This was a revelation to setup a scratch track for rough-ing in the performance with no friction. Never occurred to me. This is a brilliant hack! Thank you!
Wow. Great tip. I have been struggling to get ideas rough down down quickly, frustrated mostly because legato and sustained patches are too sluggish. Sound great, but unresponsive. Added a timing delay to the track helps, but is not enough. The simple idea of overlaying sustain with staccato and reducing release time had not occurred to me. Thanks for making this video.
Thank you for demonstrating some valuable practices. I am fascinated with the breath controller and will check this out. Please keep up these valuable videos. All the best to you and your musical future... fine content!
Thanks Marshall! FYI I currently use this one www.tecontrol.se/products/usb-midi-breath-bite-controller-2 which includes bite, tilt and nod sensitivity in addition to breath. The bite I find especially useful to trigger vibrato like in this video (i'm using the mod wheel for vib speed) ruclips.net/video/HcvPay_A5Qw/видео.html Happy composing!
I once created a setup up using a Leaf Motion Controller and Midipaw (you can do something similar with a phone app called Musikraken, that records hand, face, mouth and body gestures) to do have the sound move between Sul Tasto, Normale and Sul Ponticello. I also find it very helpful to use Divisimate to speed up the orchestration process, especially as you have many orchestration templates within it, ready to go.
@@vincecomposer I love Divisimate, I think it is really powerful when it comes to playing in orchestrated lines. It works with normal sample libraries, but works especially well with performance based one like Aaron Ventures Infinite Series and potentially Sample modeling (thought I haven't yet seen any one is it with that yet). If you do end up using it, please do a video on it as I think more people need to know about it 🙂
It would seem that Infinite Woodwinds and Infinite Brass would fit your approach very well. You can control vibrato depth and vibrato rate, as well as avoid all keyswitches. You could still perform polyphonically, but at the expense of a true legato.
I second that "thanks for the heads up" remark. The "sketch" mode (turning off legato transitions) is very useful for getting down both melodic and polyphonic ideas. Thanks.
Hi Neil thanks for the question, there are two basic approaches I take - #1 If the sketch is very close to what I want or its complicated, I tend to copy all the midi over to the different instruments and then delete what I don't need. In Logic use Shift - Up arrow to select only the top notes of a chord in the piano roll and shift-down for the bottom notes. You can also use Shift- I to invert the selection. #2 Another approach I use is simply start from scratch - performing each part (not worrying about it being exactly the same - just the most important ideas) using the sketch as a map and playing in the lines by ear. I prioritise writing singable lines. When working this way I often find that I require fewer voices to get the idea across than are in the original sketch - the arrangement tends to be more economical. Generally I find that not rushing this step is key to making a good arrangement (even though it can feel tedious at times).Hope this helps!
@@vincecomposer Thanks for your reply. Yes, those would be the two possible approaches. Each has its particular problems, though. In the first approach, I find I have to do a lot of tweaking or even replaying of parts to match to idiosyncrasies of the new instrument (touch sensitivity, articulation subtleties, etc.). So in the end, I end up transitioning to the second approach. And the problem with the second approach is that I end up playing the game of "beat the sketch"! If I really like the sound of the rough sketch, I sometimes end up doing multiple takes to try and imitate it or surpass it. Your finally comment is perhaps the most significant. When I record a rough sketch track, I am usually playing two handed chords, so the individual parts are not necessarily melodic or interesting, So when I break it down into separate tracks, I can concentrate less on the harmonic structure and more on the flow of each part (dare I say counterpoint?). Interesting discussion.
Agreed. Intuiting the degree to which the sketch is representative of your final vision is a key part of the composing process I think. Sometimes my sketch ends up being almost identical to the piece (especially if its a piano track) - other times its really just the beginning of a much longer journey...
Hey Vince! thanks for the video! I am sure you've heard of and considered performance samples? - I personally don't own them yet, but the concept you present is similar to their philosophy I believe. What are your thoughts? :) The sustain into tremolo is brilliant by the way! gives us closer bow control ahaha Love the woodwinds and other patches as well - going to build these patches into my template too! Thanks mate!
I haven't used any libraries by the company 'Performance Samples' specifically but if you mean more generally libraries like Infinite series, Sample Modelling etc (which I think are sometimes referred to as performance samples) - then yes, I've been playing with them extensively since making this video. I think they're a great way to stay in the flow of writing music, specifically the early stages of capturing what's in your imagination. Then I'd tend to bring in other samples (or musicians!) to finish the job. Thanks for watching and glad you found it useful!
This was a revelation to setup a scratch track for rough-ing in the performance with no friction. Never occurred to me. This is a brilliant hack! Thank you!
Really good video. I have seen others take this approach and I think it works well to enable quicker compositions.
could you tell us who else? It looks like an amazing way to work!!
Wow. Great tip. I have been struggling to get ideas rough down down quickly, frustrated mostly because legato and sustained patches are too sluggish. Sound great, but unresponsive. Added a timing delay to the track helps, but is not enough. The simple idea of overlaying sustain with staccato and reducing release time had not occurred to me. Thanks for making this video.
