That was one comprehensive and extensive video which I can send clients who expect to send me a MIDI (without any automation/dynamics data) and want me to 'slap on some sounds quickly', then being disappointed that it sounds like 'computer'.
It would be great to see a type of video like this for strings and brass. :-) It's so informative and explained very well. Thank you for taking the time to go in-depth with it!
Another excellent video Paul. Hard to believe it was 22 minutes. It flew by. Your style makes me feel like an intern or you're a mentor. It feels personal somehow. Keep it up! Or going or whatever,.. thanks!
Great video, Paul! I attended a Music Performance BTEC course (A levels level) a few years back, and we had arranging classes on Logic sometimes. Most of the people on that course took away from those sessions "Midi sounds shit and doesn't work for anything beyond piano". Little do they know, a lot of their favorite scores are probably in some part midi, and that the limitations were with us, not our tools. Will be linking this video next time a conversation like that comes up! :)
This level of detail and thoughtfulness is very helpful, since many of us are not that familiar with orchestral techniques or many of the individual instruments. It really helps how to approach these gargantuan sample libraries which often can be somewhat daunting in their options, resulting in some random choices. Having applied ideas of reverb and space to individual instruments or sections, I would really appreciate if you took us to the next step which is how to manage multiple instruments and sections when it comes to reverb and effects, and how to make is sound cohesive and convincing, and not a pile-up of reverbs and delays. thanks
Excellent tutorial for the controllers and libraries. It is difficult to pick up what is going on by just watching past videos where the controls are being manipulated without any explanation and this explains it perfectly. The controller's curves can be written during playback but I guess the creative moment may have waned then. Thanks, Paul.
This is really useful. These kinds of videos are why I buy your libraries. Although I haven’t downloaded these libraries yet as I’m moving my studio, I bought all three pro versions of the Studio series plus Bernhard Hermann. I can’t wait to dig into all of it...
Very useful information. Helps to bridge what I've picked up from orchestration books, to what I'm actually now working/fiddling about with in the box. As far as orchestral samples go, the Studio series is my first foray, so I'm very much new to this. I'd love it if you could cover dynamics further in a future video. It seems easy to get piano sections sounding good, but I struggle to get powerful/punchy forte sounds.
Great video Paul thanks a lot, learnt a lot from that. It's amazing how many people forget when composing with samples, wind players have to breath, thankfully as a saxophone player, I'm well aware of this. These tutorial videos are so helpful. Please keep them coming. Take care, stay safe best wishes Terry
Thanks Paul. Have never heard subtle trade secrets discussed in detail like this- very gracious of you and helpful. Would love to hear a tutorial on how you handle articulation changes- multiple tracks, expression maps, mod wheel, etc. Tnx again !
Excellent tutorial - thank you very much. Some of this is really common sense; it's so easy to push sampled "real" instruments into something synthy, clicky, or otherwise not quite right.
Very useful! Woodwinds are trickier than the other sections because of the variety of their timbre so it is key to know how they produce their sound. I recently discover the magic of the mics which helps a lot :) And this fantastic sounds reminds me one of my wishes: that Spitfire Audio would do a Symphonic Saxes library someday, to write something as L'Arlessiene or the last symphony by Vaughan Williams :P A fantastic video as always!!
I recently added the studio woodwinds to the studio brass/string collection and this is a very helpful video for getting a better grasp of utilising it’s benefits and avoiding any limitations. Many thanks for taking the time to do this. I understand Christian hates saxophone but it would be really useful if these could be added to make a complete collection even more complete. Maybe sneak a sax recording in whilst he’s in Edinburgh?!!!
Hey Paul your videos are absolutely fantastic! But just a small tip try to add a veryyyy slight reverb on your master when demoing sounds because having ZERO reverb 100% dry isnt realistic in real life as there are always going to be SOME FORM of reverb in any physical space UNLESS IN an acoustic dead space but that is not common for most listeners - So the reason I am saying this is because these videos are very nuanced about the detailed realism of each instrument, and reverb would DEFINITELY help us to REALLY soak in the differences when we engage dynamics and vib into our playing - Please correct me if I am wrong about the whole "in real life there isnt ever a 100% DRY no reverb space" - thanksss
@@PaulThomsonMusic lol no problem!! But hey dont you feel like in most VST's controlling the expression just controls the volume and not actually CROSSFADING between the different layered samples of intensity. For example lets say a violin VST has about 4 levels of velocity PER NOTE. So if i HIT IT HARD to trigger the C note it will trigger the "HIGH VELOCITY" sample, but then as I am sustaining the note i want to now smoothly blend it with the MID or LOW recorded sample.. I feel like this DOESNT HAPPEN and the EXPRESSION knob just uses the SAME recorded HIGH VEL. sample but just TURNS DOWN THE VOLUME.. Is there a way to actually have a fader CROSS FADE INTO the ACTUAL other velocity recording WHILE STILL HOLDING THE SAME NOTE? Thanks!
I'm wondering if a good analogy is if you visualize your air speed, if that's your dynamics wheel. As I picture my air speed while playing a line, I see myself having to move the CC.
No I would use both in combination. In fact I know one A list composer who has all of his own sounds set to play at the same level whether pp or ff - and uses the expression control to alter volume - and MW solely to alter the timbre.
@Paul Thompson it is difficult to deliberately play badly when you know how to play correctly...look at how brilliant Les Dawson was! 2:10 to 2:22 made me lol :-)
@@PaulThomsonMusic eesh. Sorry Paul - I was in an absolute rotten mood that morning - what a jerk comment. I have slept since then and promise I'm not [always...] suck a dickhead (to steal one of Christians) In the last four years I've been able to go from composing for fun to making enough from it that I have to worry about deductions and tracking miles. And none of that would be even the slightest bit possible if it wasn't for Spitfire... and Educator Discounts... And The Black Weekend... and LABS... and you and Christian teaching me everything I know about creating orchestral music from Sampled Libraries. Sir, if I have to watch a hundred ads for you to show me how to create convincing music with sampled woodwinds, I will gladly do it.
Cracked up when you cracked out the Cor Anglais. There's a very funny episode in Peep Show (UK) where Jez has to record some music and Mark's ex-friend (ex cos he was a massive racist) Darrell has to bring his Cor Anglais cos that's the only instrument the guy that hired Jez liked.
Some good explanations. Looking forward to the rest in the series. On the reverb topic: at the end I find it confusing when some libraries are already quite wet (Century brass, for instance) and some are quite dry. Should I be putting no reverb on the wet samples, just early reflection, just late? And same for dry samples. I (try) to use Valhalla and QL Spaces and I feel like no combination I try sounds good. The closest to acceptable I felt like was the 2.0 second RR Burbank small in Spaces on orchestra on EW Hollywood series, but 8Dio's Century series just sounded already too wet. I don't expect an answer here, but addressing it in a future video would be much appreciated.
Yet another excellent video, Paul, thank you ever so much for putting that much effort into making them! I was waiting for this particular one (and one on brass, hopefully not too far away in the future?), as I wanted to see how you go about using Dynamics. Judging by the way you are using it, you are hinting that woodwinds players do not perform a little "bump", when they start blowing into the instrument, something that brass players apparently would do, instead. Or am I mistaken?
Absolutely - half the skill on WW is coming in super quiet - even on the really low stuff like CB clarinet, the player blows before they grip the reed to start the note. Its a diff playing style to Brass where you tend to like a solid start even on a quiet note (picking the right harmonic etc) - I played Clarinet to Gd8 at school which set me up with a really useful insight
"This will sound horrible.." plays something that sounds pretty good to me. Your bad sounds better than my good. Okay not really true. My Spitfire and OT libraries sound pretty good right out of the box as long as I don't play them like a synth. But thanks for the useful info.
