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Trying to perfect my use of EWQLSO Gold


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Been a while since I've been here. Hope all is well.

I've been taking classes for Pro Tools hoping to get certified and even more hopefully getting my degree in sound engineering. I've switched to a new school with less asswipe students but that's another story.

Anyway, I turned in this track as one of my final projects for the quarter:

http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/the-room-instrumental

After I turned it in, I got a comment from one BZ Lewis (an emmy award winner 5 times over I think. Owns his own studio in Oakland, CA and has worked with CBS and other). He said my mixing was spot on and that I knew what I was doing (A thanks to Moseph AGAIN for giving me a great demonstration on mixing) However, he said that the only thing wrong with it was that the strings sounded "fake". Particularly at around 1:24 (Pre-chorus if you will) It was his only criticism and it bugged the crap outta me. I've since remixed the strings using velocity lines in FL studio and it does sound better, but I'm still getting the feeling that I'm not properly using the software to it's full potential. And I know this thing can sound fantastic when used right so I know that I'm in need of some pointers.

I've been tampering with the different samples EWQLSO provides and my real issue that I'm also now noticing is the switching from legato to staccato in the chorus parts. It does come of as synthetic. I juggled around a bit but I just can't seem to get the strings right.

The samples I'm using are:

F 11V Keysw Trl C0-E0 for Violin legato

F 11v Marc Short for Violin staccato

F 10 Vas Keysw C0-F0 for Violas legato

C Vas Shrt Mart Up Dn for Violas staccato

For the violin staccato parts however I blended both the staccato and legato parts to give them enough power for those parts because they came off as too quiet and unmatching.

I googled for a tutorial but came up with nothing. The students at my school have no experience with EWQLSO so I'm turning to you folks.

Thoughts? and thanks!

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Like this?

http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-strings-excerpt

If you meant score as in sheet music I have nothing I can use for that.

You have no way of visualizing the music notation? Odd.

Well, from this isolation, I can hear a couple of troubling things. First of all, there is no dynamic expression, everything is at fortissimo, giving you a strong SYNTHY feel, like a synth patch rather than real violins playing.

You are not using a Round Robin capable patch, also lending your repetition notes to sounding identical, another hallmark feature of a synthetic performance.

There are also issues with your release tail programming, as your release tails overlap on repeated notes, giving us the impression of a cloned note or a reinstanced note rather than a naturally repeated note.

I think your verb detracts significantly from the natural timbre of the samples which while on its own isn't detrimental, it does compound your problem--it's quite smearing.

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You have no way of visualizing the music notation? Odd.

Is it normal to have something like that? I should also mention I have the old Kompakt version of EWQLSO. I've heard it's mediocre compared to the PLAY version. So if it's suppose to come with notation software, I don't see it here. And the manual says nothing about it.

And Round Robin capable samples? Shouldn't they all have that?

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I have Kontakt 4 Stand alone but I'm just inputting EWQLSO without it. Would there be a difference if I did?

And I see the RR's you're talking about. I Found them for the Staccatos and they do sound more put together with I adjust the velocity lines. But I don't see any RR's for the legatos. I tried adjusting the velocity lines for them to make them fit better but they seem to lose power if dropped too low and if I go too high it goes back to sounding fake.

http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-strings-excerpt-2

This is without EQ or verb. It sounds better put together but I feel like I could do a better job.

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Your legatos are going to be more responsive if you use the XFD or the DXF patches, which stands for Dynamic Cross-Fade.

It will allow you to control the dynamics of the patch (not strictly volume, but timbral dynamics) with MIDI Continuous Controller #1 (Or the Mod Wheel/CC1).

This will allow you to sculpt a HUMAN performance.

I also own the old NI-Powered versions of EWQLSO, and one of the things I do is apply Big-Bob's SIPS Legato script to enhance the feeling of a legato slide between notes. When used sparingly, it can be quite convincing, but it would require you to know more about using Kontakt scripts.

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I've been using EWQLSO Gold (Play version) since June and I've noticed that changing the velocity and timing of each note a little bit makes the samples sound a lot more realistic.

I'm not familiar with Pro Tools (I'm a Reaper guy), but there should be a "humanize" tool that will change the velocity and timing for you (instead of changing each individual note by hand, which is quite tedious).

Like dannthr said, dynamics help a TON in making the samples sound realistic.

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I'm familiar with how dynamics work but applying them correctly seems my problem with EWQLSO. I'm adjusting attack and release and adjusting velocity lines all over. The thing to keep in mind is that these strings have to be mixed with a metal track. So it requires to be loud for most of the track which is why they're being bowed so hard.

I'm using FL Studio 9 for MIDI stuff because I find that the MIDI piano rolls in Pro Tools are hard to look at. There is swing that helps with my drum tracks but it doesn't seem to have the same effect with the strings.

