Gofriller Solo Cello-Elgar Cello Concerto

[joaz]

Here is the opening ( 3.26 minutes) of the Elgar Cello Concerto as played by the Garritan Gofriller Solo Cello.

ELgar Cello Concerto mp3 (http://joecavanagh.com/Audio/Elgar_Cello_Concerto_Final.mp3)

This uses a new warmer body impulse.

The orchestra is a combination of GPO and Kontakt 2 VSL instruments.

The reverb used is an impulse from Garritan's upcoming Real Spaces.

Any and all feedback is welcome.

regards Joe

[joaz]

............

[Jerry W.]

Ok Dagnabbit Joe!

I give up! I'm finished. :eek: :D

WOW this is a FANTASTIC rendering of this wonderful piece! I was HOPING someone would do Elgar.

The playing of the Cello is just jaw-droppingly realistic.

You've sent me back to school!

:)

Jerry

Oh! RealSpaces is coming soon? geez. Must Have, Must Have....

[Larry G. Alexander]

Blimey!

That's excellent, Joe! Realistic! Good job!

Thanks,

Larry

[jonray]

Woweesers, Joe!

Thats's SOOOO realistic!! Congratulations!!

Jon from Brum

[etLux]

STUNNINGLY good -- in every regard!

Joe, this is just extraordinary!

Bravo! -- a dozen times over.

I am... enthralled! Listening to this has given me chills
of delight.

With great admiration,


David
www.DavidSosnowski.com
.

[joaz]

Thank you friends for those kind words.

This is my 1st experience as a beta-tester.
It is a little strange to climb the learning curve in public, but that is why this forum is so good.

You can get a very mixed bag of responses, from well done....... try harder .... to ....... that sucks!! :)

I find all feedback, positive or negative, useful, and I am sure the developers feel the same.

This piece was an unalloyed pleasure to try, because I have deeply admired it for about 35 years. In these circumstances, one feels as great a responsibility to the composer, as to the developers.

regards Joe

[Rhap2]

Joe:

I've gotta tell ya, I haven't heard any better than this. Your cello chops are amazing and the contrast and connection with the orchestra is awesome. It is real and you are just kidding us, right?

What else can be said, except:

BRAVO, Joe

Jack

[Craig Reeves]

It sounds really good, the only thing is that there's a bit too many slides and plus the slides are too slow. Other than that, it sounds great. The impulse sounds really good, too.

[GrahamKeitch]

Here is the opening ( 3.26 minutes) of the Elgar Cello Concerto as played by the Garritan Gofriller Solo Cello.



Joe, this is absolutely stunning! I can't offer any criticism - it's so incredibly life-like. Was this realised via a keyboard - or will it be possible to use Finale (say) to work with these new instruments?

And some advice for Mr Elgar: keep up the good work son. This piece has a lot of promise. I truely believe this could be the greatest Cello Concerto ever written.

Graham

[jsp2]

Wow, Amazing!! :eek:

On every level!!!!

~Jeff

[earlwgreen]

I have to say it too. This is excellent! I love the piece and the strings are so singing.

Great job.

[Houston Haynes]

Bravissimo!! Did I hear one of the player's suffling their chair in the background?

;)

[efiebke]

I echo the previous replies, Joe. This rendering is very well done. (Any renderings that I've heard by you are well done.)

FYI, I listened to this piece through very cheap speakers attached to the computer I use at work. (I am found with some rare spare time, now, as my one and only patient safely sleeps with her heart restfully a-beatin'.) Everything seem very well balanced even through these cheap-cheap speakers!

Just curious. With what software did you use to render this peace? A notation software? A sequencing software? I know that in the end it really doesn't matter. Nicely done no matter what type of software used.

This is exciting. Thank you for sharing your work. :)

Ted

[Haydn]

Nice, work!

Jim

[joaz]

Just to answer a few points that have arisen.
This was done in Cubase SX.
I bought the score....moused in the notes...and then set to work on the CC controllers.
I would imagine that this will work with Notation programs, but I am no expert in those matters.

I am reliably informed that you can achieve quicker and better results by playing it in live, but my current keyboard controller set-up lacks the extra pedal, and aftertouch, so I have resorted to micro-editing every note.

