Bruce Richardson

Garritan Orchestral Strings

Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT

I open the package. A beautiful black binder. I open the binder. Lovely cover page, inscribed, "The Maestro's Manual, presented to Maestro Bruce Richardson." OK, I'm impressed.

Garritan Orchestral Strings is the second GigaStudio library produced by harpist, composer, and producer Gary Garritan. His previous library, the GigaHarp, was among the first proof-of-concept libraries which thrust Nemesys (now owned by hardware giant Tascam. hmmm...TascSys? NemeScam?) and its "streaming sampler" into the limelight. Garritan Orchestral Strings is a much larger effort; a collection of just about every sound you can make with a string section. You get a hefty manual that's almost an orchestration text, elegant and detailed mapping guides, and the aforementioned personal fluffing. Maestro indeed. Who doesn't feel good about that?

Down to the Nitty-Gritty

Spread out over eighteen CDs, you'll find the main instrument classes broken into many individual GigaStudio-native GIG files--with separate long and short bowings, additional techniques, and keyswitch/lite instruments (respectively supersets, designed for maximum flexibility or subsets designed to conserve memory and MIDI channels). Within these there are sometimes over a dozen individual instrument mappings. There are even some full-range "strings" patches designed to get you playing quickly across the full keyboard, with all the basic bowings represented within them. These are like the strings patches on your favorite "do everything" synth module. Only way better. A person could start with just these and be happy.

But the real stars of this library are the ultra-detailed individual instrument sections. There are bowings galore, and not just the usual suspects. GOS covers it all, from romantic sustains to scroinks, boinks, and scratches. You don't just get one variety of sustains, but many subtle bowing variations. You don't just get staccato, you get its cousins and their cousins. There is enough there, in fact, that you can become downright unproductive as you explore one instrument, then the next, then the next...and all are recorded in a nicely consistent space, meaning that you can mix and match articulations liberally without your stereo image going to shreds.

The sound of each section is full, resonant and alive. I appreciate the wide variety of bowings, because they're all musically interesting and each has distinct character. The straight sustains are nicely slick and present at low velocities and insistent towards the top. The more expressive bowings get a little grittier and evolve with more personality, and the players are definitely not holding anything back. There is a touch of ambient content in the samples themselves, but not a lot. Just a bit of bounce and decay from the space, which sounds nice. In a somewhat dry mix, this may be all the ambience you need in a track. For a larger orchestral footprint, it's not too much bounce to interfere with additional reverb and reflective content.

One significant feature of Garritan Orchestral Strings is a companion MIDI application, called Maestro Tools (authored by MIDI-ace Jeff Hurchalla). Maestro Tools sits, loopback-style, between your MIDI input and GigaStudio, and enables a whole host of playability and sequencing features of the library. There's a legato mode. There are alternation modes, which alternate samples on a given note to combat the dreaded machine-gun effect. It's an idea that harks back to the original GigaHarp, which used common MIDI controllers to "double" notes realistically within glissandos by key (one of the telltale "it's a sequence" giveaways with virtual harp parts). In fact, this aspect of GOS seems to have caught on, with Michiel Post's Grandioso pianos sporting a similar feature to enhance pedaling techniques.

There are additional "variability" modes that provide even more sample substitutions, detunings, etc., to keep things constantly changing. There are some velocity crossfading methods that can yield great crescendos and decrescendos in realtime. There are layered articulations and wheel-selected bowings. Yet despite all this seeming complexity, the use of the library and accompanying tools is easy and straightforward, and I had no trouble at all learning to use each GOS feature.

I amused myself for hours on end, in fact. What I needed was a good string project to get me moving. In the usual, "careful what you wish for..." scenario, I was suddenly overwhelmed with projects. Luckily, GOS gets down to business as pleasantly as it distracts. Here's the poop on a few of them.

Pop Strings

An old friend approaches me with a project. A new pop group he's producing has synth strings all over their tunes. He wants me to ditz them up and do some revoicing to make them a bit less synthy. Little does he know...

When I got the tunes, it became apparent that I'd need to use a couple of different approaches. A few spots called more for solo strings (GOS is ensemble-only), so I used Dan Dean Solo strings for these. But overall, most of the lines wanted to be large and soaring, and the GOS legato patches filled the bill perfectly. I used the "EXP" versions, a great variant on the typical multi-velocity sample. EXP patches in GOS crossfade between velocity layers using the modulation wheel, so that you can play crescendos and decrescendos in realtime. With these patches, I was able to program the kinds of sweeping dynamic quality you only get with live sections (or hours of excruciating envelope-drawing in your DAW).

I also found that the EXP patches were easily modified to breath control (simply changing the attenuating controller in the GigaStudio Editor), and that this was just about the ideal way to use them. Using a Yamaha WX-5 as the controller, I found this to be far superior to the mod-wheel implementation. I was now physically coupled to the expression in a more direct way, and the resulting parts were more musical than my keyboard entered parts. I am not a killer saxophonist by a long shot, so I concentrated on getting the expression nailed at the expense of a few clams. These are easy enough to clean up in the sequencer. In fact, several complex passages were easiest to perform with one hand on the keyboard playing the line while I played a "dummy note" on the wind controller (later, I deleted this string of "dummy notes" leaving the melody behind).

GOS's LEG or legato patches proved really helpful. These patches must be used with the Maestro Tools utility. It works a MIDI-magic trick, tracking incoming note-offs to trigger hidden "bridge" samples between legato notes. Anyone who has done sampled string work knows the dreaded "slurp, slurp, slurp" sound of mushy legato attacks. With GOS's legato bridge samples being triggered by each release, the air between notes gets filled up, and the notes connect to each other much more naturally. Combined with the EXP crossfades, you can knock out gorgeous and shapely lines that will have even the biggest skeptic wondering how you managed to afford a full string section.

Needless to say, the string parts for the project were a huge hit. The tunes took on that nice depth and size that says "expensive," and everybody was happy. GOS gets an A+ here.

Soundtrack: Exploring Society

Next on the plate, I scored 22 episodes of a sociology telecourse, using all manner of orchestral instruments and styles. I made GOS the workhorse library for strings.

I really used the pizzicato strings on this project, coming back to them again and again. The GOS pizz samples have a nice buzzy-woody quality about them, and come in two main flavors: loose and tight. The tight samples are VERY tight, with dead-on ensemble accuracy. The loose pizz samples, on the other hand, are quite loose and spread on the attack. There are various "switching" patches between these and one other pizz articulation, the so-called Bartok pizz, which is a snap against the fingerboard for an extremely aggressive, percussive tone. These are mapped to the highest velocities, and really do give the impression of a full section digging into the accents. I edited some of these patches to pop out the "Bartoks" even more...in the Basses, they were actually not quite as aggressive as the rounder varieties, and I found they'd actually leave something of a sonic hole rather than a super aggressive feeling. No biggie, it was easy to do and this is a personal taste thing, anyway.

Another nice articulation I used often--the various tremolo patches. Here again, the EXP versions of these allow continuous crescendos and decrescendos over individual notes or lines, and allow very realistic performances to be entered in realtime. Tremolos come in a couple of varieties, one full-bodied and warm, the other (sul ponticello) played closer to the bridge for a scratchier, eerier tone quality. There are multiple velocities of each. As you might imagine, one can switch between the two varieties in a number of ways. Tremolos are used to convey agitation and emotional sweep, and like their live acoustic counterparts, the tremolo patches in GOS get the job done. You can stir up a lot of energy with them.

A note to the adventurous: The Tremolos don't come with release triggers right out of the box, but I found that the release triggers from the legato instruments contained in the latest update were perfect for this. Just copy them from the legato instruments to the Tremolos, study and emulate the mapping from the sustain instruments, and enjoy.

I also found myself using the short bows quite a bit, mainly to mix it up with the pizz articulations when "grooving" with the string section. Here, the ALT articulations come into play with the Maestro Tools utility. Pressing a keyswitch tells Maestro Tools to alternate up-bow and down-bow samples every other note. Whether you are playing a repeated note, or a line, this feature helps combat the machine-gun curse, and gives you much more realistic parts. It's helpful to use your sequencer's note-length editing capabilities to tweak your lines. Once you've found exactly the right note length for a given line at a given tempo, you can easily visualize a section of players burning through the part. Here, too, you can use the variability instruments to give even more variety...or not. What you'll find is that the advanced features are somewhat scaleable...you don't have to use them in the tracking stages in order to take advantage of them as you work towards mixing and completing your piece. Sometimes, it's far better to forge ahead while the muses still think you're cute.

Soundtrack: Henry IV

Last on my set of evaluation projects was a score for Shakespeare's Henry IV, parts one and two. This was an original adaptation, premiered at Shakespeare Festival of Dallas, which reduced the two three-hour plays into one. The style of the production was a rather mixed bag. We started out flirting with constructivism, and retained some of that flavor in the end. However, our Falstaff chewed scenery mightily (and well), so in the end we had a constructivist-farce on our hands. Which is a little weird. Needless to say, I made a few stylistic changes through the process.

I mostly scored transitions, trying to foreshadow upcoming scenes and keep the audience with us as we blazed through the tale. One of the challenges of outdoor Shakespeare is the fight against ambient noise. As it turned out, I didn't get to score many of the scenes I'd have liked, simply because getting the actors heard over the sound of traffic is no mean feat. But I got many complements on the overall score just the same. People are genuinely curious about how I get orchestral sounds like these. It's a real complement that even casual listeners notice the sound of the score itself. The actors notice and appreciate it as well...they get subjected to some pretty cheesy sounds sometimes, and still have to keep a straight face and tough it out over the top. Once again, the tremolos were golden--I was able to go from subtle agitation to heights of tension using the EXP patches. Another nice juxtaposition was using extreme ranges of all the legato instruments in their quietest velocities, allowing the nice long samples to provide motion to otherwise static lines. Unlike the constant hiding, nipping, and tucking you must do to disguise shortcomings with lesser libraries, these samples beg to be held out their full length. The more you expose, the more they sell.

Support and Upgrades

A significant and somewhat unique aspect of Garritan Orchestral Strings is a free upgrade policy. And so far a very generous upgrade policy. Since beginning work on this review, a whopping 1.5 gigabytes of new samples, instruments, patches, and software enhancements have been added to the basic library...with much more to come very soon, according to Gary. That's more than the total size of some libraries, and nice support however you look at it. Some of the coolest enhancements are user contributions. GOS has gathered quite a following of people who have contributed back some nice new ways of using the material. Also included in the last upgrade were some reverb impulses by music tech ace Ernest Cholakis. These are usable in so-called convolver programs like Acoustic Mirror and Altiverb, and are among the very best I have ever heard. Another resource is a helpful user forum on Northernsounds.com. All in all, the customer service for GOS is exemplary, and is a notable feature of the library.

Some Conclusions

I work every day with sampled instruments, and my livelihood more or less depends on these products. I consider myself a pretty good judge of what works, and Garritan Orchestral Strings has worked out very well for me. It can be layered up into a lush thicket of orchestral madness, and can serve just as well in a sparse pop setting.

