Realivox Blue - Vocal Sample Instrument Released! And . . . On Sale!

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Thanks Musical Gym. I just checked it out, nice friendly place.
Yes Breeze, I just held some notes for 20 seconds, so either they are looped or she has amazing lungs!
Hey Jobi7, I'd have had them up earlier, but some trouble with my account and lots of stuff suddenly went private. What a pain.
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bigcat1969 wrote:Thanks Musical Gym. I just checked it out, nice friendly place.
Yes Breeze, I just held some notes for 20 seconds, so either they are looped or she has amazing lungs!
Hey Jobi7, I'd have had them up earlier, but some trouble with my account and lots of stuff suddenly went private. What a pain.
Thanks for sharing all your experiments!

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Thank you guys for all the responses!

As far as the request for a undo/backspace button goes - yeah, that's driving me nuts, too! I'll have an update in a couple weeks with that.

BigCat1969, it's fun to watch you make some of the same discoveries that I did over the last few months. For instance, "ages" is sung "eh jes" (or "eh jez" since an ending "s" is often really a "z" sound.) And deciding which vowels to use for various challenges.

Something sounds odd on your legato, especially in your Amazing Grace examples. It's very choppy, which might be a bug. Are you in Phrase Legato mode and playing the notes so they overlap? (That's how you trigger the legato.)

I did a version of Amazing Grace here that shows the legato when play with overlapping notes in Phrase Legato mode:
https://soundcloud.com/realitone/amazing-blue-grace

I had to massage the timings, because as I mentioned in the video, you have to anticipate in your playing, since things like "s" and "m" need time to develop. Here's the MIDI file, in case anyone wants to check it out:
http://realitone.com/uploads/midi/AmazingBlueGrace.zip

The phrases (and keyswitches) were these:
C0 uh uh meh zee ee eeng grehs
D0 hah oh sweet thuh sah oond
E0 theh eht sehv duh uh uh rech
F0 lah eek mee
G0 ah ee wuhns wuh uhz lahst
A0 buh uht nuh oo wah eem fuh oond
B0 wuh uhz bluh eend buh uh uht nuh oo ah ee see

Notice that I repeat vowels on various lines. That's so I can do runs on that syllable. I also used the mod wheel to bring in some vibrato, which makes her sound a bit more natural. (Singers don't like to hold static notes.)

Also, there was a request for a do re mi example. Big Cat's is good, but I always like to play these with legato, so here's an alternate version:
https://soundcloud.com/realitone/do-re-mi

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Wow lovely version of Amazing Grace. Nice smoothness and understandability. I haven't been able to combine the two very well yet. Usually I have to sacrifice one for the other. I'll take a look at the midi file and see if I can learn some tricks!

Excellent ear and not a bug. I hate to admit it, but the legato has me pretty well confused, so I tend to turn it off. I really need to figure that out. When I get more time on Monday, I'll rewatch your video and see what I can pick up now that I have a bit more understanding of the instrument. Are there any more instructional materials that might help?

Thanks for the info on ages and for inquisitive minds, I hear rumors that 'uh' 'ee' has been suggested as an alternative long 'I' by someone quite close to the Lady herself.

I was wondering if at some point the community might try to develop a knowledge base and dictionary, so we don't keep relearning the same techniques and words over and over on every song. I'm not sure exactly how that would work.
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bigcat1969 wrote: I was wondering if at some point the community might try to develop a knowledge base and dictionary, so we don't keep relearning the same techniques and words over and over on every song. I'm not sure exactly how that would work.
MIDI clips of common words might be useful as part of the dictionary. I agree it would be nice not to have to rethink how we did a word each time we want to create it. Would it be feasible to add another page to the interface consisting of common words that Blue sings well? For example, a list with I, you, me, love, day, over, dance, etc., etc. You might choose the three words "I" "love" "you" just like you would choose consonants and vowels on a previous page, but on the pre-built words page, the words would already be built. When you click "you" on the pre-built words page and then go back to the consonants/vowels page, you would see the actual components of the word. Then you could tweak further from there if necessary. Maybe too much work than Mike would really want to take on unless he'd hire an assistant programmer. Also, I don't think Blue was really intended to be a comprehensive tool for generating a lot of different lyric lines. I think the main use is basically intended for backup vocals and scat or phrases/sounds that don't have specific meaning.

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That's clever about the midi clips, hadn't thought of that. Not sure if a small dictionary built in to the program would be feasible, interesting idea. I'm amazed how far Mike pushed Kontakt with this instrument already, so who knows... Something just struck though I have no idea if it is within Kontakt's scripting ability, but if there were some way, either on startup or through a button, to load phrases from a text file onto the phrase keys we could share entire phrases and even songs and create a commonly used phrase library.

For an instrument not really intended as you say to be a lead vocalist, Blue can actually do quite a lot. Once we get some idea of how to use her, we might have some real fun. I'm discovering that timing is really important. I usually work with Studio One in a 1/64 grid or even smaller to give more control. Amazing what even a small timing adjustment will sometimes do.

Probably a dumb question. Modulation controls Vibrato right? What does Velocity do since it doesn't control Volume? Are there other useful controls for Blue, like could you pitch bend slightly?

Oh thanks for the Amazing Grace midi file and the syllables used. That is a continuing education on Blue.

So I was basically using the wrong syllables for long ' I'. Looks like uh ee and sometimes uh eh work better. Short 'i' is now the main thing missing. Any ideas on that?
Last edited by bigcat1969 on Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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bigcat1969 wrote:I was wondering if at some point the community might try to develop a knowledge base and dictionary, so we don't keep relearning the same techniques and words over and over on every song. I'm not sure exactly how that would work.
EastWest's Wordbuilder for Symphonic Choir has this kind of facility which uses a database to match English words to its own internal "pronunciations".