I think the issue is the out of the box, on loop, will sound synthetic and repetitive. Always adding that variation is a must, and makes each repeat sound less synthy
That was one comprehensive and extensive video which I can send clients who expect to send me a MIDI (without any automation/dynamics data) and want me to 'slap on some sounds quickly', then being disappointed that it sounds like 'computer'.
Exactly!!
"Like an upset duck" love the choice of words there lol
That made me chuckle.
It would be great to see a type of video like this for strings and brass. :-) It's so informative and explained very well. Thank you for taking the time to go in-depth with it!
Another excellent video Paul. Hard to believe it was 22 minutes. It flew by. Your style makes me feel like an intern or you're a mentor. It feels personal somehow. Keep it up! Or going or whatever,.. thanks!
Will do! more coming!
"The player certainly wouldn't honk it like an upset duck..." Brilliant!
Great video, Paul!
I attended a Music Performance BTEC course (A levels level) a few years back, and we had arranging classes on Logic sometimes.
Most of the people on that course took away from those sessions "Midi sounds shit and doesn't work for anything beyond piano".
Little do they know, a lot of their favorite scores are probably in some part midi, and that the limitations were with us, not our tools.
Will be linking this video next time a conversation like that comes up! :)
This level of detail and thoughtfulness is very helpful, since many of us are not that familiar with orchestral techniques or many of the individual instruments. It really helps how to approach these gargantuan sample libraries which often can be somewhat daunting in their options, resulting in some random choices.
Having applied ideas of reverb and space to individual instruments or sections, I would really appreciate if you took us to the next step which is how to manage multiple instruments and sections when it comes to reverb and effects, and how to make is sound cohesive and convincing, and not a pile-up of reverbs and delays.
thanks
Excellent tutorial for the controllers and libraries. It is difficult to pick up what is going on by just watching past videos where the controls are being manipulated without any explanation and this explains it perfectly. The controller's curves can be written during playback but I guess the creative moment may have waned then. Thanks, Paul.
Thanks Stephen - yes I'm a huge fan of writing controllers in the 'moment'!
This is really useful. These kinds of videos are why I buy your libraries.
Although I haven’t downloaded these libraries yet as I’m moving my studio, I bought all three pro versions of the Studio series plus Bernhard Hermann. I can’t wait to dig into all of it...
Thanks Scott - hope the move goes well!
Very useful thanks! I would love more videos like this explaining the details of working with sample libraries.
Absolutely love this video. Other videos like this would be amazing! Thanks as always Paul!
Thanks Luke!
I thought this video made a better case for the Studio woodwinds than Paul's official walkthrough on the Spitfire channel.
So true, i'm getting this library :D
Agreed
Very useful information. Helps to bridge what I've picked up from orchestration books, to what I'm actually now working/fiddling about with in the box. As far as orchestral samples go, the Studio series is my first foray, so I'm very much new to this.
I'd love it if you could cover dynamics further in a future video. It seems easy to get piano sections sounding good, but I struggle to get powerful/punchy forte sounds.
Thanks! Will do re dynamics.
Far more people should watch these.... the amount of 'computer music' out there is astonishing! Nice one, looking forward to the next in the series.
Thats actually the best videos about this topic I have ever seen, thank you Paul!
You're a phenomenal composer, Paul. Thank you for your wisdom! Cheers!
Great video, Paul. Please do more like this.
Great video Paul thanks a lot, learnt a lot from that. It's amazing how many people forget when composing with samples, wind players have to breath, thankfully as a saxophone player, I'm well aware of this. These tutorial videos are so helpful. Please keep them coming. Take care, stay safe best wishes Terry
Watching these examples was super helpful, thanks for putting this together!
You are welcome Jenny! Glad it was useful!
Очень полезное видео, обожаю ваши библиотеки! Very useful video, I really love your libraries!
Thanks Paul. Have never heard subtle trade secrets discussed in detail like this- very gracious of you and helpful. Would love to hear a tutorial on how you handle articulation changes- multiple tracks, expression maps, mod wheel, etc. Tnx again !