You'd be hard pressed to come up with musical situations it wouldn't cover. No library has the number of articulations this one boasts. It wrings every drop of functionality from GigaStudio's significant toolbox, and adds new tools to boot.

All in all, I give GOS my warmest and heartiest recommendation to anyone seeking a great sounding string library. It is definitely an investment quality resource, which will not lose value as other products emerge. No matter what your musical genre, GOS covers your string needs. You’ll be able to churn out hours of great music with it. Professionals will find the pricetag very appealing, and easily recouped. In fact, every high-profile GigaStudio user I know counts this one as a must-have...so I'll defer to the larger group and let you draw your conclusions from that.

Sonic Implants Symphonic String Collection

Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT

Miracles happen. UPS managed to get a package to my door despite the fact that the shipping label had been torn completely off. And inside that package was a string library for GigaStudio that managed to make grumpy old me giggle like a little girl.

Ever since Giga-technology redefined sampling, symphonic libraries have themselves transformed. They’re huge now, getting bigger every day. Sonic Implants Symphonic Strings weighs in at a hefty twenty CDs, packed with the most used articulations, bowings, and effects used in symphonic music.

The mastermind behind the Sonic Implants product line is Jennifer Hruska, perhaps best known to industry folks as one of the dynamo sound designers behind some of Kurzweil's most praised products. After a nine-year stint there, Jennifer founded her own company; and after rolling a couple of other family-run businesses together, the combined effort emerged as the present Sonic Network--the parent company of Sonic Implants. Until recently, Sonic Implants was probably best known for its reasonably priced and top notch Soundfonts. Expanding both titles and formats, Sonic Implants is rapidly branching into the pro-sampler market, as well as licensing sounds and technology to the corporate and manufacturing sector.

The CDs are cleverly displayed in a retro-LP box like the classic orchestral volumes of vinyl days (just saying this makes me feel a little classic myself). Voluminous size is only part of the charm. The players are some of Boston's finest, and the recordings are top notch (the engineers, Antonio Oliart and John Bono, are highly pedigreed in orchestral recording circles) It was recorded at Sonic Temple Studios in Roslindale, Massachusetts, a nice woody meeting hall turned soundstage. The recording gear was all top shelf. B & K, Shoeps, and Neumann mics coupled with Benchmark preamps deliver a slick and polished sound. The room is heard to nice effect while still maintaining an intimate and transparent sound across all the dynamic ranges.

I spoke to Jennifer about the recording techniques used. She pointed out that one interesting aspect of the process was recording sections in their relative orchestral placement, with a fixed conductor-perspective array and overhead spot mics. "We even set up chairs to help define spacing, and draped blankets over them to emulate warm bodies between the source and the room mics," Jennifer explained. "We wanted to give an impression of the space, but with enough intimacy to be useful in a variety of contexts." The subsequent mix process delivered up a pre-panned image of each section, which faithfully reproduces the section's footprint (and "presence print") in the overall orchestral plot.

"This was the most challenging session I've ever run," Jennifer added. "We were spending a lot of money on players, gear, engineers, and the facility itself, and we had to be sure we were getting what we needed. We'd bring the previous sessions' rough mixes back into the studio daily, to make sure we were getting a good relationship between the sections. "

"One funny thing we learned was to schedule the loud stuff after lunch. The players would go out every day and eat a big lunch, and when we'd get started up afterwards, we were hearing lots of stomachs rumbling."

The things they don't teach you in school, eh?

So How Does it Sound?

Jennifer recommended loading up the various Ensemble presets first, to get my hands wrapped around the sounds. This was good advice. Much like the various "strings" patches on your favorite multitimbral hardware synth, these are full range compilations of the full string section, designed to get you playing and knocking out ideas quickly. Unlike the strings patches on your favorite dino-synth, these are impressive. I loaded up the pizzicato ensemble first, and was greeted with a very spacious and full-bodied multisample across the board, topped by a super-aggressive fingerboard "snap." The dynamic range is extreme...from a barely audible plink to a fingerboard snap that probably left a mark, but very controllable while playing. So far so good.

Next I tried out the legato ensemble, and here again, I got a very playable and controllable full-range string section. Nothing generic about this sound--I could easily pick out the individual players in the soundfield, thanks to the compact section sizes. There's a nice balance struck here--just enough players to get a full section sound, but no so many that the resulting samples become too chorusy and diffuse.

During my maiden voyage, I was struck over and over by the combination of spaciousness and intimacy. Again, a nice balance struck. Tutti orchestra passages fill out into a nice soundstage, while thinner and gentler passages will recede into a more compact image. Even at fortissimo levels, there’s a good transparency to the sound. Other instruments can break through it and claim their own space.

Playing the ensemble presets is interesting on many levels. It’s nice to hear the image of a chord break out across the soundstage, so that even in the rough-out stages of composition you’re hearing a fair approximation of your end result. Of course, the downside of this is that a given melodic thread can unintentionally jump from section to section as you cross the “breaks.” As a springboard for knocking out very quick sketches, they’re very good and have enough depth in some applications to stand as completed work.

Lest you worry too much about the built in panning, the sections respond fairly well to a couple of techniques. The purest approach I found was flipping the channels on the resulting track, which exactly reverses the image. You can easily do this within GigaStudio's DSP station channel strips, since each channel of the stereo sample has its own independent panner. You can also constrict or nudge the image by experimenting with other fader positions. In general, the images hold up well no matter where you place them, although the ideal use of this library seems to be using the built-in image or its mirror. I didn't find this to be a restriction at all, and in fact, I have yet to alter the panning except to experiment with it for this article. I'm not so hung up on my own special formula, I guess. It sounds good to me just where it is.

One thing to note--if you want to dry up the sound just a bit (although it's not overly wet), you can work in mono, favoring the channel where the section is imaged on the soundstage. It will sound drier than its opposite channel. Alternately, using only the “wetter” side of the stereo signal as a panned mono representation would give you, in essence, a more distant-sounding mono image of a given section. These “mono tricks” can really help you blend disparate libraries together, so it’s always worth trying.

It's the Playability

Playability at the keyboard is this library's strong suit, and here you will note the design ethic that Hruska pursued at Kurzweil is very much alive at Sonic Implants.

"You have to be able to sit and actually play," Jennifer said. "Our goal throughout the process was to focus on creating instruments more than just samples. A busy composer needs to be able to sit down and knock out a part that works, right from the keyboard."

I like the section sizes. For lack of a better analogy, a smaller section feels a bit quicker on its feet. While there is plenty of controller-driven expression available, the emphasis is clearly focused on getting the maximum expression from the keyboard itself. For instance, the legato bowings become progressively more aggressive as you dig into the keys, such that you can often execute a quick passage without invoking another bowing. There’s some nice behavioral design in the layers themselves. In ways, this becomes a different take on the Miroslav mantra of “no dead notes.” Here, the concept is a little more smoothly implemented, thanks to fewer bandwidth constraints.

Every individual sample is a little klangfarbenmelodie unto itself. There’s the typical caveat that a given note might wander from your intention of the moment, but here’s another little nod to Jennifer’s design experience. They don’t wander often. The motion is definitely there, but subtly enough to give you some control. I have no idea if Jennifer has ever read Philip Farkas’s “The Art of Musicianship,” but the samples tend towards those same principles. Pianissimo and piano-force keyboard velocities are hushed and static throughout the choir. The mezzo piano becomes a bit insistent, the mezzo forte the same. Not too exaggerated, but taking you somewhere. As you move into the forte and fortissimo the attacks become more aggressive and the vibrato and general tonality begin to roughen up. The top level in most instruments has a ferocious attack, and a full, blocky sustain.

In general, I found myself improvising a lot at the keyboard and polishing less than I’d expect. I'd just jam away on the ensemble patches, then separate the parts out by section. Or not...the ensembles are pretty well crafted, and for a down and dirty part, you might well be done in one pass. But whatever the methodology, the behavioral programming itself is very smart and musically vetted. Maybe another way to say this is that the tactile sensibilities seem to have been high on the list of design goals. Whatever the design intent, the result is a set of instruments that feels good and behaves predictably under your hands. And if you are a player with good hands and ears, you’ll be able to take a part most of the way there directly from the keyboard.

Tweakers, don’t freak. When you're through roughing out, the super-packed single instruments will let you get into the details. The aforementioned controller-driven crossfades, bowing-switches, layers, etc., are there and waiting. Planned updates will roll out new features. The first, according to fellow Kurzweil alumnus turned Implant-er, David Fox, may well be out when this article hits the airwaves. “We’re adding open tone functionality to all existing presets in the Symphonic String Collection. Utilizing a dimension switch, these open string tones can be easily activated on the fly during a performance or sequence. This update will be done via GigaSampler/Studio articulation files”

Conclusions

All in all, this is a gorgeous sounding and easy-to-use string library with a lot of depth and soul. One thing I particularly like about it is its ability to be very small and intimate, yet hold vast amounts of power in reserve. A set of recordings like this is priceless, so one certainly cannot argue with the value. It’s easy to forget that old Kurzweil expander modules of days gone by cost three times this much, and compared to this...well, sucked. Everyone I’ve met at Sonic Implants has been smart, friendly, open, and helpful. Sonic Implants Symphonic String Collection is an investment grade sample library that sounds fantastic, and is as easy on the hands as on the ears. That’s no small feat.

Sonic Makeover

Wed, 31 Jul 2002 22:00:00 GMT

After a Fung Shui makeover for my studio, things sounded bad. Velly bad. My seven year old Sonex, besides being butt-ugly and crumbling into dust, was hardly up to the task of controlling my now pristine and reflective surroundings. My chi was on crack, my dragon was swimming down the river. My computers, once effectively silenced by my piles of junk, were screaming so loud I couldn't hear anything. Enter Auralex and RaXXess, with solutions that surpassed my every expectation.

Too good to be true?

I'd seen Auralex in many friends' spaces and appreciated its clean and non-crumbly look. In my new desparation, I figured I'd pick up some odds and ends to supplement my existing Sonex. I was thumbing through their slick little catalog when my glance fell upon an interesting offer. Plot my room dimensions and gear placement, it said, and Auralex would compute its deficiencies, then devise an acoustic treatment plan which would give me a world-class space. For free.

Wow. Free. Good. Lightbulbs. Then doubts. This is way too good to be true.

My little producer's nook is about as wrong a space for mixing music, much less recording it, as exists in the world. When my wife and I purchased our groovy craftsman/deco home a few years back, I gave up the precious backyard studio I'd designed from the ground up, and moved into a roomy spare bedroom in the new pad. Great light, great view, but no perfectly angled walls and ceilings, no soffits, no built-in bass traps. I was back in bedroom land, and hating it. I intended to build another backyard studio, but got the quote and ditched the idea, deciding a lap pool and spa might be more fun. It is.

But here I remain, stuck in a bedroom. I can, and do, rent some great studio space around town when I need it. Dallas has some of the nicest rooms around at good prices. But I want that killer-room experience in my own sandbox. I don't expect or really even need isolation. My neighbors are cool and far enough away that they're not bothered by a little bleed. Conversely, my neighborhood is peaceful enough that I'm fine recording all but the quietest things. What I needed was a listening environment.

