Arturia Forums
General => Free Speech => Topic started by: jaxtone on December 30, 2005, 10:30:13 pm
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Hello!
I am a bandleader and composer of swing and r&b. Been playing for more than 35 years and can say I have been there and done that... Earlier today I was really loaded and curious about the Brass release... so I went to my local dealer to buy the package that has been in the pipeline for a while now.
When I came into the shop the gentle clerk pressed a C3 on the keyboard to show me what Brass was capable of doing. At the same moment I turned my head around at least 180 degrees to see if a junkie on crack was standing behind me blowing on an electric kazoo. It sounded terrible and I asked the clerk if something was wrong with his computer... No this is the saxophone he said.
One hour later I came to the conclusion that the only instrument in Brass that you guys kind of succeded with is the bone. It sounds very much as a trombone since its ambience and body of the sound is still in the same tonal register as a real bone, and in a section of brass it will do good!
I understand that you guys at Arturia have been working really hard to create such a nice graphic interface and user friendly environment, but honestly I must say that these sounds are far away from how saxophones and trumpets sounds like.
Before next level in your production of Brass I would suggest you to firstly visit some big band concerts as well as jazz sessions to listen to the real thing. Then you gotta involve real jazz players, session or classical instrumentalists with ears of gold who could lead your technical development into a professional Brass instrument. If you already have used guys like these to help you... I just can say one thing... fire them as soon as possible cause they have misleaded you all.
Unfortunally I cant use your software as it sounds now cause the risk is that my collegues will laugh their lungs out and kick me back to the -80´s world of synth sounds. However there is a big need out there for a really good Brass instrument so if you can take this critisism as a positive input and find a more convincing sound delievery I am willing to reconsider my thoughts.
Jaxtone
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i'd bet anything this guy doesnt know what a vl70-m is and that he thought arturia brass was sample based.
you dont play it with just a keyboard , if thats what you want use sample libraries, you shouldnt have been looking at this in the first place.
now if you had a keyboard and aftertouch and mod wheel and breath control all being played professionally then maybe...
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i'd bet anything this guy doesnt know what a vl70-m is and that he thought arturia brass was sample based.
you dont play it with just a keyboard , if thats what you want use sample libraries, you shouldnt have been looking at this in the first place.
now if you had a keyboard and aftertouch and mod wheel and breath control all being played professionally then maybe.
I suppose I am the guy that Tony Ostinato means who knows nothing at all about vl70-m... oh stupid me... I am sorry for this mistake but I didnt know you had to know this magic code word before listening and ordering Brass!
As I see it your reply is nothing but a classic case of a technical protectionism to kill critisism and define it as stupidity simply because the technique doesnt reach the real thing out there. But hey Tony, I am not dumb, just using my old ears of gold again.
If something sounds bad guys like you Tony can dig up all excuses in the world, but the source to this bad sound will of course always sound bad until someone change the source code and re-program the softwares inner secrets till they are at least close to the real thing.
So PLEASE do not embed technical words as answers on my critisism of something that sounds crap. Even if I am a total illiterate when it comes to technical specifications, I have always lived by the device of always listening before talking.
I admit I am totally uninterested of the technical aspect of this product but must say a crappy sound will never sound better just because of a word called vl70-m is thrown out as a stone to shut up my critisism.
But hey I got an idea, I could tell my fellow musicians and the grinning audience that its a vl70-m they hear when they are about to leave a gig, stduio session or similar... and who knows they might convert into clean stupidity instead of using their ears.
And yes the demo from my local dealer was professionally performed with a keyboard with all features you could imagine.[/b]
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jaxtone,
this Tony Ostinato has been in the forum since September and posted 6 times. I have been in since end of November and posted 10 times, all on the subject of Brass. Tony is edging dangerously toward "troll" status if you ask me, when he can only try to shut people up like this. Something constructive for a change Tony?
I like others have had no luck getting the demo to work so am very much vacillating about getting Brass. Most reports I read are very much like yours jaxtone. Perhaps Tony could do us all the favour of posting his own professionally played Brass examples on a server and providing us with a link, instead of merely typing. A chimpanzee can learn to type, Tony.
Armando.
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Hi!
I get the point about "Trolls and Trollings"!
I really really hope that the guys at Arturia take the criticism for what it is and that it wont put them down in anger or selfdestructive thoughts.
I believe that most of us in here understand that they have worked hard to get this far, even if it wasnt enough this time. There is of course a big need for a good Brass software out there and one day soon we all want to put our hands on Arturias adjusted Brass when available.
I ordered the Gary Garritan "Jazz_BigBand" until Arturia comes up with something that keep the standard. Do you or possibly any one else know anything about its features or soundings? Might be a product that can be a good combination with Brass when Brass can reach more natural voicings!
Jack McGuinness
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Troll or not, Tony does make a serious point, if rather aggresively.
What you described the person in the shop doing, Jaxtone, is simply pressing down a key and expecting a realistic sax sound to be pasted into the air as a result of just that.
I've sometimes used sax and other brass/wind sounds, and to make them sound `natural' it's necessary to play the keyboard and the performance controls sensitively.
On the other hand I deliberately played a sax sound unnaturally on one track and many people are surprised that it was the same patch I'd used elsewhere because it sounded totally different and very unlike a sax.
I hesitated to comment at first because I haven't played Brass and so I really don't know what it's capable of or what a musician needs to do to get good results with it. But under the circumstances I do think it's worth saying that just pressing a key as the shop assistant did very probably won't give good results, based on my other experience with synths.
It might also be added that shop monitors aren't always what they might be. I hesitated slightly about one of the synths I bought last year because of a sort of honk in the initial attack that made me pull back the attack level quite a lot. There's absolutely no trace of that problem when playing the synth through my home setup.
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Hi jaxtone, why don't you just try the demo for yourself ? You'll then know better if Brass fits your needs and ears :)
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One hour later I came to the conclusion that the only instrument in Brass that you guys kind of succeded with is the bone. It sounds very much as a trombone since its ambience and body of the sound is still in the same tonal register as a real bone, and in a section of brass it will do good!
