Sax T are simply stuning, performance and sound-wise.
More than that these are true musical instruments, thing that the garritan V and C aren't. They are cold and clinical.
And that's what's really about, being musical not if you can fool your composer friend that you are using a real instrument or not.
Both the violin and the cello are not sold anymore (wonder why?) so no better time than now for a new samplemodeled violin and cello. 8-)
I use them quite a lot and the results are usually just amazing, especially with the cello. And yes, I know what a well recorded cello sounds like. I often work with one of the finest recording cellists here in Nashville. I am sorry for those who cannot purchase them and I'm glad I got them before they came off the market. Seems there's a tendency to knock something just because someone's name is linked to it.
We're all totally entitled to our opinions of course, and this is mine.
I don't know the source of the break between these fine gentlemen and Garritan, nor is it any of my business. But it would be great if violins and cellos could appear again sometime from this company.
And yes, the trumpet and sax are wonderful as well. I'd love to see some of the keyswitches as on the trumpet appear in a future update of the sax.
I did not response yet because i was planning to do (with Gofriller and Stradivari) a remake of a piece of music using cello and violin and to let people try to guess wich one the real one.
I do not know when but i am really thinking about it
what's your guess?
Giorgio
If i can give my humble opinion
I think that selling individual instrument would be a good solution if you give discount for the one who already own some other products.
Thus, the total price would not be too high for faithfull customers and in the other hand you will not miss some selling from people who only need one kind of sax (some people affraid from paying high price just for one instrument)
Flexibility is the key i think
Your really ruined your post with that sentence.
Quite simply there's also a tendency to say that if someone says something bad about this product or that product it's because they have a problem with the company. That's really paranoic and it's getting old.
All I can say is that my opinion is genuine, and that the refered product simply doesn't fit my musical needs. It does fit some people and that's just fine I can accept that.
It's really low to assume that someone's opinion is not valid for the reasons you stated, which are simply unfundamented.
All I can say is that my opinion is genuine, and that the refered product simply doesn't fit my musical needs. It does fit some people and that's just fine I can accept that.
...But what you said was not 'The Strad and Gofriller don't suit me.' You said that the Gofriller and Strad sound awful - which is blatantly nonsense.
It's fine if they don't suit you, but they are still the best stringed instruments to date. To some they may sound more synthetic than, for instance, the Vienna solo strings. But tone is only half the job in putting together a convincing performance - and even with a gazillion articultions the Vienna stuff can't replicate what Giorgio's technology achieves in the Strad and Gofriller. Every other instrument out there sounds like bunch of isolated samples strung clunkily together, no matter how beautifully recorded.
Possibly some renderings you know, done with the Strad and Gofriller, don't sound great - but it's possible to produce rubbish with any sample library. There are also plenty of recordings done with Garritan's instruments that are utterly convincing.
getting back to the original purpose of this thread...
I know you feel that there's no future in doing the whole orchestra, since there are enough offerings out there that come 'close enough.' You may well be right about string sections. I still think, though, that most would grab your arm off for a set of all the solo instruments, done in the same way as the trumpet (i.e. with three alternative instruments).
Since you've started with trumpet and sax, how about if you first finished the instruments we need for a big band (some alternative tenor saxes, alto saxes, baritone saxes, trombones) and then start adding the clarinet, flute, horns etc.
Let's face it, one of the shortcomings of sample-based music is still convincing section building. Having three flutes / clarinets / oboes, play divisi is almost impossible, because no single library provides three of each, so if you build up from indiviual instruments they never sound like they belong together. Play divisi with a section sample and it just sounds wrong. But to have each instrument also sound convincing, and have it's own character would just be incredible.
At the moment the most convincing sample renderings are those that go for the huge orchestral tutti, and hide all the blatant fakery in the mix. With your instruments we could finally have much more detailed chamber work that sounds real.
All I can say is that my opinion is genuine, and that the refered product simply doesn't fit my musical needs. It does fit some people and that's just fine I can accept that.
...But what you said was not 'The Strad and Gofriller don't suit me.' You said that the Gofriller and Strad sound awful - which is blatantly nonsense.
It's fine if they don't suit you, but they are still the best stringed instruments to date. To some they may sound more synthetic than, for instance, the Vienna solo strings. But tone is only half the job in putting together a convincing performance - and even with a gazillion articultions the Vienna stuff can't replicate what Giorgio's technology achieves in the Strad and Gofriller. Every other instrument out there sounds like bunch of isolated samples strung clunkily together, no matter how beautifully recorded.
Possibly some renderings you know, done with the Strad and Gofriller, don't sound great - but it's possible to produce rubbish with any sample library. There are also plenty of recordings done with Garritan's instruments that are utterly convincing.
Why is that nonsense? It is exactly because it sounds awful that it's useless to me and I am not alone on this.
It's all relative anyway we all have different tastes and preferences and certainly different aesthetics. So I don't understand what the fuzz is all about.
Yes the strad and the gof are the best solo strings, I have praised their performance capabilities many times before, my only grips is with the sound.
VSL? not a big fan of their sound, and yes alot of their sound sounds awful as well, but I recognize its quality and versatility.
Getting back to ensembles then...
If you check the news you will see that samplemodeling is already working with bringing us ensemble.
I don't know what they are doing but I still find that your idea of building ensembles out of just solo instruments is not going to work out well.
In fact I'm curious, what makes you think that this is the way?
So far all my experiments indicate otherwise.
Why is that nonsense? It is exactly because it sounds awful that it's useless to me and I am not alone on this.
It's all relative anyway we all have different tastes and preferences and certainly different aesthetics. So I don't understand what the fuzz is all about.
It's nonsense because you stated it as fact! As you quite rightly say, everyone is entitled find that an instrument doesn't suit them, but if that's the case you should say 'the instrument doesn't suit me' (or even 'I don't know how to get anything out of this instrument') rather than 'this instrument is awful.' Once you state your own taste as fact then you're inviting others to simply rebutt you by stating their own tastes as fact, and none of us get anywhere. And using the old 'I'm not alone in this,' line doesn't help at all - there are equally thousands of users who love the sound of the Garritan instruments.
Getting back to ensembles then...
I don't know what they are doing but I still find that your idea of building ensembles out of just solo instruments is not going to work out well.
In fact I'm curious, what makes you think that this is the way?
So far all my experiments indicate otherwise.
Why wouldn't it be the way? A real ensemble is a group of solo instruments. It's not that this isn't the way to do it - it's simply that, till now, it hasn't really been viable.
Up till now there haven't been many libraries that have provided multiple instruments, recorded in the same space. The ones that have (eg GPO) aren't those who are striving for complete realism in each instrument. Thus if you wanted to build an ensemble you had to do it from instruments in different libraries, which meant they sounded like they were in different spaces.
The other alternative is to simply record three instruments playing each note - as Vienna does - but then, when you want to play divisi chords, you're effectively playing all three instruments twice or three times, and the sound is terrible. When it's buried in a mix it doesn't matter too much. But there's no way I could do a passage for, say, an exposed flute trio with any samples that I know.
But with the realism of the trumpet, and the alternative instruments, real ensembles could be viable.