The Consult

I decided to give Auralex a shot, and called the 800 number from the catalog. A cheerful Jeff Hedback answered the phone. Sure he could help me, came the cheerful answer. Turns out Jeff is a bass player and recording musician himself, and can totally relate to my predicament. Predictably enough, I thought. After a few moments conversation, my skeptical side began to surface. Rays of golden sunshine probed my poopy-hole as Jeff regaled me with success stories. My little bedroom studio would be a hit factory in mere days. Beyond my wildest imagination. Just send those plots--we're all over it.

Fair enough.

Send the plots I did. I am no slouch at drawing, so I proceeded to lay out every piece of gear, window, door, electrical outlet, coffee cup, and mousehole for Jeff. My sunburned chute was raising my expectations. Now I wanted it all--great sound at the mix position, great sound in my comfy new ever-so-chic client chairs, a perfect vocal recording environment...and yes, oh yes: I wanted to spend no more than the cost of a computer on the deal.

So I faxed the plots to Jeff. He called back immediately, saying he'd cured far worse spaces. All I needed was a little bass trapping, a little diffusion, and some absorption. I'd be happy as a little girl. Tell him what look I wanted, and he'd go to work on the plan.

Could it happen? A few days rolled by, and a cheerful Jeff phones me up to say he's all done. He has run my plots through the Auralex think-tank, and my acoustic treatment is fully designed. Jeff and his colleagues have discussed my aesthetic desires as well, and have tried to make the placement both elegant and effective. He thinks I'll like it.

The Prescription

Jeff continued, telling me that I needed a rather classic treatment. From behind my monitors to just behind the mix position, I needed heavy absorption to kill both the excess bass and any reflections that would smear my stereo image. This translated into four-inch foam panels with fairly full coverage. Behind the mix position, I needed more absorption, but lighter; just enough to kill excessive bounce. Also, I needed some diffusion in the back half of the room. This would add perceived size, provide a nice lively recording area, and prevent any ping-ponging of sound between the ceiling and floor. The diffusers would route reflections harmlessly to the absorptive walls, without "killing" the space. My closet-turned-vocal booth would get a mix of two and four inch foam to counter a nasty 400 Hz response hump, and finally, I would need some bass trapping to control excessive buildup. Ironically, this bass buildup was responsible for my room's lack of deep bottom end--the bass was there all right, just being canceled.

Asking me if I was looking at my plots (I was...), Jeff continued to detail the treatment. There would be an array of four inch foam and six "T-Fusor" diffusers centered on the ceiling in a six-foot by eight-foot rectangle. Floor to ceiling arrays of four-inch foam would be spread behind the monitors, in two-foot vertical strips spaced about four inches apart. A big square patch of two-inch foam would be mounted right behind my clients' heads. The back wall would get thick window treatments and a few patches of four-inch foam. Finally, each corner would get a space-age-looking bass trap array, consisting of several "Lenrd" bass traps extending all directions from a one foot square corner block.

Treatment elements: Wedge-style Studiofoam, T-Fusor diffusers, LENRD bass traps,
12" Corner Blocks and 2" Corner Fills work together to make an effective and easy installation.
The area directly under the T-Fusors is killer for tracking vocals.
An important element of the treatment--no carpet on the floor.

Price for all this? Jeff proudly announced he'd met my challenge--the entire package would come in at about $2500. Turns out they don't direct ship, so he hooked me up with a dealer. All he needed was my credit card number, and my Hit Factory In a Box was Texas-bound. I took a deep breath, closed the deal, and made myself a stiff drink.

Arrival

While waiting for Mr. FedEx to arrive with the goods, I busied myself prepping the room. First, I ditched the Sonex arrays, leaving a trail of foam crumbs behind me. I have to say that Sonex is one horrible product, at least in my experience. I paid out the ass for it, I have treated it well, and it has simply disintegrated to pure crap in seven years time. I call Jeff, and ask him if my Auralex will be dumpster-bound in seven years, and he says it will outlive me. Better living through chemistry? That's another story, I guess.

For the first time in these seven years, I was regaled with the pure truthful depth of my room's mediocrity. It sucks. Somehow, it manages to be boomy, bass-weak, and harsh--simultaneously. I couldn't work, so I busied myself painting, filling holes, polishing floors, and marking the mounting positions for the various components. I hit deadlines in headphones, and crossed my fingers. This needed to end. Fast.

Shipping foam cross-country is an inexact science. What starts out on one truck ends up split among many, as these giant, relatively featherweight boxes share space with smaller, more profitable packages. The first thing to hit my doorstep was a box full of spray glue cans and the diffusers, along with what appeared to be foam "sticks." I called Jeff, and he explained these were two-inch corner fills. I'd figure out where they went after the big stuff was up.

Since the foam hadn't all arrived, I mounted the diffusers. Instantly, the sound got better--way better. This got me pretty excited. The room was still plenty live, but the ringiness of yesterday was gone. I called Jeff, and he laughed a little at my enthusiasm.

"Just wait," he told me.

Over the next two days, a steady stream of cardboard-packed foam hit my doorstep. Unpacking it, I built a small mountain of foam in an adjacent room. What amazed me was how dead quiet this room had suddenly become--walking into it was like walking into a vacuum. All components accounted for, it was showtime.

Installation

I saved the cardboard boxes, which gave me plenty of masking material. I covered my gear in cardboard "tents," spread dropcloths, and made a little spray station in the next room.

Some tips are in order here: first the spray station. Make about a 4 x 8 foot cardboard "rug" and open some windows. Spray glue is a crappy buzz, and it will make your offspring grow flippers. Better yet, wear a respirator.

To do a clean job, have a stack of old newspaper handy. Lay a fresh layer atop your cardboard after spraying each piece (no need to remove "glued" paper, just keep adding). This will keep any overspray from sticking to the surface of the next piece. Although a little overspray will wipe off fairly invisibly, don't push your luck. More than just a little bit will show.

Cut a box flap to use as a spray shield, placing it about 1/2 inch inside the edge of your foam, then start spraying glue in the center of each piece and work outwards. Soon you'll get the hang of the can's nozzle, and you'll be confident spraying right up to the edge of the foam. Move the spray shield around the edge as you go, and you'll have a neat job. Mark the position of the foam on your wall, and spray likewise, using your shield to keep you within the lines. When the glue tacks up on both surfaces, carefully line up the foam and stick it to one edge, working your way across.

The first "stickdown" is the critical one. Take your time, because once you've got it straight, you're good to go. Use a light touch, and if you see your foam going down out of square, carefully peel back and try again. Once you're in place and happy, tamp it all over with your open (clean and glue free) hand, and it's set. Rinse and repeat.

If you're really paranoid about your foam-sticking ability, use an old Formica-applicator's trick. Get several strips of wood lath just longer than your foam's width, and after the glue tacks up, lay these across the back of your foam a few inches apart. Don't put glue on the sticks themselves, they'll stick to what's on the foam just fine. Gently put the foam, sticks and all, against the wall and get it lined up. Pull out the bottom stick, press down your edge, and make sure you're still square. Then, roll the entire piece away from the wall from the top, start removing sticks and rolling the piece back onto the wall, from bottom to top.

Mounting Lenrds is trickier than the sheets. First, you must mount a one-foot square corner block, which gets glue on three sides. Because it's a big hunk-o-foam, and you're sticking it into a corner, one edge or another will tend to stick first. The stick trick is worthless here, because you must get the corner as tight as possible to get the best bond to all surfaces. I found the best success by just very carefully keeping the foam 1/2 inch or so from one surface, and moving it slowly towards the others. When all surfaces are equidistant from the corner, just push straight in at a 45-degree angle. If one side sticks first, holding the other away, then carefully peel back and start over. If you don't get a good bond on all contact surfaces, it will fall, so take some time and do it right. Once the corner blocks are in, the Lenrds themselves are easier. Still you must be very careful to get the piece tightly into the corner before you allow it to "stick" or you'll be re-doing your work later.

Five golden words: Don't spare the spray glue. I followed the directions on the can, spraying both surfaces lightly and allowing the spray glue to "tack" before I began sticking the components to their assigned positions. But I was a little stingy with the glue. My first efforts failed, various pieces of foam peeling away or falling from the ceiling. A bass trap fell and bonked me in the head as I rang Jeff up.

"Use more glue," came the answer. "We sent you plenty, don't be shy." Well, I tried that, too, and got bonked once again. I called Jeff, this time a little agitated. It seems that despite the best intentions and design, some paints just don't play nice with the spray glue. He suggested a few finishing nails here and there, and this did the trick perfectly. I found that squishing the foam down just a bit while driving the nails, then pulling the foam back over them, resulted in a completely invisible fix. Now, several months down the road, the LENRDS are still hanging just fine.

There is a more hardcore glue, which is applied with a caulk gun much like construction adhesive. However, if you think you'll ever want to remove the foam, I'd opt for the spray glue. Once I copped the finishing nail trick, I haven't had any problems with things coming loose, and the guys at Auralex send plenty of glue with the order for a few mishaps. This wasn't their first rodeo, only mine.

Final Analysis

Here's where I get to say, unequivocally, that the installation was a success.

The cockpit: Floor to ceiling LENRDS serve a dual purpose, killing bass buildup
and absorbing exhaust fan noise from the Isoraxx.
Inside the case, three loud computers make less sound than the room's AC vent.

The bass in this room just makes me grin ear to ear. It's huge, deep, and tight. If I hear boomy bass, I know it's the mix, not the room. The imaging is spectacular, with sounds so pinpointed in location I feel like I can touch them. And it's so friggin quiet in here I people walk in and say "wow" before they've heard a thing coming from the speakers (although, as you'll read later, there was another hurdle to overcome). It's a serious listening room.

But not only that, it's a serious tracking room. I had my doubts about this promise, but no more. The first task on my plate was resampling a conga drum I'd done badly before. I placed the conga directly on the hardwood floor, immediately under the diffuser array. I placed a single mic about 12 inches from the drum only to find it was way too close. In my previous room, I'd already be drowning in reflections at this point...so far so good. I moved the mic back to about three feet, and still, the sound was very intimate, but the full tone of the drum had now developed. I sampled about thirty hits, and played back the track. It was "big studio" sound, all the way--clear, crisp, present, and intensely focused.

Tracking project number two was a female vocalist with a very low, quiet, seductive sort of voice. Here again, I generally track her at inches from the mic and roll off bass later, but I tried about sixteen inches. Now I was getting excited. The track came out great, and fit into a huge pop orchestra mix with no EQ at all.

I played some flugelhorn for some commercial tunes, and here I was able to open up the distance to between three and four feet and still get a very present track, but without all the harshness and lack of presence that a closer mic'ed flugel can have. One of the big ironies of mic'ing solo trumpet and flugel is that you can't get them to come out in the mix if you're mic'ing too close. The sound gets too spread, and by the time you get it out there where it can be heard, it's killing everything else. But if you back it down where the other instruments come through, it sounds wimpy. Not here. I was able to get the sound I needed at the distance I wanted, and the resulting tracks popped right through the combo mix without taking over. I was in hog heaven.