*** The quote above is taken from my first note and means that I did spend at least one hour in the shop while the shop assistant spent all his effort to convince me that Brass did sound good! He used ambience and velocity and modulation wheels and also have about 20 different keyboards and soundsystems available to play demos and sounds on, of course connected to a high standard computer. But still... my judgement is that this product sounds crappy and unnatural to me.***
But hey guys! Its a bad idea when you try to find thousands of external reasons to why Brass doesnt sound like the real sax or trumpet! (Including my ears and experience as a professional player for more than 35 years. Why just not admit that it isnt even close to the real thing and let Arturia solve this now before its spread internationally. I can assure you that if these corny sounds are spread around the globe and professional composers and artists will hear it... well its an understatement to say that it could be a very bad rumour about Arturias seriousity. No one of us wants that! So if you could point that gun in another direction just for a minute I would be glad, and in the long run lets say that Arturia can earn some points if they use our constructive critisim to reach a higher level in this case.
I shall not be to hard on you guys in my replies cause to me it sounds like theres a big chance it could be like this. Lets expect that some of you guys believes that Brass sounds like the real thing just cause you never have had the opportunity to experience a really close relation to a saxophone, trumpet or full brass section. When these instruments body sound and ambience once hit you, the electronic kazoo sounds from Arturias Brass wouldnt be possible as an option.
This is of course only a hypothetic thought...
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Vl70-m is hardly a technical buzzword, it a physical modeling synth just like arturia brass, used by windsynth players everywhere.
just check it out:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/windcontroller/messages/16437?xm=1&m=e
the problem you had with arturia brass is youve never worked with a physical modeler before (and probably wont again for some time id wager).
They arent played like regular samplers/romplers and its not unusal for someone to sound awful on it for quite some time until they learn it properly ESPECIALLY KEYBOARDISTS.
just like a real trumpet nobody is gonna wanna listen to that first day or week of you learning it. you WILL sound awful. nobody has ever picked up a trumpet and sounded great 1st time, a model will be the same way.
you wouldnt blame a real trumpet if you couldnt make it sound good on your first try, never having played one before, its clearly not the horns fault.
but after a couple months or more you start getting good and youll find it can do things no sampler can do.
but again clearly you are barking up the wrong tree, you want something that you press a key and it sounds automatically like a good trumpet note, in effect you want the sampler to do the work. Theres nothing wrong with that and thats what samplers are for, but us wind synthesists have been down that route and have exhausted all that samplers/romplers can do. WE HAVE THAT COVERED ALREADY, what we are looking for is brass that doesnt play itself, that relies on us to impart the character that no sampler can simulate.
so i wasnt insulting you when i said it wasnt for you, its clearly not. thats undeniable. its for the vl70-m fans who have been long begging for this in vst form (tho it doesnt have all the vl70-m models) and its annoying to see the samplerheads get in the way of what we fully appreciate.
i too have experience as a pro sax and trumpet and windsynth player of 40 years, played with sinatra, sam & dave, the drifters, the four tops, and many big bands and jazz bands.
the difference is i have 15 years of physical modeling experience too and have owned a vl70-m and wx5 since they came out so i know how to play modeled trumpets as well as real ones. the beauty of the vl70-m is you have to learn EVERY model on it differently, its not at all like playing a keyboard and having it play itself, you can but like arturia brass itll sound awful in the same way. you just cant sit down wityh a model AND THINK YOULL SOUND LIKE AN EXPERT.
Every gig i play i bring tenor sax, trumpet, and wx5 and vl70-m for everything else.
from your posts im guessing you play keyboards and not any real brass instruments, so for you id recommend garritan jazz, or NI bandstand, youll be able to get good results with these on the first day easily. I have jazz already and am getting bandstand.
the place where people get their nose out of joint here is they expect brass to work like those, and thats just incredibly ignorant and wrong, which is sad because arturia clearly states its a model, they make it clear its not a sampler or sample based but everyone wants it to be a sampler. they arent even close to the same thing and they shouldnt be applied to the same purposes. I can only assume that these people dont know anything about what physical modeling is and why we want a vst thats hard to sound good on right away. I do not think i assumed very wrong in this case as all your posts have confirmed.
so again, stick to garritan and the other romplers and dont rain on our private parade until youve got some modeler chops.
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I'd add that Tom Scott has also been a vl70-m player for a decade now.
obviously he can afford samplers but chooses the vl70-m.
much like many many others of us.
look it up: Yamaha VL70m
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http://www.arturia.com/en/default.php
This is Arturias official promotion of the software. I cant find the information anywhere were its supposed to be sold only to the inner circle members of free masonry or similar. :lol:
1. just like a real trumpet nobody is gonna wanna listen to that first day or week of you learning it. you WILL sound awful. nobody has ever picked up a trumpet and sounded great 1st time, a model will be the same way. You wouldnt blame a real trumpet if you couldnt make it sound good on your first try, never having played one before, its clearly not the horns fault. But after a couple months or more you start getting good and youll find it can do things no sampler can do.
Hey! I am 52 and since my time is limited I would never even think of introducing a rookie on trumpet into my band neither will I spend a lifetime on learning this Brass module not sounding like a kazoo. It would be even more bizarre.
This newly released rookie Brass Player would have earned some points if he had been better trained by Arturia first.
2. ... but us wind synthesists have been down that route and have exhausted all that samplers/romplers can do. WE HAVE THAT COVERED ALREADY, what we are looking for is brass that doesnt play itself, that relies on us to impart the character that no sampler can simulate.Its for the vl70-m fans who have been long begging for this in vst form (tho it doesnt have all the vl70-m models) and its annoying to see the samplerheads get in the way of what we fully appreciate
We are actually not looking for the same product... but do you really mean that Arturias products are only for you guys? It sounds like it and you say so but I wonder if Arturia really want it to be that way? Are you sure and have checked with their sale team first?
