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Welcome to the artissimo.gr pages of News ! |
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English Language : Music Technology : News : Winter 2004-2005 
Monday 21 February 2005 : Synful Orchestra : a new revolutionary product for classical orchestrators |
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Information Every musician attempting to orchestrate a given classical passage has faced a certain set of difficulties : if he uses synthesizer sounds the result is rather poor and "artificial" - certainly behind the competition. On the other hand, if he uses orchestral samples, he can then resort to literally thousands of specific orchestral articulations and effects (a good example being the product "Vienna Symphonic Library"). However, one cannot easily handle the tons of samples available : we are all musicians and we just want to express ourselves using the power of music, no one is getting crazy about browsing in sample libraries for ages or using artificial (and even hard) ways to engage many samples at the same time or in the same passage. There are certain solutions to this problem : Vienna Symphonic Library ( www.vsl.co.at ) has launched the "Performance Tool" which is supposed to improve the overall presentation of the music performed by their samples using various smart techniques. However, on the one hand, the specific software tool is especially expensive for the amateur who want to achieve a good level of expression in his music, and on the other hand, such tools usually cannot be used at recording time. (**)  However, another solution is available for a couple of months now. Its name is "Synful Orchestra". Technically, it's just yet another DXi or VSTi instrument that is giving you orchestral sounds. The big difference is the fact that Synful Orchestra is manipulating all the problems with instrument articulation and correspondng performance techniques in a completely automatic manner. This way you can just play your flute without caring about the fact that eg. in the first few notes you prefer the legato playing while in the end there is a certain quantity of staccato : Synful Orchestra will take care of the correct articulations for you ! (***) This results in an easy and very effective kind of execution that is lacking difficult switching procedures or cumbersome program changes and channel assignments. You just choose the "physical" instruments you want to play and, then, you play them the way you really want and eventually listen to the correct musical result without any other trouble ! The very actual output of "Synful Orchestra" is pretty impressive with yet another pleasing fact being the amount of physical memory (RAM) and hard disk (HDD) space that is required for all this power : there are both many-many times smaller than those required by a huge sample library ! That's all for the time. If you are planning to use any orchestration tool, you have better have a close look at Synful Orchestra. Along with all its "infantile diseases" (****), which will soon be surpassed, this product is able to offer you very good results which maybe sometimes cannot be achieved even by very expensive and huge sample libraries ! The price is right, and the site is waiting for you : www.synful.com ! By visiting this site, among other things, you can also learn a lot of information about all the corresponding technology issues and listen to a lot of interesting demos. The most impressive fact is that Synful Orchestra itself is coming as a demo which lasts 15 days (*****) : so, there is no excuse for anyone who want to give it a try : www.synful.com ! ** To be honest, I have no idea how Performance Tool works, but, anyway, the price is especially high by any standards. The other solution which Vienna Symphonic Library (along with other vendors) is giving, that is, the key switching facility, is not working convincingly (personal opinion). *** Anyway, the most expressive mode of Synful Orchestra is the one in which executed notes are delayed for a couple of seconds : the result is actually fantastic ! **** Some sounds could be listening better and not the full range of orchestral timbres (not even of orchestral instruments) is supported yet. You can read everything about the features currently supported at www.synful.com ! ***** The size is 45 MBytes but it's worth the effort ! Of course, in order to use a DXi or a VSTi instrument you must already have the appropriate software installed (Sonar, Cubase etc.) |
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