While this would be impossible to do in Kontakt (I think), it's conceivable to build a library like that using a database that would translate English words and phrases into "Blue-talk" and facilitate the process. It could also be set up to learn new words a phrases. The only problem would be how to transfer this info into Blue's text box with the right start and end consonants.

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Breeze wrote:While this would be impossible to do in Kontakt (I think)
It would be possible via .nka files.

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I think this was already asked, but I don't remember if anyone answered it.

Is there a way to even out the volume across notes? Notes from at least C4 and above seem noticeably louder.

I could record another track and use it only with the higher octaves and adjust volume independently or adjust in the editor if there's no other solution.

Is anyone else getting the cacophonous sound of piano strings being scraped with wire brushes at 100 mph when playing B (pink keyswitch) below C2? The sound won't stop until the Kontakt panic button is clicked.

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Musical Gym wrote:Is anyone else getting the cacophonous sound of piano strings being scraped with wire brushes at 100 mph when playing B (pink keyswitch) below C2? The sound won't stop until the Kontakt panic button is clicked.
I've managed to get notes stuck using the Repeat key. I was going to report it, along with a few other comments. Blue is really nicely put together. ;)

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OK! I just got the screaming piano strings too! Copy protection gone bad? LOL....

Blue sure is a lot of fun. The often hanging notes need to be fixed and not having diphthongs is a problem. I just couldn't get the word "one" to happen the end of this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/104 ... raudio.mp3

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bigcat1969 wrote:I hate to admit it, but the legato has me pretty well confused, so I tend to turn it off.
It's easier than you might think. Just turn on the "Phrase" legato switch, then when you play notes, play them so they overlap. (Play Note #1, then don't let go of note #1 until you start playing note #2.) You'll get the hang of it really quickly. Just make sure notes overlap.
Musical Gym wrote:MIDI clips of common words might be useful as part of the dictionary. I agree it would be nice not to have to rethink how we did a word each time we want to create it. . . . For example, a list with I, you, me, love, day, over, dance, etc., etc. You might choose the three words "I" "love" "you" just like you would choose consonants and vowels on a previous page, but on the pre-built words page, the words would already be built. . . .
This is a nice idea. I'm not sure how possible it would be, but I'm going to think about this.
bigcat1969 wrote:Probably a dumb question. Modulation controls Vibrato right? What does Velocity do since it doesn't control Volume? Are there other useful controls for Blue, like could you pitch bend slightly?
Yes, the mod wheel controls vibrato, and the pitch bend wheel does work. (Although there's a bug that it doesn't work on Airy Ha or Airy Ho.)

Velocity is intentionally disabled, because unless a player has really good playing skills, the volume differences between notes would be a nightmare.
EvilDragon wrote:
Breeze wrote:While this would be impossible to do in Kontakt (I think)
It would be possible via .nka files.
Sure, Mario, but you and I both know that is waaayyyy above my skill level. :D
Musical Gym wrote:Is there a way to even out the volume across notes? Notes from at least C4 and above seem noticeably louder.
Interestingly, I already lowered the volumes as you get higher. It's impossible to sing softly when you sing high, so the loudness is natural.

I might add a knob that re-curves the volume levels. Personally I like the volumes across the keyboard the way they are. (After all, I'm the one who set it, so I *should* like it. :D ) But maybe I could give the user the option to have higher notes not so loud. I'll look into it.
Musical Gym wrote:Is anyone else getting the cacophonous sound of piano strings being scraped with wire brushes at 100 mph when playing B (pink keyswitch) below C2? The sound won't stop until the Kontakt panic button is clicked.
Yikes! That B is the "Repeat Key." It should just repeat whatever is the last note you played. (You can see me use it a dozen times in the video.) I haven't heard any other reports of the problem you describe, but obviously it's really happening. What are the circumstances? Is legato involved? Does it always happen, or only occasionally?
Breeze wrote:
Musical Gym wrote:I've managed to get notes stuck using the Repeat key. I was going to report it, along with a few other comments. Blue is really nicely put together. ;)
Please do report, because I wasn't aware of this one, either. Thanks!

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Thanks some good info there.
Maybe after the first 10 thousand sales you can hire Evil Dragon to code the .nka files. ;P
So where are the arias, hymns, pop tunes and thrash metal tunes with Blue? You guys have musical talent, I don't I'm expecting so cool stuff soon!

If this hasn't been posted here already, check out more on the making of one of the demos.
http://blake-ewing-dl6l.squarespace.com ... -orchestra

Pretty demo
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/sho ... t-Demos%29
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Mike Greene wrote:
Musical Gym wrote:Is anyone else getting the cacophonous sound of piano strings being scraped with wire brushes at 100 mph when playing B (pink keyswitch) below C2? The sound won't stop until the Kontakt panic button is clicked.
Yikes! That B is the "Repeat Key." It should just repeat whatever is the last note you played. (You can see me use it a dozen times in the video.) I haven't heard any other reports of the problem you describe, but obviously it's really happening. What are the circumstances? Is legato involved? Does it always happen, or only occasionally?
I'll try to retrace my steps and report back. It happened on at least a couple of separate sessions and multiple times during each session. Breeze also noted the same problem (above).

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If it helps - I got greedy and played ten notes at once, and then ended up with a drone on B which I had to exit the program to remove.

Also, Is there a problem with authorizing it with NI?

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