Acoustics 101

I'm an informed consumer when it comes to acoustics. Not only did I study it in college as part of my degree plan, I have built a handful of spaces over the years.

The biggest thing to remember is this: Isolation (keeping sound in or out of the space) has nothing, I repeat, NOTHING to do with absorption (preventing sound from bouncing around within the space).

I spoke with Chief Acoustical Engineer Jeff Szymanski at Auralex, who offered this advice and analogy:

"Isolation and room reflections are separate problems. Materials good at helping with one are usually lousy at helping with the other. Foam cannot stop sound. Dense wallboard cannot absorb reflections.

Think of it this way. Standing under an awning in the rain protects you from getting wet. Standing under a big sponge probably wouldn't be advisable. The awning blocks the moisture. The sponge absorbs the moisture, but otherwise allows the water to pass through it. Acoustical barriers help block sound from going through the wall. Acoustical absorbers minimize reflections in the room, but otherwise still allow sound to pass through them."

You won't find a much better resource detailing these issues than the "Acoustics 101" section at Auralex.com. These guys have been stellar at providing information throughout the course of this review, and Acoustics 101 is a treasure trove of hints and specific construction methods which will help you identify and solve your acoustic problems.

My problem was all about absorption, nothing about isolation. But if you're dealing with leakage in or out, just remember that foam ain't gonna cut it for that, and you'll need to bone up on some studio design basics. Check out Acoustics 101, and you'll be an educated consumer in no time at all.

More tricks in the bag: GRAMMA

Next up was some electric bass. Here's where I was totally screwed before, getting pathetic amped sounds and always opting for direct input or a mix of the two. Jeff sent a little bonus surprise (sometimes technology writers get little suprises), a pair of new Auralex products called GRAMMAs. These are little gray-carpet covered platforms, amplifier size, with very stiff foam 2 x 4s glued to the bottom along with some Barney-purple wedge foam and a plastic carrying handle. The theory goes that isolating the amp from the floor results in a less boomy, more directional sound. They're also used well for other purposes, like isolating drum overheads from the floor or a vocal mic from a happy-footed singer.

Sure enough, our bass rig had a clearly deeper and more focused sound when sitting on the GRAMMA. This was a small-footprint Trace, a bigger rig might require two GRAMMAs. I used the other one under the mic, and got a fat, well articulated bass sound that was far better than anything I'd gotten without renting nice studio space.

I was working on an acoustic bass recording project next, and in addition to testing some new mics, I also did some a/b testing with and without the GRAMMAs (under both instrument and mic stand). Here again, the bass was both deeper and far better imaged with than without. Makes sense--bass gets everywhere, and if you can keep it out of the floor and mic stand, then you've just eliminated two huge resonating forces.

The GRAMMAs are cool. Thumbs up!! I would recommend these for any studio guitarist or bassist. Jeff says they really work well on stage (I haven't tested them live, yet), and certainly I can see how this would be true. Most club stages are highly resonant, and portable large-venue stages are even worse--generally plywood skins on parallels or putt-logs with no damping at all. Any amplifier energy that's getting absorbed by the stage is not working for you. GRAMMAs provide some very good portable isolation, putting all the energy into the air where it counts.

I did try to test this theory somewhat. I took my JBLs off the wall mounts and placed them first directly on the hardwood floor, then on the GRAMMAs. No doubt, there was an immediately noticeable improvement in the quality and imaging of the bass sound--flabby and spread without, controlled and tight with.

Finally, a male voiceover rounded out my recording tests, and here we used a distance of a little over one foot to achieve a very intimate sound that still had room to breathe. As luck would have it, he had an extreme case of happy feet, so I put the microphone AND him on the handy GRAMMAS, to excellent result.

Jeff's Two Cents

I'm always happy to let someone else type awhile. Here's what Jeff had to say about the project:

First, it's always a pleasure assisting someone who is passionate about their room. In this particular application, the biggest issue was Bruce's desire to have two functional mix positions: NS-10's on the front wall and the JBL's suspended from the ceiling at angles off the front wall and left sidewall, facing the client listening position. Therefore, I suggested high NRC absorbers (4" Studiofoam) on both of these wall surfaces (with a pretty healthy percentage of coverage). As it turned out, Bruce decided to mount the JBLs of the front wall, creating just one "mix view". In light of this new information, I would have most likely suggested 2" Studiofoam for the left sidewall. No harm no foul, the 4" Studiofoam should and seems to have worked very well. Bruce also desired to have LENRD bass traps installed continuously in the vertical and horizontal corner junctions. This is acheived by placing a 12" CornerCube in each upper corner junction, then extending out with the LENRDs as desired. The decision to place the additional LENRDs (a minmum suggestion would be two units per corner) matched Bruce's application very well, reducing both vertical and horizontal modes, while creating a clean visual presentation.

Yeah, what he said. I initially planned to give my clients a perfect mix position too, but I am just too much all about me, I guess. I want my seat to be the best in house all the time, so I pointed the JBLs my way. But I also mounted them with nice swivel arms (actually, hardcore TV wallmounts), so they will extend and open up, giving the client position a very nice soundstage as well. Best of both worlds. I am happy with the 4" foam on that side wall--since I do a considerable amount of theater sound design, I sometimes have to work "loud," and the extra absorption really helps me avoid oversaturating the room. The only downside--a little more broadband absorption means I run my amps a little hotter. No biggie.

The Rip Report

Next, I invited esteemed fearless leader Rip Rowan over, and told him to bring some mixes. A little background may be in order. Rip gives me a ration of shit about both my room and my choice of speakers. Call me a luddite, but I see no reason to replace either my NS-10s or my JBL 4412s until some bonehead breaks in and steals them (that's not an invitation, by the way). They're speakers, I can hear them, I like them, and lots of hit songs have been mixed on both models. Talk about inexact science. The voodoo associated with speaker design cracks me up, sometimes. Humbug, I say. There's nothing wrong with my speakers. I was about to prove it.

Rip showed up, admires my slick new look, sneers at the JBLs, and pops in a CD. A few seconds go by, and he says, "Can you close the door behind you? I'll be here a while."

Later, over sushi with Rip and Robin Hood Brians, we come to the conclusion that sometimes you don't need another new computer, or the latest tri-amped boutique monitors. Sometimes you don't need that fifth mic preamp or that trendy new plugin. Sometimes, you just need a little love, and Auralex laid a lot of love on my little room. Enough to make our resident monitor snob actually say--out loud, mind you, and I quote:

"Those JBLs sound killer."

I rest my case. But not before discussing a case of a different kind...

RØDE NT1000 and NTK Microphones

Thu, 01 Mar 2001 00:00:00 GMT

Last time I reviewed a microphone, it ended up being a lesson in everything that's wrong with cheap large-diaphragm condensers. The ProRec mailbag exploded a few times, but we survived. Today, I get to tell you what's right. The RØDE NT1000 and NTK break the mold, with world-class specs and a smoothness that stands alongside microphones three times the price. On top of that, they're stunningly good-looking, with an over-the-top sturdiness that would serve as well in hand-to-hand combat as in the studio.

The Long Road to RØDE

These microphones, both based on the same edge-connected 1" capsule originally appearing in the NTV, represent a culmination of a long-term vision, according to RØDE president and founder Peter Freedman.

(Left) NT1000 (Right) NTK

"We have spent so much developing these mics we are effectively betting the ranch," he says. "But hey, no one got anywhere in life by being cautious."

From his humble beginnings, yanking the cheap parts out of Chinese mics and replacing them with upscale components, Freedman's RØDE has always looked for a way to give the musician more mic for the buck. The NT2 and NT1 are the legendary results of that effort, mics which spawned many imitators. Quietly, Peter has spent the last several years and a goodly chunk of cash building one of the most advanced microphone manufacturing facilities in the world, and the NT1000 and NTK represent the most complete expression yet of his more-for-less design philosophy. They're the new generation of RØDEs, certainly a distillation of previous efforts, but just as much a departure. From the sturdy and elegant cases to the capsule mount, every element is a lesson in functional economy.

"The NT1000 and the NTK share the same transducer, the heart of the mic. It's the exactly the same capsule featured in our NTV, praised for its smoothness and rich bottom end, and is every bit as good as our flagship Classic II. With the same capsule, they have similar signatures, yet they're very different mics. NT1000 is as clean as a wide bandwidth FET design can be, with the lowest noise floor you can get. The NTK gives you the mellow tube tone, but with ultra-low noise."

The proof is in the listening, for sure. They sound fantastic. Startlingly fantastic, perhaps as good as any mic in the world. Certainly as good as any mic I have ever used, and yes that includes the obvious. But there's more. These microphones are ruthlessly whittled down to the very essence of what brings value to a mic. While delivering expensive condenser sound and serious electronics, they simultaneously explore an entirely elegant and logical product design that puts almost all the money where you can hear it and protects that investment for you.

When I tell you what they cost, you'll understand just why I'm pleasantly amazed at all this. The NT1000 lists for a scant $395, the NTK for $595. For this price, don't expect the Barbie lunchbox cases or shockmounts. You get a very serviceable mic stand adapter and a thick-skinned bag with the NT1000, add a hefty brick-sized power supply (with groovy blue LED) and 30 foot multipin cord for the NTK.

Read 'em and Weep

Let's talk about what you hear. Have a look at the amplification specs on these babies...

NT1000

Sensitivity: -36dB re 1V/Pa (16mV @ 94dB SPL) +/-1dB
Equivalent Noise: 6dB SPL (A-weighted per IEC268-15) +/-1dB
Maximum Output: +13dBu (@ 1kHz, 1% THD into 1k( load)
Dynamic Range: > 134dB (A-weighted, per IEC268-15)
Maximum SPL: > 140dB SPL (@ 1kHz, 1% THD into 1k( load)
Signal/Noise Ratio: > 88dB (A-weighted, per IEC268-15)

NTK

Sensitivity: -38dB re 1V/Pa (12mV @ 94dB SPL) +/-1dB
Equivalent Noise:12dB SPL (A-weighted per IEC268-15) +/-2dB
Maximum Output: > +29dBu (@ 1kHz, 5% THD into 1k( load)
Dynamic Range: > 147dB (A-weighted, per IEC268-15)
Maximum SPL: > 158dB SPL (@ 1kHz, 5% THD into 1k( load)
Signal/Noise Ratio: > 82dB (A-weighted, per IEC268-15)

These are world-class specs in every dimension, both in what you hear (lots of wide-ranging signal) and what you don't (noise). Lacking the equipment or inclination to pick nits with the published specs, I decided to do a little comparison listening.

I rang Rip to see what new and exciting mics we had in the house. Turned out we had a Shure KSM-44 and an Alesis AM-62 - a couple of hot little mics for sure. Both have gotten some good buzz, and both outprice these RØDEs by more than just a bit. The Shure lists for $1340 while the Alesis lists for $1499. To be fair, the Shure and Alesis are both multipattern mics, and the RØDEs are one-trick cardioids, so the price differential is somewhat hard to quantify.

But still, they were perfect foils for my purposes. I slapped them into cardioid mode with no pads or rolloff (the RØDEs have no switches whatsoever), hung all four in an array with identical preamps, then proceeded to scream, sing, whisper, bang, toot, and whack.