3. I too have experience as a pro sax and trumpet and windsynth player of 40 years, played with sinatra, sam & dave, the drifters, the four tops, and many big bands and jazz bands.
Really? Hope not old blue eyes passed away cause you tried to convince him using Brass on "Jeepers Creepers"...
4. ... from your posts im guessing you play keyboards"
No I am not! I am a vocalist/guitarslinger/composer/film producer/3D and Visual FX producer and writer... does this fact degrade me even more on the scale excellence in your world of fine old synthesists. Sounds like you all are in the same league as a mix between Mother Theresa and Albert Einstein.
5.
... so again, stick to garritan and the other romplers and dont rain on our private parade until youve got some modeler chops.
After your reply on my first thoughts of Arturias Brass I ordered Garritan. Its a clear fact that your inverted promotion is the worst case Arturia could ever find. In the end I do not think they can survive with you and your friends as their only customers.
Good news travels fast, but bad news travels even faster!
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Jaxtone, yes I did notice that you mentioned spending an hour in the shop, but you didn't say very much about what you did in that hour.
For my part, I did mention that I haven't actually used Brass, so I wasn't rubbishing what you were saying, just adding a note of caution based on experience with other forms of brass synthesis.
As Tony has said in the meantime, it takes a while to play an instrument. He's absolutely right. There's an assumption many people have that you need to learn all types of instruments except synthesisers, which somehow sit there waiting to do musical things as soon as you press a key or press a button. And musicians don't always seem to be exempt from that assumption.
And yes, I do know what brass instruments sound like. I've spent enough time in jazz clubs and being brought up on people like Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders to have noticed a few things.
As far as I'm concerned the jury's still out on Brass and it will be until I've played it. You could well be right about the poor quality of the sounds. But you may also be proved wrong by someone who learns to play this thing, and until that happens judgment needs to be reserved.
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Imho, I don't think arturia would have released an only-kazoo simulating program :D The prob is that nowadays, people want everything done in a snap without learning and experimenting. I remember people complaining about their not having the phat big guitar sound when I used to be a guitar player. They all seemed to forget that one's sound is not only in the gear but in one's fingers too :roll:
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During that hour I listened?
J
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Of course its in the fingers too! I have never and will never say anything else!
J
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While I was writing my last post you've posted again.
This shouldn't need saying, but there is no `inner circle.' Instruments require people who spend the time and effort required to learn to play them. You seem to have a problem with that when it comes to softsynths, for some reason.
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I started up with a music production kit in the late -80´s. Built on sequensers and hardware synths. I programmed those machines a lot but felt that this was very much to walk around the target of what I really wanted to do. Today I must admit I mostly work with sampled instruments cause I have found that this is just as close to the real thing you can come. And it might be true if I say my expectations were that Arturia Brass almost 20 years later were more up to date...
About the inner circle it was more of a sarcastic joke on Tony´s protectionism than a serious accusation.
J
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So you cant play real brass and youre a samplerhead, i was right. You have no modeler chops, also right.
The funny thig is that Yamaha had the same problem with you guys when the introduced the VL1, it had a keyboard and immediately keyboardists said the EXACT same thing "it sounds like a kazoo"
in reality it was just them being stupid, so in a smart move yamaha REMOVED the keyboard and since then the vl70m has been one of their most succesful synths.
but rather than even make a beginners effort at comprehension you resort to infantile insults in order to defend your fantasy that theres no instrument you cant master in an hour.
you said "but do you really mean that Arturias products are only for you guys? It sounds like it and you say so but I wonder if Arturia really want it to be that way? Are you sure and have checked with their sale team first? "
which really proves you to be a moron, which youd know if you read anything i linked to.
yamaha used Cal tech/ Stanford to do physics modeling for the vl series including VL70m
arturia used IRCAM to likewise do physics modeling for brass
they are both exactly the same type of acoustic physics modelers
they are the only 2 available.
arturia includes demos played by a windsynth
arturia clearly states its a model, every moron knows an accurate trumpet model wont be played on the first day by a noob
and only a complete and utter noob could think garritan and brass are competing products
SAMPLERS AND MODELERS ARE NOT FOR THE SAME PURPOSES.
your problem is you want brass to be another sample bank and god thats boring, we already have like a dozen or so of those, but not only that you want physics modeling BANNED because YOU CANT PLAY IT.
im quite certain if anyone from arturia is reading this that theyd agree im the only one who "gets it", and i bet they appreciate it because ANY COMPANY CAN TOSS TOGETHER A SAMPLE BANK YOU CAN PLAY FROM YOUR MIDI KEYBOARD WITH A LITTLE VIBRATO ON THE MOD WHEEL AND FILTER ON THE FILTER WHEEL BUT IT TAKES HUGE INSTITUTIONS YEARS OF WORK TO CREATE REALISTICALLY PLAYABLE MODELS.
and realistically playable doesnt mean a guitar player will learn it in an hour. thats what SAMPLERS ARE FOR and only MORONS would get them MIXED UP.
before responding with more gradeschoolisms i recommend you read this:
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/WindControllerFAQ.html
and especially this which is contained:
So what's so special about the Yamaha VL70-m?
What's the difference between samplers and physical modeling type synthesis?
Samples can easily always sound better than a synthesized sound in a single dimension. But sounds have another dimension for most of us wind controller players- that is, they need to respond and be played and adapt to the musical demand. Samples are merely a snippet of a real recording so I would expect them to sound as good as any CD recording of that instrument playing. Essentially, that's all samples are anyway. The problem is when you try to manipulate the sample and play it expressively or differently than how it was originally recorded. You run into insurmountable problems once you try to do expressive things that are not already recorded into the samples. A sampler's filters and layers only go so far. I've tried to find ways around it with just about every sampler made. But when you start to get down to trying expressive things that really matter with samples you end up hitting the wall of limitations- at least given our current technology.