Excellent video, more in depth like this Paul, please.
Thanks Jaykay - will do!
Excellent tutorial - thank you very much. Some of this is really common sense; it's so easy to push sampled "real" instruments into something synthy, clicky, or otherwise not quite right.
Thanks Allan - yes - its too easy to make a sample instrument sound terrible - but then - I can make a Strad sound terrible as well!
Thank you so much Paul, you’re awesome, keep the vids coming.
Thank you!
Very useful! Woodwinds are trickier than the other sections because of the variety of their timbre so it is key to know how they produce their sound. I recently discover the magic of the mics which helps a lot :)
And this fantastic sounds reminds me one of my wishes: that Spitfire Audio would do a Symphonic Saxes library someday, to write something as L'Arlessiene or the last symphony by Vaughan Williams :P
A fantastic video as always!!
Thanks Arturo - we may need to work on Christian to get Saxes in the bag...! I believe he refers to them as "bendy sex whistle"
I can't really blame him, even the name recalls that. But saxes can do a lot more than just "careless whispers" stuff!! :)
I recently added the studio woodwinds to the studio brass/string collection and this is a very helpful video for getting a better grasp of utilising it’s benefits and avoiding any limitations. Many thanks for taking the time to do this. I understand Christian hates saxophone but it would be really useful if these could be added to make a complete collection even more complete. Maybe sneak a sax recording in whilst he’s in Edinburgh?!!!
Thanks so much for this, Paul. A wonderful lesson.
Thanks Chris!
Hey Paul your videos are absolutely fantastic! But just a small tip try to add a veryyyy slight reverb on your master when demoing sounds because having ZERO reverb 100% dry isnt realistic in real life as there are always going to be SOME FORM of reverb in any physical space UNLESS IN an acoustic dead space but that is not common for most listeners - So the reason I am saying this is because these videos are very nuanced about the detailed realism of each instrument, and reverb would DEFINITELY help us to REALLY soak in the differences when we engage dynamics and vib into our playing - Please correct me if I am wrong about the whole "in real life there isnt ever a 100% DRY no reverb space" - thanksss
Yes totally agree - I fear “misrepresenting “ anything, by making it sound better with reverb!! I should probably chill out about this!
@@PaulThomsonMusic lol no problem!! But hey dont you feel like in most VST's controlling the expression just controls the volume and not actually CROSSFADING between the different layered samples of intensity.
For example lets say a violin VST has about 4 levels of velocity PER NOTE.
So if i HIT IT HARD to trigger the C note it will trigger the "HIGH VELOCITY" sample, but then as I am sustaining the note i want to now smoothly blend it with the MID or LOW recorded sample.. I feel like this DOESNT HAPPEN and the EXPRESSION knob just uses the SAME recorded HIGH VEL. sample but just TURNS DOWN THE VOLUME..
Is there a way to actually have a fader CROSS FADE INTO the ACTUAL other velocity recording WHILE STILL HOLDING THE SAME NOTE?
Thanks!
Just bought the Studio Woodwinds...this helped make up my mind Paul.
Cheers
Terry :-)
Thanks Terry! Enjoy!
Very helpful Paul - thanks!
Still waiting for Part #2 - Strings, Part #3 - Brass, and Part #4 - Percussion. ;-)
Awesome Paul, thank you for making this!
Thanks Wes!
The space the altiverb creates is so convincing
Its great but when you layer it up a lot it starts to sound a bit weird... useful for a few tracks!
Oh, exactly what I needed. Thanks!!
Brilliant and informative as usual! Thank you sir!
Thanks Nicolaj!
Thanks Paul such a detailed video! Looking forward to Brass ;)
Thanks Will! On the way!
Excellent vid Paul, Thanks!
I'm wondering if a good analogy is if you visualize your air speed, if that's your dynamics wheel. As I picture my air speed while playing a line, I see myself having to move the CC.
Would you recommend never using the expression control (but always the dynamic control instead) ?