The RØDEs were total contenders. Matter of fact, they were champions.

The NT1000 was the clear gain-to-noise king, significantly quieter than the already quiet Shure KSM-44. Wow. The NTK was neck and neck with the Shure, within a fraction of a dB. Another wow. Remember, we are comparing a sizzly hot tube mic to a very quiet FET design. The expectation would be for the Shure to be significantly quieter. That makes the NTK is a stunningly quiet tube mic, perhaps more notable an accomplishment than the virtually silent NT1000.

The Alesis AM-62 was far behind the pack, being significantly noisier for less overall gain than any of the other three. Matter of fact, it was just not in the same league in any respect. Its sound was not what I'd call pretty or polished, and it lacked the quality I'd call "expensive smoothness" that the two RØDEs and Shure had in spades. I have a "vintage" Groove Tubes MD-1, and the Alesis "GT" is not even close to the quality of tone, and downright pathetic aesthetically compared to its gorgeous machined-stainless predecessor. Downright shocking, considering the price tag.

I can almost hear Lloyd Bentsen saying, "Sir, I knew Groove Tube. I worked with Groove Tube, and you are no Groove Tube."

But that's another review. Back to the stars of the show. Impressive performance is one thing, but it's the sound of these microphones that has me going. They are, in a word, awesome. The NT1000 has a lovely weighty presence about it, just ever so slightly much brighter than the KSM-44 in the highest mids. Vocals sat dead-still with sparkle and remarkable presence. Some hand drums I recorded came through in the mix with clarity and power. I wouldn't hesitate to throw up a pair of these mics for drum overheads in a room that could deliver the goods. They'd punch your lights out.

I recorded a Melodica solo that bit through a thick mix like gangbusters, without once getting the shrill quality that so many mics give the instrument. Everything I recorded with this microphone came out sounding exactly like I imagined it would in the mix, with no perceivable coloration of tone. Just a nice, big signal that takes compression and effects beautifully.

If you ever wanted a textbook example of what different amplification models can do, plugging in the NTK, with its identical capsule and high-end valve circuitry will get you there. As neutral and clean as the NT1000 sounded, the NTK takes that sound and builds a fire under it. What I noticed immediately was the expansive airiness and slightly excited quality overall. Where the NT1000 made my voice sound exactly true in the monitors, the NTK made it better than true. It gave me the feeling that I could hear the air rushing past my tonsils and the spit on my teeth. Not that it was harsh in any way at all, but just slightly bigger than life and slightly closer-sounding for the same distance to microphone. Imaging-wise, it gives a vocal a bit of spread and fullness without losing a bit of punch.

Some tube designs sound almost compressed. Not this one. The NTK will take serious maniacal screaming abuse and deliver up as much signal as you can use. The tube circuitry in this mic doesn't top out until well past the threshold of pain.

Don't get the idea that we're talking about a hyped sound. Matter of fact, if I had to pick a single word for the NTK, it would be smooth. Actually, smo-o-o-o-o-o-v. I would love to hear Barry White through this microphone. Hell, I sound like Barry White through this microphone. My wacky crummy voice took on this sheen that had air for days, yet for all the high energy there was no modulated sibilance whatsoever. I even stood there hissing like a snake till I got dizzy and needed a beer. It wasn't going to happen.

I got an amazing flugelhorn sound out of the NTK from about thirty inches--full and mellow, with a nice airy sheen and no muddiness at all. If I leaned in a little, and played soft, I got a great intimate whisper of a sound. That's a good sign. Flugel is one of those instruments that you struggle with. As beautiful as they sound, they bring out the worst in microphones. You either get too distant, which thins out in the mix, or too close, which thins out in the mix because you have to back it down to get the presence right. The NTK gets the sound you need to make the mix. That's usually the realm of far pricier mics.

Article Continues >>>

RØDE NT1000 and NTK Microphones

Wed, 28 Feb 2001 23:00:00 GMT

Digging Below the Surface

Sound-wise, the choice to purchase either of these microphones is a no-brainer. They deliver world-class tracks on the cheap. But this is but one element of their charm. Overall, these microphones are standard-setters that the entire industry would do well to study.

Everything about them both belies and explains their price. The cases themselves are substantial works of engineering art, reminiscent in design and construction to the venerable solid-brass Switchcraft phone plugs (the ones that never go bad). A picture here is worth a thousand words.

(Top) Switchcraft phone plug

(Bottom) NTK cast enclosure

Note the similarity of design

There is a method to this madness. Crack open your average condenser microphone, and notice that you're looking at some serious hand assembly. That's money spent that has nothing to do with what you hear. Now look at these new RØDEs.

(Top) NT1000 (Bottom) NTK

You just don't see too many mics that look anything like this on the inside.

It's the Economy, Stupid

The NT1000 and NTK are designed from the ground-up to mass produce. Henry Ford would love these microphones. They're marvels of design economy. They share a common interior cast unit, to which all the other parts attach. It's substantial, and you'd need a steamroller to damage it. The casting quality itself is first-rate, and the threads are silky smooth and perfectly pitched to task. It only takes a couple of quick turns to unscrew the outer case, also nicely cast with a champagne-colored nickel finish. It has a great glow, and it's about as hard as a brickbat.

The stand-mount retainer is nicely weighted, too, and threads on and off with ease. One of the subtle niceties here is simply the way everything feels--so sturdy and positive. They're very industrial-chic. You never have the feeling that you could possibly damage this microphone. As a point of comparison here, I took apart the Alesis AM-62, and this mic is positively wimpy and spindly inside. I could twist it completely apart in one flick of the wrist, and I mean easily. A little girl could tear it up.

You'd just twist the skin off your hand trying that with either RØDE. And the beautiful point of it all is this: such a great case probably cost Peter Freedman about 1/3 the price, because he was thinking. Parts mount and dismount from this thing like butter. I've had both of these mics totally (and I mean TOTALLY) apart and back together several times, and I never feel like I'm going to break or damage anything.

NTK Capsule

In all its naked glory, the capsule mount reveals more great design. Four screws hold the pop-screen assembly to the inner casting. Take those off, and the screen unit slides smoothly off with a little "schloop." Once it's off, you see the source of the schloop sound--the entire capsule is suspended on a black rubber diaphragm, which rib-seals the screen unit AND isolates the entire capsule housing from the rest of the case. But that's not all. On the picture, notice that there's a little white foam nub at the top of the diaphragm mount. When you place the screen unit on the case, this nub hits the top, depresses the black rubber just a bit, and you end up with a positively damped isolation system which is absolutely resonance-free.

Indeed, one of the things that shocked me about both mics was how well they rejected low-frequency physical resonances, especially with no built-in rolloff of any kind. Again, a good simple design which works, and saves money that can get rolled into better guts.

These are as simple to assemble as the lowliest of the workhorse dynamics. There are seven measly parts to slap into the NT1000, eight in the NTK. Faster assembly means less labor means more money for the parts that count. Every mic is a complex equation of the ordinary and sublime. For a given amount of money, you want to spend it mostly on the sublime, and the NT1000 and NTK put the sublime first by brilliantly executing every mundane detail of the ordinary.

An idiot could assemble this mic, so logical and simple is its design. I had both mics apart and back together in moments - we're talking ten screws and a setscrew for the jack. All the guts are designed to attach effortlessly to the solid-cast inner case. Back to the GT for comparison, I would be deathly afraid to take that thing apart for fear I'd never get it all lined up and back together without breaking something. The cheesy and flimsy plastic switches would be the first to go...I thought I'd break a couple of them off just getting the cover back on the thing. There is nothing on either RØDE mic you'd ever call cheesy or flimsy. They're tanks.

The circuit boards are robot-assembled surface-mount technology. By the way, the shot of the NT1000's circuit board is misleadingly simple. You only see the "tall" side. Underneath, there's a way-impressive surface-mount array, including the prized FETs, which interestingly enough, were originally developed for the CIA. I guarantee you, you've never seen mic guts that look anything like these.

What's in it for Me?

Bringing it all back to my original thought, these microphones are a great example of what's right and good in our industry. They are the polar opposite of the slew of what I'd call "exploitation mics." Everywhere you look, there are great-looking, mediocre sounding large diaphragm condensers. It's like a disease. Everybody wants to sell you a look, exploiting the profile of classy mics, but substituting dirt-cheap parts because they don't think you're smart enough to notice.

Not so with these. Not even close. Every aspect of the NT1000 and NTK is pure class. Instead of just trying to exploit the classics, RØDE has built a better mousetrap, designing a structure so elegant and so smart that the money saved can be reallocated towards stuffing these great cases with some of the best sounding electronics you've ever heard.

This is what it's all about. This is what we wish every manufacturer would do - be artists and scientists first, and trust that musicians will recognize quality when they see it. Kudos to RØDE for bringing back a little class to a marketplace that's gotten downright depressing.

I don't see how anyone could miss it. This is everything that's right with microphone design, and then some. I cannot say enough good things about these mics, and I'm damn hard to please. They are top-notch, they have a voice all their own, and quality far above the asking price. They break ground. Don't buy a new large diaphragm condenser without listening to the NT1000 and NTK. But be prepared. Once you've heard them, you'll have a hard time letting go of either one. At less than a grand for the pair, maybe you don't have to.

Don't take my word for the sound. Please. Go listen to these mics yourself. Stand on something soft, so your jaw won't get bruised when it hits the floor.

The Ultimate Orchestral Percussion Sample Library

Sun, 01 Oct 2000 00:00:00 GMT

DS Soundware has only one product so far, and with a title like The Ultimate Orchestral Percussion Sample Library, they're certainly inviting a bit of scrutiny. Good news for them and for you--they have more than lived up to their own hype. This is a library worthy of instant classic status. It is the absolute standard-setter in orchestral percussion samples.

All the basics are covered in very high style. There are beautiful quality multisamples of snare drums, bass drums, orchestra chimes, glockenspiel, cymbals, xylophone, timpani, temple blocks, and a slew of small instruments and assorted esoterica. The recordings are pristine, and capture the sounds of a dream section. These are best-of-class instruments being played by professional orchestra players.

The production concept here is a great departure. Mic positions were designed to achieve a realistic presence of the virtual percussion section in relationship to an overall ensemble. It pays off. One can quickly dial in a mix with these instruments that defies any question of realism.

Even when the "next big thing" comes along, you won't be putting any of these samples aside. This is an investment-grade library. Don't let the price, a scant $299, throw you. This is not only on the level of the best, it IS the best.

Every instrument is a stunner. The Fall Creek Glockenspiel is simply beautiful. You get a choice of four mallets, with each one programmed as a completely unique multisampled instrument. Same with the xylophone, chimes, and everything in the collection. Composers have long bemoaned the "one size fits all" sampling of percussion instruments, and you won't find any of that here. The samples from Frank Shaffer's exquisite Hinger timps (and his equally exquisite touch when performing the strikes for the samples) are worth the price of admission alone.

