Recording - September 2011 - 60

RECORDING'S

SHOWCASE OF SOUNDS
How to use it Understand the relationship between the VI Pro slot and voice assignment structures, and how they work with Dimension Brass, and you’ll be ready to maximize the potential of this library.

That happened to me in this example, so I simply nudged the offending note a few ticks later in my piano roll view. Working with presets Whether we end up creating our own presets, or even use VI Pro’s new Sequence Map function to do away with them altogether, we all start out by working with the presets that VSL creates. In the case of Dimension Brass they present you with a robust sense of the possible combinations you can build. But I was a bit confused by a few aspects of the presets, so let me go over a couple of things that might help you cut out a bit of the time I spent studying. If you load up a Universal Pro preset, you’ll see that the matrixes on the left side fall into three categories: compact, auto-divisi, and cluster. What is a compact matrix? I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea behind this matrix, possibly because something got lost in the translation from German to English, but the idea is simple. If you want to disregard voicing entirely, load up a compact preset. Each of the instruments has its own compact preset, and these are simply a set of samples laid across the X-axis. The all_compact preset lays out each of the four instruments in similar fashion, but it also includes a Y-axis that activates them in a variety of different combinations. Voicing is deactivated; if you want trumpets 1–3 to play, select that combination in the Y-axis. Play eight notes at a time if you must... The auto-divisi presets have empty cells where you’d think the perf-legato samples would be laid out. Why oh why? As mentioned in the companion VI Pro review, it’s pretty difficult for any piece of software to know exactly how you’re handling voice leading. In the real world, you and I don’t care if Trumpets 1 and 2 exchange a few notes here and there. We’d much rather be able to take advantage of polyphonic legato if we so desire. But the folks at VSL seem to think it would be false advertising to include perf-legato patches in the auto-divisi preset, so just go ahead and add them on your own. I did! The cluster presets are pretty straightforward; they take the cluster concept and push the boundaries a little bit for you. That leaves us with the enhanced presets. Designed for the individual instruments, they are like the extended libraries that you can purchase with some of the older VSL products. Conclusion Aside from not having any idea of what the name means (multiple dimensions of expressive articulation?), I found Dimension Brass to be pure joy to work with. A number of libraries have entered the market offering large ensembles recorded in huge spaces. These products can be extremely attractive, particularly to film-score composers. In contrast, VSL libraries put the onus on you, the composer, to write convincing music without the aid of dramatic size. Dimension Brass adds a stunning degree of realism to orchestral MIDI compositions. Highly recommended—and get Vienna Instruments Pro to get the most out of it.

Let’s construct a simple matrix that consists of one cell on the X axis and two cells on the Y axis. We’ll drop the same samples—French horns 1–4 playing a staccato patch—into the four slots of both cells. We’ll use the power pan function of the Mixer to separate the four players. Recording sessions were conducted with all four players present at one time, each with separate microphones. A heightened sense of ensemble realism, with the musicians creating balances of timbre and volume themselves, is a very beneficial result. I do wish that the mixer had a metering scheme that gave a visual check of which instruments were active. Solo and Mute buttons would also be appreciated.

In the first example (Audio Clip 3) all four horns play in unison. Notice how the voices are assigned (Figure 1). All four slots are set to play voice one, which in this case is the only one being articulated. Why eight voice slots? You can play up to eight notes at one time. That’s right—you could set up a Content: VI Pro, downloadable application; VSL Dimension Brass, voicing structure that yielded a 32-voice French horn choir, just like in the “old days of MIDI madness”! 20 GB on three DVDs I’ve added an upper harmony to the melody line in Format: Windows XP/Vista/7 (32 or 64 bits) VST and standalone; our second example (Audio Clip 4), and assigned the Mac OS X 10.5+ VST/AU/RTAS and standalone first and second horns to voice one and horns 3 and Documentation: PDF and online video tutorials 4 to voice two (Figure 2). The first half of the phrase is Licensing: multiple installs/single use via ViennaKey USB copy played by horns 1 and 2 exclusively, and the other protection key pair joins in for the second half. As you’d expect, Prices: Vienna Instruments Pro, $180; VSL Dimension Brass, $805 some MIDI doctoring may need to be done; if the part More from: Vienna Symphonic Library, www.vsl.co.at; dist. in USA you want to be played as voice two comes in before by ILIO, www.ilio.com the other, the voice leading will become confused.
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RECORDING SEPTEMBER 2011

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Recording - September 2011

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