For example, let's say you want to crescendo a simple flute sound from ppp to fff. Ok, you need some samples of a flute at several different levels. A soft flute sounds far different than a loud flute that is blown hard. So you sample them. You create 50 layers of flute samples. You can even crossfade them so that different samples come in and out as you blow. But along that slope you either have to hard switch between the samples or crossfade between them. If you hard switch between them, that sounds completely unnatural as you hear the switch. If you crossfade them you will have to be hearing more than one sample in some proportion at the boundaries and that sounds unnatural. You would need to match the pitch exactly so you don't get chorusing- but samplers aren't generally phase locked so you will get some weird out of phase composite sound or actual cancellation of sound. Real flutes don't do that either so that sounds unnatural. On the VL since it is a true synthesizer with no samples, with the proper patch, you simply blow harder and the overtones are created and added as on a real flute.
Then we have the issue of slurring with samples which no sampler can really do right. That's a mess with samplers. At some point you need to switch samples within the slur. Currently samplers cannot do a realtime crossfade between adjacent samples. So you either overlap them slightly which is unnatural, or you hard switch between them which is unnatural, or you change the sample playback rate which is too smooth and causes a "chipmunk" effect which is unnatural. If you can't play a simple slurred melody on a sampler, I'd say that's a pretty big problem with samplers. On a VL, you can slur easily and the timbre changes properly and smoothly. The VL even reacts to how you are playing. It reacts to the previous notes that were played and how you tongue, and the slope of your breath etc... People need to realize this. The physically modeled synth is a dynamically responsive instrument like a real acoustic instrument.
There are other significant problems with samplers. After thinking about it for years, I decided that the only way to even POSSIBLY do it right with today's mainstream technology is with physical modeling. So I decided to commit nearly a year of my life to trying to make the VL's physical modeling sounds as close to real as possible. I realize that the VL Voices are not 100% perfect copies of real instruments, but I think they are far better, more realistic, and more natural to play than any sampler could be capable of. Personally, I'd go as far as to say that the timbre on the many of the TURBO VL sounds is also as good as a sampler and approaches the sound of the real thing.
You could offer me the biggest Gigasampler setup with every Gigasampler CD ROM ever created and I'd still choose my TURBO VL70-m for playing with my wind controller. Once you play a VL and get used to it, playing samples will feel very unsatisfying no matter how good the samples are. Once you are used to the responsive interaction you get from the VL, you will easily sense the "lack of control" feeling you get when playing samples. Playing samples feels like you are triggering a sound. Playing a physically modeled sound feels like you are interacting directly with the sound. The Yamaha VL line of synthesizers employs Physical Modeling to create their sound. This type of synthesis is vastly different from anything else. Physical modeling synthesizers can actually respond to HOW you are playing just like an acoustic instrument. You can play middle C three different ways and it will sound three different ways depending on if you are coming from an adjacent note or a note a large interval away, or if you slurred into it or tongued into it or if you were bending into it, etc...
I'm amazed to discover new characteristics of these instruments every time I play them. Try playing a VL tenor sax very softly and listen how the sound almost magically goes from breath noise to a defined pitch, or play very staccato and listen how the horn resonates, or play very fast and listen to how the instrument might squeak or skips octaves. You really need to play an instrument for a decent amount of time to understand all of its complexity. It's an amazing feeling the first time you play a VL tenor sax and skip down an octave- the sound doesn't just jump the octave but it instead resonates to the lower harmonic. Or a VL Tin Whistle can actually jump an octave as you blow harder just like on the real thing.
Another example: It is possible to do true lip shakes on VL brass patches. Not only that but the VL knows to shake a major second from high "Bb" to high "C" but it knows to shake a minor third from high "G" to high "Bb". It can follow the true harmonic series of a real trumpet. Along these lines. I've experimented with actually controlling the embouchure with the bite pressure on my EVI to simulate the way a bugle or trumpet player can skip harmonics with the lips. It works, but it's hard to control it this way. All that's needed is for someone to build a trumpet controller with an embouchure sensor and we've got a "virtual trumpet". On trumpet patches it is even possible to split notes between the mode breaks!
and heres some more on acoustic physical modeling:
http://enlightenedsystems.com/vl/vl.htm
patchman make soundbanks for modelers AND ALSO SAMPLERS for brass and wind players.
nobody understands them more, not even you, and they clearly understand the differences and benefits of each.
i mean before you further ignorantly criticize arturia be aware that they are THE ONLY PLUGIN COMPANY brave enough to be making a acoustics physical modeling plugin.
There are DOZENS of companies doing ROMPLERS, ISNT THAT ENOUGH??
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Wow!
So you ask me to leave this place and call me a moroon... interesting way to meet my personally points of view. I am not impressed of the level on your replies but actually understand what things you miss most in life.
Humour and a hug. So here they are... first the humour and then the hug!
PS. If you can prove that your self promotion of your excellent knowledge can make the Arturian saxophone kazoo sound like a real instrument then I will reconsider my thoughts of Brass. If you also can support with a time schedule and effort of energy to reach a natural sound I will be convinced. Not before that!
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I certainly agree that for you brass isnt the thing, ive made that sooo clear.
but please understand i want, badly, for arturia to continue down this brave road because its what I and the many others like me in those links desire and dont already have.
they arent hurting you in the process, nobody is making you use modelers
they arent stopping the other companies from making romplers, obviously
truth is that todays computers can barely scratch the surface in modeling, and modeling can theortically go as deep as you can in physics, perhaps to infinity.
arturias sax model isnt even as good as yamahas, but their trumpet is better. still that isnt the point, as primitive as these models are in timbre, which obviuosly samplers have a nice shortcut to attaining, they are more realistically responsive to human control than samplers can be.
so what will hppen when computers get faster is that they will be able to run deeper and deeper models, they will be able to include tongue modeling (which the sax really needs) and lung modeling and throat modeling and a better lip model.
acoustic models will suffer in timbre for a few more years, but eventually they will overcome that, id bet things are seriously better by brass 3 to the point where everyone will cease using samplers for brass just like theyve ceased using samplers for synths and now use modeled synths like the ones from...gasp..arturia.
but again your problem , as i said in my first reply, was that you thought brass was another sampler and you had no knowledge, and seemingly no interest in the difference and despite me trying to push you over to the right side of the store, where they stock the samplers, you seem intent upon tearing down this side.
i suppose when you go to macdonalds you order a whopper.