I'm also googling about kontakt scripts to learn how to apply them.

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Well, that's a flaw in your writing a tad too, because you have to understand, violins are quiet instruments, they're so tiny.

When you look at an orchestra, a symphony orchestra, you see maybe 3 trumpets, maybe 4 horns, maybe 1 tuba, you see 3 clarinets, you see 3 flutes, but realize that this is balance, this is tried and true old-time mixing technique.

This means that when you look at the orchestra and you see so few horns and then you see 100,000 violin players, it's because at full volume, they're about equal in power.

Violins are quiet things, that's why there's so many of them.

Try doubling the violins with the cellos, one octave under, and then double the violas with the basses one octave under or two octaves under depending.

See if that helps bring out the orchestra in the track.

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http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-strings-demo-3

ok i did as you said and it feels much MUCH better. I adjusted the attack slightly and used EQ on the master filter for the violins and violas to drop some highs and make it sound less harsh. I added double basses but considering there's already a bass playing in the rock track I think it would mud things up. May have to roll off the mud on the strings. all in all though, i feel its a massive improvement. At least...I hope. haha

Edit: crap. Even my programmer buddy says it sounds synthetic. :(

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http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-strings-demo-3

ok i did as you said and it feels much MUCH better. I adjusted the attack slightly and used EQ on the master filter for the violins and violas to drop some highs and make it sound less harsh. I added double basses but considering there's already a bass playing in the rock track I think it would mud things up. May have to roll off the mud on the strings. all in all though, i feel its a massive improvement. At least...I hope. haha

Edit: crap. Even my programmer buddy says it sounds synthetic. :(

It's better, you feel it's better, you can hear it, that's good, but it's not best. One thing you might notice is that now when you transition between the legato samples or the long samples that there's this SUCKING sound, like the air is getting sucked out as it moves from one note to the next. This is due to two things, one, the release samples aren't playing and it's feeling synthy because it's like some synth patch, and two, we're not hearing the natural transition of two legato notes.

Adding reverb back in will help, but it must be a very clear sounding reverb, it can't mush it up, and then using SIPS to simulate a bit of a slide up to the notes will help OR programming pitch bends to simulate that slide could help. The dynamics are still sitting around maximum, that could be smoothed out somewhat--but finally, you will reach a point of diminishing returns on the amount of energy you put in and what you get back from it.

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http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-strings-demo-4

Ok. I got a hold of SIPS. Put everything into Kontakt and applied to script (one of them anyway) to all the instruments. I replaced the legato instruments with DXF or EXP in their patch title. Messed with the mod wheel and hand adjust some of the mod wheels events to try and humanize.

It feels better now.

EDIT: But when mixing it with the rock track it feels inconsistant in volume. I have to go over all the sections and make sure they match in volume and velocity. I could automate in PT but that would be a lot of work.

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Well, it is inconsistent, it sounds like you were a bit random in your velocity selection.

Now you want to think about phrasing.

A good instrumentalist thinks about music in phrases, and those phrases have a dynamic arc of expression that stretches across many notes.

Think about the players, and how they would be playing WITH the metal band.

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Try doubling the violins with the cellos, one octave under, and then double the violas with the basses one octave under or two octaves under depending.

And to further this thought, a good majority of the time, when violins are doubling, vln I is playing the line an octave higher than vln II. Having this high line will separate the pitch ranges from the metal band even more and help it poke through.

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And to further this thought, a good majority of the time, when violins are doubling, vln I is playing the line an octave higher than vln II. Having this high line will separate the pitch ranges from the metal band even more and help it poke through.

this is what i was doing before but it came off as not so good. i could try it again. we'll see.

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oh i see.

such an unnerving process.

The goal is to be dynamic but in doing so it seems the strings get weak at certain points and no matter how I adjust the velocity its either too much power or not enough.

EDIT: Ok i've messed around with the mod wheel a bit and hopefully to you guys this will sound better cause it does sound more real to me. http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-strings-excerpt

I really need to listen to more orchestral music. I haven't in a long while.

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http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-strings-excerpt-2

That does make a difference. Thanks for that!

I layered the spiccato samples of the staccato ones but only on the pulses of the rhythm and not every bow. So on the 1 beat and the 4 beat. (Im in 6/8 time I think)

I think it's almost ready.

EDIT: Oh! And I finally get what you meant about being stuck in fortissimo. The first note the strings bow is one long bowing motion. So as the bowing continues, the velocity tends to drop lower because the violinists are slowing down to keep the note going. But the sound drops to do that. So what I'm doing now in the session I'm in is doing TWO bowings of that first note to keep that note both loud and realistic sounding over the rock track.

EDIT2: Like so. http://soundcloud.com/soleparadigm/tr-example

I could make the strings track louder. I'm thinking about it. I'll worry about it later though. Point is, this was more of what I meant.

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