Indeed, every instrument sampled is an acknowledged best-of-class, and each note is expertly performed, sampled, and mapped. The crash cymbals are amazing. The triangles are gorgeous. The snares are gutsy and powerful at fortissimo, focused and detailed in piano. My single weak complaint is that I would love to have seen these snares covered by a full sixteen samples. But this is by no means an indication that they're not great as is.

Everything sounds great. Matter of fact, nothing can touch this library in terms of overall realism and detail. These are not just "one hit" sounds. They are playable virtual percussion instruments with personality and a huge range of expression. Hook those timp sounds up to a percussion pad and start playing, and you will be amazed at the feel and the control of timbre. The Ultimate Orchestral Percussion Sample Library is not only the best percussion library around, it's one of the most striking Giga-format libraries available, period.

I could go on, but what else can I say? Good job? This library is golden. The designers at DS Soundware have filled a huge void in the available palette of orchestral sounds, and have raised the bar very high in doing so. And with several more libraries in production, we can really look forward to some amazing work by this talented group. Highly recommended

Marshall MXL2001P

Wed, 01 Mar 2000 00:00:00 GMT

Ultimately this is a review about a microphone: the new, shockingly low-priced Marshall MXL2001P. But the review process on this microphone demands a look at some larger issues as well.

Large-diaphragm condenser microphones are everywhere these days, and for good reason. Due to the different response of a larger and heavier transducer, these mics capture a different "photo," if you will, of the air around them. Large-diaphragm condensers flatter the natural range of vocals in a mix.

As more musicians begin to blur the lines between performer and producer, a huge market has opened up for microphone manufacturers. New manufacturers have stepped in to provide a wider array of products to more consumers... with less experience.

Welcome to the microphone market of the twenty-first century. At no time in history have so many musicians recorded their own music, and at no time have their been so many bewildering choices for these musicians to make. Engineers used to make these choices. Nowadays, for better or worse, musicians are self-producing more often than not. There has never been a time where more musicians bought their own microphones...not just stage mics, but complete studio arrays. Don't think this has gone unnoticed on the supply side.

Quick History Lesson

At one time, microphones were divided very cleanly into pro or consumer. The pro mics were made by mostly the same people who make them now. Neumann, AKG, Sennheiser, and Electro-Voice (for example) were always big-volume producers of top grade mics with personality and purpose. The research done by these companies is the foundation upon which our industry rests. They were joined by the various esoteric options at the ultra-high end, where companies like Schoeps have made technologically advanced and specifically targeted mics. RCA, a huge contender, sadly ended their microphone R & D and ultimately their product, but not before making one of the largest contributions in shaping the pop vocal sound of a generation. The ripples are obviously still with us from all this development. Professional studio microphones are a product with a rich artistic and scientific heritage, and the work of brilliant men.

The consumer microphone market was subdivided. The upper tier was made up of factory seconds and generic OEM designs from these dedicated manufacturers we all know and love. Witness the vintage Radio Shack highballs by Shure and their recently discontinued PZMs by Crown. These mics were designed by companies with a pedigree, and consumers got a design that may have been a little rough around the edges, but was rooted in the same technology that was producing the leading mics of the day.

The second-tier was pure for-profit product, usually plastic, and disposable in every way save lo-fi special effects.

Back to the Future

It seems that $300 is the magic price point for entry level LD condensers, and there are plenty from which to choose. The Rode NT1, Oktava MK219, Equitek CAD 100, and a whole slew of other options exist there.

Well, now those players are joined by the Marshall Electronics MXL2001P, at a startling LIST price of $199. We are witnessing a market flood of these mics like nothing I have ever seen. Just search Ebay for "MXL" and see what you come up with. Matter of fact, search almost any mic brand and you'll see that these dealers have even locked onto THOSE searches by including phrases like "Neumann-like" or "not AKG" in their ads. There are more 2001Ps on the Internet than wide-open beavers.

Marshall Electronics MXL2001P

Skanky, huh? You have not heard the half of it. Everyone's looking for a bargain, right? Well, what exactly IS a bargain in a $199 microphone?

I say that it is NOT the MXL 2001P.

The Subject at Hand

This mic, which sports the typical Neumannesque appearance, has a nice feeling heft thanks to its machined brass body. There is an XLR connector in the usual butt-end location. The microphone is sometimes packaged with a nifty little aluminum "flight case" with compartments for the microphone, its shockmount, and some extra compartments for other odds and ends you might wish to pack along.

You've probably already determined that I do not like this microphone. I don't.

When we first received the mic for review, I was so surprised by the sound quality that I assumed it was broken. The sound was completely "scooped-out" - with a huge, muddy bottom end, a harsh, ringing top end, and little in between. The mic actually had a bimodal frequency response. I couldn't believe it was supposed to sound as harsh as it sounded. Marshall Electronics couldn't believe it either, so they asked us to hold the review while they shipped us another mic.

The first mic was actually marked MXL2001, and shipped in a low-cost aluminum "lunchbox" flight case along with a shockmount. The second one was marked MXL2001P, and came in a cardboard box with a non-shockmount type clip, a vinyl zipper pouch, and a packet of silica gel. This helps explain the price drop from the original $299 list of the MXL2001 to the $199 list of the MXL2001P.

Well, guess what? It didn't sound any better. I kept it patched up for literally three months, tracking it alongside whatever mic I'd actually choose for a given situation. It never won once, even though I gave it opportunity against almost every mic I could get my hands on. I used it one time as a special effect when I needed a really super-intense high end and I didn't want to use EQ. I wasn't going for a natural sound, and for this purpose it worked.

Now, in all fairness, you might not see it or hear it the way I do. But I listen to a lot of microphones, from the best Neumanns to the most modest dynamics, and I spent three months listening to not one, but two different MXL2001s. I'll list the pros and cons as I see them, and let you draw your own conclusions. Maybe you'll think I'm all washed up, but folks, I can only call 'em like I see 'em. Fasten your seat belts.

Beef #1: The Shockmount and Mic Clip

As with most microphones of this type, you'll want to isolate the unit from its stand to diminish low frequency transfers from foot stomping, etc. Large diaphragm condensers love low frequencies. It's one of their strengths.

The MXL2001 offered a shockmount as part of its $300 price, but with the cheaper MXL2001P configuration the shockmount is an option. This now-optional shockmount allows you to slip the mic in from the top, and then clamp down on it by moving a bent-wire lever. Imagine an oil filter wrench, and you get the picture. However, it has a major flaw: once you've closed the clamp, the long clamp-lever tends to fall on the outer circumference of the mount. In other words, you get to twiddle with it every time you've got to move the mic.

Second, the arms that hold the rubberband-like suspension cords do a very poor job of actually keeping the rubberbands in place. Moving or jiggling the mic stand can knock the bands loose, sending the mic crashing to the floor. Not once, but twice in as many days, I saved the first test unit from floor-rash by catching it with my free hand as I moved the stand from place to place. Not good.

The MXL2001P tops the shockmount by shipping with a simple bottom-mount stand clip. The bottom-mounting scheme means the clip must support more weight since the entire mic now cantilevers from its endpoint. Strike two: this is a wimpy clip. It doesn't have enough substance to support the heavy case without some serious tightening. I stripped it out by the end of the first day. For the rest of the evaluation, I used gaff tape to secure positioning.

Beef #2: Rolloff Switch

The MXL2001 provided a rolloff switch to attenuate low frequencies. However, to reach the switch, one had to literally remove the mic from the shockmount and unscrew the bottom shell to access the mic's circuit board. Not only was this a complete pain in the ass, but the exercise tended to dislodge the rubberbands from the shockmount and add to the frustration factor, not to mention opening you up to the potential for dropping the thing every time you wanted to access the switch.

Not to worry on the MXL2001P. There's only a blank spot on the curcuit board where the switch used to reside, hence no control over the microphone's considerable proximity effect at the appropriate point in the chain. Hey, at least you don't have to take it apart now. I hope your preamp's low cut filter is clean.

Beef #3: Frequency Response

This is the dealbreaker. I can live with unusual designs, if the sound is good. While one might expect some scoop and sizzle from a mic of this type, and while this might even be highly desirable in certain situations, I was completely unprepared for the bizarre, hyperactive sound of these mics.

When I got the MXL2001, I recorded some trumpet, flugelhorn, and percussion tracks on day one, with disastrous results. The trumpet tracks were unlistenable, and percussion toys such as shakers and triangles took on that scratchy, harsh quality that makes them sound distorted in the mix. Only the flugel tracks were acceptable, and only because I miked them up closely and perpendicular to the airstream. While this is a perfectly lovely trick (it gives more of the sound that the player perceives, rather than the point-blank listener perspective), it should not be the ONLY way to get an acceptable sound. With the mic placed 18" from the bell in the standard straight-on configuration, the MXL2001P made even the mellow flugel sound harsh and edgy.

Vocals were scheduled for day two, and I recorded some intimate male vocal tracks, a high energy female, and a deep, bassy voice-over. The intimate male vocals were acceptable, but again, the frequency response of this mic was not ideal for the application, and there was a peculiar combination of sibilance problems and lack of definition that defied any sort of fix on the back end. The female vocal was a disaster, shrill and unlistenable. Only the voice-over track fared well. The combination of limited bass response, along with the edgy high end, gave it an SM7 sort of quality, only not as good.

I passed the microphone on to our fearless leader, Rip Rowan, for a test with a guitar-saturated/male lead group. We thought that maybe the mic's exaggerated sound might help the vocal to get on top of the mix. The top end is certainly bright enough to cut through a wall of guitars. It might cut through plate glass. Sadly, the brightness isn't the sought-after airiness of a 414 or C12, but rather a harsh, ringing, grating brightness than will make you quickly reach for a different mic.

I kept trying the MXL2001P for months, hoping to find that magical application where it's peculiar sound would be THE sound I needed. Over and over I used it, comparing it to all manner of microphones. Certainly, I thought, there would be something for which the MXL2001P was THE mic.

You guessed it. Not even close.

Conclusions

What can I say? I've read other reviews that compared this mic to a Neumann. All I can imagine is that these reviewers have never heard a Neumann. "Sir, I know Neumann. You are no Neumann"

Of course, this mic doesn't cost as much as a Neumann, which might lead you to wonder if it's "a good deal for the price?" The answer is: no. A bad sounding mic is a bad deal at any price.

Microphone choices are like musical choices. You go for a purity of intention and purpose. The intention and purpose of the MXL2001P is not making a good large-diaphragm condenser. Give me a break. It's about dolling up a cheap mic to look like it's something it's not.

Otherwise, Marshall Electronics would have skipped the oh-so-lovely machined case and meaningless trappings that make it look like a decent mic, and put the money where it counts. IN THE ELECTRONICS.

These are skewed priorities, folks. Whatever forces decided to put this mic on the market have no interest in building quality microphones. Look at it. Listen to it. See it for what it is. It's a "Looks-Like-A-Great-Mic" mic.

No, I'm not done. Here's another clencher. Take one of these babies apart if you get a chance. You'll notice that they are hand assembled, right down to the board. Every circuit and every signal path is hand soldered... with ashen gray cold-solder joints on both my review units, by the way.

