Embertone Blakus Cello = Amazing!

[toodamnhip]

It’s nice to see good things happen to good people, especially when well deserved. I got his original Cello freebie when Blakus 1st made it. He was very gracious about his work and members of the forum he gave it away on practically begged him to charge, yet he did not, at least for a long while I used his original free pockte Blakus on a record right away, even though I have LASS. I did eventually mix it with other strings but it had an immediacy that was very realistic, and this was basically an “experiment” in VI creation done by Blakus.
Perhaps it is the cello he used, who knows, but there was a nice magic to the free version right away. I wonder if he used the same cello and/or mic and if he played the cello to create the samples for the Embertone VI? I will surely have to get this sometime soon. A reward for humble pursuit of the art of VI creation..and well done Blakus!

PS.
Have you guys seen the video demo showing a very cool and unique controller? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inkcek1bFJw#t=95

[mikehalloran]

Caveat: I listened on an iPhone 5 speaker. Hardly optimal. What I noticed immediately is how the bow and rosin sounds are identical when a note is played at a particular velocity. The initial notes sound fine. How well they loop is hard to discern in that piece given the short detached nature of the work but it would seem the attack sounds are a dead giveaway that it's a virtual instrument.

It sounds extremely close mic'd, perhaps with a C12 or clone, not the the way anyone hears a cello in real life including the player. I would think/hope that with over 6,000 samples, one could tailor a more realistic performance.

Of course, these examples are designed to grab your ear and the strident, over the top nature of the performance does that.

The couple of cello tracks I have used lately were done in MachFive using samples from a session that I did in DP 5 about 10 years ago. I had played a whole note backing track and some Handel. Ok for sweetening but not for much else. I do like what M5 is able to let me do.

I could see dropping $125 on this if I had the need but it would take a lot of time to craft something that, to me, sounded like a player - not always a requirement, I know. Or, if there's a decent budget, hire a cellist.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I'm very happy with the Vienna solo strings package. Yeah, it's more money but you get violin, viola, cello, and bass in really excellent renditions. The interface GUI could be improved but you don't hear the GUI. I'd rather pay $500 for that.

[embertone]

Greetings MOTU users!

Just joined the forum in an effort to stay in touch with users opinions/thoughts/issues... Responding in no particular order here:

RNappi - We're so glad you're enjoying it - thanks for the support! Production was an unexpectedly long journey for this instrument, and we learned so much in the process.

MIDI Life Crisis - (Love your username BTW)

$5 extra for 24-bit covers extra costs for us... 24-bit users are entitled to 16 AND 24-bit samples if they want both.

Your comment about velocity/attacks could use some clarification I think. Low velocity playing yields "Emotional" Bowing, which is a quiet attack followed by a small swell (basically what a cello teacher would tell you NOT to do, but we think it sounds fantastic). Lo/Mid velocity will give you a normal, vanilla attack... Mid velocity will have a bit more bite. Hi velocity reaps a harsh attack, and velocity of 126/127 gives an extremely harsh, biting attack. AND on top of that, we created an envelope on all attacks which attempts to seamlessly integrate all of these styles so that they morph into each other without noticeable jumps from one velocity to another... if that makes any sense!

On top of that, the three main "legato" styles (bow change, slur and portamento) have lots of mod possibilities. There's a responsiveness dial which alters the sample start time, which diminishes the length and effect of the transition between notes. There's also time responsiveness control, which will speed/slow the transitions based on your speed of playing!

mikehalloran - If you want more info on the amazing little app TouchOSC, head over to hexler.net, where you'll find a ton of documentation and also a dedicated user forum. We loooove TouchOSC.

As for our mic configuration, you're spot on. We close mic'ed the shi*t out of it. Along with a carefully crafted Kontakt filter for bow noise reduction built into the instrument, we felt that this would offer users the most flexibility... a dry sound allows the user to place the instrument into any space they wish, right?

Oh! and as for the Bach demo, it was a labor of love - to see where we could take our shiny new virtual cello. I thought that it pulled off that cello suite quite well - maybe no Yo-Yo Ma, but give us a few more years and maybe we'll get HIM into the studio

cuttime - The Gofriller VI, may she RIP, was such a huge influence on us. Though we were never in love with the basic tone of the instrument, it was advanced in ways that even our cello is NOT. That said, to our (admittedly BIASED ears), we think that our cello offers a tone with more life to it...

toodamnhip - absolutely, Blakus is a great talent, and a kind soul. We were drawn to work with him because of his skill both as a composer, a MIDI programmer AND a virtual instrument enthusiast. We are so glad to have worked with him on this! BTW, our instrument does NOT share any samples with Pocket Blakus, and ours has a different miking approach as well.

Thanks and a belated happy new year to everyone!

-Alex

www.embertone.com

[mikehalloran]

Well, I'm glad that my ears still work. Was I right about the C12 or an AKG C12 emulation? Kind of has that in your face tone those are noted for.

I buy when the project allows - otherwise, I'd spend all my money on toys... er... tools.

The one orchestra instrument I have the most use for is the double bass, mostly pizz, of course, but sometimes bowed. Since that was my main instrument for the 40 years that I could play, it's fun to go through old recordings and sample myself when I have the need. Since I never set out to build a sample library - and now it's impossible for me to build one from scratch, everything is from performance tapes. Again, I can't say enough about MachFive3 in that regards.

