DPDAN - Altiverb

[Raymond62]

DPDAN,

I've got it and tried it already. Awesome!!!!! It's a whole new world of reverberation. Now back to your tutorials.

Raymond

[AlanPerkins]

I've just purchased it as well. I got it on ebay for AUD $400 from someone who changed their mind.

I haven't had time to fire it up yet.

[DPDAN]

WOW! I know exactly how you feel Raymond!

Alan, get that thing going, you don't know what you're missing :)
FANTASTIC!

now..... wanna see something else that is really cool? I recently purchased Melodyne by Celemony (http://www.celemony.com/cms). I am mixing a CD for a client who plays violin with piano accompaniment. I sent the violinist a mix of one of the tunes, and she was concerned about some (buzz) (as she described it) on some notes. It turns out, what she was hearing was some weirdness with Digital Performer's pitch correction that I used. I decided it was time to purchase Melodyne, which is considered the king of all pitch software.

I deleted the pitch changes that I made in DP, and used Melodyne instead, then sent her another mix, asking her to please check it for any weird buzzy sounds.

Her response back was,, "it's all good!"

So even though DP's pitch correction made the pitch correct, it evidently made some very high artifacts on some of the notes. Then again, we are talking about altering a solo violin.

So here is a poorly made video of me messing around with Melodyne. The audio track that I am using is a stereo recording of a string quartet that I recorded about two years ago. In the video, you will see how Melodyne not only shows the root pitch of the detected notes, it shows all the notes, and the user can change the pitch of any of the notes without affecting the others at all. Amazing when you consider that the reverb of this track (Altiverb) is also being corrected for the altered notes.

What an amazing piece of work Melodyne is!

Windows Media
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/fun_stuff_with_melodyne.wmv 35 mb
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/more_melodynye.wmv 8mb


Quicktime
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/fun_stuff_with_melodyne.mov 22mb
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/more_melodynye.mov 11mb


Dan

[Raymond62]

I haven't had time to fire it up yet.

When you do, do it for a very familiar piece and play with different settings. I used the Stage Settings for the Concertgebouw(Amsterdam). It is great and I am sure you will enjoy it very much. Warning: it doesn't work under SONAR 8/64-bits. So I also installed the 32-bits version of SONAR.

Having fun,

Raymond

[DPDAN]

Raymond, check my post, I am uploading the video and it will be available in 7 minutes

[germancomponist]

Dan,

I have watched your videos now. How cool! I like especially the way/art how you present the tools. It makes always also fun to watch your videos.

Thanks for sharing this, my friend!

Gunther

[Michael_uk]

WOW! I know exactly how you feel Raymond!

Alan, get that thing going, you don't know what you're missing :)
FANTASTIC!

now..... wanna see something else that is really cool? I recently purchased Melodyne by Celemony (http://www.celemony.com/cms). I am mixing a CD for a client who plays violin with piano accompaniment. I sent the violinist a mix of one of the tunes, and she was concerned about some (buzz) (as she described it) on some notes. It turns out, what she was hearing was some weirdness with Digital Performer's pitch correction that I used. I decided it was time to purchase Melodyne, which is considered the king of all pitch software.

I deleted the pitch changes that I made in DP, and used Melodyne instead, then sent her another mix, asking her to please check it for any weird buzzy sounds.

Her response back was,, "it's all good!"

So even though DP's pitch correction made the pitch correct, it evidently made some very high artifacts on some of the notes. Then again, we are talking about altering a solo violin.

So here is a poorly made video of me messing around with Melodyne. The audio track that I am using is a stereo recording of a string quartet that I recorded about two years ago. In the video, you will see how Melodyne not only shows the root pitch of the detected notes, it shows all the notes, and the user can change the pitch of any of the notes without affecting the others at all. Amazing when you consider that the reverb of this track (Altiverb) is also being corrected for the altered notes.

What an amazing piece of work Melodyne is!

Windows Media
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/fun_stuff_with_melodyne.wmv 35 mb
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/more_melodynye.wmv 8mb


Quicktime
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/fun_stuff_with_melodyne.mov 22mb
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/more_melodynye.mov 11mb


DanHello Dan,

Thanks for the links, very entertaining .. and interesting. :D

[Hannes_F]

Windows Media
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/fun_stuff_with_melodyne.wmv 35 mb
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/more_melodynye.wmv 8mb


Quicktime
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/fun_stuff_with_melodyne.mov 22mb
http://www.dankury.com/tutorials/more_melodynye.mov 11mb


Dan

The good thing about Melodyne is that you can study in detail how good musicians play. I have always said that good muso's don't play exactly on beat or exactly in (mathematical) tune but that is not random, it is deliberate.