Their is a bit of chair scuffling in the background. I think the Brass section were playing cards till the tutti section came along. :D
( Only kidding ....it is courtesy of Bela D's scoring noise. I actually like a tiny bit of noise floor on classical recordings that utilise samples.)

regards Joe

[JBacal]

I can tell that lots of hard work has gone into this. I enjoyed the piece and the musicality of your performance. Thanks for sharing.

Best,
Jay

[FredProgGH]

It sounds really good, the only thing is that there's a bit too many slides and plus the slides are too slow. Other than that, it sounds great. The impulse sounds really good, too.
Just goes to show :) This is the first demo where I've felt really positive about the slides. It's really a terrific piece of work!

[Hannes_F]

BRAVO!

Nothing more I can say but the message is too short. So again:

BRAVO!

[mathis]

I couldn't stand listening to it until the end. I still don't like the sound and phrasing of the individual notes is not existent. First is the instruments problem, second the performers. I'd recommend using a breath controller or similar device that allows for natural phrasing.

[Marcussen]

I agree - although I did listen to the end. The performance seemed souless to me. But hey, it seems 90% of everyone who posts feel its the best performance/samples they have ever heard. So thats pretty successful... Guess its just a matter of of preferences.

[joaz]

I couldn't stand listening to it until the end. I still don't like the sound and phrasing of the individual notes is not existent. First is the instruments problem, second the performers. I'd recommend using a breath controller or similar device that allows for natural phrasing.

Thanks Mathis, for taking the time to comment.
I understand that you still dont like the tone, but I would like to get your impression of this newer body impulse.

Do you think it is an improvement, on the previous demo's ?
As you never made it to the end of the piece, I am guessing that you feel there is no improvement.

regards Joe

[dubaifox]

Hey Joaz:

Thanks for posting this!!

I am very interested in how the vibrato control works. I have posted several times that the vibrato sounds very unatural on this instrument. It seems (to my ears) that it only ever has one speed in all of the demos I heard,(way too fast) yet everyone says you have control over it.

Maybe it was my wife teaching piano in the background but I could not hear any variation in the vibrato, which makes it sound very synthy to me.

[noldar12]

To me, this demo is a significant improvement in terms of the sound of the cello. As others have said, very well done. The Elgar Cello Concerto has always been one of my favorites, and you really captured the feel of the opening.

The slides were a significant improvement as well, and more closely matched to where they would naturally occur based on shifting and bowing mechanics. I especially liked the fact that some of the slides went down - a definite reality in string playing that is often missed, and that absence is one of the obvious indications that samples are being used.

The vibrato remains problematic. The speed of the vibrato in the upper registers seemed off, too fast (or too wide?) and nanny-goatish in spots. The vibrato in lower positions was often quite warm, effective, and well balanced to the overall tone and register of the instrument. I am beginning to wonder if the issue isn't indeed one of balance, speed and width and differences in the way vibrato might be produced in different registers on the instrument by a player (will require more thought to answer). I am guessing that if the amplitude and speed is left at a constant rate with both low and high samples, the vibrato in the high samples will sound excessive, given the physics of a string. Since notes are closer together in the upper register, less wrist/finger rotation would be needed to produce a similar desired vibrato.

Very well done, and for me, in the land of goose bumps.

Jim

[joaz]

I am very interested in how the vibrato control works.
Hi dubaifox,
I too am very interested in how the vibrato works, and while I cannot claim I have fully mastered this yet, I learnt a lot more about it making this demo.
There seems to be 4 main factors involved, and they all interact with each other.

edited because I confused aftertouch with cc67

Modulation, amount of vibtrato.

Aftertouch, speed of vibrato.( I often seem to have this a bit slower than the default setting, but in listening to lots of live cello lately, the fashion seems to be faster vibrato )

CC 67 vibrato rate offset

Expression, which is an overarching controller, which affects volume, brightness, bow pressure, etc,etc,

I am no scientist, so I dont know how exactly these controllers interact, but subjectively, it feels like changing any one of these parameters influences how the other 3 respond.
Here is a picture of how these controllers were used , from 41 seconds to 1.02.

http://joecavanagh.com/Cello_Controllers3.jpg


regards Joe

[mathis]

Thanks Mathis, for taking the time to comment.
I understand that you still dont like the tone, but I would like to get your impression of this newer body impulse.

