New piece, GOS Lite vs. SISS Mini

[Dr. Grace]

For those interested, here are mp3’s of an original orchestral piece I sequenced in the EXS24 in Logic, using GOS lite:

http://www.newmeyer.org/Glassy_Sea_GOS.mp3 (\"http://www.newmeyer.org/Glassy_Sea_GOS.mp3\")

The same piece using SISS Mini:

http://www.newmeyer.org/Glassy_Sea_SISS.mp3 (\"http://www.newmeyer.org/Glassy_Sea_SISS.mp3\")

or a blend of the two:

http://www.newmeyer.org/Glassy_Sea_GOS+SISS.mp3 (\"http://www.newmeyer.org/Glassy_Sea_GOS+SISS.mp3\")

These are about 5MB each and will be up on my web server for only a limited time, as they take up a fair chunk of my space allotment.

The legato violin line starting around 2:15 was very difficult to render realistically, and even after days/weeks of tweaking it’s still not perfect (I still need to adjust the overlaps between some of the legato notes, especially in the SISS version.)

In addition to the strings, I used the following libraries:
PMI Boesendorfer piano dry
Westgate woodwinds
Sonic Implants brass cheap soundfonts (French horn)
the free SAM trumpets that used to be downloadable on their web site
the harp patch from the Alesis classical Q-card (I know there are better harps available!)

When I get around to it, I’ll probably record some of my own cello to double some of the string lines. This would add a huge element of realism.

Hope this is interesting. After you’ve had a chance to listen, I’ll write something about my impressions of the two string libraries.

Don

[Dr. Grace]

Anybody?

[Alan Lastufka]

They both sound good to me, why the comparison?

Both are high quality lite libs, the main difference being only price ($450 for Siss, $179 for GOS)...

Nice work with the programming, I hope to hear some more GOS stuff from you in the future...

[Hardy Heern]

Don, I\'m getting distortion on the MP3 which makes comparison impossible. Nice piece though.

Frank

[Dr. Grace]

Alan,

Here\'s why I made the comparison: I\'d been using GOS for a while, but wasn\'t entirely satisfied with it. I liked the demos of SISS, because I thought they had an expressiveness that GOS lacks. I bought SISS Mini to try it out, to see if SISS would be useful by itself, or by blending the two libraries I could achieve an extra bit of realism. Also, I was having a very difficult time making realistic legato lines in GOS Lite, because the attacks on different notes seem to vary in speed, and also the note overlaps have to be adjusted on each individual note. I hoped (for no good reason) it might be easier with SISS.

After playing with them a bit, it\'s clear that the two libraries are not interchangeable. GOS uses more instruments per section, so it has a bigger sound. SISS has a clearer and more intimate sound, and seems to feature a couple of dominant instruments, at least in the violin sections. There\'s a more tender vibrato with the SISS on the violins. However, on the SISS cellos, there\'s almost no vibrato--it\'s as if you were listening to a gamba section in one of those \"more authentic than thou\" early music ensembles.

On slow passages, the SISS sound is very beautiful, I think. On the other hand, the vibrato in the violins made it very difficult to render some moderate-tempo legato lines, and they sounded \"synthy\". Blending with GOS works better on those lines.

Often the pizzicato in GOS sounds murky. It\'s much clearer in SISS (but the intonation is flat on some high violin notes, I find.)

My final conclusion is that I\'m not satisfied with either of these libraries, but blending them together can be beneficial. I think if I had to choose one, however, it would be GOS Lite. It\'s cheaper and for some things sounds better than SISS Mini, IMO.

Don

[Dr. Grace]

Frank,

Thanks for listening. I\'m not sure why you\'re getting distortion. I don\'t hear it on my system.
Maybe it\'s because I used variable bit-rate mp3 encoding???
Don

[Junkmonkey]

Dr. Grace

The composition is very beautiful. Very very beautiful. But somewhere in your graduate courses, didn\'t they teach you that coming into a forum and making comparisons with the competitors\' products, then concluding by saying that you are not satisfied with the forum\'s product, is terrible conduct?

If not, then this will be Forum Etiquette 101. Don\'t do that, because people don\'t like that kind of stuff, and if you want to compare libraries there are other forums in which to do so - one at this very site, in fact.

- Professor Junk

[Dr. Grace]

[ QUOTE ]
Dr. Grace

The composition is very beautiful. Very very beautiful. But somewhere in your graduate courses, didn\'t they teach you that coming into a forum and making comparisons with the competitors\' products, then concluding by saying that you are not satisfied with the forum\'s product, is terrible conduct?

If not, then this will be Forum Etiquette 101. Don\'t do that, because people don\'t like that kind of stuff, and if you want to compare libraries there are other forums in which to do so - one at this very site, in fact.

- Professor Junk

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, Prof. Sorry, I didn\'t know that I had breached a point of etiquette. And I\'m not saying that GOS is bad, only that it\'s not perfect, and that I\'m not entirely satisfied with it--but probably I wouldn\'t be satisfied with any string library, if the goal is realism. I don\'t have the money for VSL, but I suspect it also isn\'t perfect.