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No! I dont crash mentally because of the ubermenschen style you deliver in this conversation... but it actually seems a little bit childish that a full grown up adult treat another based on so much hate... You could at least include some finesse in your personal assaults.
Although I can read between the lines that theres isnt only anger included in your replies there is also an essence of fear included in these sometimes very rude and angry responds. Why is that... a wild guess might be frustration over that life isnt simple... especially when not everyone think the same way as yourself.
What you define as the right way... is totally unintresting until the questions is responded and proven from you!
If you can prove that your self promotion of your excellent knowledge can make the Arturian saxophone kazoo sound like a real instrument then I will reconsider my thoughts of Brass. If you also can support with a time schedule and effort of energy to reach a natural sound I will be convinced. Not before that!
PS. How the heck did you get McDonalds involved in Arturias Brass?[/b]
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Jaxtone, at least Tony is concerned about the essential issue, playing music and learning to master an instrument. To me that's infinitely preferable to your offer of hugs (I think I'll decline that one) and your vague attempts at psychoanalysis.
Oddly, you accuse him of wanting everyone to think as he does, when his post in fact does totally the opposite and points out that you'd be better with a different product, and there are different products available for different needs.
Ironically, I didn't have much interest in Brass until I read this topic. I'm now curious enough to download a demo when there's one available.
And I'd certainly like to see Arturia continue with this kind of research, if only for the time when their experience with player control techniques feeds back into their synth design. A softsynth that has brass type control with non-acoustic synth sound generation really would be something.
BTW I think Tony's MacDonald's reference referred to the desire for something instant, the fast-food equivalent of making music, the antithesis of spending time and effort creating something subtle and satisfying.
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Gasp!
So you dont like hugs... hmmm... and you believe that trolly guys are the only ones in this forum that tries to master their instruments... interesting.
But honestly let me hear something produced with Brass that sounds good instead of talk so much technical nonse... No one in here have ever said that Arturia shall stop developing their products... that is an accusation taken from your fantasies.
Give me a link to something produced with Brass that not sounds like a Kazoo! Is this hard to understand... a simple request for some real proof and no more Mary Jane theories about how it might or can sound in your imaginations.
Its easy to convince me by real facts since I only use my ears when judging if a sound is close to the real thing.
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Jaxtone and all
First I want to say that I won't buy Brass, since it'simply not my c.o.t. so the dongle problems don't touch me ( for the moment at least :wink: ).
Secondly I have to agree with Tony about the issues on the software emulation of an acoustic instrument.
1.The sound: many people in and outta here claim the sax model isn't close, we can agree with those people but I feel like trusting Arturia they will improve the model, as they did with TAE: the most important thing is to interact with the guys as I do about the CS-80V: any hint can be precious ( but you have to be strongly skilled in acoustics )
2. The playability: well, Jaxtone, Brass is a model, which means it is a living copy of an instrument, and to play it correctly you have to manage the technique, to play keyboard isn't enough for a brass model, you have to deal with dozens of parameters. The thing could be easier if you play the real thing, ironically ! You have to consider that to play Brass you have to study yourself how the brass instruments work, pressing a key won't help, it's not a synthesizer and you can't play like a synth or a sampler because simply it isn't that kind of things.If you can't handle it properly you will deal with kazoos forever :wink:
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To tell you the truth... I dont even own a keyboard cause I usually use my music programs inner settings for modulation, volume, velocity, ambience etc... to deliver reasonabel transcriptions for my band when orchestrating my original songs as well as re-arrangements of old standards.
Though I play with guys that spent at least 30 years on a professional career as musicians to reach the top level of their instruments it would have been tragical to focus on Brass to acchieve sounds that only might reach the real thing. In the end its more important for me to compose and arrange music than to be master of one single software module.
J
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Ah, indeed, but just like learning to use samplers was an investment in time that has paid off in years of advancing samplers so too does an investment in modeling pay off as each year modelers become more advanced.
special thanks to sweep and omissis.
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Tony
I always had mixed feelings about PM instruments, especially those emulating winds and bowed strings, because the resulting instruments were hard to manage effectively to good representations too many parameters while for a cello player just the bow inclination contributes to reach ifferent nuances etc., my thought was that it could be easier to me to learn the instrument by scratch rather than loose myself in the mid of a params forest...don't get me wrong I'm not against PM but they have to be way much more improved on the expression and playability side, it seems to me that Brass is put on the right way but it's just the beginning of the road .
Similar speech could be made for VAs since to me they still reproduce a "perfect world" of electric paths leaving many influencing variables out, anyway if the guys will get the full power from actual and future cpus and will once for all close the doors to the obsloete MIDI interface, maybe we will see some real goodies....
Jaxtone
I understand perfectly your thing is composition but then we happen to fall in different places, you like composition through your programs, I like the live performance and in-session-composition....right then Brass could be more focused on my needs than on yours but this bleongs to the target given to this software which is maybe more of a live performance instrument, anyway don't give up , you can dominate the Brass beast as well, it's just a matter of time.
As on my previous message I can second you about the quality of some sounds but, you know, without improvements we could still make knives from the stones!!! Have some trust, I'm sure they're actually looking on how to improve the sound :wink:
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Tony:
special thanks to sweep and omissis.[code]
Hmmm... is the thank you to these gentlemen for co-operation in killing critisism from me? I still havent heard a single natural sound from you. Come on I am waiting to be convinced...
Max Omissis:
I see what you mean and of course I wont disagree on an option where Arturia update their Brass module. I think most of us hope for a better product... ehrmmm... except from one man in here... ... that seems to enjoy things just because they are complicated. I also understand by listening to Tony that Brass seems to be a bit complicated to learn and are produced mostly to please a few technicians instead of millions of common users. If thats a fact I bow my humble back and praise the Lord that Arturia is such idealists in their future business plans.
