Got GPO: Thank's Gary & Suggestions

[R. Glenn]

Hi

Ok, I\'ve had GPO for a few days now and I just want to thank Gary, Tom and the rest of the GPO team for a great product. images/icons/smile.gif

Unfortunately, I haven\'t had as much time as I\'d like to play around with it yet, my studies take up most of my time.

However, the time I had so far playing with it, I noticed a few things that I\'d like to bring up if I may. Just a couple of minor suggestions:

Variation for String Sections

I noticed there is no VAR 1 or VAR 2 for the section strings (except for Pizzicato). I guess there\'s some thought behind this, but if it\'s all the same and doesn\'t claim extra computer resources...it might as well be activated there as well. The possibility to have variation is never wrong. You might want to layer Violins 1 and Violins 2, and being able to add a little variation to one of them might be useful for example.

Extra Keyswitching

Keyswitching is a great tool, and some instruments might even benefit from some additional KS patches. For example, all of the solo flutes come in a vibrato and non-vibrato version. It would be great to have one KS patch for them both, enabling you to switch between the vibrato and non-vibrato version. There might be other examples where more KS can be implemented as well, but these are the ones that come to my mind right now.

Anyways, just some suggestions. Apologies if I missed something obvious, or if my suggestions don\'t make sense in some way.

Again, many thank\'s for GPO, I\'m looking forward to having more time to use it. images/icons/smile.gif

Thank\'s

Rodney

[Tom Hopkins]

Rodney,

VAR 1 and VAR 2 were left out of the string section instruments because variations in intonation and timbre are characteristics of individual performance (solo and Ens instruments). Sections of musicians don’t change intonation and timbre in identical fashion and amount from note to note and the presence of this kind of “unison” change sounded distinctly artificial in development tests - many decisions were made based on actual test results like these. In a real section of musicians there are many changes in intonation and timbre but it’s different for each individual in the section even though everyone may be gravitating in the same direction. Anyway, having said that, variability could be added in the future (it can always be ignored if the results sound unnatural).

Additional keyswitching was not included because it was not possible until the latest version of Kontakt became available in the last few weeks. Before that, Kontakt was limited to one type of switching at a time. Keyswitching and MIDI controller switching were mutually exclusive and the switching function was already claimed by the legato feature in most instruments (including the flutes). You’ll notice that when keyswitching was offered in instruments like the Violas KS Comb. it came with the loss of legato mode capability. The latest version of Kontakt has eliminated this barrier and, eventually, the ability to add more keyswitched functions without the loss of other features should find its way into the player. And then into the GPO programming.

Tom

[R. Glenn]

Thank\'s Tom. images/icons/smile.gif

Rodney