No I would use both in combination. In fact I know one A list composer who has all of his own sounds set to play at the same level whether pp or ff - and uses the expression control to alter volume - and MW solely to alter the timbre.
Thank you, this was very beautiful!
Nice work. Very helpful. Thanks.
Thanks Paul!
Thanks Daniel!
Thank you, again. Very useful. ...I'm getting much better at not playing samples well. :).
Thanks! Its a skill for sure lol
@Paul Thompson it is difficult to deliberately play badly when you know how to play correctly...look at how brilliant Les Dawson was! 2:10 to 2:22 made me lol :-)
what midi keyboard are you using!?
What a bummer that this video only had 6 or 7 ads. I was hoping for more
Oh my gawd.. looks like I have to go through every one of my old vids to turn off YTs addition of ads throughout them!!! What a pain!
@@PaulThomsonMusic eesh. Sorry Paul - I was in an absolute rotten mood that morning - what a jerk comment.
I have slept since then and promise I'm not [always...] suck a dickhead (to steal one of Christians)
In the last four years I've been able to go from composing for fun to making enough from it that I have to worry about deductions and tracking miles. And none of that would be even the slightest bit possible if it wasn't for Spitfire... and Educator Discounts... And The Black Weekend... and LABS... and you and Christian teaching me everything I know about creating orchestral music from Sampled Libraries.
Sir, if I have to watch a hundred ads for you to show me how to create convincing music with sampled woodwinds, I will gladly do it.
Not having a mod wheel sucks...gotta work with automation, which means drawing graphs endlessly :(
one should never upset a duck :)
You and I know this Neil!
Cracked up when you cracked out the Cor Anglais. There's a very funny episode in Peep Show (UK) where Jez has to record some music and Mark's ex-friend (ex cos he was a massive racist) Darrell has to bring his Cor Anglais cos that's the only instrument the guy that hired Jez liked.
thank you!
You’re welcome Alain!
Hard to believe you actually need to remember about musicianship as a composer!!!! Preach! Haha
Some good explanations. Looking forward to the rest in the series.
On the reverb topic: at the end I find it confusing when some libraries are already quite wet (Century brass, for instance) and some are quite dry. Should I be putting no reverb on the wet samples, just early reflection, just late? And same for dry samples. I (try) to use Valhalla and QL Spaces and I feel like no combination I try sounds good. The closest to acceptable I felt like was the 2.0 second RR Burbank small in Spaces on orchestra on EW Hollywood series, but 8Dio's Century series just sounded already too wet. I don't expect an answer here, but addressing it in a future video would be much appreciated.
Yet another excellent video, Paul, thank you ever so much for putting that much effort into making them! I was waiting for this particular one (and one on brass, hopefully not too far away in the future?), as I wanted to see how you go about using Dynamics. Judging by the way you are using it, you are hinting that woodwinds players do not perform a little "bump", when they start blowing into the instrument, something that brass players apparently would do, instead. Or am I mistaken?
Absolutely - half the skill on WW is coming in super quiet - even on the really low stuff like CB clarinet, the player blows before they grip the reed to start the note. Its a diff playing style to Brass where you tend to like a solid start even on a quiet note (picking the right harmonic etc) - I played Clarinet to Gd8 at school which set me up with a really useful insight
@@PaulThomsonMusic thank you for the explanation. Combined with what you have showed in tha video, that totally makes sense, cheers
@@boxheadboy50 thank you for chiming in, that was useful
"This will sound horrible.." plays something that sounds pretty good to me. Your bad sounds better than my good. Okay not really true. My Spitfire and OT libraries sound pretty good right out of the box as long as I don't play them like a synth. But thanks for the useful info.
I think the issue is the out of the box, on loop, will sound synthetic and repetitive. Always adding that variation is a must, and makes each repeat sound less synthy
Everyone knows "real" composers DO NOT use woodwinds....
"step away from the oboe sir..."
HI Paul thompson I'm Paul thompson too!!
No 'p' here though!
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmitt! His name is my name too!