Garritan 4: Alternating Bow Strokes

[BuddhaMaster]

I know it's ages old, but I must ask this again, still using GPO4:

Whenever I'm using alternating bow strokes KS the direction will continuously alternate. Even when pressing the KS again, or changing to another technique temporarily. There is no way to "reset" the direction?

This means, look if I have triplets or a piece with an odd timing, or simply stop the piece somewhere and return playing, it simply starts either with a up or down stroke, without me having any control over it.

That means various string start messing up or the need to render a piece several times, until I somehow "get lucky" and each instrument starts in an acceptable direction (or you simply won't notice).

But really, there must be some way to be able to control where and when the up-down direction starts.
Ideally this would reset to an upstroke for each time pressing the KS. Maybe I can even modify the .sfz files myself having some experience making my own patches

Thanks anyway.
I'm trying to make some Vivaldi styled string music, knowing he was an violin virtuoso, you simply cannot accept leaving bowing direction to good fortune.

[SysExJohn]

You're quite correct, give me a little while and I'll take a look at the sfz file of that and the separate 'up' and 'down' stroke keyswitch files. I'll see what can be done.

Do you want it always to start with a down stroke?

Regards,
John.

[BuddhaMaster]

Hello there.

Well, in the real world I absolutely think the first stroke to be made is down, the answer is down-stroke.
Thats the accented one and western music tends to start with a down-beat.

Absolutely ideal would be to simply reset to "down" each time re-pressing alternate bow-stroke KS

what about down-stroke at full velocity (KS), up-stroke zero velocity. Think thats possible?


Edit* Isn't it that earlier .sfz files worked with sequenced sounds, later they introduced later elaborate commands like full randomization and probably that's the result of an early code limitation.

[SysExJohn]

Well, from what I can make out so far (early days) within the KS sfz are two areas each labelled <master>, one with 'seq_position=1', the other with 'seq_position=2', with "Upbow auto" and "Downbow auto" being their respective titles.

Interestingly the 'Upbow' title comes first. !!!
Some further (quick) investigation shows that the samples used are the same for both, only the sfz instructions for playback change. Primarily the difference in the 'attack'.
The first in the sequence having a slightly stronger attack than the second, which actually would equate more to the greater bow pressure exerted on a downbow. (I'm guessing here as I'm not a violin player! ;-) )

So far I haven't found what, if anything, resets the switch between the two.
My current understanding is that it just flip-flops between the two regardless, which bears out your experience.
Now, whether a control can be inserted to reset to sample one I have yet to discover.
More investigation needed, and some more sfz knowledge on my behalf.

More later.
Regards,
John.

[Jeannot Welter]

Just use out of range ghost notes to reset the direction.

[SysExJohn]

Indeed, Jeannot.

After some investigation of the sfz specification (as contained in the book, Cakewalk Synthesizers) and unable to find anything, I contacted Plogue and their answer assured me that there is, currently, no way of doing a switch by resetting the 'counter'.

Just use out of range ghost notes to reset the direction.

I've tried, playing the stand alone ARIA, and inserting an out-of-range note, but it doesn't flick the switch.
What I think is necessary is an extra <region> within each of the up and down sfz code, with a silent sample, to get the switch over. I''ll try it.

Regards,
John.

[BuddhaMaster]

Indeed, Jeannot.

After some investigation of the sfz specification (as contained in the book, Cakewalk Synthesizers) and unable to find anything, I contacted Plogue and their answer assured me that there is, currently, no way of doing a switch by resetting the 'counter'.



I've tried, playing the stand alone ARIA, and inserting an out-of-range note, but it doesn't flick the switch.
What I think is necessary is an extra <region> within each of the up and down sfz code, with a silent sample, to get the switch over. I''ll try it.

Regards,
John.

Well, thanks quiet a lot.

I noted about the "sequence" code which some people use(d) to randomize various samples, at least in the past. The downside of this is, you guess, you always get the same drum-hits in sequence!
That's horrid actually. Thanks to the ever-improving format which .sfz is, they introduced full randomization.

I won't give up yet and look at the possibilties, but I guess the only good way is to add a specification which simply resets given sequence for a region.

I see the way of using ghost-notes is very unpractical, since I often change a song right in the middle of anywhere and there is no knowing of what bow-stroke I'm at the moment, other than listening to it and taking great care to have it just at the right space (listening, counting notes, doing binary math.. not likely)

[BuddhaMaster]

Some help would still be helpful.

I'm rendering a bunch of songs and the results are unreliable.
I've i.e. changed the stereo placement and bitrate and sometimes the result is different.
Probably the string direction was at a different state before the render.
It's near impossible to determine that expect close listening and guessing.
Multiply that with various string groups and it's near nightmare.

I can't afford the patience and time to check that for each render and painfully trigger them in a order that every group matches up. Sometimes ears can deceive you.
The string direction should simply be set to a reliable direction after pressing alternate direction KS

[BuddhaMaster]

I can now fully recreate the problem:

The first note is twice as loud

• Happens when ARIA Player is initialized (i.e. project loaded without playing anything)
• Only applies to Auto Alternate KS
• Is not the bow direction
• Does happen if I play some notes at half/low velocity
• Does NOT happen after playing some notes at full velocity

Conclusion:
There is something about the filter used for the Auto Alternate KS.
Only after playing some notes at full velocity/ or loud enough volume, the filter will sort of settle down and future notes will be at an average level.

Workaround:
Rendering a project twice in a row.
Each instrument filter will be at the average level and loud notes do not occur. This however still messes up the direction uncertainty - however this is not an actual big problem.
The accidental loud notes however are!

Can please someone else recreate this and
of the devs tackle this down and update the Garritan Orchestra patches.


Thank you very much.
I know GPO4 is getting old.
I sort of depend a lot on that. I've rendered some 20 projects and they all have that problem.


Heres a visual representation: