Ysabel's Lament

[ChameleonMusic]

https://soundcloud.com/chameleon-music/ysabels-lament

With apologies to any professional cellists who might come by...it's very much written for the 2 virtual libraries involved and NOT meant to be an attempt at creating a fully genuine 'cello' sound!

Duet for Cello and Piano

Created using Kontakt 6...

Piano = Noire
Cello = Tina Guo Legato

[tomtom1]

With apologies to any professional cellists who might come by...it's very much written for the 2 virtual libraries involved and NOT meant to be an attempt at creating a fully genuine 'cello' sound!

Duet for Cello and Piano

Created using Kontakt 6...

Piano = Noire
Cello = Tina Guo Legato

Hello Mark. Beautiful melancholy piece. Nice return to the beginning. When I first heard it, 2 things struck me that one might think about:
- the piano sounds softly close and intimate - on the other hand the cello with its clearly audible reverberation. Does the cello really need that much reverb?
- the tones e flat, d, c which keep coming back, the "intonation" would perhaps benefit if the "finger change" were carried out faster and more precisely ... they stand out negatively from the rest for me. (but tbh i don't know if it is possible with a sampler...)

[wagtunes]

I had to listen to this before getting to my work for the day. Comments above aside, I thought it was absolutely beautiful. For me, that's all that mattered.

Have a nice day.

[vurt]

nice stuff
very melancholy indeed, would work well for so many scenes, as well as being a nice standalone piece.

[Shabdahbriah]

Beautiful.

[htcnext2]

The piano reminds me of Nils Frahm, also the pace of the track. Nice assemblement, sounds great!

[melomood]

It is lovely & not shabby for a sampled instrument

[mediumaevum]

Nice piece, though I miss some more "epicness" in the middle, in terms of both higher and middle ranged strings (ensembles), leaving out the piano and solo cello, at least as a secondary theme.

A tip for you: If the instrument comes with MIDI-CC Expression/Dynamics (usually it's CC 11 and CC 1, respectively), I think you can create much more dynamics by drawing in curves (by hand), especially for the Dynamics. This (usually) controls the "soft-hardness" of the strings played.

What I usually do is to draw a curve for each note that goes up and fades down, slowly.
I think it makes it more realistic, at least that's the best one can do to make virtual instruments sound less "midi-like".

Try reading the manual on the instrument.

[ChameleonMusic]

Hello Mark. Beautiful melancholy piece. Nice return to the beginning. When I first heard it, 2 things struck me that one might think about:
- the piano sounds softly close and intimate - on the other hand the cello with its clearly audible reverberation. Does the cello really need that much reverb?
- the tones e flat, d, c which keep coming back, the "intonation" would perhaps benefit if the "finger change" were carried out faster and more precisely ... they stand out negatively from the rest for me. (but tbh i don't know if it is possible with a sampler...)

Hi Thomas, thanks for having a listen...

Beautiful melancholy piece. Nice return to the beginning.

Glad you liked it!

Does the cello really need that much reverb?

Without context, you're right - it probably doesn't and I would normally pull it down at least a little bit.

I do have a couple of 'drier' mixes, but they both have the same issue - some of the 'joins' between notes in the cello library tend to show through and it loses flow...

This is probably the best compromise between too much reverb and the limitations of the library being very clearly heard...the reverb smooths over the cracks!

I could've added more reverb to the piano, but it seems to add clarity to the mix with the piano more separate and intimate....

Mix - wise the piano is sort of 'wrapped around' the central cello if that makes sense?

the "intonation"

Do you have 'perfect pitch' as well?

The C and D I can cope with no problem - heard worse from very accomplished players, but I have to agree that the Eb is seriously flat to my ear as well, but there's nothing I can do here at all - tried everything and nothing helps without mashing up either the audio or the flow! I think it's also made worse by the rich vibrato - that's hard to control in any detail with this library as it's been recorded into the actual note samples.

Tina Guo (world famous cellist) your library has intonation issues!

Normally there is a simple workaround - just transpose the piece up or down a semitone as other notes are often OK, but...I've used the full range of the library in this cello part... 3 octaves, so I can't do that either!

Weird thing is that the Eb is 100% fine if approached from other notes so it must be the scripting behind the scenes - something I may have a look at when I've got half a day spare as it gets very complicated inside Kontakt and I'm no expert programmer by any stretch!

i don't know if it is possible with a sampler

Depends on the library - here there's not much access or flexibility - just a great sounding 'Legato' only library that is specifically designed for live input...

I performed the piano part first (whilst 'singing' the cello part in my head) and then overlaid the cello ( after many practice runs) in two separate takes....notes in one hand and two streams of controllers via sliders with the other one.

[ChameleonMusic]

I had to listen to this before getting to my work for the day. Comments above aside, I thought it was absolutely beautiful. For me, that's all that mattered.

Have a nice day.

Cheers Wags...thanks for having a listen and commenting - always appreciated!

[ChameleonMusic]

nice stuff
very melancholy indeed, would work well for so many scenes, as well as being a nice standalone piece.

Yeah, a bit of a sad one this after my epic uplifter last week!

Bring 'em up...knock 'em back down!

Thanks for the listen and feedback!

[tomtom1]

sorry had my issues with the comment function...

[tomtom1]

argh.... same here ... i posted the same three times

[tomtom1]

Do you have 'perfect pitch' as well? The C and D I can cope with no problem - heard worse from very accomplished players, but I have to agree that the Eb is seriously flat to my ear as well, but there's nothing I can do here at all - tried everything and nothing helps without mashing up either the audio or the flow! I think it's also made worse by the rich vibrato - that's hard to control in any detail with this library as it's been recorded into the actual note samples.

Perfect pitch? me? Not at all . But if something is not "okay" or could be better i can hear it , I also need that for the work with the choir. I only mentioned the c and d so that you can recognize the place I mean - although I already thought that someone with your experience and training did not miss it (but you could have had a bad day ). Btw it is always the question of what one takes as reference tones. A good choir would e.g. always take a D in C-minor higher than on the piano, because it is the second level (and intonation-wise 2 fifths away from the starting note C - understandable? - that is really too complicated for me in English ...)

Weird thing is that the Eb is 100% fine if approached from other notes so it must be the scripting behind the scenes

I thought so, because it doesn't always appear. Only sometimes.

I performed the piano part first (whilst 'singing' the cello part in my head) and then overlaid the cello ( after many practice runs) in two separate takes....notes in one hand and two streams of controllers via sliders with the other one.

Ah. Nice. That is why it sounds so smooth. I was wondering how the hell did he "humanize" it so good

one more thing... you should sell the score! ppl would buy it.

[ChameleonMusic]

Do you have 'perfect pitch' as well? The C and D I can cope with no problem - heard worse from very accomplished players, but I have to agree that the Eb is seriously flat to my ear as well, but there's nothing I can do here at all - tried everything and nothing helps without mashing up either the audio or the flow! I think it's also made worse by the rich vibrato - that's hard to control in any detail with this library as it's been recorded into the actual note samples.

Perfect pitch? me? Not at all . But if something is not "okay" or could be better i can hear it , I also need that for the work with the choir. I only mentioned the c and d so that you can recognize the place I mean - although I already thought that someone with your experience and training did not miss it (but you could have had a bad day ). Btw it is always the question of what one takes as reference tones. A good choir would e.g. always take a D in C-minor higher than on the piano, because it is the second level (and intonation-wise 2 fifths away from the starting note C - understandable? - that is really too complicated for me in English ...)

Weird thing is that the Eb is 100% fine if approached from other notes so it must be the scripting behind the scenes

I thought so, because it doesn't always appear. Only sometimes.

I performed the piano part first (whilst 'singing' the cello part in my head) and then overlaid the cello ( after many practice runs) in two separate takes....notes in one hand and two streams of controllers via sliders with the other one.

Ah. Nice. That is why it sounds so smooth. I was wondering how the hell did he "humanize" it so good

one more thing... you should sell the score! ppl would buy it.

Intonation above- yes, I understood...and intonation also very much depends on the musical context without any doubt...it's NOT a static situation as such!

Playing the cello part 'live' was challenging for two reasons...

Apart from using the other hand on two sliders, this 'legato' library responds very strongly to velocity - the softer you play the keyboard, the slower and quieter the initial attack of the note...great for expression and flow, but an absolute nightmare for timing without all the practice runs!

Also - 'Legato' means something linked but different with music tech...

When playing such a library you have to deliberately overlap the notes to get the really smooth transitions...you deliberately hold down one note until just after you have played the next one most of the time...totally different technique!

you should sell the score! ppl would buy it.

That's a really interesting idea - haven't done that for many years, but it might be a strong possibility here with this piece - thanks for that! Of course, having played it all in live and quite 'rubato' at times it's a total mess at the moment when viewed so I'll have to spend a few hours writing it out from scratch!