Just a small correction on the personal profile of me while producing music.
I am a live artist / composer and the main goal for me when I compose and arrange music is to let this music being performed live on stage with a 8 piece postmodern swing band. Its not a computer project even if many sketches are made in there... There is no space for electrified keyboards in my image of sound. Upright bass, guitar, drums and a grand piano in the rythm section. On top of this classic rythm setup I work with a live brass section including alto, bone, trumpet and tenor.
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I am a live artist / composer and the main goal for me when I compose and arrange music is to let this music being performed live on stage with a 8 piece postmodern swing band. Its not a computer project even if many sketches are made in there... There is no space for electrified keyboards in my image of sound. Upright bass, guitar, drums and a grand piano in the rythm section. On top of this classic rythm setup I work with a live brass section including alto, bone, trumpet and tenor.
Various kinds of musicians for different opinions, the best way to make a piece of software get better and better, so let's try to be cooler :wink:
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I also understand by listening to Tony that Brass seems to be a bit complicated to learn and are produced mostly to please a few technicians instead of millions of common users. If thats a fact I bow my humble back and praise the Lord that Arturia is such idealists in their future business plans.
Well, Jaxtone, it's not as extreme as you state : you can learn anything just finding the right "how to"...for sure Brass tries to be more playable than other PM instruments but even with future updates I wouldn't renounce to the breath controller, an aftertouch keyboard and a ribbon controller ( see? Why am I so devoted to the Yamaha CS80? Because it was the one and only synthesizer born with the player in mind, no other synth had such intuitive interface and the way it had.... )
I am a live artist / composer and the main goal for me when I compose and arrange music is to let this music being performed live on stage with a 8 piece postmodern swing band. Its not a computer project even if many sketches are made in there... There is no space for electrified keyboards in my image of sound. Upright bass, guitar, drums and a grand piano in the rythm section. On top of this classic rythm setup I work with a live brass section including alto, bone, trumpet and tenor.
Understood it fully :wink:
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see, everyone gets your point jax but you dont seem to be getting ours.
as far as demos the trumpet demo on their says enough of what we are talking about.
but i dont get why you ignore that over and over again i confirm that garritan jazz and ni bandstand are what youre looking for.
you have no plans on playing any of these live do you?
the concept of brass is for directly controllable expressiveness that you cant do with a sampler.
for instance post me an example of a sampled trumpet doing the demo licks from arturias site and see if you can come close to that.
You'll get a clue why us more experienced guys dont use samplers and modelers for the same purposes, those purposes are quite different.
id wager this whole post goes over your head too, i dont see why this one would be any different.
but heres some demos you should listen to:
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/AudioDemos/VL70mV1.mp3
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/AudioDemos/VL70mV2.mp3
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I just downloaded the demo version of Brass to try out myself instead of guessing of what its capable to... I thought it would work out fine on an old PC version of Logic 5.2 as well... but the only thing that happend was that Brass didnt accept my soundboard. No settings available would make Brass sound even a little bit... just crashed my whole system. Well its just to restart it but no good luck here in trying Ostinatos favourite program.
All the serials and codes were put in as told... so thats not the problem.
J
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i'd bet anything this guy doesnt know what a vl70-m is and that he thought arturia brass was sample based.
you dont play it with just a keyboard , if thats what you want use sample libraries, you shouldnt have been looking at this in the first place.
now if you had a keyboard and aftertouch and mod wheel and breath control all being played professionally then maybe...
Tony!
I absolutly know about the Yamaha VL-7 etc. and I have used it with and without a breath control etc.I have sold a lot of this,and i think you have made a great job to get it to sound like it,BUT the customer want it to sound like Quantum leap brass etc. and this is not a VST sampler!
How ever I love some of the sound and I recomended you to do this based on the VL sound´s and you have made a really good job on this,how ever this may not be the best thing for THIS customer, but I think we can sell a lot of this!!!
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Hi!
I dont believe this Mr Tony Ostinato really have any permission from Arturia to tell whom is allowed in here... even if it sounds like he actually runs and owns the Arturia company from time to time. He might be a genious in programming your gear but of course not the smoothest company representative I have met during a lifetime. So lets forget about the rude behaviour in future conversations. I just think he is eager telling the world how fantastic he is, and thats ok with me. As an artist to another I just want to finish off by saying theres a subtle distinction between a true genious and a total maniac sometimes.
Since I was shocked by how some of the instruments in Brass sounded at my first visit at my local music shop I first thought most of it was crap. But just because of some people in here that in a gentle and nice way told me how this works I went interested in seeing if I could wash off the sentence "First impression last".
I just downloaded the demo version myself cause I really want to see if parts of Brass is just as bad or good as people say it is. Maybe I havent got what it takes to educate myself in this interface... but I still wants to give it an honest chance.
Got some questions and a conclusions.
Quest:
Can Brass be fully modulated and edited without using a keyboard? I use Logic 5.2 for PC and as I see it all Brass features can be find in there... but this is just a question to get rid of guessing if it might be so that there are limitations working without a keyboard from the inside of Logic.
How are Brass connected to the transcription part within Logic?
In this stage I fell the saxophone is a misery in many ways since it got a metallic-plastic frequense that is very hard to get rid off even if the wooden mouthpiece is used and its modulated as far as I can manage. Is it possible that there is any presettings available that could show off a more realistic tenor saxophone?
Conclusions:
The trombone as I said earlier is excellent in mostly all tonal registers.
The trumpet seems to sound ok when its played softly but the Latino attacks and fff seems to be hard to find in the attack of the sound itself. I suspect there might be a conclusion on this problem as well. Maybe the same solution as in the suggestion below will be the best way to show it.
Its hard to judge by a newcomer if the saxophone might be useful and are able to reach natural sax sounds, but heres a suggestion. In the first hand a serie of presets of realistic Tenor, Alto and Bary settings would be well appriceated.
