Realistic Trills & Grace Notes

[UCG Musician]

I'm working on an orchestral score that utilizes trills (primarily in the violins) and/or grace notes.  How can the notes be entered so they don't sound mechanical and — ideally IF POSSIBLE — don't take up vast amounts of notes in a measure so all the other longer duration notes (quarters, half notes, whole notes) are spread out?  I hope this question makes sense.  Specifically I want a trill over two tied whole notes to sound like it does when a violin section plays them, not like alternating 16th or 32nd notes.

Similarly, grace notes appear before the note and there seems to be a trick to entering them so they sound realistic.  In this particular case, I have a quarter note, followed by two eights, followed by two sixteenth-note grace notes followed by another quarter note.  It all comes out sounding like a non-distinct blurring of sounds, not like music.  Help!

Does anyone have tips/experience on this?

[Amberwolf]

Part of how you create these short, often-overlapping sounds depends on how the synth you are using actually works, and how it plays a specific note, how it's legato works (if it has that function), how it retriggers notes, how it handles note on vs note off, etc.

Some synths do these things in realistic ways, and some don't.  Some actually have specific samples you must trigger to get the effect you want, and some have specific ways of sending the data to get the result. 

 

When i poke around over at VI-Control forums (where quite a few orchestral composers post tips and tricks) I didn't find any general ways of doing it; it seems to be dependent on the synth or sample library being used. 

 

[kitekrazy1]

I'd listen to recordings of something similar.

[Canopus]

5 hours ago, UCG Musician said:

I'm working on an orchestral score that utilizes trills (primarily in the violins) and/or grace notes.  How can the notes be entered so they don't sound mechanical and — ideally IF POSSIBLE — don't take up vast amounts of notes in a measure so all the other longer duration notes (quarters, half notes, whole notes) are spread out?  I hope this question makes sense.  Specifically I want a trill over two tied whole notes to sound like it does when a violin section plays them, not like alternating 16th or 32nd notes.

As I don’t know your background, I may say things you already know very well. If so, bear with me.

You don’t mention what plugin you’re using, but I must assume that it’s a string library with a number of articulations. If it’s only got legato, then I don’t think it’s possible to get realistically sounding trills out of it. Simply put, look for a plugin library with a Trills articulation. Here’s one example from Native Instruments:

As for human feel, any orchestral library, worthy of its name, would use round-robins. Basically, they record a number of samples that contain the same note, but as it’s recordings of human performers, each sound will differ slightly. The plugin will then switch between different versions of that sound, so that it feels more human.

[UCG Musician]

Thanks to Amberwolf, kitekrazy1 and Canopus for responding.  My hardware is old but is theoretically good equipment.  One synth is a Roland XV-5050 sound module which, despite is age, has very nice sounds.  Its strings are of the slow/crescendo variety except for the non-sustaining heavy attack characteristic of the marcato string voice.  Neither of these work for trills or grace notes.  A second synth is a Korg Kronos 88 and it has a large number of factory string sounds plus several purchased string libraries that are installed.  I'd expect to find something that works but it's the same sort of issue with its sounds as with the Roland's.

I am hoping to learn of some note entry techniques that can overcome the idiosyncrasies of these typical string sounds.  The music that I do is for church purposes and all the the equipment and music software are owned by my congregation, not me personally.  It is highly unlikely that I'd get authorization to purchase any more libraries, particularly the good ones with sampled trills and string sounds that merely sustain without decay or crescendo.  I'm still working on this and hoping someone has additional tips and tricks for me to try.

[Amberwolf]

1 hour ago, UCG Musician said:

 I'd expect to find something that works but it's the same sort of issue with its sounds as with the Roland's.

Unfortunately, unless you can edit the ADSR envelopes or the actual samples being played back to suit the style of playing, the only other ways are fairly complicated. 

The actual sound created by strings played one way is different than another way, so unless the sample is actually of that type of playing, it won't sound "right" to anyone that knows the difference.  To the average ear it doesn't usually matter very much if it's "close".   

If you can recorded clips existing notes that sound the way you want, you can simply play those back at the appropriate times.  If they aren't the right actual note / key, you can use the pitch up/down function within Sonar's clip properties to retune things at least a couple of semitones without undue artifacts in many cases.  

 

Another way:   If you're stuck with the sounds you have, then if the synths are capable of MIDI CC control of volume, sustain, etc., you can use multiple channels of the synth to all play the same patch, and play just one note on each channel for however many overlapping or very close to overlapping notes there are. 

Start the playback of the notes before the part you want to hear, if the attacks are too slow, so that the part you want is at the time you want to hear it.    Then use the CCs to turn the entire channel volume off until that part of the note comes in, and then turn it back off when you want it to stop.  You're just using the volume control of the channel as an ADSR envelope.  

Some synths have other CCs they respond to for performance data, though each patch can vary in how  or whether it does anything.  You'd have to either experiment or check the MIDI implentation chart for that synth to find out. 

 

You can use the same method (or clip fades) to record audio samples of the sounds you want from your own synths.  Or just edit the clip down to just the part you're after, with either clip gain envelopes or clip fades or both to be the ADSR envelope. 

 

1 hour ago, UCG Musician said:

  It is highly unlikely that I'd get authorization to purchase any more libraries, particularly the good ones with sampled trills and string sounds that merely sustain without decay or crescendo.  

If the computer is capable of it, you can get free soft synths (VST, etc) if you don't already have them that can playback samples.  Then you can either find free samples that are of the type of note you want, or record some parts of the ones you already have and, instead of the in-track methods described above, you can put the samples into the player and play them with midi notes (after you've created the proper ADSR envelopes, velocity response, etc for them to sound as you wish).  

You can also check out the BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover synth page and contact them to see if you qualify for a free copy.   It probably has the kind of sound you're after if your computer can run it in addition to Sonar.