Thank you for demonstrating some valuable practices. I am fascinated with the breath controller and will check this out. Please keep up these valuable videos. All the best to you and your musical future... fine content!
Thanks Marshall! FYI I currently use this one www.tecontrol.se/products/usb-midi-breath-bite-controller-2 which includes bite, tilt and nod sensitivity in addition to breath. The bite I find especially useful to trigger vibrato like in this video (i'm using the mod wheel for vib speed) ruclips.net/video/HcvPay_A5Qw/видео.html Happy composing!
I once created a setup up using a Leaf Motion Controller and Midipaw (you can do something similar with a phone app called Musikraken, that records hand, face, mouth and body gestures) to do have the sound move between Sul Tasto, Normale and Sul Ponticello. I also find it very helpful to use Divisimate to speed up the orchestration process, especially as you have many orchestration templates within it, ready to go.
Hey Mark thanks for watching! Just looked up Divisimate and all I can say is OOOOOOHH
@@vincecomposer I love Divisimate, I think it is really powerful when it comes to playing in orchestrated lines. It works with normal sample libraries, but works especially well with performance based one like Aaron Ventures Infinite Series and potentially Sample modeling (thought I haven't yet seen any one is it with that yet). If you do end up using it, please do a video on it as I think more people need to know about it 🙂
@@Markrspooner Hey Mark, the divisimate video is up! Thank you for pointing me to the app, its going to be very useful 🙌
@@vincecomposer fantastic, I’m glad you like Divisimate
It would seem that Infinite Woodwinds and Infinite Brass would fit your approach very well. You can control vibrato depth and vibrato rate, as well as avoid all keyswitches. You could still perform polyphonically, but at the expense of a true legato.
Thanks for the heads up! I actually purchased both a little while after shooting this. Great libraries :)
I second that "thanks for the heads up" remark. The "sketch" mode (turning off legato transitions) is very useful for getting down both melodic and polyphonic ideas. Thanks.
AE22's. Rare beasts, in fact, no longer made. Passive or active? How do you find them?
Well spotted! Active ones, bought them online from Studio Care maybe 7 or so years back.
Quick question: How easy do you find it to convert your sketch to a properly orchestrated mock up? Any tips?
Hi Neil thanks for the question, there are two basic approaches I take - #1 If the sketch is very close to what I want or its complicated, I tend to copy all the midi over to the different instruments and then delete what I don't need. In Logic use Shift - Up arrow to select only the top notes of a chord in the piano roll and shift-down for the bottom notes. You can also use Shift- I to invert the selection. #2 Another approach I use is simply start from scratch - performing each part (not worrying about it being exactly the same - just the most important ideas) using the sketch as a map and playing in the lines by ear. I prioritise writing singable lines. When working this way I often find that I require fewer voices to get the idea across than are in the original sketch - the arrangement tends to be more economical. Generally I find that not rushing this step is key to making a good arrangement (even though it can feel tedious at times).Hope this helps!
@@vincecomposer Thanks for your reply. Yes, those would be the two possible approaches. Each has its particular problems, though. In the first approach, I find I have to do a lot of tweaking or even replaying of parts to match to idiosyncrasies of the new instrument (touch sensitivity, articulation subtleties, etc.). So in the end, I end up transitioning to the second approach. And the problem with the second approach is that I end up playing the game of "beat the sketch"! If I really like the sound of the rough sketch, I sometimes end up doing multiple takes to try and imitate it or surpass it. Your finally comment is perhaps the most significant. When I record a rough sketch track, I am usually playing two handed chords, so the individual parts are not necessarily melodic or interesting, So when I break it down into separate tracks, I can concentrate less on the harmonic structure and more on the flow of each part (dare I say counterpoint?). Interesting discussion.
Agreed. Intuiting the degree to which the sketch is representative of your final vision is a key part of the composing process I think. Sometimes my sketch ends up being almost identical to the piece (especially if its a piano track) - other times its really just the beginning of a much longer journey...
❤️
Hey Vince! thanks for the video!
I am sure you've heard of and considered performance samples? - I personally don't own them yet, but the concept you present is similar to their philosophy I believe. What are your thoughts? :)
The sustain into tremolo is brilliant by the way! gives us closer bow control ahaha
Love the woodwinds and other patches as well - going to build these patches into my template too!
Thanks mate!
I haven't used any libraries by the company 'Performance Samples' specifically but if you mean more generally libraries like Infinite series, Sample Modelling etc (which I think are sometimes referred to as performance samples) - then yes, I've been playing with them extensively since making this video. I think they're a great way to stay in the flow of writing music, specifically the early stages of capturing what's in your imagination. Then I'd tend to bring in other samples (or musicians!) to finish the job. Thanks for watching and glad you found it useful!
Man i’d be out of breath. Im thinking maybe expression pedal is much less taxing