Wow! You guys have got to listen to this...

[FMiguelez]

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It's simply amazing. Considering the difficulty of the piece, the complexity of the orchestration, the attention to detail, this is a virtual master-piece:

http://vsl.co.at/en/65/71/1590/1242.vsl

Now, does this guy have any programming chops and musicality or what?
Also, it makes Vienna Instruments shine. This mock up blows away anything by other libraries hands down. It's just what happens when a master composer (Stravinsky), a glorious sample library, and a great musician meet

I love it because you REALLY can forget you are listening to samples, and are able to enjoy the MUSIC. Besides, this mock up is MUCH better than many real orchestras' performances. Unless, of course, it's a world-class orchestra. Anything other than that is usually a mess.

What do you think?

[bkshepard]

Sorry man, but I have to disagree. Having played the RoS multiple times and listened to it hundreds more, I could tell by the second note of the bassoon solo at the beginning that it was samples. When the english horn entered it was really obvious. I'll take a decent--doesn't even have to be great--orchestral performance over this any day.

[jroadrage]

Jay's no joke when it comes to programming chops and interpretation, I'm guessing a bit of a masochist too

I could see maybe taking a stab at one of the more prominent excerpts but the WHOLE thing? I can't imagine what an undertaking that must have been. What I really like is that I think were getting closer and closer to hearing real PERFORMANCES with mockups like these instead of just generic representations. I can't imagine even conceiving of something like this with my old XP-80 sus patches, some velocity tweaking and a few cc11 ramps.

The only thing that I think still makes it a dead giveaway is the "space" in the mix, and its no fault of Jay's, just the limitations of the current solutions for imaging and reverb. I wonder how much of a difference MIR and a tricked out i7 would make on something like this, would be a nice litmus test actually.

[FMiguelez]

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Tomorrow, when I'm at the studio, I'll listen to it with decent speakers to see what the space you're talking about sounds like.

I am very impressed judging with my laptop's speakers. I know what music sounds like through them, and think it's great.

Funny, BKShepard... the opening bassoon notes are something that caught my attention immediately. I thought they sounded very nice. Certainly better than any other mockup of this piece I've ever heard.

And I think a "decent" real orchestra doesn't do this piece justice. I've heard too many of them playing very mediocre performances of this piece to the point that I keep rolling my eyes. It's not too common to hear an orchestra not struggling with the RoS.
I've heard it with world-class orchestras too, and those are the only ones who can play it beautifully and make me truly enjoy it. But that's just I.

I have a very reliable way to judge performances: if it gives me goose-bumps it's great. If I don't feel anything it sucks. This virtual performance did give me bumps for many reasons... one of them being it just proves that doing virtual music IS an art form of its own. You don't necessarily have to compare it to real orchestras. One can just sit back and enjoy it for what it is... a programmed work of art.

I just think the achievement Jay did is amazing. It's inspiring.

[bkshepard]

Hey FM,

I totally agree that it is an amazing piece of programming and can be enjoyed from that perspective. I just don't care for it as a "performance." I, too, can't listen to a mediocre orchestral performance of RoS, but I have heard some fantastic performances by even university orchestras that knocked my socks off. I probably wasn't too clear in my use of the word "decent" but was referring to a performance considerably better than mediocre. I guess what I'm saying is that from a programming aspect, you're right, it really is an amazing piece of work. However, from a performance aspect, if my choice was between this and a mediocre orchestra, I'd choose...to watch TV.

As for the bassoon, here's why I said it didn't sound real to me. When a bassoon plays that little turn at the very beginning (C-B-C-B), there is a little glottal sound that happens between the notes as an interaction of the acoustics in the instrument as it changes from one pitch to the other. That glottal sound is one of the things that makes this passage so "primitive" sounding and the reason Stravinsky chose to write for the bassoon in what was--until that time--considered an unusable register. With this version, the individual notes sound great, but it's the interaction between the notes that doesn't happen--it's too perfect. As many of us have observed and commented, one of the weaknesses of samples is not the individual sounds, but the transitions and articulations between the sounds. Although the VSL library is considerably better than most, I think it still suffers a bit from that problem. I also agree with the comment about the "space" not sounding natural.