Do you think it is an improvement, on the previous demo's ?
As you never made it to the end of the piece, I am guessing that you feel there is no improvement.

regards Joe

Hey Joe,

thanks for not feeling personally offended. I'm just a little bored by the criticless Garritan enthusiasm (which I partly share, since I use his products daily) that's why I was posting that dryly.

No, I don't think the other impulse response makes for a significant difference. Sure, it sounds different, but the basic problem of a phasing sound remains. The nasality people are talking of here you can reproduce easily by taking the same sound (any sound) twice and delaying the copy a tiny little bit. That's how the Cello sounds to me.

Recently I had the chance to listen to the raw samples of the Garritan Strad and they sound terrific. Direct and full. It seems to me that the problems come from the morphing technique or convolution or whatever. I'd like to experiment and find out. Maybe I get the chance to do some day.
At this occasion I also realised that the samples and body resonances are in fact not treated like I thought. I thought the samples are reduced to the string sound (not sure how to accomplish that) and the body resonance would bring the body back. But the samples are full range, direct samples. So my theory might be working out actually, that this way the body resonances are doubling up.

But I'm only speculating here. If Gary want's me as a beta tester I surely would go into it more deeply since I love the idea and playability of these instruments.

[joaz]

Hey Joe,

thanks for not feeling personally offended.
Mathis, no problem, I honestly value all opinions, for or against.
Alas, I am no expert at the deep inner workings of the Strad/Gofriller.
I am a mere composer, trying to guage how useful these libraries are to me.


Recently I had the chance to listen to the raw samples of the Garritan Strad and they sound terrific. Direct and full.

That sounds fascinating, what were the circumstances.?
I have checked out the individual wav. files of the Strad,from the K2 folder, and they do seem to be devoid of any "body", which is added by the convolution engine. Hence the importance of the various body impulses.
I have never heard the original recordings.

I am of course happy, that some people like my version of the Elgar.
But I also value the opinions, of those who dont like it, for whatever reason.

I think it is only by considering all the opinions offered, that you can figure out, what is working, what needs improving, what does'nt work at all.

regards Joe

[Drew Buchan]

I think it is wonderfully, wonderfully expressive and emotive ... but in one or two places the tone seems to be nasal, somehow hollow to me also.

[mathis]

I have checked out the individual wav. files of the Strad,from the K2 folder, and they do seem to be devoid of any "body", which is added by the convolution engine. Hence the importance of the various body impulses.
I have never heard the original recordings.

Me neither and indeed, I just listened again to the wav files and there is no body. I just listened very quickly the last time. But it certainly is a very direct sound.

So maybe better forget all my speculations until I have something valid.

[joaz]

Me neither and indeed, I just listened again to the wav files and there is no body. I just listened very quickly the last time. But it certainly is a very direct sound.

So maybe better forget all my speculations until I have something valid.

You can of course easily hear the sound of the Stradi or Gofriller without the body impulse, by pressing bypass on the convolution engine in K2.

I remember the 1st time I did this, I was very shocked at how big an influence this has on the tone. :eek:
Then it immediately struck me how useful this is.
If you have a ready supply of enough body impulses, you could achieve a radical variety of tones, without having to download the whole 500 megabytes, every time. :)

I am still waiting for Giorgio to release the pawn-shop violin body IR. :D

regards Joe

[sammy24]

wow, great job, very impressed! (maybe at a few tiny points i see what some ppl. are saying, but i think the instrument really expresses itself in a truly realistic fashion, and a beautiful tone, and though as of yet i have unfortunately not had the opportunity to get the strad, i assume it would take some time and practice before the instrument could be mastered in such a way that the listener could be 'fooled" 100% of the time, but joaz u are certainly getting pretty close)

[Crystal]

Sorry to ask this, but what does mean ‘vibrato rate offset’ ?


Regards.

[Marcussen]

You can of course easily hear the sound of the Stradi or Gofriller without the body impulse, by pressing bypass on the convolution engine in K2.

I remember the 1st time I did this, I was very shocked at how big an influence this has on the tone. :eek:
Then it immediately struck me how useful this is.
If you have a ready supply of enough body impulses, you could achieve a radical variety of tones, without having to download the whole 500 megabytes, every time. :)

I am still waiting for Giorgio to release the pawn-shop violin body IR. :D

regards Joe

This is very interesting to me - this also explains why I really like some of the demos, but not really the others. I would love to try out this thing with AltiVerb...