Hmmmm. Cold-soldered electronics in a machined-brass case flooding the market from every angle. Sold by a company whose primary line of business is security and spy cameras. What does that tell you about the intention and purpose of this product? What theories might it inspire as to its origin, given the bizarre juxtaposition of quantity, pricing and hand assembly?

Somebody say it's not so.

You will notice that as of late, the Marshall Electronics website now boasts quite the large collection of mic esoterica, each and every one reminiscent of a classic design, yet selling for a price that would belie such design.

I haven't heard the other mics yet. My mind remains open. Show me a quality microphone from Marshall Electronics, and I will sing its praises from the highest rooftops. I want someone to prove me wrong, desperately. I want to believe that these mics are not being foisted into the market full of empty promise, while taking money out of the hands of the very microphone manufacturers that we should thank our creator for each and every morning.

And that's what makes me angry. A dollar spent on an MXL2001P is a dollar that isn't spent on a Neumann, an AKG, or even a Sennheiser, Rode, Audio-Technica, or Shure. My fear is that in the end, we're going to wind up with a half-million crappy MXL2001Ps on the used gear market and a few great mic companies in bankruptcy.

Here's my recommendation. Spend your money somewhere else. For $200, you can buy any number of dynamic mics that are of pedigreed design, and ultimately provide more bang for the buck. An SM57 sounds amazing on a snare drum. The MXL2001P sounds amazing on absolutely nothing at all.

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing...you gotta have something if you wanna be with me...

Orchestral Specialty Products

Tue, 01 Feb 2000 00:00:00 GMT

There are a couple of orchestral libraries, both by EastWest, that don't really fit the mold of the traditional sample library. Scoring Tools and Symphonic Adventures provide users with a set of fully orchestrated phrase components that can be used in loops, or cobbled together into larger structures. Once these basic structures have been built, one only needs to fill in with some melodic content, and presto, instant score.

In many ways these libraries are more akin to loop collections than to the more common "note per key" GigaSampler libraries. As such, if you used them long enough you could easily construct pieces that would sound similar to those another user might build. Maybe exactly like it.

So, do they actually have value? Is there real work to be achieved with these collections?

Of course. You could just string together combinations of what's on the discs themselves, and make several hours of marketable music. But the less you manipulate what's there, the less of a personal stamp you'll place on the final product. You could end up sounding exactly like someone else. And most likely, you'll "use it up" in no time at all doing this.

The Problem of Loops and MIDI

Fortunately this problem is completely avoidable. First and foremost, it's important to go beyond merely stringing together phrases of this stuff. You don't want your work sounding like anyone else's, so don't take that chance. That's not the way to use a phrase library.

Second (and I am pounding this point in, I know), your MIDI output is only the beginning. Don't try to finish your work straight out of GigaSampler, unless you've got an automated mix environment sitting right behind it. Even at that, if you pass up the opportunity to edit on the multitrack audio level, you're giving up a lot of control that can make your finished product stand out. Especially with this kind of library. If you've got enough technology lying around your studio to be using GigaSampler, you've got enough technology to be doing world-class mixes, too.

Consider the completed MIDI structure to be the end of the tracking stage, nothing more. You must edit your MIDI sequence to its highest level of expression to be sure, but capture those tracks, put them in an audio multitrack, and do a thorough edit and mixdown session. It will pay off handsomely.

When building the MIDI structures, get creative. Think outside the box and just make interesting noise. Sculpt that into forms. Use a sequencer to jam out some ideas, clean them up, and capture the files. Get them into your multitrack, then start cutting and stretching. Use a riff for an idea, then spin your own orchestration off of it, instead of reaching for yet another canned riff. Use plugins. Transpose things. Turn phrases around backwards and grunt out some little devil sounds. Throw an orchestral phrase into ACID, and start looping it into a new thing entirely. Now, throw that creation back into your MIDI app as a bed, and start layering on solo instruments. Try turning off the bed track after you've worked a while, and see if any of the new material wants to be orchestrated in it's own way. Rinse. Repeat.

You may be surprised where you end up.

Try to use these libraries in a way that even their author wouldn't recognize. You'll extend the amount of music you can squeeze out of them, have more fun, and most important, you'll be prouder of the results.

Approach them in that manner, and suddenly they make sense. These are essentially collections of orchestral color. Don't make them more than that, or they'll stifle you as easily as they can inspire. Listen to them as crude building blocks, with which you'll realize your own unique vision.

Scoring Tools

Scoring Tools was the first of this series, and is useful in its wide variety of styles. The accompanying help file explains the mapping of the different samples. The various musical tidbits are grouped according to name and description of instrumentation, but I found that it is best to just jump in and start hitting keys. There are seven different banks, and it will take you a while to get through them.

You'll find broad romantic chords, ominous underpinnings, battle music from outer space, and all sorts of feels in between. In every case, the scoring of the samples is missing melodic content, although some hint at melody.

The recording quality, musicianship, and writing is quite good. Naturally, your licensing agreement is royalty free with all the material. As long as you don't make it into another sample collection, you are free to use it as you wish.

Remember that once you've pieced together a basic structure, you'll want to use sample collections like the Vitous and Siedlaczek to weave melodies and countermelodies into the mix. Throw down some piano or harp. You should aim for a layer of melodic information that forces the Scoring Tools samples into an accompanying role. Roll every bit of your own contribution into the mix that you can. Sometimes you'll find yourself thinning out the samples you started with and letting your subsequent layers carry the load. That's the way to get mileage from this collection.

I built several pieces from this collection, and got fantastic-sounding results. If you are working on a budget or a deadline, and need to get large blocks of color thrown together pronto, Scoring Tools can be a very powerful ally.

Symphonic Adventures

This library is a real hoot, full of the more sinister side of Hollywood. Unashamed and over the top, it provides chase scenes in two different tempos, and explorations of suspense and tension with two different orchestra instrumentations.

I had a ball throwing together some fun and excellent sounding work with this library. The chase scenes are highly rhythmic loops that mix and match to create pulsating backgrounds of varying intensity. Just as with the Scoring Tools collection, once you've laid out a structure, you can start layering in the solo instruments and strong melodies that will eventually take over the orchestration.

The suspense and tension sounds are also quite fabulous. They can be used over the chase scene loops, layered up on top of each other, or in combinations with other sample sets. Most can be combined and dovetailed together nicely.

You hear some ribbing going on about the use of this kind of library, and some folks really have it out for Symphonic Adventures. In some cases, rightly so. It's not too hard to imagine someone just stringing the stuff together back to back. That would get boring fast. Think outside the box and really work this material, though, and you'll find a goldmine of raw material.

There are many perspectives to consider when you use tools like this. Certainly it begs one question: Is the music you produce with this library really your art when it's all said and done?

That depends on what you contribute. We're back to the basic ground rules again. If you want it to be your art, then you must use the material in a way that can be called uniquely and undeniably yours. You will know when this happens, and you'll know if you shirk it. The little voice in your head will make the call every time if you listen.

I'm all for this stuff. It's great. Rules are boring. Why not use some of this musical "clip art" to lure a client or two away from canned-music licensing? They're going to spend the cash anyway, so why not with you? If a library like this makes you a couple hundred bucks in an hour's time, then you've just paid for it. You've made someone very happy within his budget, and you have not broken your back doing it. That client will probably come back for more, proud of himself for making such a great deal, and feeling very important knowing he employs a living breathing composer. The relationship may grow. This is a very good thing, this musical clip art.

If you're going to make a living as a composer, you need to leverage every tool at your disposal. Scoring Tools and Symphonic Adventures give you a collection of usable orchestral color that would cost you a bundle to produce yourself, and all for a very reasonable price.

The Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra Samples

Tue, 01 Feb 2000 00:00:00 GMT

I've got to admit, there's a couple of things that made this particular review meaningful to me.

One was testing these samples in a real-world situation, rather than just casually playing through them. Most reviews, frankly, are written as a result of a couple days' tinkering on the workbench. That's just the way it is. If I have an article due on 12/20, and I get the material on 12/6 - and between that time I must write and the webmeisters must edit and publish... well, you can imagine how much time there is to actually explore possibilities. It makes a huge difference when you're actually on the front line, rather than just imagining how this or that sample MIGHT work out. When you've got to end up with a world class product, there's no gray area. Things either work or they don't.

Anyone who has even dabbled in orchestral samples knows about the Miroslav Vitous collection (available at http://www.marcati.com). From Hollywood to New York, and everywhere in between, composers have relied upon these samples to deliver up full-blown orchestra scores in high style.

The Libraries

I had heard plenty of music produced from the samples, but had never actually heard them raw. So when Miroslav sent me a small collection of the larger set to evaluate (the Ensemble Strings and Brass/Woodwind ensembles were intermingled on my evaluation disc), I loaded them up in my GigaSampler rig and opened up a preset performance--Bassoon / Oboe / Flute.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sound I heard as I began to play. It felt for all the world as if my fingers were being led from one key to the next as I played. The sounds were vibrant and living, airy and reedy. One word that comes to my mind immediately is thick. Not in a negative sense, though. It reminded me of the first time I ever heard a really great flute player live. Suddenly the flute wasn't the thin airy instrument I'd heard all my life. It was this huge forceful sound, vibrant and, well...thick.

That's the same way the Miroslav Vitous samples compare to, say, your average keyboard preset orchestral sounds. Most synthesizer presets are constructed by very good musicians, but the overriding concern is to make a very generic and pretty soundset that plays well in the music store.

The Miroslav Vitous samples are far funkier than the glossy, sweet sounds you'll find in most synth and sampler presets. Nothing has been sanitized. The flutes have air, presence, and body. The oboes have distinction of attack and a wonderful tendency to lead from one note to the next. The bassoons are dark and lovely, and there are many variations of sound from legato to a very aggressive marcato. The pizzicato violins and basses were thick and full of body - not just bright and plucky. The legato bowed string sounds were full of rosin and realistic vibrancy.

Matter of fact, vibrancy is one word that applies over and over again. There are no dull or lifeless sounds in this collection. Every note is going somewhere, leading you towards the next.

There are various ways in which the GigaSampler editions of this library are unique. First, be aware that these are not newly recorded samples. They are the same samples used to make up the Akai and other versions. Not to worry. They are extremely well recorded with top-shelf gear.

What makes this a truly new product is the way the samples have been remapped and combined to take advantage of GigaSampler's unique capabilities.

With an Akai or other hardware unit, you'd need a minimum of twenty to thirty-thousand dollars worth of samplers and a good chunk of your day to load up the same ensemble you can call up in GigaSampler in around a minute flat. And even with a mountain of hardware samplers, you wouldn't have the ability to key-switch between different articulations, or roll in a bit more attack with your expression pedal without hours of brain-numbing programming. You wouldn't be able to attach acoustic hall resonance to your key releases. And your sequences would be spread out over dozens and dozens of MIDI channels. In plain English: Pain in the ass + pain in the pocketbook = no thanks.

Even beyond the sheer capability that GigaSampler brings to the table, what you're purchasing with the Miroslav Vitous collection is Miroslav Vitous himself.