It's just my bias from being in the trenches as an orchestral musician for so long, and my $0.01 worth (we're in a recession and I can't afford the other penny).

[FMiguelez]

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Hi, Brian.

I see what you mean. But isn't it great that the things that give away sampled performances are getting less and less every time? And most people, even some amateur music lovers, can't tell the difference. A few years ago we had to worry about SO MANY things that sucked in orchestral samples. There were machine gun effects, unrealistic sounds, very few articulations, etc. But NOW, you have to listen closer, and the problems are few... lack of glottal sounds included

People like you and I, who BREATH orchestral music, can hear these problems. But that's my point. Very soon they will tackle those, and they will sound even better. Only a few years ago, doing something so realistic, out of your computer, was a dream. Now, it's every day stuff

BTW, what instrument do you play? Do you get your music performed by real orchestras, or do you program mostly? Just curious...

Cheers, my friend, and thanks for this discussion.

[Kubi]

I think it's phenomenal. Of course the real orchestra is better in every way. (Well, provided they're pros...) But for the first time one can actually convincingly demo an orchestral piece and get enough substance across to make a 'sale' (i.e. to a music director, or a film director, or whomever needs convincing.) This is really outstanding... Gotta get me some VSL one of these days!

[bkshepard]

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Hi, Brian.

I see what you mean. But isn't it great that the things that give away sampled performances are getting less and less every time? And most people, even some amateur music lovers, can't tell the difference. A few years ago we had to worry about SO MANY things that sucked in orchestral samples. There were machine gun effects, unrealistic sounds, very few articulations, etc. But NOW, you have to listen closer, and the problems are few... lack of glottal sounds included

People like you and I, who BREATH orchestral music, can hear these problems. But that's my point. Very soon they will tackle those, and they will sound even better. Only a few years ago, doing something so realistic, out of your computer, was a dream. Now, it's every day stuff

BTW, what instrument do you play? Do you get your music performed by real orchestras, or do you program mostly? Just curious...

Cheers, my friend, and thanks for this discussion.

You're right, the quality of samples and playback has really gotten amazing. As Kubi mentions, the ability to do totally convincing demos for conductors and music directors is fantastic, but it's also become a double-edged sword. We can hear the difference, but as you mention, too many people can't. Their response is all-too-often, why should we spend the extra bucks to hire real musicians when we can get something that sounds "just as good" which, unfortunately, is how they hear it.

I probably shouldn't admit this--this is just between you and me, right --but I have, on occasion, made demos a bit lifeless to drive home how much better the piece will sound when we do the real thing.

As for my instrument and the kind of stuff I write, I'm primarily an orchestral percussionist, but dabble a bit in other instruments as well. I mostly write for chamber groups and orchestras, and have been writing a bunch of orchestral "Pops" types of charts in recent years.

Thanks for the original post. My apologies if I came on a bit strong, but this is an area about which I have very strong feelings.

[Movies]

I came across this last week on youtube and was blown away -- certainly, the sound quality didn't annihilate me, but the fact that someone could sit down and program all of that in less than a lifetime totally blew my mind.

About six months ago, I purchased the full score and have been going through it with the recording (Bernstein/London Symphony Orchestra -- industry standard) once or twice on slow weekend mornings to see exactly what's going on and, you know, more effectively "borrow" ideas. Every decision that he makes, I think "Of course he did that -- it's so simple." or "Of course that's how that should be orchestrated." It makes so much sense and seems so perfect when I'm looking at it -- then I'm in front of blank staff paper thinking, "So... here we are."

I didn't mean to turn this into a post about the piece -- sorry; I just can't contain myself when it comes up. It's one of my all time favs!

But, yeah, just looking at the velocity indicators as the MIDI rolled by on the screen made me wonder where that guy found the time!

[bongo_x]

I wonder if it would sound more real with a different mix?

I'm also curious how you do tempo for something like this. In his notes he doesn't give any specifics. Do you just tap it out by feel? He must have started with something (a straight tempo?) because he says he entered the data before he did any tempo changes.

bb