Cinematic Studio Strings and DP

[faonfaon]

Hi,

I use Cinematic Studio Strings because it is a great library.
But at this time it is like impossible to use it because of a very important delay. Time shift doesn't work at all.

Here is the answer of Cinematic Support :

"As for delays, all of our libraries incorporate a delayed legato system, which means that when you're playing a legato passage, there will be a slight delay from one note to the next. The did this to maximise realism, because in real life, it takes a moment for a player to adjust their hand position and bow pressure, or embouchure if it's a wind instrument (etc) before they're ready to connect from one note to the next. This means that you'll need to practice playing a bit ahead of the beat, which becomes natural pretty quickly. If you prefer to enter notes manually, you'll need to nudge legato notes a bit behind ahead of the beat to compensate for the delay. Either way, the delay is a core part of our design philosophy and cannot be changed."

So I tried to manually move the notes earlier. For violins 1 it is 240 ticks (eight note !) and the delay is different for other instruments. For example the cello is 130 ticks earlier (??) and it works very well. All the string orchestra is on the beat even if it is SO LOOOOOOONG to do it !

B U T !

You cannot read the score anymore in QuickScribe that I use a lot because sometimes I need to change some notes when the recording has been done. And in that case it is impossible.
If I set up Time Shift earlier at 240 ticks for the Violons 1, it doesn't work at all. The eight notes are not regular.

Other softwares use a delay to set up the tracks 250 milliseconds earlier for example and they say it's great.
Where can I find this in DP ?

Thanks for your help

François

[Altauria]

Hi François,

This has been a challenge with CSS, mentioned across many forums, regardless of DAW. I believe your first core issue is that you may be using Time Shift for the whole keyswitch patch. That is - using keyswitches/cc for the articulations on one track. Not only are there varying delays between articulations, but within them! Example: staccato will have a 60ms delay, advanced legato will have three separate delays within depending on velocity (sluring/port speed) - 100ms, 250ms, and 333ms to be exact.

This has been part of the lengthy debate in the articulation management thread on this forum, trying to get this all sorted, and can also be found all over VI-Control.

A possible workaround is to load multiple, duplicate, patches for each articulation within ONE Kontakt instantiation. This should not increase RAM usage, as it's pulling from the same sample pool. Use CC58 to establish its articulation (re: manual). Then place the Time Shift plugin on each individual MIDI track. You'll have to reference the manual for the CC values. In fact, you'll have to reference the manual for most of these details (the different delay times). Important: I'm not pointing to the manual to be dismissive, it's actually the reference you'll absolutely need for this - the unknown "whats" instead of simply "how".

Another way to describe an example: 1 Kontakt Instrument Track -----> Load the Same Patch (CSS 1st Violins) Multiple times (at least 13, one per articulation) -----> Set your MIDI Tracks (again 13+) to each separate channel -----> Apply the different CC58 value to each track (for example value 56 for Tremolo) -----> place Time Shift on each track with the delay set to whatever the manual says for that given articulation***.

***Again, for Advanced Legato there are three within, therefore it gets tricky. I've got mine set to the 100ms for now, adjust for the rest. It's a pain.

I hope that wasn't too verbose, but offers some helpful solution!

[faonfaon]

Thank you Altauria, at least I have an answer !

Very often, I use one sound and all the notes have the same velocities. It means the delay will be the same for all the tracks.

But if I use Time Shift, where are the milliseconds ?
Let's say, I need 130ms before the beat, how can I set up Time Shift ?
I never found....

Sometimes I delay the notes manually and it works, but then I cannot read the notes in Quickscribe any more.

Thank you !

[Altauria]

You're very welcome. To use milliseconds you'll have to click this tiny little button to change the format. You'll see (from left to right) "Shift" options - Early/Later "by" [number values] - tiny little icon. By default it's on beats and ticks. Click once you'll see an analog clock - that's what you need. Keep clicking and it'll give you Frames and then Samples...

It only gives you two decimal places for milliseconds. So, 0:00:00.13 for 130ms. 0:00:00.06 for 60ms, etc. Therefore, you can't go below 10ms, haha.

[faonfaon]

Thank you so much Altauria, you solved my problem !

That works really good. I am now able to play CSS on the beat. And Time Shift works perfectly as well.
The mistake I did before is to use the "beats".
In the piece I am working on, I need 130ms.
Another thing to notice is that the first note that starts a phrase must be moved by hand and now CSS plays on the beat.

Your explanations are good as a teacher can do.

It has been a long time since I was looking for a solution to that problem.

Thanks !

[Altauria]

Glad it worked!

Another thing to notice is that the first note that starts a phrase must be moved by hand and now CSS plays on the beat.

Well that explains some other issues I had. We can teach each other something!