Secondly, follow up tutorials thats showing how its done will be a valuable time saver for both users and developers. Viewed examples of sampled saxophones in a wide range of areas both as graphic waveforms and with audio sounds available. Attach how it was done with images and attached sound examples that views in which direction and how Arturias Brass managed to reach these natural sounds.
J
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but heres some demos you should listen to:
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/AudioDemos/VL70mV1.mp3
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/AudioDemos/VL70mV2.mp3
Yeah I have listened... and theres is no doubt this is really great... must say that some parts are fantastic too.
But listen to VL70V1.mp3 and explain these soundglitches and soundmerges that appears in both of your mp3 examples from time to time:
Phraze 1
05:00-06:00 Endphrazing of the trumpet it glitches and sounds like a cross sound between a miniMg and a distorted guitar. Is this produced by a meaning or a defect?
Phraze 2
The introduction sounds trumpet before its switched into an alto. At the end phrazing its also switched back into a trumpet. Great! The next highest note is an E and in the middle of this long tone its wobbling pretty much. Is this also by meaning or a defect?
And in some cases Alto frequenses intrudes in the Tenor register. The same thing happends when instruments are plying along their registers. They kind of merge into other sounds... defects or features?
I am not trying to pick on these examples cause they are both fine... just wonder why it appears. And finally a question... could you manage to produce this without a keyboard... from the inside of a music software instead?
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Congratulations Tony - you have convinced me that yes, Brass is not for me. I don't wish to spend the rest of my life learning one software instrument, especially not when it *is* promoted as one that can be played effectively from a keyboard. Instead, I wil collaborate with real brass players - anyone but you, Tony. Rageaholic egomaniac musicians are plentiful, but so are reasonable good-natured ones like jaxtone.
Armando.
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hmmm no sooner does jax change his tone to a more inquisitive, studious one than someone else goes nuts to take his place.
Actually convincing people who wish to use a sampler and who have samplers fill their needs absolutely should be convinced to try other things than AB, so that isnt something im against at all (havent i recommended other things in every post?).
anyways i wanna reward jax for his new improved style with answers as best as i can.
lets look at another area where physics modeling is used, weather forecasting.
weather stations use computers to model the weather, and they make the model try to behave like the real thing. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesnt.
Weather forecasting models have improved greatly in the last 10 years but they still have a long way to go as they become, with ever stronger computing power, able to model more and more aspects of reality all at once.
Whats important to realize is that physical modeling is really hard because its physics.
it has been easier for plugin makers to model comparatively simpler things like analog circuits and be better recieved, such as the arp2600, Mgs etc.
i have 3 uad-1 cards and im quite pleased with their models as well.
Arturia have in fact made history by making the first ATTEMPT at a brass acoustic physical modeler plugin.
even if you feel it sucks, you cannot deny this is a brave step forward, or even backward with the ultimate intention of moving far forward.
Samplers cheat to get timbre, they simply record the instrument.
EVERYONE HERE GETS THAT SAMPLERS WIN IN THE TIMBRE RACE, CASE CLOSED (for now)
obviously thats a very easy and convenient way to get timbre happening, its been an excellent technological synthesis shortcut to simply be able to copy the basic tones from instruments in samplers, but no sampler can capture the instruments behavior
the wobbling you mentioned for instance is what a real trumpet does, its called a shake, its a vibrato thats extended to spread over the harmonic breaks, its really hard to do realistic shakes on a sampler that will fit the stylistic context. listen to some Louis Armstrong for a lot of this technique.
shakes, lip slurs, glissandos, examples of behaviors.
so i think its accurate to say that samplers are undeniably more powerful in getting the timbre, but its a convenient shortcut they use, but modelers are ALREADY more powerful at doing behaviors.
itd be nice to merge the technologies but noone has found a way. thats why a lot of people are using both.
the demos werent played by a keyboard exactly, they were played with one of these:
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/wx5info.html
or one of these
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/ewi4000s.html
or one of these
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/mdt.html
they were recorded in realtime with no midi editing, thats live.
but the thing about midi is that the it doesnt matter what you use, midi is midi. You can edit in controller data and it should work though it might be tough to simulate the natural intricacies that you get using those wind controllers.
the vl70m is going over 6 years old now, probably more. all that time ive been waiting for the next step.
ive posted, along with others, many times BEGGING for someone anyone to do a PM plugin like the vl70-m all those 6 years. you can search vl70m on the cubase and nuendo and kvr forums for those.
but computers havent been powerful enough until recently. what we are witnessing in arturia brass is the dawn of PM on computer, sure its crude and ugly at the moment. yes i said crude and ugly, but the point is that this is the first step in a technology that, as computers get more powerful, will take over as THE way to do acoustic instrument synthesis.
and no matter how ugly and crude that first step is, it puts arturia in the lead in this field.
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I am a live artist / composer and the main goal for me when I compose and arrange music is to let this music being performed live on stage with a 8 piece postmodern swing band.
It's no good; I just have to ask: What's a postmodern swing band? I keep imagining a swing band reinterpreted by Derrida.
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Just a question... Whats no good?
When you ask me about postmodernism I could easily get away with this link... http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/pomo.html
... but my definition would be a vintage sound with modern arrangements and soundings.
J
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Shake Lip Slurs and Glissandos... I know perfectly well what these are even if I am a more street wise player than a school shaped archetype.
Still very impressed by the sounds produced with these instruments even if I must say they must be the ugliest designed pieces in the universe...
... especially this one would go under the category worst case... http://www.patchmanmusic.com/mdt.html is this an UZI or what... if some one ever catch up a weapon like this it would be a completely joke if this guy wasnt a real gunslinger... but thats my private opinion... theres actually enough space for new innovations in this millenium and the last one hasnt been seen yet.
About Arturias ambitions to reach their goals I have never had anything against their work to develope new technical applications, just think the saxophone sounds to much like a giant kazoo and the trumpet has its limitations. I will of course as anyone else in here look forward to next step they take.
J
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Tony
Well we're just at the dawn of PM on computer although some very good tries have been made yet with electric pianos and tube technology but Brass is the first into the brass modeling ( as String studio is the first good PMed string program ).
