1st and 2nd Violin sautille and spiccatto

[Damon]

Wow! For fast bowings, these samples really work great http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif. I started a new composition last night and was very impressed at these samples. I used the Up and Down bowings and played them manually, which I am starting to like more then using the Auto Alternator, for simple 1 note 16th notes.
The Auto Alternator does work great on the 1st violin marcatos when playing fast scales and arpeggios which of course makes it easier then having to play your right and left hand for doing this which would be next to impossible for 32nd note type stuff.
I\'d say the only one gripe I\'d have about this great library is I am finding the attacks on the SusVlns EXP LEG to fast for wanting to do very slow string stuff (ex:Adagio for Strings). I tried using the masking control at 100 percent (127) and the expression and modulation control (EXP), but still from note to note find the attacks to fast. I used legato mode as well.
Don\'t get me wrong, they work great for faster tempos and I like them but for real slow stuff, I\'m having a hard time.
Maybe another idea for the wishlist? A little slower attacks on the SusVlns, cellos, basses, and violas for slow string stuff? That combined with the legato mode and masking control would probably really work great if the grand detaches don\'t end up sounding right from the suggestion Jeff had (I sure hope his idea does work because the grand detaches are so nice for slower stuff used along with some expression control http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif).



[This message has been edited by Damon (edited 10-06-2001).]

[Tom Hopkins]

I just wanted to make sure you correctly understand the function of the masking control (GPC-5). From your comment it sounds like you may have the function backwards. The maximum setting of 127 gives you the fastest attacks. Backing off on the setting first gives you slower attack envelopes on the masking samples and then at even lower settings actually reduces the level of the masking samples themselves. Interestingly, we have received comments on both sides: some want the attacks faster still and other, like you, want them slower. I would suggest that if you don’t seem able to get the attack speed that you want from the default settings for GPC-5, experiment in the Instrument Editor and personalize this aspect of the LEG instruments. You can modify independently both the attack speed of the sustain samples and their matching masking samples. Start with the attack slope of the masking samples (try settings between 240 and 310 to start) and, if that doesn’t give you what you need, move on to trying to modify the attack slope of the sustain samples. Be careful though, because the transparent integration of the masking samples with the sustain samples depends upon a fairly delicate balance between the crossing slopes of the two (a great deal of developmental time went into this). Good luck.

[Robert Kral]

I wonder if Damon might be referring to the straight samples, not the masking samples. EG he wants a slower attack on all notes including the FIRST note of a phrase, not the passing/ masking samples?

If that\'s the case, can you post a quick tutorial on how to change the attack time of all samples in a patch?

I could see how this would work for sweeping epic stuff, for example playing it molto legato with overlapping notes in your sequencer but using a slower attack and slower release time.

[Damon]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=\"1\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Robert Kral:
I wonder if Damon might be referring to the straight samples, not the masking samples. EG he wants a slower attack on all notes including the FIRST note of a phrase, not the passing/ masking samples?

If that\'s the case, can you post a quick tutorial on how to change the attack time of all samples in a patch?

I could see how this would work for sweeping epic stuff, for example playing it molto legato with overlapping notes in your sequencer but using a slower attack and slower release time.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes Robert, that would be great. They don\'t have to be just the LEG samples, but the regular SusVln EXP.
In the past when I play strings with slower attacks, I anticipate the next note and overlap it with the previous note and it adds a nice little swell along with the expression controller instead of just a quick attack from note to note.
I have tried adjusting the attack on the SusVlns, but everytime I save the sound, it saves the entire 1st Violin Long bowings (all 36 or so sounds). Tom explained to me that it would do this, but I am wondering why when I save my new sound to \"New Violins\" (1st VlnSusV EXP with slower attack) it loads up all 36 sounds instead of just the one sound in Giga after I have edited the sound. I guess I would have to delete the original 1st violin long bowings and keep the \"New Violins\". I don\'t really know-I\'m still kind of confused.
Kevin from Nemesys told me a way you can \'copy\' the instrument you want to use from the large Gig file once you have loaded up the 1st vln long bowings and the open up a new file in the giga editor and hit \'paste\' then delete the \'untitled\' file and you have just the one sound you want, but when I load it up into the giga editor it says \"sound can not be updated at this time\" or something like that, but it still loads it up. I get no results though when I try and alter the attacks with even rubber-banding each layer and selecting all regions. It also still saves the entire file as well. I just wish they\'d have a manual for the giga editor period!
Tom I didn\'t realize that moving the mod wheel to 127 makes the masking control faster http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/blush.gif! I\'ll experiment more with it tonight.
I still find the grand detaches absolutely gorgeous for slow string stuff and hope that Jeffs idea with Maestro Tools works for extending the length. They are so expressive and rich!
A tutorial would be very much appreciated from me as well on how to adjust the attacks slower on the SusVlns, Vlas, Celli, and Bass EXP for slow string stuff. I have always been dumbfounded when it comes to the giga editor.
Thanks http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/smile.gif



[This message has been edited by Damon (edited 10-06-2001).]