This is no small issue. The real, musically limiting problems with any sample set are not basic recording issues. They are ultimately musical problems. I have discovered in my own sampling that it's not enough just to get the notes. It takes extraordinary musical skill on both sides of the glass to record a useful, expressive sample. When you get a single pitch's samples, then the task becomes matching the intention in the various levels of each and every note that's being recorded. Otherwise, you'll have a different sounding set on every key.

The musical demands are mind-boggling. The producer must then understand how to map the captured performances to the keyboard in a way that allows them to be played easily and logically by the end user. A commanding level of expertise and clarity of purpose is required for each production step. Just as in actual musical performance, each sampled note must be performed with musical intention. The real trick then becomes making it accessible in the end product.

There's musical intention aplenty in this collection. One difficulty I had is that the samples I evaluated really WANTED to go somewhere. It was hard to make a line sit still, and even harder with a few voices to get any sort of decrescendo at the keyboard.

"That's something we freely share," says Peter Vitous, president of Marcati Distribution (no, it's not a coincidence--Peter is Miroslav's son). "Miroslav initially recorded all these sessions as tools for his own personal use, and they reflect his own musicianship and aesthetic. That's why it is so important to learn each sample set of each instrument. Working with samples is an art unto itself."

So, my challenge in some cases was to un-romanticize some lines that wanted a more static reading. In some cases, switching samples solved the problems. In others, it became a mixdown issue. Ultimately, I made them work for me. And there are many samples that didn't get converted until after my deadline, that I suspect there are even more ways to get what you want with the full kahuna.

Making it Work

The 23 Violins series, for instance, gives a number of options as to vibrato depth, etc. These are probably the patches to use for straighter readings of a line, since there are more players. The 11 Violins series, that I did have in the evaluation, gives you a very intense little section with a very discernible separation of individual players.

The thing that pleasantly surprised me was how little work I ended up doing in mixdown to make the MIDI performances inherently musical. That's where the extra attention to musical intention pays off. Anyone who has done orchestral work with keyboards knows that you've got to really tweak out the sequences to get a decent sound, and then you must do even more in mixdown. Once I'd converted all my MIDI tracks to individual audio tracks and got the ensemble balanced up, there was very little tweaking to do.

Indeed, that was consistently the silver lining of the strong musical imprint Miroslav placed on the collection. Maybe these samples weren't saying exactly what I had in mind at a given time, but they were saying SOMETHING that I could shape into a phrase. Music was being made, not just notes being played. And when it came time to mix those parts into a cohesive musical statement, this was always a help.

ProRec Interview: Miroslav Vitous

One great thing about doing this review was spending a little time with Miroslav Vitous himself. I've respected Miroslav as a musical force for years, and I really never expected to fast-forward to a time where I'd be having conversations about music and musicianship with him. When I came up, Miroslav and his colleagues were some of my biggest musical heroes. I wore those records out, trying to learn each little nuance of what they were doing. It was a gas to finally meet him.

You can't help getting a little excited when you're talking with Miroslav Vitous. He talks in fast-motion, and speaks eloquently about music and musicianship. When I was coming up, Weather Report was like a class for me. Miroslav was everywhere, and his playing was always a treat to hear - expressive, smart, and full of the juxtapositions and musical depth that the fusion movement really focused on capturing.

Miroslav Vitous

The Miroslav Vitous Symphonic Orchestra Samples originally appeared in AKAI format, and are widely recognized as THE sample set for serious composers. We talked to Miroslav just as he was burning the final masters for the new GigaSampler versions of the collection, after eight long months in development.

The first thing I noticed in these samples is that they never sit still. They're always in motion. I find my hand being led across the keys by what I'm hearing...

Yes, this is an important element of the collection. When I recorded the orchestra, I described musical moments: Play this like Mahler, or Dvorak or Wagner. I wanted every note to express some musical idea.

I think one can safely say this is the defining element of the collection.

Yes. What we also wanted to accomplish was a means of allowing the composer to realistically manipulate all the articulations in realtime. We do this with key-switching, but in a couple of other unique ways. For instance when you add the mod wheel, you'll get tremolo in the strings, or portamento and fortissimo in the wind samples. It will always be an intensification of some sort. Similarly, the expression pedal is mapped to add staccato samples to the mix. If you needed more attack in a mostly sustained section, rolling in a little of this can give you the clarity or punch you need to realize the line.

Also, you've provided some performance settings that are real time-savers.

Standard groupings like horn/clarinet/flute or bassoon/oboe are provided in a series of performance settings that the user simply adds to his performance folder. These are layered according to standard ranges, and give the user an instrumental choir that can be played in realtime to good effect.

That's really where it's at--getting the button pushing out of the way, so that one can be creative.

The GigaSampler is the best sampler in the world today. There is nothing that can come close to it. Until the GigaSampler was developed, using a library like the Symphonic Orchestra Samples required banks of expensive hardware that took hours to load and program. Now, the composer has all the expression at his fingertips. He can forget button pushing and concentrate on ideas.

The collection is not cheap...

The full collection is a professional composer's tool. What may appear expensive to the casual observer is actually quite a value compared to a single day's studio fees for an orchestra. We're talking about the capability of realizing a complex orchestral score with world-class players, in a way that's not affordable for most composers by traditional means.

And there's big news for folks who are not ready to make that investment just yet

We are releasing a compact collection of these samples, twenty-five or so instruments and ensembles in about thirty-five banks, that is designed to put these world-class sounds into the hands of musicians that may not be able to afford the full collection. The list price is $349, which is lower than many "bargain" products, yet it features the same expressive playing as our more detailed set.

The Question of Value

Let's not avoid the obvious. The other thing that makes the Miroslav Vitous collections stand out is price. They are pricey, for sure. The full set will cost you about as much as a decent used car.

There are other collections that cover essentially the same ground for less. Are the Miroslav Vitous collections really worth the higher price? Is there value attached that justifies the price?

I'd have to say yes, although I've got to admit I'd like to see them set the price point just a little lower. I'd like to see the playing field leveled a bit.

But I also respect the fact that Miroslav has poured years of his life into these samples, and that aspect of the equation certainly commands a premium price. You know he is a musician you can trust, and that he's put forth extraordinary effort. Your investment should be weighed against your potential to leverage the product's strengths into dollars. You can produce world-class orchestral material with these samples. You can achieve realism that's difficult if not impossible to discern from the real McCoy in many cases. And if you price many of the highest-tier single instrument samples, then compare to what you get here in terms of raw orchestration power, you will find that the pricing structure is still competitive.

Another question that I certainly entertained: Is the "Miroslav factor" that big a deal after all? Anyone with a decent musical and technical head can produce this stuff, right?

Again, no simple answer is available. There was no market for this kind of material when Miroslav produced it. He was producing a library for his own use as a composer's tool. Knowing what kind of music he was planning to write, he made session player choices based on that idea. In the sessions, he asked them to imagine themselves playing particular composers, pieces, or lines, so that he didn't end up with a collection of, "dead notes," as he so aptly describes. He knew that if he did not get the instrument sound AND the musical intention he needed, that his later work would be more difficult.

So, he invested heavily in the sessions, and walked away with his (then largely unusable) treasure-trove of samples. As time went by, well-heeled composers began buying huge banks of hardware samplers and experimenting with them. Eventually he made a product from his samples for these users, and the library was born. Still, not all of the material could be utilized, and only the best-appointed composing suites had enough hardware to make the collection's use as a virtual orchestra practical.

Enter GigaSampler, and everything changed. With no practical limits on mapping or sample length, sounds that were difficult to reproduce (read: any nonpercussive sustained instrument), became practical via complex dimensioning. And Miroslav had captured shelves full of this very kind of material for his own use. In very plain terms, the reason this collection continues to be valid is because it was well-planned and ahead of its time. The technology has just now caught up to the captured session material, where the various sections can truly be manipulated all at once in realtime by someone who does NOT have half a million dollars to spend on hardware.

So that is, in my estimation, the Miroslav factor. It was conceived, recorded, and initially produced as a personal tool, not a product, and that purity of purpose is evident. It manifests itself in a kind of musical mojo that might never have been considered for a more commercially oriented product.

You can identify and quantify it musically. Since it will enhance your earning potential, it must also be assessed when you address price and value.

The Missing Element

However, the larger factor in the equation is you. Are you able to utilize the tool? The sounds are all there. It's up to you to make the music, though. If you don't have a good foundation in orchestration, then you won't be instantly amazing, no more than if you scratched out a score and hired the players. Orchestration is an art in itself that is completely separate from your raw musicianship. Some composers are brilliant with melody and form, and that carries their music. Others are amazing orchestrators, who can take relatively average melody and paint it all the colors of the rainbow.

When you work with the Miroslav Vitous samples, or any of the orchestral samples for that matter, you must take on the role of orchestrator. Actually, you must be sort of an orchestrator-meets-conductor. Since the performance style is built into the samples, you must interact with them as a part of the process. Sometimes the sample itself will inform what you write...or perhaps it will force you to reconsider a passage, like the musician who just "doesn't get it." Sometimes you change things, even with flesh-and-blood players, so that everyone can just go home and you can stop the studio clock before your profits fly away.

This is especially true of this particular library. It is a fair assessment to label it as a highly emotive soundset. This is its strength compared to most collections that are musically a bit more static. But just as is the case with everything, that strength presents an equal and opposite weakness--if you DON'T want to be emotive with a particular line, you may find some of the samples leading you off-track.

So, don't pull up that MIDI file of Beethoven's Fifth that you downloaded, assign the instruments, hit play, and expect to be amazed. More likely you'll be appalled. It just doesn't work that way with these kinds of sounds--the variations are simply too vast to be easily predictable. You must learn the samples like the back of your hand, and know exactly which one is appropriate for what kind of phrase. That is where the responsibility again rests with the purchaser.

Consider this sample set an instrument, give it all the effort that you would dedicate towards any instrument's mastery, and you'll reap its rewards. Less dedication on the user's part won't work with something that contains this much highly directional material. Find a less "imprinted" sample set to work with, and live happily ever after. But just like the manic-depressive that won't take his lithium because it evens everything out, don't be surprised if that option leaves you somewhat cold. Music is not static, and chances are, your music will be blessed by the musicianship funneled into each sample in this collection.

Be aware that this is a lifetime investment when you compute value. These samples will always sound great, no matter what the future may bring. They'll simply be there for you. There is no loss of value attached to time when you are talking about pure sounds based on an ongoing orchestral tradition. This is not Dr. Funky's Booty Beats, Volume 12, that will be out of style with your next change of underwear. One person's use of this collection will be unrecognizable from the next. You will not "use it up," or outgrow it. That is how it has held value since its first introduction, and why it will continue to hold its value when you are ready to invest.

Ultimately, I found myself reaching for the Miroslav Vitous samples first on most occasions during our test project, especially the strings. Take that for what it's worth. No matter how I imagined working with them before they were actually under my fingers, I really was clueless as to how I might benefit from their use until I went about the task of actually making music with them.

If you are either very serious about honing and demo-ing your own orchestral writing, if you are a working composer using these kinds of sound to make a living, or if you're hoping to establish yourself as a power producer, then this collection is worth the price you'll pay to own it. You'll very likely never find yourself looking to replace it, only to augment it. In a time where technology has become disposable, this is a very comforting thing to say.