For example that note in the second violin, it was right where it should be a little something after the cello. There is a system behind it. Sample musicians can learn a ton by studying this.

The other (but related) thing I noticed in my own experiments with Melodyne is that you really must use your ears for corrections, not your eyes.

What makes quite some soundtracks of today so similar to samples (IMO) is not only that there are samples in them but also that that their live instruments are often edited to death. My favorite quote in that regard is Bob Olhsson (engineer for Stevie Wonder, Grateful Dead) who wrote:

"I think the problem with today's overproduction is that too many people don't understand how sophisticated music really is in terms of pitch and time combined with not understanding how listener bias and a lack of objectivity can make one completely deaf to imposing cures that create a worse problem than the original disease."

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/439717-unnatural-perfection-end-rock.html

Another example: if you study the pitch lines in the string quartet I am sure you will discover many notes that change their pitch in the moment when another voice changes the note. This is not mistake, it is because the musicians know, hear and adjust, especially in a good string quartet.

[Hannes_F]

PS.: I should add that I know you are well aware of all I wrote, DPDAN. It was more targeted towards a fictive occasional bypasser in this thread. An opportunity to write something down which I had been long waiting for :)

[DPDAN]

Hannes,
I understood, :)
your posts are always aimed at helping others...

It is remarkable software though isn't it?
Dan

[Raymond62]

Hannes,

how about the tuning in a String Quartet? Don't they follow the more "natural" tuning, because now we don't have to "Temper" for a piano?

And then... since a piano demands some "unnatural" tuning, due to the nature of the instrument, how about flutes, oboes, horns, etc... in fact all others?
Is there something like "natural" tuning?

Raymond

[Raymond62]

.... and then I played around with Altiverb. I can't imagine how I survived those years without.. sorry DPDAN I didn't see your Melodyne video's yet. Maybe this weekend.

Raymond

[DPDAN]

Altiverb is incredible!

[Raymond62]

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/the-incredible-machine.png


Raymond

[DPDAN]

yes Raymond! :)

http://www.dankury.com/miscuploads/theincrediblemachine.png

[Hannes_F]

Hannes,

how about the tuning in a String Quartet? Don't they follow the more "natural" tuning, because now we don't have to "Temper" for a piano?

And then... since a piano demands some "unnatural" tuning, due to the nature of the instrument, how about flutes, oboes, horns, etc... in fact all others?
Is there something like "natural" tuning?

Raymond

Hi Raymond,

if you can open an instrument in Kontakt (full version) you can insert a script called "microtuner". Try "middle tone" this is about next to what string quartets and all orchestra uses.

There is more to it than I can write in one post, but it is important to remember three things:

- ONE instrument alone (solo violin) tends to have pure intonation (phythagorean) -> narrow half tone steps

What I mean is that in C major the E will be relatively high. It is close to the F, and this makes sense because it is leading to the F literally.

- A piano has bigger half tone steps, if e. g. one violin and a piano play together the violinist will adjust to the piano
- Orchestra instruments playing together (and even if it is only one note given by another voice) use wide half tone steps, wider than the piano.

As a consequence the full tone steps will be more narrow. Most significant is the third - the major third will be corrected to be lower, the minor third will be corrected to be higher than one would think.

So in a C major chord the E would be played relatively low, much lower than on the piano.

Bottom line is you try to adjust as much and as often you can. :hp:

[Hannes_F]

PS Altiverb is great, isn't it?

[Raymond62]

Hannes,

Thanks. Makes sense. I don't have full Kontakt, so I have to find another solution. Yes, Altiverb is great. After the weekend I will have a closer look at the "tuning" problem.

Raymond

[raweber]

Bottom line is you try to adjust as much and as often you can. :hp:


And, of course, everything is relative to the particular chord you are playing at the moment. Some early keyboard instruments actually had split keys:
http://www.h-pi.com/images/eopimages/keyboards/danikey.jpg

...and which key you used depended on which intervals you wanted "perfect". Of course, trying to do this in MIDI with microtonal pitch bends would probably be more effort than it would be worth. Not that I haven't fantisized about actually doing it...

[Hannes_F]

And, of course, everything is relative to the particular chord you are playing at the moment. Some early keyboard instruments actually had split keys:
http://www.h-pi.com/images/eopimages/keyboards/danikey.jpg

...and which key you used depended on which intervals you wanted "perfect". Of course, trying to do this in MIDI with microtonal pitch bends would probably be more effort than it would be worth. Not that I haven't fantisized about actually doing it...