[Tom Hopkins]

OK. Later tonight when I have a little free time I\'ll post a couple of tutorials for you. I certainly agree that the Instrument Editor alone deserves a detailed manual, book, collection of tutorials, whatever. I certainly would like to see Tascam make that a priority one day.

[Damon]

You\'re a cool guy for doing that Tom! I\'d really appreciate it whenever you have some free time.
Even though you\'ve told me a billion times http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif, I think I\'m still leaving out a step somewhere.

[This message has been edited by Damon (edited 10-06-2001).]

[Robert Kral]

tom, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

I have been ranting somewhat throughout the main forum, here and there, about the lack of Gigastudio tutorials and the NEED for a printed Gigastudio manual. Even web searches turn up extremely little on tutorials for Giga. I totally agree that at least the Giga editor needs a proper manual.

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

[This message has been edited by Robert Kral (edited 10-06-2001).]

[Tom Hopkins]

Damon (and Robert),

This tutorial will be in two parts. Damon, since you seem to have had difficulty extracting single instruments from larger .gig files I’ll start by showing you how to create a file that contains a single instrument and its associated wave files extracted from a larger multi-instrument .gig file. Remember that this newly created .gig file will take up additional HD space (unlike adding a nested instrument to an already existing .gig file which doesn\'t appreciably change the size of the existing file). The second part will take you through the process of adjusting the attack envelopes.

Part 1:

1. Open the Instrument Editor.
2. Load 1st Violins Long Bows 1.
3. Under the \"File\" menu choose \"New.\" This will open up a second (blank) .gig file.
4. Click on the \"Window\" menu. Below the \"Cascade\" and \"Arrange Icons\" choices you should see a listing of the two open files: 1st Violins Long Bows 1 and GigaInstrument1. Click on 1st Violins Long Bows 1 to make it active.
5. Right click on the first instrument in the list on the left (1st Vln SusV). Choose \"Copy Instrument.\" It will take a while for all the associated wave files to be copied. When done:
6. Click on the \"Window\" menu again. This time select GigaInstrument1 at the bottom of the menu. This will make it the active instrument.
7. Right click on \"0 Untitled\" and choose \"Paste Instrument.\" The Editor will ask you if it\'s all right to assign the instrument to Bank 0, Patch 1. Choose \"OK.\"
8. At this point I usually do a little housecleaning by deleting \"0 Untitled\" from the instrument list and \"Default Sample Group\" from the sample folder list in the window below. After that, double click on 1st Vln SusV in the instrument list and change the patch number from \"1\" to \"0.\"
9. Save GigaInstrument1 under a new name (1st Vln SusV Damon1?).

Part 2:

1. With your new .gig file (1st Vln SusV Damon1) loaded into the Instrument Editor choose \"EG1 attack time\" from the list just above the keyboard display.
2. Highlight all regions by placing your cursor just to the left of the first region, hold the left mouse button down and drag to the right across all regions, then release the left mouse button. All regions should turn yellow indicating that they have been selected.
3. Go to the velocity box just below and to the left of the regions. There are 4 velocity layer segments. Click on the top segment, hold the left mouse button down and drag your cursor down to the bottom segment and release the left mouse button. All velocity segments should now be green indicating that they have been selected.
4. Left click on any one of the blue balls near the bottom of the regions and drag up while holding the left button down. All the blue balls should move as a unit. If you\'ve done this correctly all regions will continue to appear yellow in color. Moving the balls up will increase (slow) the attack time and moving them down will decrease (speed up) the attack time. The numerical attack values can be seen in each of the velocity segments (e.g. 0.310 sec). These changes should be audible, while you play from a keyboard, as you make them, without the need to re-save the instrument during the adjustment process.
5. Once you have found an attack value you like, save the instrument.
6. Don’t forget to refresh the QS Database (which GigaStudio should try to do automatically the next time you boot the program) or your new instrument won’t show up for selection in GigaStudio.