Yes, the TouchOSC looks interesting and I'll be dropping the $4.99 just so that I can play around with it on one or both my iPads.

[Shooshie]

The best virtual cello to this date was the Garritan Gofriller. The Blakus might be a close second, but Garritan VIs never quite reached the level of control and quality of the Gofriller, and I am sorry it is no longer available.

I still have and use the Gofriller Cello. Well, I haven't tried it since I recently installed Kontakt 5, but I'm hoping it still works. I also have the Stradivarius violin, which is an interesting instrument, too. Both have problems with the Yamaha WX-5, but I can deal with them. I'd love to have an instrument that works beautifully with the WX-5. The Blakus is probably not that instrument, but I'm willing to try it. Since the Blakus depends on so much data from the iPad, it may be hard to do a real-time performance on the WX-5.

Here's hoping...

Shoosh

[embertone]

The instrument does not depend on the ipad for anything . It's just fun to use it... All you really need is a keyboard with a modwheel. Exp pedal is nice but not needed either

[Shooshie]

The instrument does not depend on the ipad for anything . It's just fun to use it... All you really need is a keyboard with a modwheel. Exp pedal is nice but not needed either

Ok, that sounds even more interesting. I've got two expression pedals, plus breath control and a mod-wheel on the instrument which can be set for two or three possibilities, but it's not as flexible as I'd like it to be. Still, the expression pedals accomplish a lot. And the "reed" of the WX-5 pushes a transducer which controls pitch. You can produce a beautiful spinning vibrato if you're already a sax player and are good at making vibrato with your embouchure.

Of course, most instruments these days have built-in vibrato with speed/amplitude controls, and that's ok, too, but it wastes two controllers when the pitch controller could be doing it "naturally."

The problems I have with the Gofriller and Strad have to do with portamento. Since I can't do the portamento by overlapping keys, as keyboardists would do, I have to make it happen by other means. Sometimes it happens when I don't want it to. That's all fixable by editing, but it makes live performance a little tricky. Also, pitch is tricky with the WX-5. It would be hard to design the perfect sample for the instrument, but some do play easier than others. I'd have to study that a while to give you the exact reasons.

Shooshie

[embertone]

The main way to control vibrato is what you mentioned: the speed/amplitude controls. But if you would rather wiggle the pitch bend up and down, that can also produce a desirable result (we made sure that it would).

One detail you should be aware of though - in order to get the true legato feature of the instrument, overlapping notes is required... The easiest way around this is to hold down CC64/sus pedal - that will automatically overlap all performed notes.

Thanks!

[Shooshie]

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I'm too busy at the moment to give it serious consideration, but I'll definitely return to it when I am doing something with solo cello.

Shooshie

[mikehalloran]

The instrument does not depend on the ipad for anything . It's just fun to use it... All you really need is a keyboard with a modwheel. Exp pedal is nice but not needed either

Oh I understand. The handicap that makes it so that I can no longer play my cello or bass also makes a keyboard with mod wheel useless to me. That's why I'll be playing with the TouchOSC. It may or may not be useful to me but I'm intrigued by the possibilities, especially if I can use it one- handed. Well worth $5 to find out, I think. That it works with iiOS 4.3 is better as my 1st gen iPad is my gigging unit.

The iPad has allowed my to play bass live again using the GarageBand instruments. I'm on the lookout for interesting ways to use it.

[Shooshie]

The instrument does not depend on the ipad for anything . It's just fun to use it... All you really need is a keyboard with a modwheel. Exp pedal is nice but not needed either

Oh I understand. The handicap that makes it so that I can no longer play my cello or bass also makes a keyboard with mod wheel useless to me. That's why I'll be playing with the TouchOSC. It may or may not be useful to me but I'm intrigued by the possibilities, especially if I can use it one- handed. Well worth $5 to find out, I think. That it works with iiOS 4.3 is better as my 1st gen iPad is my gigging unit.

The iPad has allowed my to play bass live again using the GarageBand instruments. I'm on the lookout for interesting ways to use it.

Maybe TouchOSC plus breath controller, or maybe an expression pedal might be interesting.

[Killahurts]

I'm trying to get the TouchOSC app (iPad) to communicate with my computer.. not having any success so far. I even have the little Apple camera kit adaptor, and a USB cable for MIDI.. the dream is to use the OSC editor to create cool custom faders for MIDI CC control, to replace the mod wheel, etc. for my strings and other instruments.

[embertone]

TouchOSC is made to work wirelessly, not sure if you can do it wired (although with a jailbroken iDevice you can do it through a wired connection). Make sure the iPad is on the same wireless network as your main computer. Go to Audio/MIDI Setup ---> Window --> Show MIDI Window. Go to Network, then highlight the iPad listed in "Directory". THEN it should show up as a MIDI device in whatever sequencer/application you're using for MIDI input. Hope that helps!

-Alex

[Killahurts]

BTW, I have the Gofriller Garritan cello and the violin.. haven't used them in a long time, would they still work?

IIRC, they were hard to work, but once you "locked into" the performance controls, you could come up with some pretty realistic expressions.