There is a long way to step on for sure and who says , like Armando, that to learn a software isn't worth the effort shoots straight on his own feet: I repeat, Brass is not for me at the moment because I'm not interested in acoutic instruments except for pianos and percussions, but if I was I could have been very intrigued by Brass, not counting the fact that , even if not being perfectly crafted , I could make it behave like a trumpet-from-deep sea or whatever comes into my mind ( creativity helps, believe me guys !)....what Tony tries to say is that Brass is not an instrument to be played like a synthesizer but like a Brass instrument, the keyboard can provide control but it isn't the only and surely not the best of controllers for such a program and it offers only a % of the expressive possibilities.
Brass is a good start point into the PM software world and has plenty of improvement spaces ; I repeat what I said on another forum to those who threw Brass down the tower with such ease: if any of you can code a better modeled brass instrument, no one prevents you from putting a new emulation on the market, if you can live with samples no one forces you to buy Brass: I bought the CS-80V and I have 3 more softies, one FM, one sampler-rompler, a rhodes model and I feel comfortable with these because I get the sounds I want-the way I want with those and I don't feel the need for more just to be "a la page"....who feels like needing Brass ( and has carefully evaluated it ) then will buy Brass, those who bought it but all in all can live without it will forget it soon :wink:, so please try before you buy and don't waste your HDspace!
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Heres a better pic of the one i use:
http://www.musiciansbuy.com/mmMBCOM/images/yamaha_wx5_%20.jpg
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Tony you're an idiot ... really one of the most despicable, sad characters i have met in forums all over the web these last 10 years (including IRC)
as one can see in this thread again you keep on stomping out the exact same three phrases, that's all you have to say ... i pitty you ... no, i pitty the people who have to put up with your idiocy and total lack of manners in threads like these ...
don't bother replying, just wanted to say out loud what a lot of people are thinking ...
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well idiot, hmm, i think i introduced a few here to the vl70m whereas noone introduced me to anything new.
its not that unusual for any display of intelligence to garner some hostility in a world where its cool to be stupid.
pity only has one t btw, since you got it wrong twice i figured i help ya.
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Tony you're an idiot ... really one of the most despicable, sad characters i have met in forums all over the web these last 10 years (including IRC)
as one can see in this thread again you keep on stomping out the exact same three phrases, that's all you have to say ... i pitty you ... no, i pitty the people who have to put up with your idiocy and total lack of manners in threads like these ...
don't bother replying, just wanted to say out loud what a lot of people are thinking ...
Well at least Tony has something useful to say, whether or not you like the way he says it.
I find it very hard to believe you've not encountered anyone worse than Tony in ten years on the Internet. You've been very lucky, to say the least.
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Tony you're an idiot ... really one of the most despicable, sad characters i have met in forums all over the web these last 10 years (including IRC)
as one can see in this thread again you keep on stomping out the exact same three phrases, that's all you have to say ... i pitty you ... no, i pitty the people who have to put up with your idiocy and total lack of manners in threads like these ...
don't bother replying, just wanted to say out loud what a lot of people are thinking ...
Well at least Tony has something useful to say, whether or not you like the way he says it.
I find it very hard to believe you've not encountered anyone worse than Tony in ten years on the Internet. You've been very lucky, to say the least.
Right, I spend much time on forums and I must admit it's hard to find a friendly music maker over the net ... Feeling like a "so-called" musician seems to make people getting more and more egocentric :roll:
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Hi all!
... there must be certain rules for how you communicate with your opponents even in this forum... if there are no rules we might put them up ourselfes and that means that we all gotta listen to everyones opinion even if it sucks. And if you start bullying a people in person debates like this can be terrible unfocused. Its more up to the fact you produce to convince someone else.
I think its 100 percent ok with satire, humour and ironi to bend and twitch your arguments. And still I havent been so funny that I spelled my opponents Tony O(b)stinato´s name totally wrong :)
I really dont mind if someone is bitter or grumpy cause I got a few more important things to focus on in my agenda. But just think of it...
J
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I am looking for a PM synth with a decent sax sound to use with my WX7. Unfortunately, Yamaha does not seem to sell the celebrated VL70m here in Europe. So this Brass sounds good as a possibility, but how does it sound in practice? I still haven't managed to activate the licence of the demo. To me, the sax in the music samples provided really sounds like a baritone kazoo. There is some enjoyable expressiveness there, but the basic sound is just wrong. So instead of arguing about what PM can do with practice, why can't somebody post a link to a more decent example of a sax sound from the Brass.
I don't, by the way, completely buy the argument about practice. I know from experience what is involved in playing a real sax, how it reacts to all kinds of things. But using a wind controller, I can actually only control breath and lip pressure. There is no way for the PM synth to be aware of my mouth cavity, how open my throat is, and what kind of pressure I am actually applying to the reed. I agree that it takes practice to really use the synth in an expressive way, but the basic sound should be there. Things would be different with controllers that actually measure a lot more physical parameters, but we don't have such.
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Just thought I'd throw in my two-penny worth.
Modelling a physical synthesizer like the Modular Mg or the CS80 requires non-linear algebraic and non-linear ordinary differential equations (as well as their linear cousins for those linear moments in the dynamics). Arturia have done a brilliant job with those synths.
Modelling an accoustic instrument, particularly a wind instrument, is totally different. A dynamical model requires the solution of a mixture of non-linear algebraics and non-linear partial differential equations. These equations are multi-dimensional, catering for at least the three dimensions of the air flow plus the all important sound/pressure waves (which are non-linear of course). To do this in real time, with all the interfaces between the different parts of the instrument (the air inside the sax vibrating the body and those vibrations being correctly modelled) is the stuff of post-doc research and super computers. Arturia, with their tame French University team, must have cut massive corners to get a 'playable' instrument that responds as quickly as Brass reportedly does. They should be congratulated on producing a fantastic model -- but it will be light-years away from a real sonic copy of the physical instrument.