feedback on a new tune?

[jzucker]

If you open Musehub and click on Muse Sounds they are shown by individual company.It says Spitfire Audio and beneath are the different Orchestral libraries.Symphonic strings should do everything you want.My favorite is the Orchestral Tools Berlin Strings.Musescore just posted their update for Musescore Studio so the libraries are 50 to 60 percent off today.You will have to login on the Musehub to purchase.

I'm done with spitfire. I went to the trouble of exporting every note to a different track and it's still noticeably late no matter which option I use, whether I use legato soaring strings or long, some notes are literally 200ms late. Not even consistent so I can't just apply a negative offset to the track. I'd have to fine tune each note. Wish I hadn't spent the money on them.

But the other issue with using them in musescore is that you can only export audio from the muse synth libraries. You can't use them in a daw so you're stuck with the WAV file that musescore exports. I think in a composition/symphonic context these strings are fine. It's just when you put them into an exact tempo with a rhythm section, they are not good.

[Irishmuso]

The singer didn't like the original version. Not sure when you listened to it but I reuploaded it with a version where I put the violins F# as the lower voice and the singer approved of that version. After the 4 bar into, that tune originally started out with 8 bars of G/Ab and a slightly different melody. The singer said she thought it was too dissonant. At first i was a little taken aback but lately i'm starting to adopt the idea that what plays to a hardcore jazz crowd at the village vanguard is not necessarily going to play in Minneapolis. So I made a few changes that retain the flavor but may be more listenable.

Aw shucks! Now I want to hear the original version

I love working with strings. Last time was with a Roumanian 1st violin, Irish 2nd violin, English viola and Spanish cellist. They made even my efforts at arranging sound good. I'd give the real strings a try.

[jzucker]

Aw shucks! Now I want to hear the original version

I love working with strings. Last time was with a Roumanian 1st violin, Irish 2nd violin, English viola and Spanish cellist. They made even my efforts at arranging sound good. I'd give the real strings a try.

I did give real strings a try. I hired a violinist to record all 4 parts and the end result was good but the violin in her home studio just didn't sound that great. I actually preferred the garritan violin sounds to her sound. I really like the sound of the Abbey Road Soaring String samplers but they are engineered horribly with varying amounts of delay depending on the register and amplitude of the sample. You can't apply a global offset because each note offset varies so it's practically useless for playing in time with a rhythm section. Unfortunately, the garritan strings (at least the ones that come with Finale) are buggy and sometimes don't play. I had good luck with Sine vocal samples but they don't offer any type of trial and all sales are final so you are taking a huge risk investing in sampled strings.

[jzucker]

also, the cost of hiring real strings is prohibitive. Especially for someone who is not an experienced string arranger. I have found that many arrangements which sounded good on piano don't sound so great with real strings I have had to go back to the drawing board several times. On a project with a limited budget and without VC backing, and without a huge financial payoff when the album is released, it's not realistic to have a real string section at this point. Guys like Dave Stryker can do it because they are big enough names and have big enough budgets to hire a string section and an arranger who knows his stuff!

[Ingo Lee]

I think you can get good results with string libraries Jack but it's not easy. You need to audition a variety of string libraries. I use VSL which uses keyswitches to change articulations. Here's a short work of mine.

[jzucker]

I think you can get good results with string libraries Jack but it's not easy. You need to audition a variety of string libraries. I use VSL which uses keyswitches to change articulations. Here's a short work of mine.

That sounds great. What I have found is that many of the "legit" string libraries have huge delays which make them unsuitable for jazz or combo band usage. The Abbey Road Soaring Strings for example.

Someone had recommended one of the cinematic series string libraries which is $399. I asked them about delays and here is the response:

Hi Jack,

Thank you for your enquiry. Our libraries also come with a considerable delay - delays in professional-level string libraries reflect the playing techniques of the instrumentalists and serve to enhance realism. This is what it says on our website: "Latency / Delay: All of the libraries in the Cinematic Studio Series have been designed to maximise realism, especially when playing legato. To achieve this, we incorporated a delay system, whereby each new note you play in a legato phrase will be delayed by up to around 1/4 of a second. This requires practising playing your melodies slightly ahead of the beat, which will become natural after a short while. . . this is a fundamental aspect of the library, and will not be changed."

We do not have a trial or demo version, but if delays are an issue for you then our libraries will be unsuitable. Please note that we do not provide refunds under any circumstances.