That split keyboard is very interesting and makes very much sense from my POV. For example on the violin I have two sorts of E that I play on the D string, the lower version fits to the open A string, the higher version fits to the open G string.

For midi work I often tune the notes that stick out with some pitchweel data, that can be done fast.

[germancomponist]

Hannes,

think about a footcontroller. With it you can do it very well in realtime. ;)

[Oyvind]

A comment to the picture of the split keys:
The Norwegian composer / organbuilder Eivind Groven (1901 -1977) seemed to be obsessed with this tuning problem, he built severeal organs that could play "all" keys in a non-tempered way. I have read that he made an organ with three sounds for each key, obtained by three keys in one. I do not know how he did it, but it is reported that it worked.

The first was built in 1936. In 1939 a new organ was made, much better, somehow the right sound (of the three in one key) now could be obtained with only one touch on the key, I don`t know how.

When Albert Schweizer got the Nobel piece prize in 1954, one thing he wanted to do when he was in Oslo was to try this famous organ. There was a picture in the papers showing Schweizer at the 1953-built organ, then placed in a church in Oslo. I have a copy of it, but do not know how to attach a picture here.

The organ had only one "timbre" ( Forgive me is this is the wrong word for it, English is not my native language) , Albert Schweizer urged him to make an organ with more than one timbre. And so he did, there are several of these organs, by now kept in "Eivind Groven`s orgelhus" in Oslo, most of them still playable, it is said.
Oyvind

[raweber]

The picture that I posted was not the "period" picture that I remembered
('cause I couldn't find it), but rather a more contemporary picture. The one I remembered was of an organ keyboard and several of the sharps were split long-wise, so you could play either the left of right side of the note. This is similar to Hannes' description of how he plays the "E" differently depending on what note it is harmonizing with.

Hannes, does fixed-pitch piano music drive you crazy? Just curious.

[Raymond62]

After several experiments with different impulsfiles I ended up with this. It is the 3rd part of my Symphony. DPDAN, is this to your satisfaction?

http://www.box.net/shared/cpyroqszzl


Comments are very welcome.

Raymond

[Hannes_F]

Hannes,

think about a footcontroller. With it you can do it very well in realtime. ;)

For pitch? That is an interesting idea, must try it.


Hannes, does fixed-pitch piano music drive you crazy? Just curious.

No, not really, which is interesting. But I guess I am used to it.

What drives me slightly crazy is non-pitched midi orchestra music, and what drives me really crazy is when I notice that I have not been in pitch in a recording :wow: :D

Actually, as some of you know I am doing string overdubs and have to deal frequently with the situation that my intonation (which would suit into a a real orchestra) does not fit to the midi mockup of the client. I have the choice of
a) adjusting to the given intonation
b) tune the midi mockup with Melodyne before putting layers on it
c) start from scratch

I have used all three approaches so far, so there is a solution for every situation, but it is a always present topic for my work.

[DPDAN]

Raymond, thanks for posting your symphony piece.

The issue I hear right away is something that will be easy to fix and has nothing to do with Altiverb.

Your oboe's attack is completely missing on notes that are starting legato phrases. Also, the volume dynamics of some of the instruments are quite extreme, relative to what a real instrument would produce in a hall. The violin is really excessive.

Something you should know about me if you don't already, and that is,,,, if asked, I will always give honest answers/responses. Since the "box" player does not show time, take a listen to the string basses about half way through, the violins have virtually no reverb and are in my face, (dry) and hard to the left, yet the lower strings have all kinds of reverb.

Listen to this on speakers, not headphones to make these changes.

I enjoy this type of back and forth collaboration and encourage you to make changes and post a new mix,, I love helping people. :)
Dan

Nice symphony too!

[Raymond62]

and you don't already know, but this kind of answers are to my liking and really helpful. Many thanks. The monitors have to wait a bit..... maybe next week I go for KRK Rokit 8.

Raymond

[DPDAN]

maybe next week I go for KRK Rokit 8.

Raymond

super dooper Raymond,,, I am glad you did not take offense :)
Dan

[Raymond62]

super dooper Raymond,,, I am glad you did not take offense :)Dan

Why should I? This is like "going back to school" and the teacher isn't quite satisfied. So, I'll take that advice and will try to make it better. By te way, what exactly do you mean by "volume dynamics". It is just the volume or the differences in volume during:

a. the duration of the note;
b. the phrase (or part of it).
c. or else.... ??????

Raymond