This same approach can be used to extract individual instruments from any .gig file containing a group of nested instruments and, of course, the attack envelope procedure can be applied to any parameter in the list. Things get a bit more involved when you make changes to one of the more complex instruments like the LEGs, but the principles remain the same. In the case of the LEG instruments you must understand the basic construction of the instruments before you venture into making changes. I’ll let you play around with the two tutorials above and then I’ll post one more tutorial about the LEG instruments to get you going on those. I have tried to give you a very rudimentary step-by-step here, but if I haven’t made something clear enough, let me know.

A reminder that I\'ve mentioned before: I tend to do as many edits as possible, like the ones above, with just the Instrument Editor open. On my two systems the editor is much more stable when I\'m not running GigaStudio in the background.


[This message has been edited by Tom Hopkins (edited 10-06-2001).]

[Damon]

Thanks Tom, much appreciated!
Damon

[Robert Kral]

Thanks so much Tom!!

I believe Tascam might have a job for you! http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/images/icons/wink.gif

[Tom Hopkins]

As promised, here\'s one more tutorial. This one explores changing attack envelope values on the more complex LEG instruments. LEG instruments use short masking samples (activated by the sustain pedal along with MaestroTools) to create smoother transitions between notes during legato lines. Every sustain sample has a corresponding masking sample located 4 octaves above the sustain sample (folding back to the bottom of the keyboard when we run out of real estate.) Changing attack envelope values for the masking samples is easily achieved and that will be the first procedure below. Changing the attack envelope values for the sustain samples is more problematic and must be approached with caution. For the masking sample attack envelopes:

1. Open the Instrument Editor
2. Load 1st Violins Long Bows 1.
3. Click on the second instrument in the instrument list on the left, \"1st Vln SusV LEG,\" to make it active.
4. Choose \"EG1 attack time\" from the list just above the keyboard display.
5. Just to the left of the \"EG1 attack time\" are a minus and a plus sign. Click on the minus symbol until you can see all regions from the bottom of the keyboard to the top. Notice that there are three groups of sample regions, one at the bottom (G#-1 to C1), one in the middle (G3 to C7), and one at the top (G7 to G9). The regions in the middle are the sustain samples. The regions at the top and bottom are the matching masking samples. They continue up until they run out of keyboard room and then break back to the bottom (the bottom group of regions).
6. Highlight the bottom group of regions by placing your cursor just to the left of the first region, hold the left mouse button down and drag to the right across the bottom regions, then release the left mouse button. The bottom regions should turn yellow indicating that they have been selected. Now hold down the \"control\" button of the computer keyboard and place your cursor just to the left of the top group of regions, hold the left mouse button down and drag to the right across the top regions, release the left mouse button and then release the \"control\" button. Both the bottom regions and the top regions should now be yellow. The center regions should remain white.
7. Go to the velocity box just below and to the left of the regions. There are 4 velocity segments. Click on the top segment, hold the left mouse button down and drag your cursor down to the bottom segment and release the left mouse button. All velocity segments should now be green indicating that they have been selected.
8. Left click on any one of the blue balls near the bottom of the selected regions and drag up while holding the left button down. Once again, all the blue balls should move as a unit. Moving the balls up will increase (slow) the attack time of the masking samples and moving them down will decrease (speed up) the attack time of the masking samples. For slower attacks try values between .210 and .420 to start.
9. When you find a setting you like, try it in conjunction with GPC-5.
10. Save.


Now, back to the sustain samples. Try this:

1. Use the procedures described above to highlight just the middle group of regions. These are the sustain samples.
2. Make sure \"EG1 attack time\" is still selected above the keyboard.
3. This time activate only the top velocity segment in the velocity box by clicking on it. This is the forte layer. Notice that not all regions have identical attack envelope values (some blue balls are in different positions). Each of the layers (except for mp) has regions that depart from the norm. This was the result of note-by-note tailoring of envelope slopes between the masking samples and the sustain samples to achieve the most transparent integration between them. Adjusting these envelopes was one of several steps to achieve the best integration. And herein lies the problem of making changes to these values: You could easily make changes that would destroy the integration. So, it would be wise to follow the previous tutorial instructions on extracting a single instrument and work from the resultant copy. That way if you make a mess of things you haven\'t done any damage to the original file.
4. I suggest that you make adjustments one velocity layer at a time for this experiment.
5. Follow the same procedures already outlined to adjust the attack envelopes.

It should be clear by now that if it is at all possible try to achieve the desired results using adjustments to the masking samples rather than the sustain samples. Happy experimenting.

[Robert Kral]

Great information!! Thanks!

Could this be ported over to \"Tips and Tricks\" thread for others to see?