Liontamer Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djpretzel Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 Superb debut from @suikun - I have Pianoteq AND the SWAM plugins, and I haven't been able to get them to sound nearly this good I'd love to see a project file or screenshots of some of the automation curves; as he writes, physically-modeled instruments are like a double-edged sword in that they can do anything you tell them to & are more flexible than sample-based alternatives... BUT you have to know what to tell them to do! I think having a background actually playing violin must help; I find the SWAM brass instruments more intuitive, probably because I played euphonium. At any rate, this sounds excellent, and is exposed & articulated in ways that require and benefit from such flexibility. The verb/space adds realism and unifies the three instruments, and I love the super-high sustain note. I've been an evangelist for physical modeling for a long time, and while they're not cheap, Modartt & SWAM represent the state of the art. I think eventually we'll have an AI layer that can add artifacts and increase realism even further, or a hybrid approach that also employs samples in some form (technically the SWAM flutes do this, on the attacks) - it's all very neat stuff, and I love to geek out on it... Speaking of geeking out, for the life of me I can't read this mix title without thinking of TNG's "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSori Posted February 21, 2023 Share Posted February 21, 2023 50 minutes ago, djpretzel said: Speaking of geeking out, for the life of me I can't read this mix title without thinking of TNG's "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" His eyes open! As soon as I saw the title I wondered what kind of ReMix would reference a TNG episode that way. Unintentional Star Tek pun or not, this is a fantastic effort by @suikun. Keep the good stuff coming! djpretzel 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suikun Posted February 22, 2023 Share Posted February 22, 2023 Thanks everyone for having me! The title is indeed a reference to the TNG episode, but I didn't expect people to actually pick up on it. I'm not the biggest Star Trek buff, but I loved the concept of that episode. Just like they used stories and metaphors to convey meaning, I wanted to put this image into the listener's head of Yuna revisiting the ruins of Zanarkand and reminiscing about her journey. One little musical easter egg I put in at 2:52 in the cello is just the first four notes of the chorus of Suteki Da Ne, which I thought was fitting to have just before Yuna's imagined breakdown right at the next bar. This is totally not a failed attempt at creating a counterpoint line from the entire chorus >_> Regarding all the humanisation and execution of the strings I very much drew on my experience playing the violin myself. I never went beyond somewhat advanced intermediate, so I also listened to several performances especially by Hilary Hahn and paid a lot of attention to how a professional does the vibrato. One of the very important tricks is never letting any MIDI CC data become flat for vibrato and bow pressure. There should always be some movement over time, even if it's just by 2 to 3 points over a long sustain. This also applies to the BPM. It's actually a rather jagged zig-zag curve with fluctiations of as much as +-10% over a single bar. This emulates that the performers are listening to each other and adjusting all the time to play in sync. It's such a subtle change and the listener can't put their finger on it, but helps immensely with realism. This works for fully orchestrated pieces as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophetik music Posted February 22, 2023 Share Posted February 22, 2023 7 hours ago, suikun said: This emulates that the performers are listening to each other and adjusting all the time to play in sync. It's such a subtle change and the listener can't put their finger on it, but helps immensely with realism. this is a really insightful idea that i've never considered. i recognized the consistent flex of time but didn't really intuit how much it mattered until i'm thinking about it now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suikun Posted February 22, 2023 Share Posted February 22, 2023 To be honest I also just yoinked that idea from a Youtube video where it was explained as the orchestra following the conducter who is also not a perfect metronome. Same thing still applies if you don't have a conductor but your partner instruments to follow. This is what the tempo looks like from start to finish. There's really no pattern to the changes, and that's kind of the point. Just an avarage target tempo that the gets played around. And while I was in the project anyway, this is what the violin's automations look like during the climax at around 2:52. From the top it's bow speed (think volume), vibrato amplitude, vibrato speed, bow pressure and bow position between bridge and finger board. So yeah, this is where those 30 hours went... djpretzel, Hemophiliac and H36T 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Burns Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 Stopped by to make a TNG reference. Glad to see we’re all on the same page here. Also, having spent a lot of time in Logic over the past couple months, it’s nice hearing about someone else’s sequencing drudgery and also seeing it have a tangible, positive outcome. Nice work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJthemusicdude Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 The opening to Zanarkand is burned into my psyche. This was a very rich and lovely rendition of the classic tune. Good stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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