If you look again at my post, you\'ll see that I ended up recommending GOS Lite, just as I\'ve recommended it on other forums to people looking for an inexpensive string library. I think it\'s a great value. However, I also believe that most people want to hear honest reports, including the potential drawbacks. I know I do. If I wanted only the positive, I\'d be content with reading the vendors\' advertisements.

Don

[nexus]

I would hope that forum members here are more mature in their attitude than what Junkmonkey suggests.

I don\'t think Gary is made of glass and can\'t stand constructive criticism of his libraries. I would hope forum members aren\'t either. Let\'s not become like a certain \'other forum\' here at NS. There are so many like that!

I believe DrGrace\'s comparisons and comments to be perfectly in line with the spirit of things here.

He\'s not reduced himself to scathing remarks and iterations of the scatalogical vocabulary like a bunch of forums on the web do regularily.

I don\'t agree with all he said, but I\'m glad he said it anyway!

P.S. : I don\'t believe Gary wants a \'cult following\' after his products as this just turns prospective buyers away from forums like that. We don\'t want this to be reduced to mere \'evangelizing\'!

[Styxx]

What struck me the most about this work was the balance you achieved with the strings in every rendering of this piece. I would say this is one of the best and most well balanced in terms of dynamics and voicing of the strings.
I will say I did prefer the GPO to the rest and to be fare, I listened to the SISS first and the Blend last. Still, aside from it, I list this as a favorite in my ever-growing list of GPO compositions.
I still don\'t know how you do it. Every time I get something in my head I loose it almost as fast as I hear it. Oh well, I am just happy to be able to listen to such wonderful new music
Five****\'s
I wanna hear more!

Doctor it hurts when I do this!
Then don\'t do that.

[Jun Yamamoto]

Dr. Grace,

This is a nice piece of music and I found I feel more confortable with your SISS version. Maybe the characteristic of the sample matches to the musical ideas here.

I agree that the solo line at 2:15 is a little foreign to other sounds woven into
one very nice mixture of sounds in either version but more so in GOS version. Some reverb might help. The combined version also is not free from such feeling, I think.

Thanks for sharing your music.

Sincerely,

[Dr. Grace]

[ QUOTE ]
What struck me the most about this work was the balance you achieved with the strings in every rendering of this piece. I would say this is one of the best and most well balanced in terms of dynamics and voicing of the strings.
I will say I did prefer the GPO to the rest and to be fare, I listened to the SISS first and the Blend last. Still, aside from it, I list this as a favorite in my ever-growing list of GPO compositions.
I still don\'t know how you do it. Every time I get something in my head I loose it almost as fast as I hear it. Oh well, I am just happy to be able to listen to such wonderful new music
Five****\'s
I wanna hear more!

Doctor it hurts when I do this!
Then don\'t do that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Styxx,

Thanks for the kind words. Regarding how to do it, I can\'t give a really clear method, because the same thing used to happen to me, too, and I\'m not sure how I was suddenly able to start writing music. Someone once compared the creative process to looking at a beautiful soap bubble floating in the air. You want to catch it but are afraid even to look at it too closely, for fear it will disintegrate.

What I find helpful is just improvising on the keyboard until something jumps out at me. Sometimes a melodic line will pop into my head. Then it\'s \"just\" a matter of putting it down, either on paper or as a MIDI recording, or just to play it over and over again, which helps in remembering it. Although it really helps to record your ideas somehow as soon as possible, I find that some forgotten ideas eventually come to mind later. The best advice may be just to keep trying. Practice composing, just as you\'d practice playing an instrument.

Patient with broken arm: Doctor, will I be able to play the violin when my arm heals?
Doctor: I don\'t see why not.
Patient: That\'s great, I could never play the violin before!

Don

[Dr. Grace]

[ QUOTE ]
Dr. Grace,

This is a nice piece of music and I found I feel more confortable with your SISS version. Maybe the characteristic of the sample matches to the musical ideas here.

I agree that the solo line at 2:15 is a little foreign to other sounds woven into
one very nice mixture of sounds in either version but more so in GOS version. Some reverb might help. The combined version also is not free from such feeling, I think.

Thanks for sharing your music.

Sincerely,

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, Jun! I know I still need to work on that solo line. I tend to agree that the smaller ensemble used for the SISS library can sound more consistent with some musical ideas, particularly when accompanying solo instruments.

Don

[Dr. Grace]

[ QUOTE ]
I would hope that forum members here are more mature in their attitude than what Junkmonkey suggests.

I don\'t think Gary is made of glass and can\'t stand constructive criticism of his libraries. I would hope forum members aren\'t either. Let\'s not become like a certain \'other forum\' here at NS. There are so many like that!

I believe DrGrace\'s comparisons and comments to be perfectly in line with the spirit of things here.

He\'s not reduced himself to scathing remarks and iterations of the scatalogical vocabulary like a bunch of forums on the web do regularily.

I don\'t agree with all he said, but I\'m glad he said it anyway!

P.S. : I don\'t believe Gary wants a \'cult following\' after his products as this just turns prospective buyers away from forums like that. We don\'t want this to be reduced to mere \'evangelizing\'!

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for saying that, Nexus.

I\'d be glad to read your opinions also. What don\'t you agree with?

Don