Little, tiny gripe

[Little Boy Blu]

Maybe I\'m just too left-brained, but I\'m not quite sure I understand the logic behind the solo strings\' up-bow/sustain pedal down, down-bow/sustain pedal up. It makes my head dizzy! images/icons/tongue.gif

[Tom Hopkins]

Trevor,

The default pedal “up” position plays the attack of the sample in its entirety as recorded. The pedal “down” that activates the legato mode eliminates the attack portion of the sample and substitutes a shorter artificial attack envelope. Because the pedal “up” position is the full attack of the recorded sample it can be thought of as the downbow. The fact that the pedal “down” legato mode creates a bow stroke with a shorter attack phase makes it resemble (and function like) an upbow – in addition to its legato function.

Don’t make the “down-up” and “up-down” tougher than it is. This is only an issue of semantics brought on by the coincidental mechanical construction of the sustain pedal. If the comparative language bothers you sufficiently just think of it as “different” bow strokes rather than “down” and “up.” Had we reversed the function of the pedal, for the sake of language, to get “down-down” and “up-up,” that would have placed the samples with the artificially modified attack into the default “up” position – a decidedly illogical place for them to reside, especially from the point of view of practical usage. Symmetry is usually nice (and satisfying to that wonderful left brain hemisphere), but not at the expense of practicality. Now, I\'ll shut \"up\" and go \"down\" stairs.

Tom

[Little Boy Blu]

Thanks for explaining that Tom. I had thought that they may actually be separate samples, but now we know. The logic make sense to me now that you\'ve explained it, and it is definitely good to know. Now if I could just get a convincing solo string tremelo out of that...

Cheers images/icons/smile.gif

[Rico]

Here\'s a thread You might want to look into (I guess You have done so already, but just in case):
http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=000997 (\"http://www.northernsounds.com/ubb/NonCGI/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=18;t=000997\")

Don\'t know if it explain the logic about it, but it explains how it works. Clarified things for me at least images/icons/smile.gif

Regards,
Rico