Thanks for your interest.

Kind regards,
John

[Ingo Lee]

I believe the better libraries offer a variety of patches. If you send me a midi file of your string part I should be able to send you an audio file using VSL.

[jzucker]

I believe the better libraries offer a variety of patches. If you send me a midi file of your string part I should be able to send you an audio file using VSL.

thanks for the offer. I think i'll be ok with the libraries I'm using. They are not absolutely the best but good enough for background string parts for now.

[Ingo Lee]

You might look into NotePerformer. It runs as a plugin to Finale (or Sibelius) and automatically produces decent quality orchestrations using synthesized instruments; much better than native Finale instruments. It sells for $129 USD and also has the ability to control some more advanced libraries you can purchase separately. It eliminates the drudgery of inserting keyswitches and velocity curves.

[jzucker]

You might look into NotePerformer. It runs as a plugin to Finale (or Sibelius) and automatically produces decent quality orchestrations using synthesized instruments; much better than native Finale instruments. It sells for $129 USD and also has the ability to control some more advanced libraries you can purchase separately. It eliminates the drudgery of inserting keyswitches and velocity curves.

I need something that I can manipulate in midi. There are too many glitches in note production from both finale (which I have dumped) and musescore. For example, I have a passage in musescore with an 8th and 2 16ths (on beat 4) tied to a wholenote in the next measure and musescore plays them as 2 8th notes on beat 4. And the whole process of exporting and importing midi data is incredibly slow and awkward between musescore and reaper. Reaper doesn't recognize a midi file has been updated when you import it. Instead, it treats the file as a temporary thing so anytime I make a change, I have to re-import that data. It's also done weird things like changing the midi channels on me during import.

So I've gotten to the point where -- unless I'm making a major change to the string arrangement -- once I import that midi strings, I usually just edit them in reaper afterwards.

[Ingo Lee]

Well there's no easy answer to the notation/production dilemma as far as I know. I tried Musescore for a while and I seem to remember problems with importing/exporting midi files. Musescore doesn't support NotePerformer but Sibelius and Dorico do. Dorico is from Steinberg Cubase.

I use Sibelius which is from the Avid ProTools family which of course is expensive but they do have a free version you can try. I can go back and forth between Reaper and Sibelius with midi tracks fairly easily. The problem for me is that the keyswitches for the VSL library have to go into the midi track as note events in the inaudible range so if I enter those in Reaper and go back to Sibelius they are confusing. And yes midi tracks don't update for me either.

Some composers swear by Dorico which is fairly new. Supposedly you can compose in Dorico and directly export quality audio tracks using the NotePerformer plugin augmented by instrument sets from other audio libraries. Dorico also has a free version you can try.

But much of this stuff is expensive and comes with a steep learning curve. And I do like the track you posted here, the string sounds are fine in that context I think so carry on!

[jzucker]

Well there's no easy answer to the notation/production dilemma as far as I know. I tried Musescore for a while and I seem to remember problems with importing/exporting midi files. Musescore doesn't support NotePerformer but Sibelius and Dorico do. Dorico is from Steinberg Cubase.

I use Sibelius which is from the Avid ProTools family which of course is expensive but they do have a free version you can try. I can go back and forth between Reaper and Sibelius with midi tracks fairly easily. The problem for me is that the keyswitches for the VSL library have to go into the midi track as note events in the inaudible range so if I enter those in Reaper and go back to Sibelius they are confusing. And yes midi tracks don't update for me either.

Some composers swear by Dorico which is fairly new. Supposedly you can compose in Dorico and directly export quality audio tracks using the NotePerformer plugin augmented by instrument sets from other audio libraries. Dorico also has a free version you can try.

But much of this stuff is expensive and comes with a steep learning curve. And I do like the track you posted here, the string sounds are fine in that context I think so carry on!

thanks, i'm considering switching to cubase/dorico after this album project. Reaper is a user-experience nightmare IMO. It's great for my instructional video things but composing a large project with 40+ tracks of midi/audio/virtual instruments has been really painful

[Ingo Lee]

If I load up a lot of tracks on Reaper I have problems with my computer being slow; audio libraries can be stressful. I didn't think the problems were Reaper related but I guess they could be. Do you have a lot of RAM and a good CPU? I'm in the process of upgrading my computers so I'd be interested to know if I should change to a different DAW.